The Apple in the Dark

by Clarice Lispector

of lying was that he was not sure where his lie was heading. And

  then, as he faced that ambiguity, his head began to fog up even

  more as a defensive measure. And with a little trick he had

  brought along from before the great leap, he became ingenuous.

  Once recovered, he again took up his sermon to the stones :

  "With an act of violence that person of whom I spoke killed

  an abstract world and gave it blood."

  And he said that with the stoical resignation of a person who

  has already tried to take away the stress from lie or truth. That

  man had just made the definitive act of dissociating himself,

  after which he was more than satisfied to look. Things were

  getting better and better. From underneath he was beginning to

  recognize the table more and more.

  And now, sitting on a rock with a bird in his hand, his mouth

  dry with thirst, his eyes burning-after his crime-that man

  would never again have any need for revolt. From that time

  forward he would have the chance to live without doing evil

  because it had already been done; now he was an innocent.

  Who can tell whether he had thought to go so far with his

  unpremeditated crime. But this thought also came to him, "He

  had become an innocent." And, in God's name, he had never

  thought of coming so far, but he had freed himself from a kind

  of suffocating piety, now that he was no longer guilty. "If you

  really do understand me," he thought with deep fatuity, for he

  had freed himself of the great guilt by making it concrete. And

  now that he was at last a bandit, he was free. He was, in short, a

  fugitive. And that afforded him all the possibilities open to

  desperate people. "I have killed many birds with one stone," he

  said.

  The stones, large and small, were waiting. Martim was very

  confident because his audience was no more intelligent than he,

  and he felt at ease. Besides, that man had never had an audience, strange as it seems. The fact is he had never remembered having organized his soul into speech, he did not believe in

  talking-perhaps through fear that if he talked, he himself

  ( 3 3 )

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  would end up not recognizing the table he was eating from. If he

  was talking now it was because he did not know where he was

  heading or what was going to become of him, and all that put

  him right into the heart of freedom. Leaving out the fact that

  thirst was stirring in him like an ideal.

  Furthermore, his improvised audience was not a cultured

  one, and so he was taking advantage of it just as one habitually

  and wisely takes advantage of an inferior and is taken advantage

  of by his superiors. His own lack of culture had always been an

  embarrassment to him; it had been his habit to make endless

  lists of books he meant to read, and he would try to keep them

  up to date but new ones were always coming out and that

  embarrassed him-a man who never even looked at the newspapers. He had even tried to plumb the depths of "collective psychology," since he had always dealt with numbers and had

  always been a man who could easily imitate intelligence; but he

  had never had the time-his wife would drag him off to the

  movies, and he would be relieved to go.

  The stones were waiting. Some were round and dead like

  stones from the moon; they were like cross-eyed, patient, children. But the others were sun-stones and looked him straight in the eye. "Like jewels," he thought, as he had always had a

  general tendency to compare things to jewels. The stones were

  waiting for the continuation of what he had begun to think.

  From time to time they would have a look of fervent life which

  passed a painful surge of empty happiness on to the man. "I

  think," he thought suddenly, "that until the day I die I will be

  very happy."

  The sun was paining his head deeply, and the man made

  another effort to speak because he had felt a crisp facility within

  himself-just as when one has something to say, and even if he

  does not know how, finds that minimum of inspiration gives one

  strength for painful groping. Even he wanted to speak, because

  there is no law preventing a man from speaking. And all the

  while what fascinated Martim was the absence of any impediments, besides which, he knew quite well that the world was so

  How a Man Is Made

  big that very soon even he would have to limit himself. The

  stones were waiting, having come from everywhere for the

  conspiracy, to which, he as a traveler, was bringing the latest

  news. Some stones were small and infantile, others large and

  pointed-all sitting in the assembly of innocence. It was an

  uneven audience where childhood and maturity were mixed in

  together.

  "Childhood and maturity," he then said to them suddenly.

