of a man who had discreetly perspired. But his upset was giving
him a feeling of weight upon his chest. He began to sweat a
little more, and he mopped himself with gentility, with light
taps of his handkerchief on his forehead, even though he had
only managed to breathe just now. The cold sweat moistened his
face again, he passed his trembling hand across his mouth. But
his upset grew larger. Then he smiled carefully, with ironic
abstention. He still had nothing to do with what was happening
to him. It suddenly seemed to him that the physical location of
a soul was in the chest, imprisoned there the way a dog's soul is
imprisoned in the body of a dog. He opened his mouth in a
smile, and he had that total muteness; if he had wanted his soul
to speak it would have barked. He stood there startled, smiling.
But he had spoken ! He had spoken at last. The phrase about
his wife had been one of the most ancient phrases, slowly
recovered the way a paralytic takes a step. And there were even
other words waiting for him, if his tongue could only get
up . . . he had discovered that with curiosity when he had said
( 3 2 2 )
The Apple in the Dark
so simply that he had suspected a lover. Which, if it were not
the best of truths, was at least a truth that had the value of
exchange for something. With curiosity, with the weight on his
chest, he was exchanging once more, buying and selling. It had
been that, then, that had happened to him : he had suspected a
lover. Only that? And everything else that he had figured out,
thought about, or wanted-everything else began to become so
unreal that he passed a soft hand across his mouth. Could a
man's fate be invented? He passed his hand across his dry
mouth, fascinated.
"Because of jealousy," Vit6ria said, demolished. "You loved
her so much that you were capable of . . .
" The woman went
quietly back into her depths, looking at that deep man.
Martim trembled in his great surprise. "He had loved her so
much . . .
" Vit6ria had said. That must have been it, then!
Intrigued, Martim looked at her.
And among the four men whom he was now examining one
by one, the long interregnum of his dream suddenly expired. "He
had loved her so much," Vit6ria had said in explanation. Perhaps it did not even matter that he had never really loved his wife. But, reduced to its own proportions, that was how he could
understand it : "He had loved her so much."
"He had loved her so much?" he was startled again, still not
stable on those legs which were being given to him. He looked
startled at the four men and the woman who were waiting. "It
must have been true, then. The truth of others had to be his
truth, then." The truth of others had to be his truth, or the work
of millions of people would be doomed. Wouldn't that be the
great place that everybody had in common? His eyes blinked
from liveliness and sharpness and curiosity. Even if he knew that
he had not loved her, he tried with some degree of caution to
make the words of others his words, because after all, they
couldn't be empty words : "Because a man does love his wife."
With a certain avidity, he was clinging to the wisdom of four
little men-and suddenly, suddenly even if it had been possible,
he had no desire to run away.
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
And then, as if he had not seen people for a long time, he
looked with curiosity and some emotion at the messengers. He
had forgotten what they were like.
"He had loved her so much?" he insisted, surprised again,
forcing himself with some impatience now to recover the outside
truth. Yes, it had been because of love. Martim still wanted to
see if he could hit the mark in establishing a compromise
between his truth and the truth of others, trying to make out of
both of the two sides one single truth : "Yes, it had been because
of love, not for his life, but because of love," he thought,
blinking his eyes. "A crime of love . . . for the world," he
chanced, disconcerted, clumsily making a try at presumption.
"What nonsense am I thinking?" he startled himself with,
because the faces of the four men, which were becoming more
and more objective, would not allow him the slightest compromise. They only asked him for the hard choice. "A crime of love for the world?" Martim was ashamed : things like that did not
exist! Only acts existed! Only people's faces existed !
But once more he tried in a timid way to build a bridge
between himself and the four men. "A crime of extreme love,
yes, which he had not been able to bear except in perfection; a
crime of pity; of pity and disillusion? And of heroism. In a
gesture of rage, repugnance, disdain, and love he had done a
beautiful job of violence."
Martim wanted to go on thinking like that because he had
even been getting close to the mark. But the faces of the men
had begun to be an obstacle that was growing larger and larger.
If he wanted to go on thinking like that the solution would be to
avoid those faces with their open eyes. Then he turned his eyes
away, as he had done once in a restaurant when he had been
eating a steak and a child had stationed himself behind the
window to contemplate him.
Perturbed, he turned his eyes away. "Yes, a crime of love."
