The Apple in the Dark

by Clarice Lispector

  on," he discovered with a weariness that immediately took the

  fascination out of the discovery that one day he would feel it

  when he found out how much love there was in it-"from now

  on I want things that are equal to each other, and not different

  from each other. You talk too much about things that shine; and

  yet there's a core that doesn't shine. And that's what I want. I

  want the extreme beauty of monotony. There's something that's

  dark and doesn't glow-and that's what counts. You bore me

  with your fear, because even that shines. From now on I want

  things that are equal to one another." And she still came around

  to say that she was disappointed . . .

  "You're afraid," he said, uselessly using some sort of dignity

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  and trying, with definite courtesy, to maintain the tone of the

  woman's abstract polemic which, in the sunlight, had trouble

  being sharp.

  The lady had trouble believing what she had heard :

  "Af ra 'd

  1 ?. I. "

  Afraid? Her? Her impulse was to laugh, as if laughter could

  have answered the absurd. Afraid? She shook her head in disbelief. She, who ran that farm with the strength of a man? She, who gave orders to that man standing there, afraid neither of

  herself nor of him? She, who had quietly fought against the

  drought and had conquered it! She, who knew how to wait for it

  to rain. Afraid? She, who walked about in her dirty boots and

  with her face exposed without being afraid of never being loved.

  She, who courageously went through the inheritance from her

  father to keep that farm functioning, without even knowing

  why, courageously waiting for the day when that place would be

  the best in the region, and then she would be able to extend her

  fences. Afraid?

  Her whole body revolted against the man's lack of understanding and the insult of the word; her whole being got ready for a gesture that would make her own indignation explode, but

  none seemed strong enough to her. Afraid ! She looked at him

  surprised, bitter. What did he know about her, that man? How

  could that man who was looking into her face now without any

  fear ever understand her great courage. She perceived for the

  first time how stupid his face was. From the taut forehead one

  could guess at the difficulty of thought; there was a painful effort

  showing in the face of that man. And she shook her head, bitter,

  ironically. Since she had known that he was an engineer, she had

  never really thought about his intelligence. But when one looked

  at him nakedly, how stubborn and crude he was ! The man's face

  had that sleepwalking perseverance of stupid people.

  "Afraid? Yes." he said patiently as if he were talking to a

  child.

  The repeated insult made her tremble, and this time her

  whole being got ready to strike back with an insult. Afraid, her

  . her mouth twisted with sarcasm.

  The Apple in the Dark

  But instead of that, the features of her face suddenly gave

  way. She could not take any more. Afraid? Yes. Afraid? Yes. She

  remembered how being afraid had been the solution. She remembered how once she had humbly accepted fear like someone kneeling with his head lowered to receive baptism, and how her

  courage from then on had been one of living with fear. Afraid,

  her? And suddenly, as if she were regurgitating her soul, she

  shouted with the pride of her fifty mute years :

  "Afraid, yes ! What do you think that means? Afraid, yes.

  Listen then and take it if you can; take it if you're not afraid.

  I've already been afraid. I took care of my old father over the

  years, and when he died I was all alone . . .

  " The woman

  stopped herself. When her father had died she had suddenly

  been all by herself and on her own, and with the clumsy impulse

  of those who start late and no longer have the skill for it, she had

  wanted for the first time to try what she called "living," -which,

  in a first and uncertain step toward glory, would be to go by

  herself to a hotel and stay there all alone and concentrate on

  herself and have the highest idea of herself, like a monk in his

  cell; and that would be the furtive way that she would make her

  first obeisance to . . . to what? "I went to be by myself and to

  concentrate;" she said with pride, "and I left everybody and I

  took a ferry with my suitcase. But once on the boat, once I was

  on the boat I began to become that awful person I had recognized, that ordeal, that almost good but dangerous feeling.

  As soon as I had stepped on that boat that was rocking wildly

  everything touched me and made me sad, curious, alive, full of

  curiosity-but wasn't that just what I had wanted? Wasn't that

  just what I'd gone to look for? It was, but why was it that I

  refused to realize that it was happening? Why did I look at

  everything with my head held high, making believe? It was still

  afternoon when I got to the island-my heart contracted with

  fright when I saw the big old hotel with high-ceilinged rooms

  and flies in the dining room, and people relaxing on the terrace

  and looking at me as I passed among them and begged their

  pardon; what was lacking there was the protection there is in the

  smallness of a cell, and I had made a great mistake. I didn't

  ( 2 8 5 )

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  know anyone on the terrace and I didn't let any of them guess

  that it made my heart beat faster. I left my bag in my room, but

  my impulse was to get on the ferry and go back; but that would

  have been failure! Had I gone there for some reason to endure

  what was happening to me, since that was not the life that I had

  wanted? And if I couldn't accept it, was it just because it was

  more naked than I had expected-it would be defeat and desertion. But very much stronger than the shame of running away was the anticipation of what a night all alone in that room

  would be. Then I went downstairs and without any shame I

  inquired about the schedule of the ferries going back, and my

  horror was confirmed : they told me, 'Only the next morning.'

