The Apple in the Dark

by Clarice Lispector

  carrying it intact and like that, forward, etc. Every so often,

  someone would invent a vaccine that would cure diseases. Every

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  so often the government would fall. Sometimes a woman would

  stop screaming and a baby would be born. "What the hell ! "

  Martim thought with goose flesh, as if they had raised his

  country's flag, a thing he had never been able to resist.

  "Oh, but I didn't even have the right to try!" He suddenly

  revolted. "I wanted the symbol because the symbol is the true

  reality! I had the right to be heroic! Because I was the hero, in

  me, which made a man out of me! "

  What was that man really thinking about?

  Nothing. Transfigured remains of patriotism and the granting of degrees, milkmen who never fail to deliver their milk every day-things like that which do not seem to teach, but

  which do teach so much-a letter that one thought would never

  arrive and it arrives, processions that slowly turn the corner,

  military parades during which a whole multitude lives off the

  arrow it has shot into the air. That man was recuperating helterskelter. Memory ends up by coming back.

  What was he really thinking about? Nothing beyond that.

  The sun was still turning gold, reddish, tranquil. The world was

  beautiful, no question about that. Through the window the sun

  was gilding the man that the men were studying. Oh the world

  was so beautiful ! And everything was certain. Certain in a future

  sort of way.

  "What is being certain really like?" Martim was trapped. His

  tired brain was confused, he did not really know what being

  certain was. Then he made a superhuman effort to continue. But

  it seemed that he could not.

  It seemed that he could not, and that his good will was not

  enough; that was where the problem lay. And now that he was

  almost at the end of the trail, having almost grasped a certain

  word or certain feeling, now he did not have the strength to

  reach out his tired arm and attain it. He had to stop where he

  had stopped and transfer the organizing of the march to other

  people. And remain there humbly, and once again accept guessing as the maximum ideal.

  Confused, in a manner of speaking, Martim was only guess-

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  The Apple in the Dark

  ing. But who knows? No force could ever get beyond the

  maximum extension of a man's arm-and then , with more

  urging, attain that ultimate and impossible thing which could

  fill his hand with life. Because a man's arm is a definite measure.

  And it has something about it that we will never know. It has

  something about it that we will never know, can you feel that,

  don't you feel it? The man was embarrassed, wrought up as if

  that antithetically meant risking himself in the first step of a

  strange hope.

  "She was brave and good," he said, interrupting the men so

  he could look at their faces, because he felt that once again he

  was getting lost and away from them.

  The men, who were concentrating on the map, lifted up

  their eyes, looked at him for a second, and, annoyed, went back

  to the map.

  "Brave and good," Martim repeated, interpreting their expression as a sign that they had not heard him. And they had to hear him ! It was an open-and-shut question of reducing everything that had happened to him to something comprehensible to millions of men who live by the slow certainty with which

  things go forward, because those men were risking themselves

  too. And they could not be disturbed in the work of their sleep,

  and they ought never to have their certainty shaken up-because

  that would be the greatest crime.

  Thank God that Martim perceived that once more he was

  slipping into discourse, and that the reality of the four men had

  nothing to do with that. Then he got a little off his course :

  nothing that he had to offer seemed to be of any use. He wanted

  to join the party at any cost, but everything that he did was

  always so blatant, no matter how discreet he was. He was a little

  off his course then.

  "I want to be face to face with the person who is man

  enough to tell me that I don't love my wife!" he suddenly said

  to himself, remaking himself. He had got emotional over his

  own generosity, he who was offering to sell his own soul, as long

  as someone would buy it from him. It pained him to lie, but the

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  bravado made him feel very good. With brute good will, Martim

  wanted to buy everybody a drink today, and he wanted them all

  to drink as much as they wanted to, and then he would not

  think of confessing that he didn't have any money-and then he

  too would have a secret to be sacrificed, the way the others

  had.

  Martim wanted to sacrifice his disbelief. And with that

  heroic amputation he would accept in himself only what men

  could understand and without, being understood, their stride

  faltered. He accepted the fact that he had committed a crime of

  passion.

  He accepted the fact that he had committed a crime of

  passion, not only because, remembering his wife's breasts at that

  moment, he was overcome with a retrospective rage, but because

  it seemed to him that if he had merely committed a crime of

  passion, he would have avoided the greater crime : that of

  doubting. And after all, truth is a secondary thing-if you want a

  symbol. And now he had a new symbol to pursue.

