The Complete Stories

by Clarice Lispector

  “I am a prophet! I see the beyond!” a boy was shouting to himself.

  Father Joaquim Jesus Jacinto—all J’s because his mother liked the letter J.

  It was December 31, 1973. Astronomical time would be harmed by atomic clocks, which are off by a mere second every three thousand three hundred years.

  The other woman was prone to spitting, one glob after another, nonstop. But she liked it. The other woman was named J. B.

  “My life is truly a novel!” cried the failed writer.

  Ecstasy was reserved for the He-she. Who suddenly underwent a bodily exaltation, at length. She-he said: stop! Because she was falling under the demon’s sway by feeling the ecstasy of Evil. All of them through her were coming: it was the celebration of the Great Law. The eunuchs were engaged in something it was forbidden to watch. The others, through She-he, were shudderingly receiving orgasms in waves—but only in waves because they weren’t strong enough to, without destroying themselves, take it all. The women painted their mouths violet like fruit crushed by sharp teeth.

  The She-he told them what happened when someone didn’t become initiated into the prophesying of the night. State of shock. For example: the girl was a redhead and as if that weren’t enough she was red on the inside and on top of that colorblind. Such that in her small apartment was a green cross on a red background: she mixed up the two colors. How had her terror begun? Listening to an album or the reigning silence or footsteps from upstairs—and there she was terrified. Afraid of the mirror that reflected her. Across from it was a wardrobe and she got the idea that the clothes were moving around inside it. Little by little she began shrinking the apartment. She was even afraid of getting out of bed. The feeling that they’d grab her foot from under the bed. She was emaciated. Her name was Psiu,* a red name. She was afraid of turning on the light in the dark and finding the cold gecko that lived with her. In agony she felt the gecko’s clammy little white toes. She eagerly scanned the newspaper for the crime reports, news of what was going on. Frightful things were always happening to people, like her, who lived alone and were attacked at night. On her wall was a picture of a man who stared her right in the eyes, watching her. She imagined that figure following her through every corner of the house. She had a panicked fear of rats. She’d rather die than come into contact with them. Yet she heard their squeaking. She even felt them nibbling at her feet. She’d always bolt awake, in a cold sweat. She was a cornered animal. Normally she’d talk things over with herself. She’d weigh the pros and cons and the one who lost was always her. Her life was a constant subtraction of itself. All because she didn’t heed the siren’s call.

  The He-she only showed his-her androgynous face. And from it radiated such a blind splendor of a madman that the others reveled in their own madness. She was the prediction and the dissolution and was born tattooed. All the air now bore the scent of fatal jasmine and was so strong that some vomited their own entrails. The Moon was full in the sky. Fifteen thousand adolescents awaited the kind of man or woman they would be.

  Then She-he said:

  “I shall eat thy brother and there will be a total eclipse and the end of the world.”

  Once in a while a prolonged neighing could be heard and no horse was seen. All one knew was that with seven musical notes one could make all the songs that exist and that existed and that will exist. From the She-he emanated the strong scent of crushed jasmine because it was the night of a full Moon. Voodoo or witchcraft. Max Ernst as a child was mistaken for the Baby Jesus during a procession. Later he provoked artistic scandals. He had a limitless passion for men and an immense and poetic freedom. But why am I speaking of this? I don’t know. “I don’t know” is a fine answer.

  What was Thomas Edison doing, so inventive and free, among those who were commanded by He-she?

  Griffonage, thought the perfect student, was the most difficult word in the language.

  Hark! the herald angels sing!

  The poor Jew was shouting mutely and no one heard him, the whole world wasn’t hearing him. He spoke thus: I am thirsty, sweat and tears! and to quench my thirst I drink my sweat and my own salt tears. I don’t eat pork! I follow the Torah! but grant me relief, Jehovah, who looks too much like me!

