He lifted his eyebrows with sincere surprise, and his eyelids,
open wider for a minute, left his blue eyes suddenly naked in a
sign of mistrust. The woman did not go on right away, as if she
were sure that she could hold him better with silence than with
unlikely words.
"So?" he asked, looking at her defensively askance.
"It's like this," she said slowly, as if she was no longer in a
hurry now that he was the one who inexplicably seemed to have
a hasty curiosity. "It's like this," she repeated as if she still did
not know what she was going to say.
Pushed then by the now authoritarian expectation of the
man, she repeated, "It's like this : Ermelinda is a very impressionable person, you might even say sensitive."
They remained there looking at each other.
"Anything can impress Ermelinda; anything can make her
lose her composure. She," Vit6ria said; licking her lips-"she
can lose her balance over anything. She's very impressionable,
even very sensitive. When she came to live with me after her
husband died, I knew very well what sort of person I was going
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to have in the house because, I don't know whether you're aware
of it, she spent her entire childhood in bed. But she had to live
somewhere and she didn't have any money, so she came here.
Since Ermelinda is so sensitive I feel a little responsible for her,
you understand? I watch what she does very closely, you understand? Oh, please believe me; she's not unbalanced, not in the least: I never knew anyone who was less at a loss. But what
happens is that she, since she's so kindhearted and giving she
doesn't take spiritualism as just something symbolic. She doesn't
really know what spiritualism is and she mixes it up a little with
Catholicism, you understand; and then she becomes a little
removed from us. Please understand that I don't mean that she
loses her head. Quite the opposite. But she can give herself the
privilege of being silly without really being silly," Vit6ria said
with a sudden wave of admiration, and her face contracted in
envy and bitterness.
The man was intrigued and nodded yes. He stood there in
vague suspense, waiting for her to go on, his face already looking
a little malicious in its expectancy.
"So," Vit6ria said after a pause and running her tongue over
her lips again, "so, since I am responsible for Ermelinda . . ."
She paused again, and this time she looked at him indecisively without knowing what else to say. But he, beyond appeal, was waiting.
"What I mean," the woman began again in a strong tone, as
if she were talking about something entirely different, "what I
mean is that perhaps it would be good if you were a little careful.
I mean : I know perfectly well that it's a lot to ask, but I wonder
if you couldn't be careful so that one day she wouldn't, let's say,
get interested in you . . . Oh, nothing serious," she said subtly
as if the answer had occurred to her. "Nothing very serious !" she
repeated with a sudden assurance at having had the opportunity
of interrupting him with her spiritual penetration. "Ermelinda
isn't capable of that! But if you could only watch out . . . The
fact is you can't trust her. She loses her composure over anything, and when she gets excited a little she blushes and squeaks.
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. . . For example, she's not a heavy eater, but if she's encouraged in a friendly way she thinks that she has to match the friendship by eating a lot, eating like a servant girl . . .
"
She stopped suddenly. The fact was that if the man had
been waiting with surprise in his eyes before, now the desire to
laugh was plain to see on his face.
"I know," she continued impassively, wiping the perspiration
from her forehead with difficulty, "I know that it isn't up to you;
I understand that quite well. You don't have any argument with
me. I know very well that one person can, let's say, get interested
in another without the other one's, let's say, having the least
notion of it . . ."
Could the horrible malice in the man only be that peculiar
expression of his, or was it a genuine expression already? Her
uneasiness was holding her back; she flicked the fly away from
her chin.
"But the fact is," she then said nobly, "since we can't count
on Ermelinda's good sense, as I said before; and the fact that she
might get interested in you, I can only tell you then that you
yourself have to help! " she concluded with relief, as if she had
just finished a great piece of logic. There was the tremble of a
slight triumph in her voice; she had never thought she would
ever be able to get out from under the weight of the words.
The man seemed to be quite content. And he looked at her;
she was so immaculate and satisfied!
"You're afraid that she'll go to bed with me some day?" he
asked with great pleasure. "Is that what you're afraid of? But
how could that happen ! And besides there's no time left; you
said that, didn't you, you and the professor? But what bothers
me is that a conscience as clean as yours could stoop so low as to
imagine such a thing! You really amaze me! "
The woman was quiet, her mouth half-open . . . Th e man
looked at her with careful attention, filled with delight.
