An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures

by Clarice Lispector

  As if she were a painter who had just emerged from an abstract phase, now, without becoming figurative, she had entered a new realism. In this realism each thing at the market had its own importance, connected to a whole — but what was the whole? For as long as she didn’t know, she turned her attention to objects and shapes, as if whatever existed were part of an exhibition of painting and sculpture. If the object were of bronze — at the stall selling trinkets for presents, she saw the small, badly made bronze statuette — the object of bronze, it almost burned in her hands because she enjoyed handling it so much. She bought a bronze ashtray, because the statuette was too ugly.

  And suddenly she saw the turnips. She was seeing everything to the point of filling herself with a plenitude of vision and with her handling of the fruits of the earth. Each fruit was unwonted, though familiar and hers. Most had an exterior that was meant to be seen and recognized. Which delighted Lóri. Sometimes she’d compare herself to the fruits, and despising her external appearance, she’d eat herself internally, full of living juice as she was. She was trying to leave pain, as if trying to leave another reality that had lasted her whole life up to that point.

  But her search wasn’t easy. Her difficulty was being what she was, which was suddenly turning into an insurmountable difficulty.

  One day she sought among the papers strewn throughout the drawers of her house the test written by the best pupil in her class, which she wanted to have another look at in order to give the boy more guidance. And she couldn’t find it, though she remembered that, when she’d put it away, she’d been careful not to lose it, since it was a precious piece of writing. She looked in vain. So she wondered, as she had for years, since she often lost the things she kept: if I were I and had to keep an important document where would I put it? Usually this would help her to find the object.

  But this time she felt so pressured by the phrase “if I were I” that the hunt for the paper lost importance and she started thinking without wanting to, which for her meant feeling.

  And she wasn’t feeling comfortable. “If I were I” had made her feel awkward: the lie in which she’d been living so comfortably had just been shifted slightly from the spot where it had settled. Yet she’d read biographies of people who had suddenly become themselves and changed their lives completely, at least their inner lives. Lóri was thinking that if she were she, acquaintances wouldn’t greet her on the street because even her countenance would have changed. “If I were I” seemed to represent the greatest danger in living, seemed like another return of the unknown.

  At the same time, Lóri had an intuition that, once the early turbulence of the coming intimate celebrations had passed, she’d finally have the experience of the world. She was well aware, she’d finally experience in full the pain of the world. And her own pain as a mortal creature, the pain she’d learned not to feel. But she’d sometimes be swept up by an ecstasy of pure and legitimate pleasure that she could scarcely imagine. Though actually she was starting to imagine it because she felt herself smiling and also felt the kind of bashfulness you feel in the face of something that is too big. To be what you are was too big and uncontrollable. Lóri was feeling a kind of hesitation about going too far. She’d always held back a bit as if gripping the reins of a horse that could gallop off and take her God knows where. She was keeping herself back. Why and for what? What was she saving herself for? It was a certain fear of her capabilities, strong or weak. Maybe she was containing herself out of the fear of not knowing a person’s limits.

  Two days later Ulisses called her and asked if she still needed to be alone. She replied, holding back her despair and holding back the desire to fall into his arms so he could protect her, she replied: I still do.

  Her despair came from not even knowing where and how to start. She only knew that she’d started a new thing and could never return to her former dimensions. And she also knew that she should start modestly, in order not to get discouraged. And she knew that she should abandon forever the main road. And go down her true path which was the narrow byways.

  It was the next day when as she was walking slowly and tiredly down the street, she saw the girl standing and waiting for a bus. And her heart started to beat — because she’d decided to try to make contact with a person. She stopped.

  — Is the bus late? she asked, shy and a little disoriented.

  — Yes.

  She’d failed. Her heart beat even louder because she felt she wasn’t going to give up.

  — Your dress is really pretty. I like that big purple print.

  The girl smiled immediately.

  — I bought it in a shop, and it was cheaper than if I’d had it made. My seamstress is a nightmare, with each dress she gets more expensive, and that’s not counting the notions I pay extra for. So I think—

  Lóri didn’t hear anything more: she kept smiling blissfully: she’d made contact with a stranger. She interrupted her somewhat brusquely but with a grateful sweetness in her voice:

  — Goodbye. Thank you, thank you very much.

  The girl replied in surprise:

  — Don’t you want to know where I bought it?

  — There’s no need, thank you.

  She still managed to glimpse the girl’s astonishment. She kept walking. No, that wasn’t the right type of contact. Deeper contact was what mattered. When she got home she called Ulisses:

  — What should I do? I can’t bear living. Life is so short and I can’t bear living.

  — But there’s so much, Lóri, that you still don’t know. And there’s a place where despair is a light and a love.

  — And afterward?

  — Afterward is Nature.

  — You’re calling death Nature.

  — No, Lóri, I’m calling us Nature.

  — Can it be that all lives were like this?

  — I don’t know, Lóri.

