The Besieged City

by Clarice Lispector

  That’s how she stayed until, if she’d urgently need to cry out, she wouldn’t have been able to; she’d finally lost the gift of speech. Her hand was set against her cheek like the other side of her face.

  “You’ve got too many hands,” she even said to herself and, perfecting herself, hid the other hand further behind her back.

  Even a single and motionless hand could sometimes make her whole figure have the quivering of fans. Yet judging herself perfect, she sighed and stayed in position.

  So humble and irate that she wouldn’t be able to think; and that’s how she was giving her thought through its only precise form — wasn’t that what happened to things? — inventing out of powerlessness a mysterious and innocent sign that could express her position in the city, choosing her own image and through it the image of the objects.

  In this first gesture of stone, whatever was hidden was given outward expression with such prominence. Keeping, for its perfection, the same incomprehensible character: the inexplicable rosebud had opened trembling and mechanical into an inexplicable flower.

  And that’s how she stayed as if they’d set her down. Distracted, without any individuality.

  Her art was commonplace and anonymous. Sometimes she’d make use of the hand that was behind in order to quickly scratch her back. But right afterward she’d freeze.

  In that position, Lucrécia Neves could even be transported to the public square. All she was missing was the sun and the rain. So that, covered in moss, she could finally be unnoticed by the inhabitants and finally be seen every day unconsciously. Because that was how a statue belonged to a city.

  The rain had let up, the gutters of the house were starting to swallow the waters avidly. Calm, with her face a bit crooked, the young girl was watching.

  So futile and weak, so insignificant, making use of the hand that was at her back to fend off a wasp. But without anyone’s having forced her to choose the sacrifice, was she losing right then her youth through the symbol of youth? and life through the shape of life, her single hand pointing.

  And so it was that from the side, yawning, she looked like the angel who blows on the doors of churches. Between girl and boy, the eye, already blinking with sleep, looking aslant.

  Though when three-quarters of her was seen she suddenly gained volume and shadows, delicateness and opulence: a lame seraph.

  In fact set down blameless as in a dentist’s waiting room.

  Until, beneath the softer sound of the waters running in the pipes, her outstretched hand lost its eloquence — and her head emerged from the disaster in a large and unstable form. Which diminished even its solidity.

  Then Lucrécia Neves yawned freely so many times in a row that she looked like a madwoman, until breaking off satiated.

  And suspicious.

  For she was looking herself over now, with plenty of wonder in her gesture, what gesture? the one that had the urgency of a tic — and like a tic was alarming due to its indomitable mechanical aspect: she even feared being forced to do it in front of other people . . . She imagined herself putting down a cup of coffee, standing up sleepily, only later making herself comfortable, relieved — in front of other people.

  “This was all a joke, you know,” she said to herself with modesty. “This” what, really? She imagined her mother spying on her and closed her eyes in annoyance. She thought of Mateus seeing her passion for trinkets, and through him she didn’t understand herself. “So I’m a collector! big deal! you’ve never seen a collector before?” she answered him rudely. But Mateus didn’t put out his cigar and won.

  And through him she didn’t know herself. Oh, she knew as little about herself as the man did, who, passing by, had looked at her and seen her elongated. And, if she peeked at herself, she’d only see herself as Ana would see her.

  Because the truth was: she was a person who was passing on the street, stopping in front of a window display, choosing a pink fabric to admire and saying: it’s a color I adore! and people would say: that’s Lucrécia Neves’s favorite color, and she’d have to explain: but I like other colors too! people would say: I know Lucrécia Neves, she lives at 34 Market Street. She lived on Market Street and this was all a joke, she assured Felipe who knew her so well.

  Maybe she’d never find out that she’d foolishly stretched out her hand and foot if, weeks before, she hadn’t leaned out of the kitchen window toward the yard behind the store and noticed the cashier of “The Golden Tie.”

  Without being seen, she’d caught him standing in the sun. Suddenly the man had said pointing to the trash can: “keep quiet, girl.” The cashier, standing, noble, was looking at the trashcan with intensity. “Keep quiet, girl,” he’d said. Then he’d seemed calm, covered with sadness as if once again a formula had failed.

  Without knowing he was being observed, he was entirely intimate and objective. And, so solitary, that it had become impudent to study him. But as he was leaving the yard, he already looked satisfied, even seemed to cover himself with modesty; and traced a gesture that seemed to stop the people’s praise. Before entering the store he’d even paused to sniff, adjusting the belt of his pants. And he was laughing mischievously, shaking his shoulders a bit — who inside him was laughing at everyone else? he was skinny, his shoulders stooping in the shirt he was wearing, and, some thing was laughing in him, while he himself — impossible to be interrupted without being thunderstruck — was looking for the last time at the trashcan, sniffing with resentment and satisfaction.

  Afraid to rouse him, Lucrécia had withdrawn embarrassed. That same day she’d found him at the bottom of the staircase and he’d said hurried and cordial: good afternoon, Lucrécia.

  Made aware of her gesture in the living room, through the memory of the cashier, the girl caught herself starting once more to braid a lock of hair. She almost didn’t know what had brought her to such a concrete movement.

