The Apple in the Dark
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wave, there is still never a single word, and someday one must
discover what we are : he knew that she would never forgive him.
Then Martim kneeled down in front of her and said :
"Forgive me."
From the height of her raised head, she looked down at him,
beyond appeal, like a terrible queen, her severe wings opened
up.
"What the devil am I doing?" the kneeling man wondered,
interested, and he could almost hear her telling someone years
later: he went so far as to kneel down.
But the woman with a sudden irrepressible movement
clasped her stomach with her hands, there where a woman pains,
her mouth trembled as it was touched by it, the future was a
difficult birth : with the movement of an animal, she clasped her
stomach, where fate makes a woman pain, and the joy was such
a misery, her mouth trembled, poor, afflicted.
"What are you doing?" she shouted at him.
But he was waiting with an imploring look, he was insisting
imploringly, he now wanted more than just the woman's ges·
ture, that gesture with which she had finally conceded pity for
herself-he also wanted her pity for him. And, involuntarily,
against her own strength, tortured, feeling as best she couldshe could not help obeying in the end as she lowered her dry eyes, and, fascinated, dragged along, with the taste of blood
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The Apple in the Dark
filling her whole mouth, she looked at him with stern mercytortured and obeying, glorified and obeying, in pain and obeying.
Oh, it was something impossible to escape from-sculptors had
already done images of women and kneeling men, there was a
whole long past of forgiveness and love and sacrifice, it was
something from which it was impossible to escape. And if she
had been free, she would have somehow stretched her hand out
over the head of the kneeling man; there are gestures that can be
made, there still are gestures that can be made :
"What are you doing?" she said to him austerely, as if she
had raised him up.
The man got up, dusted off his pants. The woman raised her
head higher. And it was only then that they were surprised.
But then fortunately it was too late; some essential thing had
been done. What had really happened was not known; most of
all, neither of them knew, people make a lot of substitutions.
Some essential thing had happened which they did not understand, and they were surprised; it may have been something not meant to be understood. Who knows but what the essential
thing was destined not to be understood? If we are blind, why
do we insist on seeing with our eyes, why do we try to use these
hands of ours, which are twisted into fingers? Why do we try to
hear with our ears things that are not sound? And why do we try,
over and over again, the door of comprehension? The essential
thing is destined only to be fulfilled. Glory to God, Glory to God.
Amen. And one of the indirect ways of understanding is to find
things beautiful. From where I am standing, life is very beautiful. A man, impotent as a person, had knelt down. A woman, offended in her destiny, had raised her head which had been
sacrificed by forgiveness. And, by God, something had happened. Something had happened in a careful way, so that our modesty would not be wounded.
They both avoided looking at one another, overwrought with
themselves, as if they finally had become part of that greater
thing which sometimes manages to express itself in tragedy. As if
there are acts that are done totally or else cannot be achieved,
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something is realized that thought could not attain, we who are
created with such atrocious perfection-and the pain is in the
fact that we are not at the level of our perfection; as for our
beauty, we can barely stand it. Martim, for example, looked at
his shoes at that moment. Oh why do we disguise ourselves so
much? Embarrassed by the moment of his death, he would be
capable of covering up by whistling, as if they had just again
realized the miracle of forgiveness; embarrassed by that miserable scene, they avoided looking at each other, uneasy, there are so many unaesthetic things to forgive. But, even covered with
ridicule and rags, the mimicry of the resurrection had been done.
Those things which seem not to happen, but do happen.
Because how could it be explained otherwise-without the
resurrection and its glory. That that woman right there had been
born for a daily life; that she, standing there, after all, after all,
born for the mystery of daily life, would be the one who tomorrow would give Francisco orders. How could it be explained that that wounded woman, and perhaps only because she had
been mortally wounded, would be the same one who tomorrow
would go out into the fields again, whole again like a woman
who has had a child and whose body has closed up again?
Otherwise, how could it be explained that that man, frayed,
unprotected, would still continue to be that thing and look at
himself and be recognized even by the eyes of a child : a man, a
man with a future? The resurrection, as had been promised, had
been made. As unimportant as any other miracle. Carefully
discreet, so as not to scandalize us. Exactly as we promise ourselves; and you can leave us to our task, and God is our task, we are not God's task. You can leave life to us. Oh, we know quite
well what we are doing, with the same impassivity with which
the dead who are laid out know so well what they are doing.