  Again, since he hadn’t feared the wounded tiger and had pulled out the arrow buried in its body. Oh God! Having just one life was so little!

  Love for Ulisses came like a wave that she’d managed to hold back until then. But suddenly she was no longer wanting to hold it back.

  And when she realized she was accepting love in full, her joy was so great that her heart started beating all through her body, it seemed to her as if a thousand hearts were beating in the depths of her person. A right-to-be possessed her, as if she’d just finished crying after being born. How? How to stretch birth out for a whole lifetime? She quickly went to the mirror to find out who Loreley was and to find out if she could be loved. But she got a shock when she saw herself.

  I exist, I see that, but who am I? And she was afraid. It seemed to her that by feeling less pain, she’d lost the advantage of pain as a warning and symptom. She’d become incomparably more serene but in mortal danger: she could be a step from the death of her soul, a step from its already having died, and without the benefit of her own advance warning.

  In her fright she called Ulisses. And his domestic said he wasn’t there. So every fifteen minutes, with her fear and pain unleashed, she’d call him. Until two hours later, he himself answered the phone:

  — Ulisses, I can’t find an answer when I wonder who I am. I know a bit about me: I am the one who has my own life and yours too, I drink your life. But that doesn’t answer who I am!

  — There’s no answer to that, Lóri. Don’t pretend you’re strong enough to ask the worst question. I myself still can’t ask who I am without getting lost.

  And his voice had sounded like a lost man’s. Lóri was astounded. No, no, she wasn’t lost, she was even going to make a list of things she could do!

  She sat with a blank page and wrote: eat — look at fruit in the market — see people’s faces — feel love — feel hate — have something not known and feel an unbearable suffering — wait impatiently for the beloved — sea — go into the sea — buy a ne
w swimsuit — make coffee — look at objects — listen to music — holding hands — irritation — be right — not be right and give in to someone who is — be forgiven for the vanity of living — be a woman — do myself credit — laugh at the absurdity of my condition — have no choice — have a choice — fall asleep — but of bodily love I shall not speak.

  After the list she still didn’t know who she was, but she knew a great many things she could do.

  And she knew that she was a fierce one among fierce human beings, we, monkeys of ourselves. We’d never reach the human being inside ourselves. And whoever did was rightly called a saint. Because to relinquish ferocity was a sacrifice. Which apostle was it who’d said of us: you are gods?

  She remembered a conversation she’d had with Ulisses and in which he’d wondered almost absentmindedly:

  — God isn’t intelligent, you see, because He is Intelligence. He is the sperm and egg of the cosmos that includes us. But I’d like to know why you, instead of saying God, like everyone else, say the God?

  — Because God is a noun.

  — There’s the primary school teacher talking.

  — No, He is a noun, substantive like substance. There’s no single adjective for the God.

  “You are gods.” But we were gods with adjectives.

  It was the next day when coming inside that she saw the single apple on the table.

  It was a red apple, with a smooth tough skin. She took the apple in both hands: it was fresh and heavy. She replaced it on the table in order to see it as before. And it was as if she were seeing the photo of an apple in empty space.

  After examining it, turning it over, seeing as never before its roundness and its scarlet color — then slowly, she took a bite.

  And, oh God, as if it were the forbidden apple of paradise, but this time she knew good, and not just evil as before. Unlike Eve, when she bit the apple she entered paradise.

  She just took a bite and put the apple back down on the table. Because some unknown thing was gently happening. It was the start — of a state of grace.

  Only someone who has been in grace, could recognize what she was feeling. It wasn’t an inspiration, which was a special grace that so often happens to people who work in art.

  The state of grace she was in wasn’t used for anything. It was as if it came just to let you know you really existed. In this state, besides the tranquil happiness that would shine from people remembered and from things, there was a lucidity that Lóri was only describing as light in weight because in grace everything was so, so light. It was a lucidity of someone who’s no longer guessing: who, without effort, knows. Just that: knows. Don’t ask what, since the person could only answer in the same childish way: without effort, you know.

  And there was a physical beatitude to which nothing could be compared. The body was transforming itself into a gift. And she felt that it was a gift because she was experiencing, from a direct source, the unquestionable blessing of existing materially.

  In the state of grace, you can see the profound beauty, once unreachable, of another person. Everything, in fact, acquired a kind of halo that was not imaginary: it came from the splendor of the almost mathematical radiance of things and of people. You’d start to feel that everything that exists — person or thing — was breathing and exhaling a kind of fine sheen of energy. That energy is the world’s greatest truth and is impalpable.

  Not in the slightest could Lóri imagine what the state of grace of the saints must be. She had never known that state and couldn’t even guess at it. What was happening to her was just the state of grace of an average person who suddenly becomes real, because she is average and human and recognizable and has eyes and ears to see and hear.

  The discoveries in that state were unutterable and incommunicable. She remained seated, quiet, silent. It was like an annunciation. It wasn’t however preceded by the angels who, she assumed, would come before the grace of the saints. But it was as if the angel of life were coming to announce to her the world.