  "And yet there had been a period when the world was smooth

  like the skin of a fruit. We, its neighbors, did not bite into it

  because it was easy to bite, and there was plenty of time. Life

  was as yet not short in that time. And because of that the trees

  grew. The trees grew as if there was nothing in the world except

  for trees to grow, until the sun was blotted out, and people came

  in closer, and springs flowed, and mosquitoes emerged out of the

  hearts of flowers : this was growth. It was mature. It was richer

  and more frightening; in some way it became much more

  'worthwhile.' Nights became longer, father and mother had

  been denied; there was a terrible thirst for love. It was the

  kingdom of fear. And it was no longer enough to have been

  born-heroism was being born. But eloquence had a bad sound

  to it. People ran into each other in the dark; every light confused

  and blinded them, and truth was good for only one day. Then all

  of our troubles arrived at a solution. We were lost among the

  solutions that had preceded us at every step. In just a few

  seconds an idea would become original; when we saw a photograph with light and shadows and paving stones that were wet with rain, we would exclaim, tired and unanimously, This is very

  original. Everything was deep and fetid, ready for birth, but the

  child would not be born. I'm not saying it wasn't good-it was

  fine! But it was just as if a person could only watch, and

  Saturday night would be that hell of generalized intentions if

  there were no poker game. In the meantime nothing ever

  stopped; it even kept on going at night. Power had become

  great; hands intelligent. Everybody was powerful, everybody was

  a tyrant, and I never let anyone step on my foot, my astuteness

  ( 3 5 )

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  became magnificent with the help of a little practice. There

  were, however, those who in spite of their maturity had-had

  childhood gnawing at their breasts like leprosy."

  The man spoke this last phrase with vanity because it

  seemed to him that he had put his words together with some

  degree of perfection. Of course, what made Martim feel such

  perfection was the fact that his words had in some way gone

  beyond what he had wanted to say. And
even though he felt

  deceived by them he preferred what he had said to what he had

  really wanted to say because of the much more certain way in

  which things go beyond us. This also gave him, at the same

  time, a feeling of defeat and of resignation from the way in

  which he had just sold himself to a phrase that had more beauty

  than truth to it. The first thing he was squandering his new

  wealth on was an audience; but this had already forced him into

  an established truth, and he was disappointed, even a little

  curious. He had really spoken only once before; he had taken a

  few drinks, and had delivered an oration in a house of prostitution where the women had also looked like sitting jewels-it was getting on to dawn; work was done, and they were childlike and

  mature.

  "Yes. It was as if there were those who had childhood in

  their breasts-as if our future were only in our memory," he

  informed the stones. "But it is also true that the moments of

  sweetness were very intense. And it is also true that music heard

  in the past can make the whole machinery come to a halt and

  dumbfound the world for a moment. 'A moment of silence,' my

  wife's radio used to say, 'for the death of the general.' There

  would be a terrible uneasiness for that moment; no one would

  look up even though the general was a stranger to us. It was

  unhappiness in all of its virile strength. Besides there was no

  other way to be adult, and people enjoyed and approved; nobody

  was that simple-minded. It is true that once in a while somebody

  would speak in a very low voice. Then everybody would come

  scurrying from opposite corners to listen to the low voice. But

  the truth is that everybody was suffering from not being able to

  comment and from not being called upon to either."

  ( 3 6 )

  How a Man Is Made

  "But," said the man, a little offended by the passive natural·

  ness with which the stones seemed to accept everything he was

  telling them-he had had experience with foreigners who were

  not mixed up in this and simply took pictures-"But the world

  too is more than that! " he said to them patriotically. "There

  were a lot of other good things besides! and it was for that reason

  that, much more than for toleration, that we wanted one another

  so much. Oh, how we wanted one another! even if the paint was

  peeling off the walls," the man said, a little distracted, losing his

  footing. "There were houses that were still unsold, and many

  people who did not study languages," he said with envy for those

  who had studied languages. "And just the same for one time as

  another-perhaps because if the wrong door had been openedyou understand ! Which makes for the fact that sometimes again there was nothing except trees growing, tall and peaceful. And

  especially, especially there were children rising up from our fields

  of battle, pure and fateful fruit of disastrous love."

  In spite of being satisfied, Martim, having said what he had

  to say, felt tired, as if there had been a mistake in something he

  had said-as if he had been obliged to add up the infinite figures

  all over again. At some unidentifiable point, that man had

  become prisoner of a ring of words. "Did I forget to mention

  something?" The stones were certainly going to get a bad

  impression. For someone who had never seen a head of hair, a

  strand of hair, it was nothing, and a fish pulled out of his water is

  nothing but a shape.

  For honesty's sake, he wanted to make clear to them that he

  knew it was the sun that was inflating his words and making

  them so overdone and so grandiloquent, and that it was the

  insistent sun along with his insistent silence that made him want

  to speak. But he also knew that if he were to mention fatigue

  itself the stones would stop listening at once, because after all

  only people in full enjoyment of their faculties have the right to

  listen, which is quite proper. But since what he was saying to

  them was important to him, and since he would not be able to

  explain to them the fatigue that was nothing but an instrument,

  Martim preferred not to touch upon the subject.