The man brushed off his pants again, passed the back of his
hand across his nose. He did not look at the woman because he
was ashamed of his own exhibitionism, that business of kneeling
down; still it is also true that a person has to explain himself. His
eyes blinked several times because he realized that in the whole
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The Apple in the Dark
scene there was something that had escaped him. He felt halfconfused, he was not understanding very well nor did he have the time, or, better yet, the will to understand any more. But at
least he sniffed again, and once more he passed his hand across
his wet nose. But he felt that, besides having "raised the curtain," he had just fulfilled another commonplace which he had been searching for since childhood : that story about kneeling
down had always pursued him.
One could say that at last he was realizing everything that he
had planned, even if he had not been able to write down what
he wanted on paper. It was also true that many times that man
had forced his own hand. But it had been necessary. It could not
have been any other way. Then, uncertain, anxious, unprotected,
he thought, "I got what I wanted. It wasn't much. But when you
come right down to it, it's the whole thing, isn't it? Say that it is.
Say it. Make that gesture, the one that's hardest to make, the
most difficult one, and say: yes."
Then, with superhuman effort, he said "yes." And thenbeaten down, tired-another promise to him had been fulfilled.
Because "yes" is after all the content of "no." He had just
touched the objective part of no. He had at last touched
the
content of his crime.
Nausea came over him, that soft pleasure as if one had got
over to the other side of death, that minimum point which is the
living point of life, the vein in the pulse. In agony, Martim
turned his face away from himself and sought the compensating
faces of the others.
The others were waiting curiously after having witnessed the
melodrama of the genuflection. Martim fluttered his eyelids
several times, indecisive, tired-those faces. Those faces. And
looking at the four men and the woman, such an absurd hope
came over him that it could only have been a faith. And it had
nothing to do with what was happening, nor with the men who
were waiting, nor with himself. Again he had had in a nauseating
flash the following : certainty. Which was a hope that was
impersonal to the point of tears. As if hope did not mean hoping
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for, but getting. With that absurd hope, Martim was reaching
something, like a man who was holding a child by the hand.
Stupefied, not knowing whom to speak to, under the weight
of fatigue, he looked at them one by one. And more and more he
was conling closer to a truth that was imposing itself in such a
way that, even without his understanding it, it still kept on
imposing itself. Without understanding it? But yes, he did
understand it in some way! He understood the way one understands a number: it's impossible to think about a number in terms of words, it's only possible to think about a number as
that very number. And it was in that inescapable way that he
understood-and if he were to attempt to know any more,
then-then the truth would become impossible.
"But in what? What did he have hope in?" he asked himself,
suddenly bothered again. A certain pity for the world made him
avoid carrying his thoughts to the end.
Then, without answering his question, for by doing so he
would make it all absurd; without even trying to answer, he
thought that it was in his very extreme lack that he had hope. As
if a man were so poor that-that "it cannot be so." There was a
secret logic in that absurd thought, except that he had not
managed to sound and locate that impalpable logic. If Martim
knew that he had been right, it was because he was in pain. But
he would never be able to explain, and there is something that
we will never know. But our lack sustains us, he said to himself,
now that he had finally lost the limits of comprehension and was
admitting what is not known.
It was then that the man suddenly really perked up, and he
snuffed. There's no doubt, I agree too : the thing is illogical, and
hoping is illogical, he thought very animatedly, buying everybody a drink. It's as illogical, he thought knowingly, as two-andtwo-is-four, which no one so far has ever proved. But if on the basis of two-and-two-is-four you can build your own reality, then
for God's sake why have any scruples? Yeah, if that's how it is,
let's take advantage of it, people! life is short! Martim looked at
the men in a kind of immoral way; there was cynicism on his
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The Apple in the Dark
face. But he was not being cynical, he was, he was trying to
amuse them and make them happy, and impossibility makes the
clown. He was giving out of love, out of pure love. Love!-a
handspring to amuse them. Oh, amusing other people is one of
the most emotional ways of existing; it's true that sometimes
radio stars get all worked up and commit suicide, but the fact is
that sometimes they come in contact with the difficulty of love.
