( 5 6 )
How a Man Is Made
were his only specialty. Why hadn't he shaved? Dirty, with a
growth of beard, standing upright. Finally she sighed, tired, and
said without interest, "I don't have any work for an engineer."
!he. man �u�ned to leave and without breaking step said
again without insistence, "I can do anything."
"I have a well that needs to be finished "
'
she said suddenly '
full of mistrust and curiosity.
He stopped walking and turned around. The fact that she
could make him stop or go with a single word began to irritate
the woman. The man's docility seemed an affront of some sort.
"I can fix wells," he nodded.
"The cowshed is falling in!" she said with even more distrust.
"So I noticed."
"Sometimes I need somebody to hunt seriema birds," she
challenged sharply.
"I can shoot."
"I also need some stones laid in the brook so the water will
run faster," she said coldly.
"They can be laid."
"But you're an engineer; you're of no use to me," she said
with faint anger.
The poppies were waving red, like good blood, and they
awakened a sort of brute life in the man. He was fighting in the
midst of hunger and sluggishness and happiness. Only the rich
poppies were stopping him from keeling over. With some reluctance then, running his tongue over a mouth full of desire, he finally turned his back on the poppies.
"Wait," the woman said.
He stopped. They stared at each other.
"I can't pay very much."
"But you'll give me room and board?" he said in a mixture of
asking and affirming.
The woman took a quick look at him, as if room and board
had meant something else. Then she took her hands out of the
pockets of her jacket. There were men beside whom a woman
( 5 7 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
felt lowered for being a woman; there were men beside whom a
woman would preen her body with quiet pride-Vit6ria had
been insulted by the way he had smoothed his hair.
"I'll furnish that," she said very slowly at last.
"It's agreed," the man said, digging in his nails and clutching
a final moment of lucidity.
"I'm the one who says whether it's agreed or not. Where are
you from?"
"Rio."
"With that accent?"
He did not answer. Their eyes showed that they both agreed
it was a lie. But Vit6ria seemed obstinately unaware of her own
perspicacity. And as she tried to calm herself she asked another
question.
"What other work have you done besides being an engineer?"
The man's eyes blinked, clear and almost infantile.
"I can do anything," he said.
The answer obviously did not please the woman and she
made a slight show of uncontained irritation because he had not
gained her confidence. This man's lack of savoir fa ire made her
impatient. She put her hands back into the pockets of her jacket,
holding herself back. In the meantime it would be sufficient for
him simply to guarantee that he had already done some work on
wells.
"But you've had some experience with wells?" she asked,
indicating imperiously what she expected for an answer.
"Yes," the man said, lying as she had wanted him to.
Again she blushed at his submission. And then she looked at
Francisco, trying to exchange with a look of unity against Martim. But Francisco turned his eyes away and stared down at his feet. The woman blushed even more, swallowing her rejection as
if it were something hard.
It was the first time that she had sought support from him,
and it had to be just that time that Francisco felt obliged to tum
her down. The fact is that he did not like the way the woman
was abusing the stranger. Oh, he did not like a lot of things. But
( 5 8 )
How a Man Is Made
in the meantime he would go on accepting them-provided that
she continued to be stronger than he. The farm was organized
around the selfassurance of that woman whom Francisco despised as one despises something that does not flow. But all he expected from her was strength; without it there would be no
reason to obey her. So he turned his eyes away in order not to see
her weakness.
Martim did not understand anything that was going on, but
he instinctively allied himself with Francisco and tried to exchange a sarcastic look with him.
Francisco refused this look also, ostensibly gazing at a tree.
The stranger had not perceived Francisco's loyalty to the
woman; he did not understand that Francisco had become
accustomed to a calm hatred for Vit6ria, and that he would not
be ordered about by a woman unless he could safeguard his own
dignity through hate. And as if the woman had understood him,
she had never tried to establish the slightest friendly bonds
between the two of them : this had been proof to Francisco that
she respected him. The moment she became kind-hearted his
decline would set in. He respected in the woman the strength
with which she did not let him be anything more or less than
what he was.
Pretending, therefore, an interest in a tree, he also refused
any alliance with the stranger. The insecurity Vit6ria had raised
in him by looking for a support that he did not want to give was
enough for one day, not only because he did not agree with the
way in which she was crushing the stranger, but also because he
would despise her and would come to despise himself if she
needed the help of a simple farmhand.