In a world of silence, he had spoken. Oh, what silliness was
going through his head? Martim was ashamed, even though he
had not been ashamed before of things that were much worse.
But this time he was really embarrassed because in spite of his
( 3 2 4 )
The Apple in the Dark
not looking at the men, the four men were undeniably standing
there. "What was my crime, really?" he wondered, still not
looking at them out of fear. "What was my crime? I substituted
the real, unknown, and impossible act for a shout of denial."
Perhaps that had been the sense of his crime.
"But denial?" How could he understand the meaning of that
word, if denial, his blow, suddenly seemed to him now the most
obstinate tremor of hope, and the hand stretched out as far as it
would go to the four men. Had his crime been a shout of
negation-or of appeal? "Answer me."
"What did you say, exactly, about my loving. What was it
exactly?" he implored, extremely confused, because he was a
man who never should have sought the depths. He was basically
a person to be led.
"I said . . .
" Vit6ria, after automatically starting to obey
him, looked at him in silence, unable to express herself. Now
that she knew the facts about Martim, now that she was finally
looking at him with open eyes, now she did not know him. And
like a blind person who has got his vision back and cannot
recognize with his eyes what his sensitive hands know by heart,
she closed her eyes for an instant then, trying to get back her
previously complete recognition; she opened them again and
tried to make the two images into one. "I said . . .
" again she
looked at him quietly; but because she no longer needed him for
anything she could also look at him with pity and disdain. "I
said," she repeated then, bitter and untouchable, "that you
loved her so much that, out of jealousy-"
"Yes, yes, now I remember! " he interrupted quickly, his eyes
moved.
Had he been jealous of her? Oh, Lord, but I'd forgotten one
of the capital truths!
The men were talking quietly among themselves.
"You might be sorry to know it," the detective with the dark
tobacco on his lapel then said ironically, "but she didn't die. The
ambulance got there in time, and they were able to save your
wife's life."
They all looked at Martim with curiosity.
T H E A PPLE
I N T H E D AR K
"Wonderful," Martim said finally, and his eyes glistened wet
for a moment.
So she had not even died.
And that was the way everything was snuffed out. There
wasn't even any crime.
What had happened then? To be honest, a man would
probably have to say that he had tried to kill his wife because he
was jealous of her, because, as any person could guess, he had
loved that sleepy wife of his so much. Clinging to that immediately, Martim then asked himself in his affiiction, "Will she forgive me? How long will I spend in jail? Will I still have time
to begin to love her, so that what will happen in the end will be
that I loved her all the time?" He was making an effort to
construct a retrospective truth.
"And my son? ! " he shouted with a jump, like a man who has
woken up too late. Using words again, he shivered. He had
always been crazy about that boy of his-and now those words
were fitting him perfectly and he accepted them with greed.
"What about my son!"
"Your wife," the mayor said severely, "deserved a much
better fate than being married to you. She hid everything from
the boy. Your son thinks you're off on a trip."
And now that? Martin's eyes were shiny with tears. And now
that? What would he be able to make out of that, for example?
So that was his wife! A great woman. He saw her again while she
yawned in front of the mirror and actively scratched her armpit.
Brave and good-everything he had known about her was now
becoming dim in the presence of the four men, and all that was
left was that she was brave and good. The other truth-a truth
that was completely useless in the presence of the four men
whose strength simplified them and gave them size-the other
truth had become j ust as nonexistent as the crime that had never
come to be. Martim got an unexpected pleasure out of using
words that had some value in the world : brave and good. They
were beautiful words-because the existence of hollow words
like that had saved his son's soul.
The Apple in the Dark
That sentimentalizing of decency captured Martim with a
painful assault.
"Brave and good," he said aloud then, so that the men could
see that he was one of them.
The four quiet men looked at him, the four representatives.
Representing, mute and beyond appeal, the harsh struggle that
is joined every day against greatness, our moral greatness; representing the struggle that is courageously joined every day against our kindness, because real kindness is a violence; representing
the struggle that we n1ake every day against our own freedom,
which is too big and which we diminish with careful effort. We,
who are so objective that we end up being only that part of
ourselves which is useful; with application we make of ourselves
the man that another man can recognize and use, and through
discretion we are unaware of the ferocity of our love; and
through delicacy we pass by the saint and the criminal at a
distance; and when someone speaks about kindness and suffering, we lower our ignorant eyes without saying a word in our favor; we apply ourselves to give of ourselves only what will not
be frightening, and when someone speaks of heroism we do not
understand. The four men standing there, representing . . .