  Then I calmly went out of the hotel, but outside the air was

  bright and clear; it was afternoon, and the blue sea made the

  most delicate line against the horizon that I have ever seen. The

  beauty was so painful, and I was so alive; and the only way that I

  had learned to be alive was to feel myself so helpless. I was alive,

  but it was as if there were no answer to being alive. Then I

  quickly went back to the hotel, driven away by the light of the

  beach, and among strangers I gobbled down my meal with great

  courage. After dinner I tried to take a walk at night outside the

  hotel, because hadn't that been what I had planned? Wasn't

  that an encounter with day itself and with night itself? But

  outside the hotel the whole beach was glowing in the dark.

  Beautiful, all white with so much sand, with the dark sea-but

  the foam, I remember that the foam was white in the dark, and

  I thought that the foam looked like a piece of lace, there was no
<
br />   moon, but the foam was white like a piece of lace in the dark.

  Then I hurried back to my room and quickly turned into the

  daughter of an aged father because it was only as a daughter that

  had I known calm and composure, and only then did I realize

  the security I had lost with the death of my father; and I resolved that from then on I wanted to be only what I had always been before, only that. I put on a clean starched nightgown

  because that was a pleasure I was accustomed to, and I combed

  my hair for a long time because those were the habits through

  ( 2 8 6 )

  The Apple in the Dark

  which I understood myself and knew myself, and I smoothed my

  hair so much with the brush that I managed to make myself a

  thing that was neither raw nor exposed. I was full of flattery for

  myself; I was treating myself with ceremony and trying to see if I

  could reach some level where I would feel comradeship with the

  frightened coward I was being, and for whom I had such

  repugnance, but I pretended that everything was perfect. I even

  sighed comfortably in bed with the book in my hand, the book

  that I had never thought I would open on the island. I knew

  that I was not reading, but I never let myself be convinced that I

  was making believe; and it had not been reading on an island

  that I had come to find there. I tried to ignore the fact that God

  was giving me exactly what I had asked Him for and that 1-1

  was saying 'No.' I was pretending that I did not understand that

  I had built up a whole hope in what was happening to me at

  last, but that there I was with my glasses on and the open book,

  as if I were so much in love that I could only shout 'No.' But I

  also knew that if in that very moment I did not pick up the calm

  thread of my previous life, my balance would never come back

  and my things would never be recognized by me. And that's why

  I pretended to be reading. But I could hear the ocean waves; I

  could hear, I could hear! It was then that all at once all the

  lights in the hotel went out. Just like that, all at once, without

  any sound, without any warning, nothing. Only the next day did

  I learn that at nine o'clock at night the lights were turned off to

  save electricity. The lights had all gone out, and I was left with

  the open book in my hand; I was left in the dark as I had never

  been before. Only last night was I left in that dark for the

  second time in my life-like that, with that simple way of being

  in the dark. I had never been in it, and I had never been in the

  dark by the sea. It was very dark as if I was trying to find the

  hotel and did not know where it was; the only thing I could

  touch was the book in my hand. The fear, the fear that you

  accuse me of, would not let me make one single movement, but

  afterwards it became surprise-then there burst forth what I had

  only barely kept back until that instant-the beauty of the

  ( 2 8 7 )

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  beach, the fine line of the horizon, the solitude to which I had

  come of my own free will, the rocking of the boat that I had

  thought was pleasant, and also the fear of the intensity of joy

  that I can reach-and unable to lie any more, I cried as I prayed

  in the dark, praying as I said 'Never this again, oh Lord, never let

  me be so bold, never let me be so happy. Take away my courage

  for living forever; don't ever let me allow myself to go so deep

  into myself, don't ever let me give myself grace, so pitilessly,

  because I don't want grace, because I'd rather die without ever

  having seen it rather than see it just once! Because God in His

  goodness allows, you know. He allows and He counsels people to

  be cowards and protect themselves. His favorite children are

  those who dare; but He's strict with someone who dares, and

  He's benevolent with someone who doesn't have the courage to

  look straight ahead and He blesses those abject people who are

  careful not to go too far into rejoicing and into the search for

  joy. Disappointed, He blesses those who don't have the courage.