  Jubileu de Almeida was listening to his transistor radio, always. “The tastiest porridge is made from Cream of Wheat.” And afterward they announced, from Strauss, a waltz that incredible as it might seem was called “The Free Thinker.” It’s true, it really exists, I’ve heard it. Jublieu was the owner of “The Golden Mandolin,” a musical instrument shop on the verge of bankruptcy, and was mad about Strauss waltzes. A widower, he was, Jubileu that is. His rival was “The Bugle,” his competitor on Rua Gomes Freire or Frei Caneca. Jubileu was also a piano tuner.

  Everyone there was ready to fall in love. Sex. Pure sex. They reined themselves in. Romania was a dangerous country: gypsies.

  The world had an oil shortage. And, without oil, there was a food shortage. Meat, especially. And without meat they were becoming terribly carnivorous.

  “Here, Lord, I offer up my soul,” Christopher Colombus had said upon dying, dressed in the Franciscan habit. He didn’t eat meat. He became sanctified, Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of the waves, and who discovered St. Francis of Assisi. Hélas! he perished. Where are you now? where? for God’s sake, answer!

  Suddenly and ever so slightly—fiat lux.

  There was a startled scattering as of sparrows.

  All so fast that it rather seemed like they had dissolved.

  At that same hour they were either lying in bed asleep, or already awake. What had existed was silence. They didn’t know anything. The guardian angels—who had been resting since everyone was peacefully in bed—awoke refreshed, still yawning, but already protecting their wards.

  Dawn: the egg came spinning very slowly from the horizon into space. It was morning: a blonde girl, married to a rich young man, gives birth to a black baby. Child of the demon of the night? No one knows. Troubles, shame.

  Jubileu de Almeida awoke like day-old bread: stale. Since childhood he had been bland like that. He turned on the radio and heard: “Morena’s Shoes where high prices are against the rules.” He’d check it out, he needed shoes. Jubileu was an albino, a light-skinned black man whose eyelashes were an almost-white yellow. He cracked an egg into the frying pan. And thought: if one day I could hear “The Free Thinker,” by Strauss, it would make up for my solitude. He’d only heard that waltz once, he couldn’t remember when.

  The powerful man wished to eat spoonfuls of Danish caviar at breakfast, popping the little balls between his sharp teeth. He was a member of the Rotary Club and the Freemasons and the Diners Club. He had enough class not to eat Russian caviar: it was a way of defeating mighty Russia.

  The poor Jew awakes and drinks water thirstily right from the faucet. It was the only water there was at the back of the flophouse where he lived: once there was a cockroach swimming in the soupy beans. The prostitutes who lived there didn’t even complain.

  The perfect student, who didn’t suspect he was a bore, thought: what was the most difficult word in existence? What was it? One that meant adornments, embellishments, finery? Ah, yes, griffonage. He memorized the word so as to write it on his next exam.

  When the first rays of daylight began to shine everyone was in bed yawning endlessly. As they awoke, one was a cobbler, one had been imprisoned for rape, one was a housewife, giving orders to the cook, who never arrived late, another was a banker, another was a secretary, etc. They awoke, then, a bit groggy, satisfied by a night of such deep sleep. Saturday had passed and
today was Sunday. And many went to the mass celebrated by Father Jacinto who was the priest currently in fashion: but none went to confession, for they had nothing to confess.

  The failed writer opened her red leather-bound diary and began to write this down: “July 7, 1974. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me! On this beautiful morning of Sunday sunshine, after having slept very badly, I, in spite of everything, appreciate the marvelous beauties of Mother Nature. I won’t go to the beach because I’m too fat and that’s unfortunate for someone who so appreciates the little green waves of the Sea! I find myself revolting! But I can’t stick to a diet: I die of hunger. I like living dangerously. Thy viper’s tongue shall be cut by the scissors of complacency.”

  In the morning: agnus dei. Golden calf? Vulture.

  The poor Jew: free me from the pride of being a Jew!