The new arrival felt rejected without knowing why. He did
not understand the rage he had provoked. What he vaguely
perceived was a certain scorn in Francisco, a scorn that covered
him Martim , as well as the woman and as well as Francisco
'
himself. And he had the curious impression of having fallen into
a trap. In a dream born of his fatigue he remembered tales of
travelers spending the night in houses where madness reigned.
( 5 9 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
But that disappeared directly, because if anyone was dangerous
there he was obviously the one. The impression of a trap
persisted all the same.
Rejected by Francisco, the woman turned with greater determination toward the stranger, whose stupid docility was desirous now. But suddenly she asked, insulted :
"What are you laughing at?"
"I'm not laughing," he said.
Then, without realizing that she was looking him over
cruelly, the woman discovered with fascination that, indeed, he
was not laughing. It was simply that his face had a wily physical
expression, independent of anything he might have been thinking-the way a cat seems to be laughing sometimes. In spite of being peaceful and empty his features gave the impression of
mockery, as a cross-eyed person, whether sad or happy, will always
be seen as cross-eyed. As if she had fallen into some darkness,
she slowly looked out at him. "He's no good," she could see
with
her alerted senses. That man had a face . . . But the face was
not the man. That bothered her and aroused her curiosity. That
man was not himself, she thought without trying to understand
what she was thinking; that man was shamelessly sullen. And he
was standing there in complete exposure of himself, silent as a
standing horse.
Which suddenly made the woman retreat, as if she had gone
too far.
But now she could not prevent herself from seeing what she
was seeing. "How dare he! " she thought, frightened and seduced, as if he had spoken what never should be spoken. With the perversion of some sacred accepted law that man did not
show himself clearly. And there was a horrible secret physical
wisdom on his face, like that of a resting puma-like a man who
had outraged everything in himself except his one last secret, his
body. There he was, completely on the surface and completely
exposed. The only thing about him that was whole, remotely
recognizable by the woman in that moment of wonder, was the
final barrier that the body makes.
( 6 0)
How a Man Is Made
She stiffened up severely. There was, in fact, a great mistake
in him. Just as great as if the human race had been mistaken.
"How dare he! " she repeated darkly, without understanding
what she was thinking. "How dare he !" she repeated startled,
suddenly offended by what there was in life that was so unintelligible. "The nerve he had to reach that point of . . . of dishonor, of . . . of joy . . . of . . . The nerve he had to come to have-to have that way of standing! " she stammered inside
with rage.
She looked at him again. But the truth was really that the
man did not seem to be thinking about anything, she verified
then with greater calmness. On his face there remained that
delicate sensibility which thought gives to a face, but he was not
thinking about anything. Perhaps this was what horrified her.
Or, who knows, perhaps she had been warned by the fact that he
had laughed at some time past.
"I can't use you," she said forcefully, deciding unexpectedly.
But when, without the slightest protest, he was already
nearing the barnyard, she shouted angrily :
"Only if you sleep in the woodshed! "
She looked a t him, startled. And showing n o surprise, as if
she could have kept on rejecting him and calling him back
indefinitely, he came over. The child, who had since come out
from behind the hedge, ran back at once to her hiding place.
When he was near again, the woman asked him without
.
warning:
"Would you please tell me at least just what an engineer is
doing in these parts?"
"Looking for work," he repeated, not even attempting to
maker her believe him.
She opened her mouth to reply to the impertinence. But she
held back. And finally she said serenely:
"Wipe your feet off before you come in."
Chapter 5
V1T6R1A was such a strong woman that somewhere in the past
she must have found a key. The door it opened had been lost
many years back, of course. But when she needed to, she could
bring back her old power at once. Even though she might not
have said so, deep inside she called that thing she knew a key.
She no longer tried so hard to retrieve what once upon a time
she had known, but it was what gave her life.
It was in search of the help of everything she had ever
known, therefore, that later on in the kitchen she was absorbed
in looking at the plate from which the man had eaten. She also
tried to imagine him putting the door on the woodshed. She had
given him the door, a big strange object to give somebody. With
the completely unforeseen arrival of the man that kind of
orderly circle in which she moved, as if compelled by some law,
had now been broken; she had to admit reluctantly-At least
something had happened-even if she could not say just what.