"What I meant to say," she answered quickly, skipping over
his rudeness-"what I meant to say is that-let's say the world is
too much for Ermelinda because she's very sensitive," she said,
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The Apple in the Dark
putting on drawing room manners. And without realizing it, she
brought her hand up to her blouse and closed the neck a little.
"The world," she concluded, frightened, without paying the
least attention to what she was saying, "is too much for Ermlelinda; she can't take it," she added foolishly.
"She can take it," the man said unexpectedly in a sluggish
tone, without looking at her but without running away.
The woman's heart contracted not from what he had said
and what she had barely heard but perhaps because she had not
expected any reply. Only then did she realize that there they
were standing and talking to each other; only then did she see
that she had not been talking to herself. And, for the love of
God, had she not also been the one who had brought about that
undeniable wound on the trunk of the tree, and had she not also
after all brought on that feeling of soft offense that the man had
offered her; or brought on that sun that was blotting out everything in front of her eyes. Only then had she fully realized that she was not alone. And the feeling she got filled her with the
tremulous excitement she would get after having carried a heavy
load; she finally saw with amazement that she had carried it. She
had gone farther than she had thought she could go and now it
was too late to tum back. Even if nothing else happened, she
would never be able to deny what had already happened . . .
She had gone so
far that she could not go back, and her skin
pimpled out like a chicken's. Everything around her then
seemed to be infected with the possibility of her becoming real,
a possibility which was suddenly very revealing-the tree, almost
intact, but doomed to fall nonetheless; today's sun which was
nothing but yesterday's rain, everything that was solid and still
ready to fall. And even in the man's eyes the woman could
almost guess at the gentle spot there is in a person's eyes, the
vulnerable spot in the coldest of eyes : possibility.
"And if I really did say something?" it occurred to her. Did
the man understand? Or didn't he? And for an instant-facing
all the unequal things that were receiving the same sun nevertheless-for an instant there was not even any contradiction in
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the fact that he understood her and that he did not understand
her at the same time, as if that was the only way it could have
been. But had she not spoken? How could she guess as to what
point it had all been understood by that fearful body the man
had. And even deeper, even more inexplicable-how was she to
know up to what point her own words were those she had
spoken or those she had kept quiet?
Once she had been initiated into the delights of communication, all obstacles seemed insurmountable, as if she had been turned over to the miracle of the sap that feeds plants and it was
saying, "It can't be done." She did not know that certain things
are done all by themselves or else they never would be done.
Used to the strength of her own determination, she had ended
up by thinking that she walked because she wanted to and slept
because she had decided to. And now she was thinking that
before she spoke, it was essential to know how speaking is done.
With a slight feeling of despair for happiness, she looked at the
countryside and the plants and the flies; and all of tha t had been
made all by itself, everything knew how to live. But she-she did
not know how to do it. "Because I am unhappy," she said peacefully to herself then. But could that imminence for which everything suddenly seemed laid out, the great risk that a person runs, be unhappiness? And as if that were precisely our happiness. "I
think that that is being happy," she thought with curiosity.
Because if both of them were there conversing . . . because if
the river was running full and slowly . . . because if, raising up
her eyes to the thick crown of the tree, she was illuminated
. . . because if the beetles burst into the air . . . because if
moments are never repeated, and if knowing that we have this
delicate thirst . . . what other happiness could she want except
that? She wanted to be assured that the thing she felt was so real
that it was on the point of happening. She wanted-she wanted
everything she knew to be less mysterious.
"You missed my meaning," she said, swallowing her saliva in
the severity of her joy. "I don't mean that Ermelinda can't take
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The Apple in the Dark
it. Ermelinda would be able to respond, let's say, even to love,
but she wouldn't resist. Ermelinda has a sickness of the soul, as
the . . . as is said . . .
"-she was going to add "as the professor says," but she caught herself in time.
The man did not answer. Vit6ria felt that not only had she
not convinced him, but also that perhaps he thought she had
said too much. And if that was what he thought, it was because,
having lost the habit of speaking, she herself had the painful
impression that she had been prattling on with great pleasure.
Here she was, accused of talking too much ! She was pricked with
pride mixed with pain.
"Everything in Ermelinda is held together by a delicate
thread ! " she shouted as if in a final order.
"And in you?" he asked very calmly.