  What a dirty path was trodden in the darkness until her thoughts burst into gestures! The whole township was working in the underground spaces of the sewers in order for a man here and there to be able to cough on the corner.

  In her too the truth was very protected. Which didn’t spark much curiosity in her. Just as she’d never needed intelligence, she’d never needed truth; and any picture of her was clearer than she was.

  Though, a bit bewildered, she noticed that she knew as much about herself as the cashier in front of the trashcan knew about himself. And, also like him, she took pride in, in such a way, not knowing herself . . . “Not knowing herself” couldn’t be replaced by “knowing herself.”

  The girl therefore ended up quite satisfied with the braid between her fingers. If she had any awareness of her gesture, whereas the cashier could never know he’d spoken to a trash can — that was because Lucrécia Neves showed off so much that sometimes she’d even manage to see herself.

  Except she’d see herself the way an animal would see a house: no thought going beyond the house.

  This was the intimacy without contact that horses had; and the city’s houses were entirely seen only by them. And if the lights were gradually going out in the windows, and in the darkness no gaze could express reality any longer — the possible and sufficient sign would be the stomping of the hoof, transmitted from one level to the next until reaching the countryside.

  The water was gurgling in the house and inside the living room each clipped-out object was recovering its peaceful existence.

  Whatever was made of wood was moist, and the metals icy. The ruins were still steaming. But soon the living room, in its final fumes, was coming to rest in such a way that no one could ever look at it. The last lights turned off.

  Though, in the darkness, the girl was still keeping vigil full of sleepiness, dreaming of getting married — the trinket was playing flute in the shadow. One day she’d see the trinket, soon or many years hence, perfection doesn’t hurry, a lifetime would be
precisely the time of her death. And at least she’d already had her own shape as an instrument of looking: the gesture.

  The trinket was playing in the shadow and the girl was moving off with her braid sticking up in the air. She was even seeing the raised flute. But beneath her staring eyes the things started to twist fusing slowly, the flute was doubling until its shapes were beside themselves — thunderstruck by so much watchfulness, Lucrécia Neves nodded off.

  The living room, getting ready for the long night, had its eyes open, calm. From afar things are indeterminate — that’s how the living room was.

  5 In the Garden

  A bit later, while she was changing clothes, Lucrécia’s face was led astray by the first frights of sleep. Haunted as if she’d already dozed off, she stopped short with her dress in hand — summoned, weak: a second more and she’d start to dream. In the bathroom she couldn’t even remember what she’d come looking for. Once more she dragged herself to her room and stopped at the door.

  Across the balcony the wind of the rain was blowing. Things were exorcized, divided, extremely pale . . . the curtain was flying almost carried off and the room was hesitating as if someone had just vanished through the window. There was a moment in the motionlessness of the objects that was haunting in a vision . . . In her drowsiness, Lucrécia Neves bristled when faced with physical things. The light was out. The room however was lit by the deathly exhalation of each object and the girl’s face itself became touching. To stare at motionless things for another second lifted her into a sigh of sleep, motionlessness itself transported her into a swoon: yawning cautious, wandering among the objects of the space — childhood toys spread out over the furniture. A little camel. The giraffe. The elephant with raised trunk. Ah, bull, bull! crossing the air among the fleshy vegetables of sleep.

  Insulted Lucrécia Neves was holding the glass of water she’d brought from the bathroom. She seemed to be hearing through the silence something distant — awake — insistent — unanswerable and urgent.

  Soon she was in bed. She fell asleep awake like a candle.

  And the night in São Geraldo elapsed clean, astonished.

  Ants, rats, wasps, pink bats, herds of mares emerged sleepwalking from the sewers.

  What the girl was seeing in her sleep was opening her senses as a house opens at dawn. The silence was funereal, tranquil, a slow alarm that couldn’t be rushed. The dream was this: to be alarmed and slow. And also to look at the big things that were coming out from the tops of the houses just as you’d see yourself differently in someone else’s mirror: twisted in a passive, monstrous expression.

  But the girl’s monotonous joy was carrying on beneath the noise of the currents. The dream was unfolding as if the earth weren’t round but flat and infinite, and thus there was time. The second floor was keeping her in the air. She was breathing herself out.

  The mirror of the room.

  But the girl turned her head to the side. Her heart kept beating in the premises. Then the mirror woke her.

  She half-opened her eyelids, stared blind. Slowly the things in the room took up their own positions again, recovering their way of being seen by her. Now awake, her consciousness was more demented than her dream, and she was scratching her body with brutish hands.

  But soon she kept dreaming through the branches, pushing them away, deaf to advice. Peering foolishly at whatever she was seeing; even remembering the moment itself was unattainable— slow, insensitive, proliferated, she kept going. Searching. Sleep was her maximum attention.

  At every halt in the dream, she’d stare at an unknown street with new stones. Even in sleep she was feeling the want of a way of seeing. Attentive, spurred on, she was searching.

  All of a sudden on the lane the horses were growing smaller in the distance.