  "I'm one of you," he thought then, still with the remains of

  a gravity that was becoming proud of itself. "I'm one of you," he

  thought, capitulating, attentive, conscious. And the truth was

  that by giving away his own consciousness, he was only giving

  away, after all, a consciousness that had failed; it wasn't much. A

  consciousness that had let itself be pulled along by beauty. "Is

  that really the way I should make my act of surrender?" he asked

  himself, trying to find the maximum through concentration.

  And by handing the key over to the small, strong men, he was

  voluntarily standing up against the wall, waiting to be shot.

  Oh, but was he perhaps exaggerating his own importance,

  and the importance he was handing over to them? He was, yes.

  But how could one live without exaggeration? How could one

  reach things without exaggerating? Exaggeration was the only

  possible size for someone who was small; I have to exaggerate

  myself-if I don't, what can I do with the little thing I am?

  And that was why, with all the good will he might have had,

  he still did not know how to be a different man. And he was

  The Apple in the Dark

  handing himself over enormous, clumsy as an inflated rubber

  doll. He was aware of that; and he tried to correct it or at least

  disguise it. Because that way of handing himself over was as if he

  were offending some poor man by showing off the charity of his

  wealth, it was as if he were scandalizing the modesty of four

  men. It was as if he had thought that "the thing would become

  quite cer
tain" if he suddenly exposed himself in the nude-and

  the others turned their eyes away without a single sign of

  reprobation, simply showing by silence that this was not the way

  either, and that nakedness is a purely personal thing.

  All right, I made a mistake then. But how can a man become

  the other man then? How? By an act of love, it occurred vaguely

  to Martim, a thought that, at the same time, seemed terribly

  foolish to him.

  And since he was now up a blind alley, he rapidly tried to

  cover up his complete lack of tact. "It'll all be over soon enough !

  Let's not talk about it any more, O.K.? Let's forget what

  happened; let's not even touch on the subject! I killed someone,

  didn't I? So I killed someone! Even without killing I killed! But

  nobody has to grieve over me either. What happened happened!

  Let's look ahead ! " His eyes were moist with the desire to be

  accepted.

  The four men were still leaning over the map.

  They had the great practical advantage of being numbered in

  the millions; for every million that made a mistake, another

  million rose up. And something was happening through themhappening too slowly for impatience, but happening. Only the impatience of a desire had given the illusion that the time of one

  lifetime was enough. "For my own personal life, I must ask for

  help from someone who has already died and from someone who

  is yet to be born. Only in that way will I be able to have a life of

  my own," and only in that way did the word time have the

  meaning that he had guessed one day.

  "I am nothing," Matim said to himself then, out of sheer

  perverseness this time, blinking with pleasure. The fact was that

  by means of some very complicated reasoning, he had come to

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  the conclusion that it had been a blessing for him to have made

  a mistake, because if he had not, he would have proved to

  himself that life's task was up to a man all by himself-which,

  contradictorily, would have meant that the task would surely not

  be done . . . A man, all by himself, could reach only a superficial beauty, like a line of poetry, which, after all, is not transmitted through the blood. ( Lie! He knew that he had gone way beyond that ) . A man all by himself had the impatience of a

  child; and like a child he would commit a crime, and then he

  would look at his hands and would see that he did not even have

  any blood on his hands, just red ink, and then he would say : "I

  am nothing."

  That was what he thought. And he also thought, "Actually I

  can rest. Those men don't know that they know, that's all that's

  happening to them." The four little men were carrying something forward-jackasses, small, stupid jackasses? "I'm the jackass!-they're going forward. With what? God damn it," Martim thought, quite worked up, "it doesn't matter what. In the last

  analysis they're carrying something forward. And in order to

  carry it forward, they are protecting themselves by being small

  and empty-empty like anything!-and stupid; and if they get

  all broken up by doubt, thousands of other little people will

  burst up out of the ground and continue on with the job of

  certainty."

  It was then that Martim, for the first time, found certainty.

  Exhausted, as if he had already found it some time before, he

  recognized it. The only way to discover it was, besides, through

  recognition. That was how it was.

  And that was how it happened, nothing more, nothing less :

  he had found certainty. How? Oh, let's say that a person has a

  mathematical mind, but that it doesn't know that there are such

  things as numbers-how would a person like that think, then?

  By being certain ! Oh, hope too is a jump forward. Martim then

  put everything he had on certainty. And he was very quiet.