His cynicism, or whatever it was, did not sustain him for very
long.
Oh God, how tired and uncertain that man was! That man
did not know too well what hope was. Even though he tried to
rationalize hope-oh, even though he tried. But instead of
thinking about what he planned to think about, he was thinking
like a busy woman. "Explaining never got anybody anywhere,
and understanding is futility," he said like a woman busy nursing
her child.
But no! But no! He had to think. He simply could not sail
off like that-just like that! Then, losing his footing, he argued
with himself and justified himself. "Having no hope is the most
stupid thing that could happen to a man." It would be the
failure of a man's life. Just as not loving was a sin of frivolity, so
not having hope was superficiality. Not loving was nature going
astray. And what about the perversion there was in not having
any hope? Well-that, that he understood with his body. Furthermore-in the name of other people!-it's a sin not to have any hope. There's no right for anyone not to have any. Not
having any hope is a luxury. Oh, Martim knew that his hope
would scandalize optimists. He knew that optimists would stand
him up and shoot him if they heard him because hope is
startling. One has to be a man to have the courage to be struck
by hope.
And then Martim was really startled.
"Do you know what you're doing, son?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"Do you know that with hope you will never have any more
t
? "
res , son.
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"Yes, I do, father."
"Do you know that with hope all your other weapons will be
l t
? "
os , son.
"Yes, I do, father."
"And that unless you're cynical you'll be naked?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"Do you know that hope also means not believing, son?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"Do you know that believing is as hard to bear as a mother's
curse?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"Do you know that our likeness is just a lot of filth?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"And do you know that you too are just a lot of filth?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"But do you know that I'm not referring to the baseness that
attracts us so much and which we admire and desire, but to the
fact that our likeness, besides everything else, is so dull?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"Do you know that hope sometimes consists simply of a
question that has no answer?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"Do you know that in the end none of that ever gets beyond
being love? a great love?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"But do you know that a person can get tangled up in one
word and lose years out of his life? And that hope can become a
word, a dogma and a net and a shameful thing? Are you prepared to know that if things are looked at closely they have no shape, and that if things are looked at from a distance they
cannot be seen? And that there is only one instant for everything? And that it is not easy to live just by the memory of an instant?"
"That instant . . ."
"Be quiet. Do you know what life's muscle is? If you say that
you know you're no good; if you say that you don't know you're
no good." ( His father was beginning to lose the thread. )
The Apple in the Dark
"I don't know," he replied without conviction, but because
he knew that it was the answer that should be given.
"Have you 'drawn back the curtain' a lot lately, son?"
"Yes, I have, father," he said, resentful at the intrusion on
his privacy; whenever his father had wanted to "understand
him," he had always left him tense.
"How are your sexual relations going, son?"
"Fine," he answered with a wish to tell his father to go back
to the hell he had taken him out of.
"Do you know that love is blind, that someone who loves
something ugly thinks that it's pretty, and that it could even be
yellow for that matter, even if it's in bad taste? and that the
shoemaker's children go barefoot, and that you make do with
what you have, and that there's a grain of truth in everything?"
his father said, losing the thread a little more. Before long he
would start telling him what he used to do with women, before
he married your mother, naturally. "Do you know that hope is
hard to beat, for the weak defeat and for the strong, etc.?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"My boy. Do you know that from now on, wherever you go,
you will be pursued by hope?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"Are you prepared to accept the heavy burden of joy?"
"Yes, I am, father."
"But, my boy! do you know that it's practically impossible to
do?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"Do you know, at least, that hope is a great big absurdity, my
boy?"
"Yes, I do, father."
"Do you know that you have to be grown-up to have hopel ! I"
"I do, I do, I do! "
"Then go ahead, son. My order is for you to suffer with
hope."
But already with this first nostalgia, the last one, like the first
one, based on nevermore, Martim shouted for protection.
"What's that light, Dad?" he shouted, alone now in his
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hope, walking on all fours to make his father laugh, asking a very
old and silly little question so as to postpone the moment when
he would have to take on the world. "What's that light, Daddy!"
he asked playfully, with his heart pounding from the loneliness.
His father hesitated, severe and sad in his grave.