The Apple in the Dark

by Clarice Lispector

  subtlety and weakness, she had said to a boy she liked, "I'm

  going to give you a stone I found in the garden" -and he had

  understood that she liked him and had given her in exchange a

  matchbox with a cookie inside. And then, following her vocation

  for subtlety along that torturous road of delicacy which had

  saved her from becoming offended with the truth-truth to

  Ermelinda may have seemed an inferior form, primary and

  "styleless," so to speak-then she would thank her husband for

  having given her a new dress by telling him, "It's a nice day

  today, isn't it?" Because of some mystery in her process of

  realization she always avoided being completely understood.

  In the meantime there was no exclamation of horror as she

  brought herself to face the simple crudity with which she

  wanted that man. Perhaps that delicateness of hers, incomprehensible to other people, came from the very delicateness of her reasons for wanting him. Her reasons for wanting him were

  those of a woman who wanted love-which seemed terribly

  subtle to her. And as if that reason was not enough, she had

  woven in a still more subtle reason : saving herself-which is a

  certain stage that love can sometimes reach. It was all of that,

  then, that had turned her into someone who could not be

  understood. It did not really make her suffer, because it was part

  of the order of things. Since she did not understand other people

  it was not for her to be understood either.

  She did have a practical problem however that was quite

  intense : the way she lived did not give her just anything that she

  wanted. And the result was that, against her wishes, she seemed

  to be pure without really wanting to be-just to avoid the

  vulgarity of becoming clear. For example, she had never confessed to a priest that she was afraid of dying; instead of that she had told him with all sorts of hints and allusions : "I think a

  stone is so much prettier than a bird." Perhaps by that she had

  meant to say, who knows, that to her a stone seemed closer to

  ( l 5 7 )

  T H E A P P L E

  I N T H E D A R K

  life than a bird which in its flight reminded her of death, or that

  it naturally meant she was afraid of dying. The priest had not

  understood her and she had gone away without having confessed, frightened at not having got an answer. For so many years that girl had never had the satisfaction of success.

  "Look at that fem ! " she may have said to the man because a

  person cannot say "I love you."

  The man's face was warm and red, covered with grime. She

  looked at the warm face of the man, and the strength she had

  was the frail strength of a woman; but she had talked about

  ferns and the man had not understood her, and his face had kept

  on being simple and unreachable. The girl began to despair

  because she had already begun to convince herself that one did

  not summon a man by talking about ferns. She did not know

  how to summon him and she wondered about the empty

  urgency the man was communicating to her as he pounded.

  Then, on the following morning-as soon as Vit6ria had

  mounted her horse and before the dust from its hooves had

  settled back onto the ground-Martim noticed Ermelinda by

  the cowshed where he was washing the cows, standing there like

  a schoolgirl.

  She was standing there not saying anything. I n a desperate

  way the girl was trying to be simple for the first time : not saying

  anything. Martim put on a curious mask that he himself probably could not have interpreted. The fact was, without really knowing how, he had just understood. Maybe because Ermelinda' s mute face had the intensity of what she was not saying.

  When Martim understood, he became happy. She was funny,

  with that fragile air and her audacity of not speaking; her

  tremulous courage of just standing there so that he would

  know.

  "When is Dona Vit6ria coming back?" he finally asked.

  The girl tried to answer, but her voice failed her. Her

  emotion at being understood was strong, as if someone had

  finally crowned that only way she had of expressing herself. At

  that moment she was at last getting recognition for her way of

  ( l 5 8)

  The Birth of the Hero

  life. The instants had gone by, but her heart, as it calmed down,

  had not been able to give her back her voice. But from the

  experience of past failures she knew that if she did not fling

  herself forward with her eyes closed everything would be lost

  again and she would have to go back and exhaust the talk about

  ferns. Then, bracing herself against what she would have liked to

  have been, much more obscure and pretty and not so blunt, she

  answered aloud, closing her eyes, and made a bridge of herself.

  "Vit6ria will be away a long time. Because Francisco isn't

  going to meet her in the cornfield until noon, she won't be back

  until two o'clock for lunch-I heard her say so myself! "

  She stopped, amazed. For the first time in her life she had

  said something straight out. Her heart retreated into her breast,

  as if to avoid the touch of a disaster.

  The man looked at her, curious, attentive, patient. It was

  true that "not thinking about her" had really been a way of

  thinking. But until that moment he had managed to keep her

  inside of him, surrounded by a clear and neutral element, while

  he himself kept busy at other things. And even if he was not

  really surprised when the girl proved herself as now, he looked at

  her with a certain coldness. He seemed to be accusing her of not

  knowing enough to wait until he himself would summon her to

  be the focus of his attention. Once more he was being pushed

  before it was time, just as when Vit6ria had sent him to the

  cowshed.