Then, suddenly-oh, hell, oh, hell ! Suddenly, with a quick
look at the impassive faces of the men, which had noses,
mouths, eyes, birthmarks, and heads, Martim realized, startled,
they know! He realized that everybody knows the truth. And
that was precisely the game : act as if you did not know . . .
Those were the rules of the game. How stupid he had been, he
thought, appalled, shaking his head in disbelief. How ridiculous
had been his idea of wanting to save something that was already
being saved. They all know the truth, nobody is ignorant of it!
Startled as he faced the noses and mouths with which we are
born, Martim looked at the four men : they all knew the truth.
And even if they did not know it, the people's faces knew it.
Besides, everybody knows everything. And one time or another
somebody rediscovers gunpowder, and his heart pounds. People
get mixed up when they try to speak, but everybody knows
( 3 2 7 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E DA R K
everything. That silent face with which we are stubbornly born.
The men were conversing in low voices. And during that
time Martim was trying to grasp his mistake. His previous
mistake had been trying to understand by means of thought.
And when he had tried to rebuild the construction he had fallen
irremediably into the same error. But if a person does not
become perverted by thought, an intact person would know the
truth. What a fiasco his had been he discovered with shame and
sentimentality. As if he had gone to tell a mother how to love
her child, and the mother had lowered her eyes and let him rant
on-and suddenly he would understand that without any words
and even without understanding, the mother was loving her
child. And then, vexed-in one of those shames through which
very ardent people pass-he would tiptoe away, promising himself that never again, oh never again would he make so much noise. Because millions of people were working without cease,
day and night, saving. Only impatient people did not understand
the rules of the game. He had thought that the bushes were
sleeping untouched, and suddenly he discovered from the faces
with noses that people have, he discovered that the ants were
silently gnawing all over the bushes. "Hell ! we're interminable! "
What he had not understood was that there was a pact of
silence. And, ridiculously heroic, he had come along with his
words. Others before him had already tried to break the silence.
No one had succeeded. Because long before those who have the
gift of speech, the four men and all the others already knew.
Martim passed his hand across his head, confused. The men
were talking, studying the map. The truth was that, infected by
the quiet faces of the men who were talking over the map,
Martim, as if he too had lost his speech, could no longer think
now in terms of words, he w
as metamorphosing himself into the
four men, and transfiguring himself into himself at last-and
penetrating that step beyond, whose maximum point consists in
having a face that knows. And that was why he no longer knew
how to express, not even to himself, the belief that everything
was certain.
The Apple in the Dark
Miraculously certain. Oh, Martim knew that in the face of
intelligence it would be very foolish to say that. But what was
happening was that, supported at last by the four, he was not
afraid of being foolish. Oh, how could one explain that everything was certain? Initiated into silence now-no longer the silence of the plants, no longer the silence of the cows, but into
the silence of other men-he no longer knew how to explain
himself; he only knew that he was feeling more and more like a
man, he was feeling more and more like the others. Which,
while seeming to him at the same time like a great decadence
and the fall of an angel, also seemed to him like an ascension.
But that can only be understood by a person who, with impalpable effort, has already metamorphosed himself into himself.
Martim probably could not even manage to explain why a man
would have the urgency to be a man as an ideal. Oh, Martim at
that point did not know anything else at all. Unless it was that
combination of fatigue, cowardice, and gratitude in which he
was finally wallowing around with the rather ignoble and delighted pleasure of a lizard in the mud. Oh, but something had been created.
Worn-out, but it had been created.
Above all Martim was very tired. A man all by himself could
get that tired. He himself had wanted to bend under a weight
"bend under a weight" was one of the ancient symbols that he
had needed to verify by himself the remains of processions and
athletic matches that he had watched. He himself had wanted
to bend with the weight and carry it forward. But the ones who
were carrying it forward were the four tranquil men who with
their patience were protecting whatever it was they were carrying
forward. He himself, except for grasping at symbols, had not
been able to do anything. But the four men were protecting the
weight with their ignorance. Oh hell, it wasn't really a weight, it
was a "torch" that was generally carried ! They would protect the
weight with their ignorance, without opening up its mystery,,
The Apple in the Dark Page 42