  He knows that there are people who can't live with the happiness there is inside of them, and then He gives them a surface to live on, and He gives them a sadness. He knows that there are

  people who have to pretend, because beauty is arid. Why is

  beauty so arid? And then I said to myself, 'Be afraid, Vit6ria,

  because being afraid is salvation.' Because things can't be looked

  at face on, nobody's that strong, only people who damn themselves are that strong. But for us joy has to be like a smothered star in our hearts, joy has to be just a secret, joy has to be

  something like a glow that people never, never should let escape.

  You feel a splinter and you don't know where it came from;

  that's the way joy should be. You shouldn't know why, you

  should feel something like : 'But what's the matter with me?' -

  and not know. Even when it touches something, that thing will

  glow because of the great secret that was snuffed out-I was

  afraid, because who am I without contention? When I was

  sitting in the ferry the next day I thought that I had died. But as

  if before I had died I had received communion."

  Martim was pale. Oh, what he would have given to insult

  that naked and shameless face.

  The Apple in the Dark

  "I don't believe a word you said," he said.

  But as if both of them had understood each other beyond

  the words, the woman was not offended by what he had said.

  Nor did he repeat it, as if he really had not opened his mouth.

  He turned his eyes away only because he did not wish to look at

  that pained face. And she, she only sighed. They were tired as if

  they had been doing some kind of violent exercise. In some way

  the woman's stupid outburst had been good for them, because

  inexplicably, besides being tired, the two of them were now

  tranquil.

  Besides, nothing seemed to have happened. There is nothing

  so destructive for spoken words as a sun that keeps on burning.

  They remained silent, giving themselves time to forget. By a

  tacit pact they would forget that rather ugly thing which had

  happened. Neither of them was young and they had had some

  experience. A person has the nobility not to notice certain

  things, and has pity on us and forgets, and has the tact not to

  have noticed-if one wanted to stop a moment of comprehension from crystalizing us and making our life something else.

  Neither of them was young, and they were prudent. So then,

  after the outburst they remained silent, as if nothing had happened, because no one can live in fright and no one could live on the basis of having vomited or of having seen someone

  vomit; those were things that one does not think too much

  about, those were the facts of a life.

  The lady wiped the sweat from her face and took a quick

  look at that narrow head, that curly hair. There had been restored once more to his face the calm human stupidity, that opaque and obtuse stolidity which is our great strength. They

  both looked into the emptiness of each other's eyes. Without

  pain, one seemed to be asking the other: "Who a
re you?" As

  they looked at each other, the basic one-to-the-otherness was not

  caught by them, and yet it was once more with that principal

  thing that they were fighting. Until, out of emptiness, their eyes

  began to fill up and become individual, and the one was now no

  longer imprisoned by absorption in the other. Then they looked

  at each other frankly, with nothing to say-only that; extreme

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  frankness. Then they averted their eyes without any pain, in

  common agreement, knowingly; and again they waited an instant for the frankness which never has any words, to have time to go away, so they could go on living.

  Without insisting she said calmly, as if they had just had a

  friendly conversation, "Naturally, if that night on the island I

  had known everything that was going to happen, I would have

  taken a chance on being more unhappy. But at such a time, one

  always thinks it's forever. And it happened too that at that

  moment I didn't understand that I was experiencing exactly

  what I'd gone to look for; I didn't recognize it completely, and I

  thought I was mistaken. Naturally, after that, I became more

  careful. I knew then that you can't approach things directly the

  way I had. Never directly," she said, as if it were a formula. "I

  also want to tell you that I was afraid, yes, but not because I was

  sorry for myself. I'm never sorry for myself," she said without

  vanity.

  And, by God, she wasn't.

  "It was only a matter of finding out that one doesn't approach things directly," she said then in a conciliatory way.

  "And I learned that all by myself. All by myself," she added

  with a certain simplicity.

  "Why didn't you ever think to ask for somebody's help?" he

  asked, bored, without really knowing what he was saying.

  "Don't you understand," she said, irritated again, "that I'm

  not capable of asking? That I need so much that nobody can

  give it to me? In that case, you probably don't see that I would

  ask for more than they could give me." In her excitement she

  forgot that she had no right to be annoyed, because if the man

  was listening to her, it was only because he was doing her the

  favor or because she had obliged him to listen; and she forgot