Then, a little self-consciously, she thought about her own free
act and was rather curious : "It's the first time I ever gave a door
to anybody." That plunged her into a feeling from which there
was no escape. It was the second time the man had upset her.
Not knowing what to do with her thoughts about the door
she got away from them by trying to imagine that right now the
man must be having trouble setting it back on its rusty hinges.
Probably still maintaining that same expression of fatigue and
what could have been a laugh, and with that shameless childlike
quality that giants have. Or, who could tell, maybe he was
working on the installation of the door with that same remote
concentration with which, morsel by morsel, he had devoured
his food. It had been a long time since the woman had watched
hunger, and, looking at the empty plate now, she frowned. She
( 6 2 )
How a Man Is Made
could not determine the exact moment when she had felt that
man's cruelty. Looking at the empty plate she then had the
thought that people often get about a dog : he is cruel because
he eats meat. But maybe the expression of cruelty had come
from the fact that when in front of the shed he was hungry and
still he kept on smiling. The hunger on his face had been visible,
but with a great capacity for happy cruelty, he had been smiling.
Not having any love for one's self was the beginning of cruelty
toward everything else. She was aware of it in herself. But she at
least possessed everything she knew.
For the first time, then, with an unpleasant clarity that she
could no longer hide from herself, the woman realized that the
man had not attempted to give her the slightest guarantee, nor
had he promised her anything. She alone had taken all the risks,
just as once when she was caring for an injured dog with skillful
hands-he lost consciousness. And as she felt the unexpected
total weight of the animal in her lap, she lifted up her eyes, all
alone and responsible for that soulless body that was entirely
hers now, like a child. That man who had dropped in there with
all his weight.
"You rash old fool," she said, very tired suddenly, and
pushed aside the dirty plate; her lack of self-love had covered her
with haughtiness.
And how could she announce the arrival of the man to
Ermelinda without the latter's getting joyful? But that was a
problem she could solve later. What was important right now,
and with an inexplicable urgency, was trying to guess what
expression the man had on his face as he was putting up the
door. Without tying one fact to the other, she went over to
inspect the shotgun. It needed cleaning and an oiling. The
woman bent to work on the old weapon for quite a while, sitting
in the kitchen with a severe and obstinate face. It was the face of
a person who, out of his own abdication, has devised a weapon
and an insult to be used against other people.
The worst thing still, though, would be telling Ermelinda.
"Just another farmhand w
ould be of no importance, even if he
( 6 3 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
was a boarder," Vit6ria thought, arguing unwillingly and convincing herself after a while-because how many times have one or two men worked for a month and then gone away; just three
days before two men had left. What was she hesitant about
then? Perhaps because she would have to confess to Ermelinda
that the man was, or said he was an engineer. But it made no
difference to her, she thought moodily, and blamed him for
being an engineer-as long as he did his work, and Francisco
would be sure to keep an eye on him, as far as Ermelinda was
concerned . . .
"I hired a man. He says he is an engineer but that he can
work at anything!" she imagined herself speaking harshly in
order to stifle any comment from her cousin. What comment
was she afraid of? She stopped cleaning the shotgun and looked
vacantly and stiffly into the air. Or just say : "Ermelinda, there's
a new hand who's going to be sleeping in the woodshed, so you
can't go in there anymore; it's his quarters."
None of the phrases seemed firm enough to her to stop
Ermelinda's exclamation of rapture. And when she thought of
her cousin's delighted face, the woman immediately put it out of
her apprehensive imagination, as if she could not bear it; furiously unable to stop her heart from starting to pound with fear within her. But having transferred to Ermelinda the distaste she
felt for her own stupidity, she felt blameless and free now to
have a rage. From there she went on to tell herself she would not
stand for the curiosity her cousin would show when she heard
the news. It was not the words Ermelinda was going to use that
filled her with anticipated rage-the truth was that she had
never even been able to reproduce in her mind, word for word,
any phrase the girl had ever used-it was the disguised expression of extreme joy that came over the girl as soon as anything happened. It was the feeling of being forced once more, having
to explain the presence of the man, into intimate contact with
that astute and softly insidious-looking face-as if in her cousin's
misty system the means of contact with a person could never be
direct because danger and waiting are also indirect. Ermelinda
How et Man Is Made
always seemed to be hiding the fact that she understood. And
her face would remain almost deliberately shapeless and suspended-Waiting for a confirmation?
The Apple in the Dark Page 9