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  During all this he still had the uncomfortable feeling that he

  had forgotten to say some essential thing without which the

  stones would not understand anything. What? Ah. "That in the

  meantime time went passing by." During all of that time was

  fortunately passing by.

  Had he forgotten anything else? He had forgotten to tell

  them what there was that might perhaps invalidate his right to

  speak : that not having had the vocation, and therefore being

  free from requests, he had never really specialized in any desire,

  had never therefore had a starting point-which surely invalidated the way he was using the stones to represent other people.

  Well, he had also forgotten to tell them-but he would not

  tell them that because then it would be interpreted wrongly and

  seen in a bad light-that he had always taken advantage of what

  he could, since he had never been a fool. That he had told a

  friend that a transaction was no good; that he himself had taken

  over the transaction and had picked up a few pennies and had

  felt fine triumph in his breast, one that could not be replaced by

  any other pleasure, and one which makes a man love his neighbors because he has beaten them. He had forgotten to tell them that once when he was engaged to be married, he had neglected

  to give his fiancee his new address. But that kind of chicanery

  can only be understood by someone who has lived. And a person

  feels misunderstood, therefore, when he explains it. And so, time

  was fortunately passing by with dogs sniffing at the street

  comers.

  The fact is that after the man had remembered all of that,

  he began to find his past life very fine, and a sort of nostalgia

  filled his breast. But this too can only be understood by a person

  who is alive. Finally, what could he say that a stone could

  understand? "That time is fortunately passing by," time being

  the hard material that stones are made of.

  Time was fortunately passing by. So much so that it was like

  the meal one eats in the daytime, and then goes to bed and

  wakes up vomiting in the middle of the night. Time was

  fortunately passing by.

  But with the passage of time, contrary to what might be

  ( 3 8)

  How a Man Is Made

  expected, he had been turning into an abstract man. Like a

  fingernail that somehow never manages to get dirty: the dirt is

  only peripheral to the nail; and if the nail is cut it does not even

  hurt, it grows again like a cactus. He had been turning into a

  huge man. Like an abstract fingernail. Which would become

  concrete when he would occasionally commit some base deed.

  "Yes, that's what had begun to happen to a very few

  people." The man was startled by the thought. "The opposite of

  natural rot-which could be acceptable in an obscure way in a

  perishable organic being-his soul had become abstract, and his

&n
bsp; thought was abstract; he could think what he liked and nothing

  would happen. It was purity. There was a certain perversion in

  becoming eternal. His own body was abstract. And other people

  were abstract : all of them were sitting in seats in the dark movie

  theater watching the film. When they came out of the movieseven when they had not forgotten the soft breeze waiting for them, and which you cannot even imagine, for it has nothing to

  do with the stupid sun of which a stone is victim and by which it

  has been created-when they came out of the movies there was

  a man standing and begging. Then you would give him the

  abstract handout without looking at the man who bore the

  perpetual name of beggar. Then you would go home to sleep in

  abstract beds, held up in the air by four legs; you made love with

  some concentration, and you slept like a fingernail that had

  grown too long. We were eternal and gigantic. I, for example,

  had a huge neighbor."

  Everything going so well! More and more purified.

  But in the middle of the night you would suddenly wake up

  vomiting, asking yourself between one wave of nausea and

  another-in the middle of that fantasmagorical revolution

  which is a light turned on at night-what had you eaten during

  the day that could have made you so ill. The. fingernail grew

  bigger and bigger; you already had trouble �le?chi�g your fists.

  "Until one day then, a man matenahzes into the gr�at

  rage," Martim said to them as if logic itself had become in-

  carnate.

  Until one day a man went out into the world "to see if it is

  ( 3 9 )

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  true." Before dying a man must know if it is true. One day,

  finally, a man has to go out in search of the place that is

  common to a man. Then one day the man charters his ship. And

  at dawn he sails.

  "Who has never wanted to sail away?" Martim asked, painfully trying to transform what he had thought into something that he himself could understand : a table that plates are put on

  top of.

  "Try to imagine a man . . ." he said then, passing with

  great sensuality to the third person.

  It was then, given over to the game, that he suddenly

  became aware of all of this with a shock of recognition. For

  sitting on the stone, what he had been doing was nothing

  except-thinking. Once more he had become a triangle in the