  The cry of a locomotive in the station sliced the room with wailing, shaking in her sleep the whole second floor! The girl was touched! amidst the catastrophe, pale inside her carriage, she slept deeper yet.

  An already remote whistle made the girl stop short in the dry part of her dream, feeling around with eyes sealed: a number had a certain spot unusable in calculations, the hard bottom: 5721387 — this was the number she’d found, bending over to fetch the pebble. Examining it stubborn and inexpressive, giving the dream more difficult moments: turning the pebble over and over.

  Until a dog barked on the corner. A barking dog is destiny! Summoned, she immediately tossed away the stone and kept searching without looking back. She was breathing herself out monotonous, symmetrical.

  On the headboard the glass of water was shining.

  Time was moving on and the night was rotting with crickets and frogs. In the room the air was saturated with the sweetness and love of the late hour.

  The girl was searching. Growing older, getting ready for the moment when she’d find it at last.

  The delicacy of the objects at rest was starting to fatigue her, they were already heavy in hands weak with sleep, such a balance hurt so much; and to say that this might only be an instrument! she groaned, scratched her face. And, dragging herself in the dream as best she could, she was now in front of the staircase of the Library, counting the steps.

  What wind.

  It was patient work to go down and climb up the stairs, to look with nakedness from the top, scanning the dust, testing the landing with her steps or examining it for hours. Finally making up her mind, she started scouring on her knees the stone of the landing. She rubbed the railing of the Library with her sleeve, spat to make it shine.

  She was rubbing, forging, polishing, lathing, sculpting, the demented master-carpenter — preparing pale every night the material of the city — and maybe at the very end she’d come to understand — she’d only understand at night — the indirect proof. Scouring the stone with perseverance, leaning from the top with the dishrag in her hand.

  She looked closely at a mark the rag would never erase, even embroidered a bit, quickly bought a few things, grabbing the purse that had fallen to the ground . . . she was dreaming freely as in a war. Searching.

  With packages under her arm she finally went to wait awhile in the stone square, every night that girl would go wait awhile in the stone square, stood beside the equestrian statue in order to wait awhile in the stone square. Over there was the hill in the dark. The dominion of the equines. The girl was looking. She was waiting in the stone square.

  Suddenly an urge overcame her, she turned toward the other side of the bed with ferocity — dreamed an instantaneous, hard thing, the hill was sliced with the crooked clarity of a badly-made drawing! ah, ah, the township was breathing itself out full and shivering.

  Already running out of time the girl was searching because even at night São Geraldo . . . — she was hurrying, stumbling on the gratings of the gutters, going deeper into cowardice, into the peaceful alleyways, into her lack of courage to rip up old papers and throw out old dresses, and she was terribly clever about this, hiding in the shadows of the stores, scratching herself radiant with her gloves — breathing extremely agitated, the towers gasping beneath the memory of wars and conquests.

  Napoleon’s horses were trembling impatiently. Napoleon atop Napoleon’s horse was halted in silhouette. Looking ahead in the dark. Behind, all the troops in silence.

  But morning didn’t come. They waited all night.

  Beneath the dream the engines of the township didn’t stop, didn’t stop, saliva was running from her open mouth.

  She finally fell into a deeper sleep. Awake as the moonlight is erect. She was sleeping so deeply that she’d become enormous. Dragging her body, searching.

  When she saw the gravel of the stream, she started to hear.

  São Geraldo was extremely gentle and buzzing . . . rotten, peaceful.

  Had she searched so much that she’d made a mistake and fallen into a dateless era? even before the first horses. But it wa
s lovely — Lucrécia Neves was clapping her hands with sleepiness, the countryside was lovely! filled with a harmony that was incomparable, able, able, the old destroyed hills were repeating gravely. The echo always had the same insufferable height, traversed by new heights and by new heights . . . — she making an effort in the only possible way to hear them: remembering them.

  The plume was touching with crazed insistence her ear . . . the intimate engines weren’t stopping. For an instant, the breathed-out sounds became infantile, touched by the same virgin mouth. And now out of tune — an open mouth singing without ecstasy, with a loyal destination; singing from yet before the things.

  Or was it just her breathing? sometimes Lucrécia Neves was well aware it was just her breathing filling the night. And sometimes the breathed-out sounds would become a bleating abundant with water. What was dangerous is that at no moment was there a mistake. Because it was the first time. And nothing could be repeated without making a mistake.

  Then she cracked open her lips, breathing through them.

  And then it really was from her mouth that the sweet confusion of the countryside was born. An instant however in which chastity was intensified and the pure voice would go off-key with love, now amidst the time of horses dragging wagons among the things.

  In fact the breathing was already trembling, fecund, and there was already a threat in the burning heart of each vibration; the girl was sleeping with superhuman effort. Her breathing was already splitting on the first objects . . . which were of an extrinsic beauty!

  Could this be a new way of seeing things? of an extrinsic beauty! she was clapping sleepy hands. While the sounds were getting more and more in tune, since the first objects were already trying to give themselves: whatever existed was explaining itself as best it could, and the best it could was the trembling of a flower in the pitcher . . . things arising and giving themselves in horror — and the best they could do was the serenity of a halted object.