  The journalist called her friend first thing in the morning:

  “Claudia, sorry to call at this hour on a Sunday! But I woke up with a fabulous inspiration: I’m going to write a book about Black Magic! No, I didn’t read that one about the Exorcist, because I heard it’s no good and I don’t want everybody saying I copied it. Have you ever really thought about it? human beings have always tried to communicate with the supernatural, from ancient Egypt with the secret of the Pyramids, to Greece with its gods, to Shakespeare in Hamlet. Well, I’m going to do it too. And, by God, I’m going to do it best!”

  The smell of coffee wafted through many Rio households. It was Sunday. And the boy still in bed, completely lethargic, still half-awake, said to himself: another boring Sunday. What exactly had he dreamed about? Who knows, he answered, if I dreamed, I dreamed about women.

  At last, the air brightens. And the same old day begins. The brutal day. The light was wicked: the haunted daily day was settling in. A religion became a necessity: a religion unafraid of the morning. I want to be envied. I want rape, robbery, infanticide, and my challenge is forceful. I wanted gold and fame, I scorned even sex: I loved fast and I didn’t know what love was. I want bad gold. Profanation. I’m going to my extreme. After the revelry—what revelry? at night?—after the revelry, desolation.

  There was the observer who wrote this in his notebook: “Progress and all the phenomena surrounding it seem to participate intimately in this law of general, cosmic, and centrifugal acceleration that drags civilization toward ‘maximum progress,’ so that thereafter comes the fall. An uninterrupted fall or a quickly contained fall? That is the problem: we cannot know whether this society will destroy itself completely or if it will experience merely a brief interruption and then resume its onward march.” And then: “The Sun’s effects on the Earth would diminish and provoke the start of a new ice age that could last a minimum of ten thousand years.” Ten thousand years was a lot and was frightening. That’s what happens when someone chooses, from fear of the dark night, to live in the superficial light of day. Since the supernatural, divine or demonic, has been a temptation since Egypt, through the Middle Ages up to cheap mystery novels.

  The butcher, who that day was working just from eight till eleven, opened the butcher shop: and halted drunk with pleasure at the smell of meat upon raw meat, raw and bloody. He was the only one who carried the night into day.

  Father Jacinto was in fashion because no one lifted the chalice as limpidly as he and drank with holy unction and purity, saving everyone, the blood of Jesus, who was the Good. Delicately his pale hands in a gesture of offering.

  The baker rose as usual at four o’clock and started kneading dough. At night did he knead the Devil?

  An angel painted by Fra Angelico, fifteenth century, fluttered through the air: he was the annunciating clarinet of morning. The electric street lights had not yet been shut off and were glowing palely. Poles. Speed devours the poles when you’re cruising by in a car.

  The morning masturbator: my only loyal friend is my dog. He didn’t trust anyone, especially women.

  The woman who had been yawning all night and said: “I conjure thee, High Priestess!” started scratching herself and yawning. Oh hell, she said.

  The powerful man—who grew orchids, cattleyas, laelias and oncidiums—rang the bell impatiently to summon the butler who would bring his already-late breakfast. The butler read his mind and knew when to bring the Danish greyhounds to be quickly caressed.

  That woman who at night had screamed, “I’m waiting, waiting, waiting,” in the morning, all disheveled said to the milk in the saucepan on the burner:

  “I’m going to get you, you slob! Let’s just see if you’re going to drag your heels and boil over in my face, I spend my whole life waiting. Everyone knows that if I take my eyes off the milk for a single second, that good-for-nothing will take the chance to boil over. The way death comes when you don’t expect it.”

  She waited, waited and the milk didn’t boil. So, she turned off the gas.

  In the sky the faintest of rainbows: it was the announcement. The morning like a white sheep. A white dove was the prophecy. Manger. Secret. The preordained morning. Ave Maria, gratia plena, dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictum frutus ventri tui Jesus. Sancta Maria Mater Dei ora pro nobis pecatoribus. Nunca et ora nostrae morte Amen.