Before she even felt the question as a small shock, in what it
implied as a personal offense, Vit6ria relaxed all over; it was
sweet to hear him talk about her. "You, you, you." The respectful and sweet word finally untied some knot in her breast, she who had always been afraid of not being respected.
"Not me," she replied without vanity. "I'm strong."
An instant later it occurred to her that she had really only said
to the man that she was strong to the point of being able to
stand love. Had she simply offered herself to him? Her eyes
blinked several times as if that thought had blinded them with
surprise. Because she never spoke much, she no longer knew up
to what point words were likely to reveal thought, and her heart
was pounding in horror. Could the man have understood? And
the worst of it, she thought in reaction, is that it was a lie; it
wasn't love that she wanted!
Fortunately the expression on Martim's silent face was vacant. She had been afraid that he would show that he had understood. And then right away, for an instant, she wished
precisely that it might have happened : that he would have said
he had understood and that everything would finally have
crumbled. In the next instant she would have killed him if he
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had dared to understand. She could not tolerate the idea that he
found it obvious that she loved him-above all she reacted
because it was not true.
"All right. I'm going," Martim said.
He left, and his boots were already beginning to make a
hollow sound on the wooden plank.
"Wait," she said with a harsh voice. "I'm not through."
He turned around obediently, his steps in the rhythm with
which he had started to go away.
"I want to tell you," she said, pale, "that I was not asking
you questions about your life as you seemed to think. Your life
doesn't interest me. You work, you earn your pay, and that's all I
need or want to know. Is that understood?"
He laughed. For the first time, he laughed.
"It is."
He turned to go away again.
"Wait," she called. "When I've finished speaking you can
leave. I'm not used to having people turn their backs on me."
Again he stopped. And again he went back over to her. But
this time he stopped farther away from the woman, as if he
knew that in a little while he would start to go and in a little
while she would call him back : Therefore he stopped halfway.
She remained standing stiffly. She was paler.
"I still want to tell you that you should not think that you
can judge by appearances. You don't want to say anything about
your life, but I know very well that you also don't want to be
judged merely by what is apparent because you are vain and
deceitful. So don't you judge in your tum when you see an older
woman taking care of a farm and think that the woman is just
an older woman taking care of a farm," she said with great
authority, as if she had said something intelligible.
When she had said "older" he had not reacted at all, but she
thought she had noted a certain surprise in his eyes; and her
heart contracted with joy.
"W
hat I mean to say," she continued with pride, "is that
The Apple in the Dark
this is not my whole life" -and she pointed with a shaking hand
at the sunny fields on the farm.
"You don't talk about those things," he murmured heavily,
fleeing with his eyes.
"But I want to talk about them !" she shouted quickly, as if
he might physically stop her from going on. "Listen," she said,
somewhere between an order and a request, accustomed as she
was to giving him orders. "Listen."
"I'm not a priest," he said brutally.
"But listen! " she repeated with the same violence.
"I don't want to hear your secrets," he said then, very
severely.
"You're afraid," Vit6ria said illogically.
"Afraid? Not that either." He had realized in time that she
was trying to drag him through her life. "No, that's going too
far. I'm not afraid. It's just that it's useless to talk about things
like that."
"But listen! I want to tell you that my life is not just this."
"But why me?" he exclaimed furiously.
"Because I need a witness! " she replied in the desperation of
rage. "Don't think that my life is just this. What would you
say-I wonder, what would you say, with that way you have of
sneering at other people's lives-what would you say if I were to
tell you that I'm something of a poetess?" she shouted.
Martim looked at her with such surprise that she became
paralyzed. A reddish color spread out over the woman's startled
face.
"Well," he said, laughing suddenly and shrugging his shoulders, "I wouldn't say a word."
"I'm something of a poetess," she repeated as if she had not
heard his interruption, "I don't write because I don't have time.
But I do collect proverbs and thoughts. I have a huge collection," she was surprised and she knew that she had just destroyed the secret of her collection forever and that she would never again copy down a single proverb, because not being
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understood by the man had disoriented her. "I collect thoughts,"
she said very restlessly. "I have a lot of life inside. I'm very
curious about life," she exclaimed in an outburst of frankness.
"Everything in the world interests me and I study the open book
of life. And my inner life is very rich," she said, and she shook
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