  He was very quiet. From the place from where he had stuck

  out his foot, life was very beautiful. He had reached a place that

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  was not divisible, not even by the number one. And then he

  remained there, quiet, fatigued. If he had left home "to find out

  if it was true," now he knew that it was. Besides, he knew what

  truth was. Even though he might never have dared say so, not

  even to himself, because, as they say, he had become a wise man.

  And truth, when one thinks about it, is impossible. Hell ! truth

  was made to exist! and not for us to know. All that's left to us is

  for us to invent it. "Truth . . . well, the truth was that which

  was," Martim thought with a depth that put him precisely in

  the middle of the emptiness. Truth is never terrifying, we are

  the ones who are terrifying. And also, "What will truth be like?"

  Just let someone who does not believe that truth happens look

  at a chicken walking around with the strength of the unknown.

  "Besides, truth has happened lots of times." At that point

  Martim had already become lost in what he had been ironically

  waiting for. Those depths from which, from which a great wave

  of love was born inside his chest.

  Not knowing at first what to do with love, his soul staggered

  a little in the face of so much crudeness. Then he was quiet,

  stoical, firmly bearing up under it all.

  A few hours before, beside the bonfire, he had attained an

  impersonality inside of himself. He had been so profoundly

  himself that he had become the "himself" of any other person,

  the way a cow is the cow of all cows. But if beside the bonfire he

  had made himself, right then he was using himself. Right then

  he had just attained the impersonality that makes for the fact

  that as one man falls another rises up-the impersonality of

  dying while others are being born, the altruism that makes other

  people exist. We, who are you. "What a strange thing. Even

  now I seem to be wanting to reach the tip of my finger with the

  tip of my own finger-it's true that with that extreme effort I

  grew, but the tip of my finger is still unreachable. I went as far as

  I could. But why didn't I understand that the thing that I could

  not reach in me was already other people? Other people, who are

  our deepest plunge! We who are you just as you yourselves are

  not you." In that way, concentrating very hard on the birth of

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  others, in a task that only he could carry out, Martim was there

  trying to give body to those who would be born.

  Slowly, he finally came out of his quietness. " I can count on

  you," he said to himself, groping, "I can count on you," he

  thought gravely; and that was the most personal form in which a

  person can exist. We who only have any value as long as we are

  whole, like money. Martim was even ashamed of having been

  personal in a different way. It was a dirty past, his; it had been an

  individual life, his. But it also seemed to him, as he forgave

  himself, that he had had no choice, that it had been the only

  way in which he had learned to be other people. Underneath we

  are all so much alike and the
children of the same mother.

  Then, when he thought about "children of the same

  mother," he became all sentimental, he became tender and

  soft-which was terrible in a practical way because it made him

  lose track of his thoughts. "Now I have to start all over again

  from the beginning," he thought, very perturbed. But it was too

  late to go back with any degree of coldness, because he was so

  upset by problems of motherhood and love. For that was what it

  was-making a perfect circle within his own limits, and his luck

  was rare in being able to return by obscure means to his own

  starting-point-in a perfect circle within his scant limits, he

  wanted to be good then. Because in the end, postponing the

  mystery sine die, that was the immediate moment of a man.

  And especially because, after all, "the other man" is the most

  objective thought that a person can have! he who had so much

  wanted to be objective.

  He looked. And without the least shadow of a doubt he saw

  the four concrete men. They were undeniable. If Martim had

  wanted to have objectivity one day, those men were the clearest

  thought that Martim had ever had. And to be "good" was in the

  last analysis the only way to be other people.

  Then, as many promises had been made to us, one of them

  was being fulfilled right there : other people existed. They existed as if he, Martim, had given them to themselves. Martim looked, intrigued, at the detective with the dark tobacco. "I

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  The Apple in the Dark

  return your greatness," he thought with effort and some solemnity. One of the promises was being fulfilled : the four men. And he, Martim, was ready to feel alien hunger as if his own stomach

  were transmitting to him the absolute and imperious command

  to live. And if, like every person, he was a preconceived idea, and

  if he had left home to find out if what had been preconceived

  was true-it was true, yes. In some way the world was saved.

  There was at least a fraction of a second in which each one was

  saving the world.

  Martim's heart was confused. "The difference between them

  and me, is that they have a soul and I had to create mine. I had

  to create for them and for myself the place where they an� I

  could walk. Since the process is always mysterious, I don't even

  know how to tell how I did it; but those men, I stood them up