Near to the Wild Heart

by Clarice Lispector

  — It's like this, he had declared.

  Looking at him, Joana discovered that he was nothing but a fat old man sitting in the sun, his sparse hairs caught in the breeze, his great body sprawled out in the chair. And his smile, dear God, a smile.

  When the clock struck three, he had suddenly become restless, had halted in mid-sentence and, with measured gestures, his expression avid and sober, had counted twenty drops from a phial into a glass of water. He had raised it to eye-level, observing it, his lips pursed, wholly absorbed. He had drunk the dark liquid fearlessly, then stared at the glass with a sour expression and a half-smile which she couldn't explain. He had placed it on the table, had clapped his hands summoning the house-boy, a skinny apathetic black youth. He had waited for him to return in silence, alert, as if he were trying to listen at a distance. Only when he had received the washed glass, examined it carefully and turned it upside down on the saucer, had he given a little sigh:

  — Now then, what were we saying? She went on observing him, without paying any attention to the words themselves. Nothing in the man's expression betrayed his wife's departure. Fleetingly, she saw that figure again which she had so feared and detested, nearly always silent, the face aloof and imperious. And, despite the revulsion that other woman still aroused in her, in a moment of reminiscence Joana had discovered to her surprise that not only then, but perhaps always, she had felt herself united to her, as if both of them had something secret and wicked in common.

  Nothing in his appearance betrayed his wife's departure. There was even a new-found tranquillity in his attitude, a composure that Joana had never noticed before. She studied him almost as anguished as waters swollen by the rain, whose depth was now difficult to judge. She had come to hear him, to feel his clear-sightedness like some point of anchorage!

  — The torture of a strong man is greater than that of a sick one — she had tried to make him speak. He had barely raised his eyes. Her words had hovered in mid-air, foolish and timid. I'll go on, it's precisely in my nature never to feel ridiculous, I always venture on to any platform. Otávio, on the other hand, is such a sensitive creature that it only takes a pointed smile to demolish him and make him feel miserable. He would listen to me, now feeling uneasy or smiling. Was Otávio already thinking inside her? Had she already become transformed into a woman who listens and waits for her man? She was giving up something... She wanted to save herself, to hear the teacher, to shake him. So this old man before her no longer remembered everything she had told him? 'To sin against herself...'

  — The sick envisage the world and the healthy possess it, Joana had continued. The sick think they cannot because of their illness and the strong feel that their strength is useless.

  — Yes, yes, he shook his head timidly. She perceived that his unease was only that of someone who doesn't wish to be interrupted. She had gone on, however, to the end, her dull voice repeating the thought she had had for a long time.

  — That's why the poetry of poets who have suffered is sweet and tender. While the poetry of others, of those who had been deprived of nothing, is ardent, anguished and rebellious.

  — Yes — he was saying, as he adjusted the loosened collar of his pyjama jacket.

  Humiliated and perplexed, she saw his dark, wrinkled neck. Yes, he said from time to time without taking his eyes from the clock as he searched for some support. How could she tell him that she was about to get married?

  At four o'clock, the ritual had been re-enacted. This time the black youth ducked in order to avoid a kick in the pants, for he had almost dropped the medicine bottle. Having missed its target, the teacher's slipper went up into the air exposing his naked foot with its curved, yellowing toenails. The boy had caught the slipper and thrown it to Joana, laughing, afraid of getting too close. After the glass had been put away, she had ventured the first word about his illness, slowly, embarrassed, for never before had they penetrated the intimacy of their own circumstances: they had always understood each other on the surface.

  There was no need to try to get any closer... He had taken up the subject, broached it gently, and with obvious satisfaction, he carefully explained all the details. His attitude was a little patronizing and mysterious to begin with, as if he found it impossible to believe that she could penetrate his world. But after a few moments, oblivious of her presence and somewhat animated, he was already talking quite openly.

  — The doctor has told me that I'm still not better. But I'm going to be fine, I know more than any of these doctors, he had added. After all, I'm the one who's ill...

  She had finally discovered to her astonishment that he was happy...

  It was almost five o'clock. She felt that he was longing for her to leave. But she couldn't leave him like this, she tried to press him further. She had cruelly looked him straight in the eye. He had repaid her with a look of mild indifference to begin with, and then almost immediately shunned her, angry and disturbed.

  The Little Family

  Before starting to write, Otávio arranged his papers neatly on the table, and tidied himself up. He was fond of these little gestures and familiar habits, such as old clothes in which he could move with earnestness and assurance. Ever since his student days, this was how he prepared for any task. After settling at his desk, he would put things in order and, his conscience enlivened by the motion of the objects around him — I mustn't get carried away by any grand ideas, I'm also a thing — he allowed his pen to run somewhat freely to rid himself of some persistent image or reflection that might possibly try to accompany him and impede his train of thought.