  He put the pail of water down on the ground to say something. And Martim's way of telling her that he had understood did not compromise him completely.

  "I'll be back from the hill at noon."

  But at eleven o'clock Ermelinda was already standing in the

  sun, serious, her heart beating, the birds flying, and the large tree

  swaying.

  She had finally reached a certain point. What seemed to

  alarm her was that now there was no question of turning

  back-too late finally, and it left her heroic. And besides that

  there was that excited and happy uneasiness, a certain pernicious

  T H E A P P L E

  I N T H E D A R K

  happiness, that secret she held against the world : nobody knew

  what was happening to her, what a secret.

  More than anything else, however, with her heart all dry and

  painful, she-she, she was playing for high stakes.

  If she failed she would come back torn to shreds, holding her

  shoes in her hands. That was the picture Ermelinda had of how

  a person failed, even if she did not know what failure was, for

  she was fighting against immaterial things-she had fallen into

  the habit of considering as immaterial "things of the spirit" and

  she did not have a very clear idea of what the spirit was, and it

  seemed to her that something was happening to her now that

  was more
or less of the spirit and in things like that a person

  never knew for sure whether he would fail or not; it was a matter

  of thinking one way or another. But at the same time that she

  saw herself with her shoes in her hands, she had that intimate

  warning that she would not fail; that with a sure hand she was

  going to touch life in one of its vulnerable spots, even if the

  hand was trembling. The trembling that came from the importance of that moment which was after all-after all-impossible to be substituted by any other. Few times in her life had she had

  the opportunity to come face to face with what cannot be

  replaced. "At last I am going to live," she said to herself. But the

  truth was that it seemed more like a threat.

  That did not mean that she was not mistress of herself.

  Because, even if she was looking neutrally at the importance of

  that happening, she had time to assume various poses that

  seemed to reflect that importance. She arranged her hair, as if

  having it a certain way were indispensable; she made her mouth

  small and her eyes large, a sketch of an innocent and beloved

  woman; and she re-created great love affairs with much emotion.

  All the while she grew perplexed and weak inside. The fact was

  that she knew she was risking much more than it seemed on the

  surface; she was gambling with what later on would be a past

  that would be forever impenetrable.

  In order to distract herself, she quickly went over what she

  would say to him. What, exactly, would she say to him? Some-

  ( 1 6 0 )

  The Birth of the Hero

  thing like this, "Fate is a very funny thing." She would say that

  to him. Not because she was an artificial creature, but because of

  an experience that could no longer be broken down into facts,

  she had ended up by knowing that "at least in her case" naturalness did not always hit the mark. When she relied on naturalness, truth was not what came out. Naturalness was for someone who had unlimited time which would give certain words a

  chance to be spoken eventually. But a person who had just the

  space of one lifetime would have to condense herself by means

  of artfulness and tricks. That girl was dying of the fear that she

  would spend her whole life without ever having had the chance

  to say certain things that no longer seemed important to her, but

  they still carried the obstinate idea that one day she would utter

  them.

  After going over what she would say about fate she could not

  escape returning to the idea that she was playing with what later

  on would be a past that would be closed to her understanding.

  Having had some experience, she knew that at the moment

  things seemed certain and that afterwards they would no longer

  seem so. And she was already vaguely asking herself-while her

  restless heart was beating all across the field and her look seemed

  to share its apprehension and go along-she was vaguely asking

  herself if later on, when she would have returned to the common days that judge us, if later on she would be capable of understanding herself and would have to pardon herself perhaps.

  Even now she was already asking herself what her future and

  inscrutable memories would be like. Because she knew that she

  was petty: she was not a person who could forgive easily.

  Yes, all of that would happen. But she had to risk everything.

  Since time was short that fearful girl had to know whether love

  can save, as if she had to tell somebody afterwards. Martim-as

  Vit6ria had said in a moment of rage-did not seem to have

  anything to lose. But-Ermelinda guessed as she suddenly found

  out in herself-there was no such thing as having nothing to

  lose. What there was, was risking everything; because underneath the nothingness and the nothingness and the nothingness ( 1 6 1 )

  T H E A P P L E

  I N T H E D A R K

  there we are, and for some reason we cannot lose that. She

  discovered that right there as she was standing. How that man

  had managed to push her into the problem of playing for high

  stakes and risking what we are Ermelinda was fated never to

  know. Perhaps the very sight of him, for eyes know much more

  than we do. All that Ermelinda knew was that as a last chance

  she had to take a gamble. It was then she thought, with a feeling

  of great uneasiness, that the world is malignant. It gave, yes, but

  at the same time it said, "Don't come to me afterwards and say

  that I never gave you anything." What was given was not given

  through friendship but through hostility.