  Afterward she slowly came out of that situation. Not as if she’d been in a trance — there hadn’t been a trance — she was emerging slowly, with a sigh of someone who had the world as it is. It was also already a sigh of longing. Because having experienced gaining a body and a soul and the earth and the sky, you want more and more. But there was no point desiring it: it would only come spontaneously.

  Lóri couldn’t explain why, but she thought that animals entered the grace of existing more often than humans. Except they didn’t know, and humans realized it. Humans had obstacles that didn’t get in the way of animals’ lives, like reason, logic, understanding. While animals had the splendor of something that is direct and moves directly.

  The God knew what he was doing: Lóri thought it was right that the state of grace wasn’t given to us often. If it were, we might pass once and for all to the “other side” of life, which other side was real too but nobody would ever understand us: we’d lose the common language.

  It was also good that it didn’t come as much as you’d like: because she could get used to happiness. Yes, because you’re very happy in a state of grace. And to get used to happiness, that would be a social danger. We’d get more selfish, because happy people are, less sensitive to human pain, we wouldn’t feel the necessity to try to help those in need — all because in grace we have understanding, and the sum of life.

  No, even were it up to Lóri, she wouldn’t often want to have the state of grace. It would be like falling prey to an addiction, it would attract her like an addiction, she’d become as contemplative as users of opium. And if it appeared more often, Lóri was sure she’d take advantage of it: she’d start to want to live permanently in grace. And that would represent an unforgivable escape from human destiny, which was made of struggle and suffering and confusion and joys.

  It was also good that the state of grace lasted only a few moments. If it lasted longer, she was well aware, she who knew her almost childlike ambitions, she’d end up trying to enter the mysteries of Nature. As soon as she tried, moreover, she was sure that grace would disappear. For grace was a blessing and, if it demanded nothing, it would vanish if we asked it for an answer. You couldn’t forget that the state of grace was just a small opening onto the world that was a kind of paradise — but it wasn’t like a way in, nor did it give you the right to eat of the fruit of its orchards.

  Lóri emerged from the state of grace with a smooth face, her eyes open and thoughtful and, though she hadn’t smiled, it was as if her whole body had just emerged from a gentle smile. And had emerged a better creature than had gone in.

  She’d experienced some thing that seemed to redeem the human condition, though at the same time the narrow limits of that condition were accentuated. And exactly because after grace the human condition was revealing itself in all its imploring poverty, you learned to love more, hope more. You’d start to have a kind of trust in suffering and in its so often unbearable paths.

  There were days that were so arid and desolate that she’d give years of her life in exchange for a few minutes of grace.

  Two days later Ulisses called and this time he seemed to be demanding her presence, as if he could no longer bear to wait.

  She went. As she was approaching Ulisses, who was sitting at the terrace of the bar drinking, he looked at her coming over and out of so much disappointed surprise didn’t even get up:

  — But you cut your hair! You should have asked me first!

  — I hadn’t planned to, I just did.

  She knew how he was feeling because she’d had an excruciating sense of loss as her hair was cut and the dead locks were falling to the floor.

  — I’m going to let it grow out again but long enough to make braids I can tie above my forehead.

  He agreed but was disappointed. Lóri observed him: he was looking tired. And she guessed that his fatigue was also comi
ng from the wait she’d forced him to have.

  — Ulisses, remember how you once asked me why I voluntarily kept away from people? Now I can tell you. It’s because I don’t want to be platonic in relation to myself. I’m profoundly defeated by the world I live in. I separated myself just for a while because of my defeat and because I felt that other people were defeated too. So I closed myself up in an individualization that if I hadn’t been careful could have been transformed into a hysterical or contemplative solitude. What saved me were always my pupils, the children. You know, Ulisses, they’re poor and that’s why the school doesn’t require uniforms. In the winter I bought them each a red sweater. Now, for spring, I’m going to buy the boys blue shirts and trousers, and the girls blue dresses. Or maybe I’ll order them, that might be easier. I’ll have to get all the pupils’ measurements because—

  The one who got up to leave was Ulisses, to Lóri’s surprise. He said:

  — You’re ready, Lóri. Now I want what you are, and you want what I am. And the whole exchange will happen in bed, Lóri, at my house and not at your apartment. I’m going to write my address on this napkin. You know when I’m teaching and when I give private lessons. Outside of those hours, I’ll be home waiting for you. I’ll fill my bedroom with roses, and if they wilt before you come, I’ll buy new roses. You can come whenever you want. If I’m in the middle of a private lesson, you’ll wait. If you want to come in the middle of the night and are afraid of taking a taxi by yourself, call and I’ll come get you.

  As he was speaking, he was writing his address on the napkin, calling the waiter, and paying the bill. He held out the napkin to Lóri who took it, terrified.

  — Lóri, I won’t call you again. Until you come on your own. I’d rather you not call to let me know you’re coming. I’d like you, without a word, just to come.