  For that reason, to work in the presence of others was torture. He feared the absurdity of these tiny rituals yet could not get along without them, for they sustained one as much as any superstition. Just as in order to live, he surrounded himself with do's and don'ts, rules and exceptions. Everything became easier, as if taught. What was fascinating and terrifying about Joana was precisely the freedom in which she lived, suddenly loving certain things, or, in relation to others, completely blind, without as much as using them. For he found himself under an obligation when confronted with what existed. Joana was right when she said that he needed to be possessed by someone... You handle money with such intimacy.. .Joana had teased him once as he was paying a bill in a restaurant and she had caught him so unawares and given him such a fright that, in the presence of the waiter, no doubt smirking, the notes and coins had slipped from his hands and scattered at his feet. Although no ironic comment followed — well, to do her justice, Joana doesn't laugh — she still had an argument ready from then on: but what was one to do with money except keep it in order to spend it? He was annoyed, embarrassed. He felt that his argument was no reply for Joana.

  The truth is that if he didn't have any money, if he didn't possess the 'right credentials', if he didn't love order, if the Law Journal didn't exist, the vague outline of his book on Civil Law, if Lídia were not separate from Joana, if Joana was not a woman and he was not a man, if... oh, God, if everything... what would he do? No, not 'what would he do?', but to whom would he turn, how would he decide. Impossible to slip between the blocks without seeing them, without needing them...

  Breaking the rule he adopted when working — a concession — he took up pen and paper before he was actually ready. But he excused himself, he didn't want to lose that note, it might come in handy some day: 'One needs to be blind to some extent in order to perceive certain things. Perhaps that is the mark of the artist. Any man is capable of knowing more than he does and of reasoning with confidence, according to the truth. But it's precisely those things which escape one in the light. In the dark, they become phosphorescent.'

  He thought a little. Then, despite the concession going on for too long, he jotted down: 'It's not the degree that separates intelligence from genius, but the quality. Genius is not so much a question of intellectual power, but the form in which that power manifests itself.' So one can easily be more intelligent than a genius. But he's
the genius. How childish that he's the genius. I must see if I can apply this discovery in relation to Spinoza. — Was it really him? Every idea that occurred to him, for he would familiarize himself with it within seconds, came with the fear that he might have stolen it.

  Fine, now for some order. Having laid aside his pencil, he told himself, I must get rid of these obsessions. One, two, three! I deeply regret suffering as I do amidst the bamboos of the north-east of this city, he began. I do as I please — he continued — and no one is forcing me to write the Divine Comedy. There is no way of being other than the way it is, the rest is useless embroidery and just as embarrassing as those heavily embroidered angels and flowers with which cousin Isabel used to decorate my pillows. When I was distracted and she would come like a purple, idiotic cloud, guess what I'm thinking, say what, what four more times, what, what, what, what. Like this, like this, don't run away: 'What did you say? You're still alive? You're still not dead?' Yes, yes, that was it, I mustn't run away from myself, I mustn't run away from my handwriting, how delicate and horrid it is, a spider's web, I mustn't run away from my defects, I adore you. My virtues are so few, like those of other men, my defects, my negative side is as beautiful and hollow as any abyss. What I am not would leave an enormous hole in the ground. I don't conceal my mistakes, while Joana doesn't make mistakes, there is the difference. Eh, eh, say something, fellow. The women look at me, the women, the women, my mouth, I let my moustache grow again, they die of happiness and a deep love filled with plums and prunes. I buy all of them without money, money I keep. If one of them slips on a banana-skin there in the road, all one can do is to feel ashamed. Nothing is lost, nothing is nurtured. The man who can feel this, in other words, who doesn't simply understand, but adores, should be as happy as the man who truly believes in God. In the beginning it hurts a little, but then you get used to it. The person writing this page was born one day. It is now precisely a few minutes past seven in the morning. There is mist outside, beyond the window, the Open Window, the grand symbol. Joana would say: I feel myself to be so inside the world that I appear not to be thinking, to be adopting a new method of breathing. Farewell. Such is the world, I am me, it's raining in the world, it's a lie, I'm someone who works with my intellect, Joana is asleep in the bedroom, someone must be waking up at this moment, Joana would say: another is dying, another is listening to music, someone has gone into the bathroom, such is the world. I intend to arouse the feelings of everyone, to call upon them to share my compassion. I live with a woman who is naked and cold, I mustn't escape, I mustn't escape, who looks into my eyes, I mustn't escape, who watches me, it's a lie, it's a lie, but it's the truth. Now she's in bed sleeping, she's overcome with sleep, overcome, overcome. She is a slender bird in a white nightdress. I intend to arouse the feelings of everyone, I don't conceal my mistakes, but let everyone shield me.

  He sat up straight, patted his hair down, remained serious. Now he was going to work. As if everyone were standing by and nodding with approval, closing his eyes in agreement. Yes, that's right, very good. Someone real was disturbing him and on his own he became frustrated and nervous. For 'everyone' was looking on. He gave a little cough. He cautiously moved away the inkwell. He began: 'The tragedy of modern times is man's vain attempt to adapt to the state of things he has created.'