  Standing there startled at eleven o'clock on April 1 7, she

  was receiving just as if there had been no kindness in the way the

  offer had been thrown at her. She who had worked so hard to

  receive what now she herself did not seem ready to understand.

  But nothing more depended on her now. She was experiencing

  that rare instant in which "it still hasn't happened," "it's still

  going to happen," "it's almost happened already" and which she

  called, with an effort at understanding, "the instant before the

  man appears." By giving it a name, she was attempting to

  appease the world.

  The girl passed her hand over her head, her heart all clogged

  up. From what she was feeling she gathered that her face must

  be ugly and red; she was deeply sorry that she was not beautiful

  enough to correspond to the instant when she would belong to a

  man. "That's not my face! " she rebelled-"that isn't I." I n the

  despair that perhaps she would not be accepted by a man who

  was so much more elegant than she and so much more of a

  person than she, she tried once more to make her eyes larger and

  her mouth heart-shaped. In her opinion they did not make an

  "ideal couple," and not only was she unable to get that idea out

  of her head, but she was bothered by it to the point at which she

  had to hold back her tears; it seemed to her that nature did not

  approve of them. The day was so beautiful that it just increased

  her unhappiness.

  Oh, if she only had more time. "Nothing should be as quick

  ( l 6 2 )

  The Birth of the Hero

  as that! " she thought in desolation, shaking her head. She might

  even have sent for some material from Vila to make a new dress.

  But how long was that man going to stay on the place? And

  death? No, she had no time; time was short. The birds flying in

  the distance seemed to be waiting unhurriedly for her to join

  them. They were not in any hurry; they were sure. And they flew

  about, waiting. Waiting for her to join their serene and disturbing freedom . . .

  The girl, her feet tight in their shoes, was trembling with fear

  of herself. She was afraid that she would purify herself so much

  that she would never need anything else. How do you think

  about a person who does not need anything? It was monstrous.

  "I don't want progress," she said fearfully, remembering the

  phrase of a spiritualist who was all in favor of progress. But what

  would be left of her if progress were taken away? There would be

  a whole body; there would be desires-and so much dust. What

  would her
liberated soul do without a body to exist in? She

  would wail at the windows until living people would say, "What

  a windy day." And at night she would be the uneasiness of

  nights imprisoned in the gardens.

  It was then, standing there among the thousands of unperceived beats of a heart that did its proper function so well, that she heard that deeper throb which she knew the way one knows

  a person; a deep and empty throb, as if her heart had tumbled

  into an abyss. And as always she asked herself, "But is it sickness

  or life?" Among a thousand butterfly palpitations that tragic

  throb . . . "I'm going to see a doctor," she decided with the

  desire of a glutton-"I'm going to see a doctor." The cold

  within the sun had chilled her.

  Oh, just the same, up until now life had not been serioussince she possessed a body that complained it all went to her heart; she had monthly cramps, she had a body in which she was

  happening. But afterwards? After? The spiritualistic girl was not

  sure that she was pure enough to just shake off her leaves and be

  nothing but a thought that someone could sense in the air and,

  ( 1 6 3 )

  T H E A P P L E

  I N T H E D A R K

  according to her, would call it inspiration. It would not be

  enough for her in her liberation to peer impatiently at the dawn

  and take sneaky and crafty advantage of that materialization of

  light-and be. Nor would it be enough for her to look up at the

  dry sky for days on end hoping to become one with the rain so

  that she would be able to cry. She had become too accustomed

  to life; she was used to certain minimal comforts; she needed

  some place where she could hurt, could bleed if she cut her

  finger. "Oh dear God, why did you pick me to be a medium and

  understand and know?" she thought burdened by the weight of

  her calling. "I'm only human; don't give me tasks that are

  beyond my capacity." And death was clearly beyond her

  capacity.

  Oh, and if it was just to be a ghost-if they expected her to

  be one, and she did not know for certain what they expected of

  her-then she would need a whole house at least and more than

  one story, she calculated with detail. And with doors that would

  open to her lack of hand, with halls that would sound beneath

  her lack of feet-but-but would all that just be set in action by