  Father Jacinto used both hands to lift the crystal chalice that holds the scarlet blood of Christ. Wow, good wine. And a flower bloomed. A light, rosy flower, with the fragrance of God. He-she had long since vanished into thin air. The morning was clear like some freshly washed thing.

  AMEN

  The absentminded faithful made the sign of the Cross.

  AMEN

  GOD

  THE END

  Epilogue

  All I have written is true and exists. A universal mind exists that guided me. Where were you at night? No one knows. Don’t try to answer—for the love of God. I don’t want to know the answer. Adieu. A-Dieu.

  * “Hey you” or “Psst.”

  Report on the Thing

  (“O relatório da coisa”)

  This thing is the most difficult for a person to understand. Keep trying. Don’t get discouraged. It will seem obvious. But it is extremely difficult to know about it. For it involves time.

  We divide time when in reality it is not divisible. It is always immutable. But we need to divide it. And to that end a monstrous thing was created: the clock.

  I am not going to speak of clocks. But of one particular clock. I’m showing my cards: I’ll say up front what I have to say and without literature. This report is the antiliterature of the thing.

  The clock of which I speak is electronic and has an alarm. The brand is Sveglia, which means “wake up.” Wake up to what, my God? To time. To the hour. To the instant. This clock is not mine. But I took possession of its infernal tranquil soul.

  It is not a wristwatch: therefore it is freestanding. It is less than an inch tall and stands on the surface of the table. I would like its actual name to be Sveglia. But the clock’s owner wants its name to be Horácio. No matter. Because the main thing is that it is time.

  Its mechanism is very simple. It does not have the complexity of a person but it is more people than people. Is it a superman? No, it comes straight from the planet Mars, so it seems. If that’s where it is from then that’s where it will one day return. It is silly to state that it does not need to be wound, since this is the case with other timepieces, as with mine that’s a wristwatch, that’s shock resistant, that can get wet as you like. Those are even more than people. But at least they are from Earth. The Sveglia is from God. Divine human brains were used to capture what this watch should be. I am writing about it but have yet to see it. It will be the Encounter. Sveglia: wake up, woman, wake up to see what must be seen. I
t is important to be awake in order to see. But it is also important to sleep in order to dream about the lack of time. Sveglia is the Object, it is the Thing, with a capital letter. I wonder, does the Sveglia see me? Yes, it does, as if I were another object. It recognizes that sometimes we too come from Mars.

  Things have been happening to me, after I found out about the Sveglia, that seem like a dream. Wake me up, Sveglia, I want to see reality. But then, reality resembles a dream. I am melancholy because I am happy. It is not a paradox. After the act of love don’t you feel a certain melancholy? That of plenitude. I feel like crying. Sveglia does not cry. Besides, it has no way to. Does its energy have any weight? Sleep, Sveglia, sleep a little, I can’t stand your constant vigil. You never stop being. You never dream. It cannot be said that you “function”: you are not the act of functioning, you just are.

  You are just so thin. And nothing happens to you. But you are the one who makes things happen. Happen to me, Sveglia, happen to me. I am in need of a certain event of which I cannot speak. And bring back desire to me, which is the coil spring behind animal life. I do not want you for myself. I do not like being watched. And you are the only eye always open like an eye floating in space. You wish me no harm but neither do you wish me good. Could I be getting that way too, without the feeling of love? Am I a thing? I know that I have little capacity to love. My capacity to love has been trampled too much, my God. All I have left is a flicker of desire. I need this to be strengthened. Because it is not as you think, that only death matters. To live, something you don’t know about because it is susceptible to rot—to live while rotting matters quite a bit. A harsh way to live: a way to live the essential.

  If it breaks, do they think it died? No, it simply departed itself. But you have weaknesses, Sveglia. I learned from your owner that you need a leather case to protect you from humidity. I also learned, in secret, that you once stopped. Your owner didn’t panic. She fiddled with it a little and you never stopped again. I understand you, I forgive you: you came from Europe and you need a little time to get acclimated, don’t you? Does that mean that you die too, Sveglia? Are you the time that stops?