The Apple in the Dark

by Clarice Lispector

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  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

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  T H E A P P L E

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  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

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  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.

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  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.

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  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

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  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

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  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?