  He sat back in his chair, looked at his notebook, straightened his pyjamas. 'Imagination is so essential to man—Joana once more — that his entire world finds its raison d'être in the beauty of creation and not in its utility, not in being the result of a series of objectives conforming to his needs. That is why we find an increasing number of remedies aimed at uniting man to existing ideas and institutions — education, for example, which is so difficult — and why we continually find him outside the world he has created. Man builds houses to look at, not to live in. For everything follows the path of inspiration. Determinism is not a determinism of objectives, but a strict determinism of causes. To play, to invent, to pursue the ant to its ant-hill, to mix water with lime in order to see the result, that's what one does when one is small and when one is grown up. It's a mistake to believe that we attain a high level of pragmatism and materialism. In truth, pragmatism — the plan directed towards a genuine and given objective — would be understanding, stability, happiness, the greatest victory of adaptation which man can hope to achieve. Meanwhile to do things "so that" strikes me, in the face of reality, as being the kind of perfection one cannot expect of man. The beginning of everything he construes is "so that". Man's curiosity, dreams, imagination — these have formed the modern world. Following his inspiration, man has blended these ingredients, invented combinations. His tragedy: to have to nourish himself with them. He was confident that he might be able to imagine in one life and find himself in another, set apart. In fact, that other life continues, but its purification over the imagined one works slowly and a man on his own cannot find foolish thought on one side and the peace of the true life on the other. One cannot think with impunity.' Joana thought without fear and without reprisal. Would she finally possess madness, or what? She could not tell. Perhaps only suffering.

  He paused, re-read what he had written. Don't step outside this world, he thought with a certain ardour. Not to have to confront the rest. Simply to think. Simply to think and go on writing. He didn't mind being asked to write articles on Spinoza, so long as no one obliged him to plead in court, to look at and contend with those offensively human beings lining up and shamelessly revealing themselves.

  He re-read his notes from earlier readings. The pure scientist stops believing in what he likes. The need to like things: the mark of mankind. — One must not forget: 'the intellecual love of God' is the true knowledge and excludes any mysticism or idolatry.

  — Many answers can be found in Spinoza's statements. In the idea, for example, that there can be thought without extension (the modality of God) and vice-versa, surely the soul's mortality is affirmed? Of course it is: mortality as a distinct and reasoning soul, the clear impossibility of the pure form attributed to the angels by St Thomas Aquinas. Mortality in relation to the human. Immortality through the transformation in nature. — Within the world there is no place for other creations. There is merely the opportunity of reintegration and continuation. All that could exist already exists. There is nothing more to be created unless revealed. If the more man evolves, the more he tries to synthesize, to abstract and establish principles and laws for his life, how could God — in any acceptance, even that of the conscious God of religions — be without absolute laws for his own perfection? A God endowed with free will is inferior to a God with only one law. Just as a concept is all the truer when it is only one and does not need to be transformed before each particular case. God's perfection is more readily proved with the impossibility than the possibility of miracles. To work miracles, for a God rendered human by religions, is to be unjust — thousands of people have the same need of this miracle at the same time — or to recognize an error, amending it — which, more than an act of kindness or 'proof of character', means to have erred. — Neither understanding nor volition pertain to God's nature, Spinoza affirms. That makes me feel happier and gives me greater freedom. For the idea of the existence of a conscious God leaves us horribly dissatisfied.

  At the top of my essay I should put a literal translation from Spinoza: 'Bodies distinguish themselves from each other in relation to substance.' He had shown the phrase to Joana. Why? He shrugged his shoulders, without seeking any deeper explanation. She had shown herself to be curious, she had wanted to read the book.

  Otávio reached out his hand and grabbed it. There was a sheet of notepaper inserted between the pages. He looked at it and discovered Joana's indistinct handwriting. He couldn't resist looking closer: 'The beauty of words: the abstract nature of God. Just like listening to Bach.' Why did he prefer not to have written this phrase? Joana always caught him unawares. He felt embarrassed as if she were clearly lying and he was forced to deceive her, by sayi
ng that he believed her...

  To read what she had written was like standing before Joana. He evoked her, and avoiding her eyes, he saw her in moments of distraction, her face white, vague and delicate. And suddenly, a great sadness descended upon him. What am I doing after all? he asked himself, and he didn't know why he had so suddenly rounded on himself. No, you mustn't write today. And since that was a concession, an order not to be questioned — he questioned himself: if he wanted to, could he honestly work? and the reply was definite: no — and once the decision was more powerful than himself, he felt almost happy. Today, someone was giving him respite. Not God. Not God, but someone. Someone very powerful.

  He would get up, tidy his papers, put the book back on the shelf, get into some warm clothes, go and see Lídia. The consolation of Order. How would Lídia receive him? Before the open window, watching the children walk to school, he saw himself take her by the shoulders, suddenly in a temper, perhaps a little forced, when confronted by that same question: what am I doing after all?

  — Aren't you afraid? — he had screamed at her.

  Lídia had remained impassive.

  — Aren't you afraid of your future, of our future, of me? Don't you realize that... that... being simply my lover... the only place you have is at my side?

  She had shaken her head, surprised and tearful:

  — But no...

  He had given her a good shake, remotely ashamed at having shown so much force, when in the company of Joana, for example, he would say nothing.

  — Aren't you afraid that I might leave you? Don't you realize that if I should leave you, you would be a woman without a husband, without anything... A poor devil... who one day was jilted by her fiancé and then became his mistress when he married another...