The Chandelier by Clarice Lispector
“. . . because I didn’t turn off the light . . . but I . . . that my pain . . . my pain . . .” — his voice was thick and slow.
“What, baby?” Virgínia asked with her heart trembling in fear. She was feeling like she was talking to someone who didn’t exist and her own voice had frightened her sounding hoarse and curt in the darkness. Above all something was a lie. What, Vicente? she forced herself to ask again and remained attentive; the silence was thick as if the question had fallen into the sea itself, she felt that no reply would come. Though she didn’t expect it, the air between them was however barely a pause and only slowly melted into silence and disappeared with effort into the night. He had squeezed his right side and said: my pain. Could he be sick? she shivered with a certain repugnance and pride; even with Daniel she’d experienced disgust for illness, feeling alone and cold beside someone suffering. The rain was falling softly. He was calm and whispering, she finally gave herself over to the pillows with a sigh. It seemed horrible to her to ask a question and not receive an answer; the person would connect to some invisible thing that would cling to the voice; she sighed again. She was trying to reconstruct the little life whose threads he had broken with his voice. She turned her head toward Vicente. How to blame them both? everything was so hard, there were so many forms of offenses between people who loved each other and so many forms of not understanding each other; nothing essential had been reached with their love; she was breathing slowly, sweating sweetly, her hand resting on her chest where a heart was beating that was made of surprise, fatigue, and wine. Slowly she started seeing herself awake as if she’d drunk fresh water. It seemed strange to her to be watching the darkness; she remembered with certain fear her own apartment in that night abandoned to the dark, the suitcases open to the wind — a vague fervor was lifting her for an instant above herself and powerless letting her impalpably fall into her own destiny. She remembered the afternoon with Vicente; the happiness was so violent, shaking her so; those horrible instants had taken her outside herself, unfamiliar, odd and broken off from her interior; so you could perish of happiness, she’d felt so abandoned; another minute of joy and she’d have been tossed out of her world because of her daring desires, full of an intolerable hope. No, she wasn’t desiring happiness, she was weak when faced with herself, weak, drunk, tired; she quickly found out that exaltation wore her out, that she preferred to be hidden in herself without ever trembling, without ever rising; for the first time she realized how she really seemed inferior to several people she knew, that brought a sensation of indisposition and searching to her mouth, a certain anxiety without pain as if she’d imperceptibly dislocated herself from her own figure; in a vague suicide she sighed slowly, changed the position of her legs, gathered herself while turning herself off; her unfolding was like something that moved in every direction; her chest was squeezing shapeless, slowly Vicente’s breathing was giving her a rhythm and she slid toward a peaceful fatigue. In the silence of the first drowsiness a tone of inquiry was rising and with numb eyes she was feeling a movement inside herself, milky, vague, almost restless as an absurd reply. She told herself almost like “no” and thereby was replying to “something” that agreed and was satisfied cringing and she not only was learning what it would be but also admitting peacefully with some ardor that that’s how it was, this was the only kind of experience she had, this was her only life without sin. In the stillness of the room the wood of the floorboards cracked. Things were starting to live by themselves. She fell asleep.
She opened her heavy eyelids an instant — the brightest breeze was starting off the dawn, weak and luminous sounds were spreading afar while the room was still keeping a nocturnal, warm silence — she closed her eyelids.
Then she opened her eyes in a start — great clouds of brightness were approaching, after the night of rain a hard and aroused cold was arriving, the air shining fresh, damp, and full of sounds . . . Still unconscious she was getting frightened, the day frightening her — her eyes open . . . Then the idea sliced her in a wail: begin the farewell, the farewell! it was tonight! the journey! She looked to the side: with an almost ridiculous and victorious surprise Vicente wasn’t there, the tangled sheets, the dent in the pillow . . . The nightgown slipping from her shoulder, sitting on the bed, and that cheerful breeze blowing her hair, making her skin shiver — she was coming to a halt breathless. Vicente wasn’t there, she got up quickly, crossed the dry and cold floor with bare feet, the wide nightgown undone at the pleats that had been carefully invented in order to please. On the little table in the living room she saw Vicente’s note; Virgínia: I had to leave early to turn in the assignment, sweetheart, we’ll certainly talk tomorrow, I’m working all day today, be sure to come tomorrow, sweetheart did you sleep well? your Vicente, Vicente, Vicente. She dressed quickly with large mute eyes, stopping to say anguished, deeply surprised and rushed: arrrh!, full of pain, combing her hair, leaving through the back door locking it, tossing the key onto the doorstep. She didn’t wait for the elevator, went down the stairs quickly, found herself on the street. The light of day was invading her eyes, the morning smell of the sea, of gasoline, she was hunched over as she walked, almost running but her body was making her uncomfortable loaded down with the days she’d already lived — she’d looked to the side and Vicente had left while she was sleeping — she was almost running with difficulty suddenly pressing her mouth with one of her hands. So, so wounded . . . her chest dilated, burned, empty, the air was scratching her eyes and she was hurrying down the street protecting herself as if walking against wind and storm, her widened gaze; she was going on but stopped short with her hand on her breast, the hat! oh my hat! she’d forgotten it . . . and that stabbed her with brutality . . . she was opening her mouth aghast, squeezing her bust with her fingers: my hat. The feeling of the structure of her body like a fragile and electric limit containing nothing more than air, wild and tense air; only wounded, her body pushed a ways back pale and boundless — so that’s how she’d return to the Farm! suddenly that was the truth, the only one after awaking and not finding Vicente! tricked, not finding Vicente, having overslept! and my hat?! . . . She’d lost it forever. With her body heavy once again almost running, almost crying she took the taxi wondering if spending like that she’d have enough money for the journey, sinking in the smoothness of the car, speaking muffled and dark to the driver who was smiling kindly with a thin face, freshly shaven, skin taut and happy, ready to begin his day. He pressed the accelerator with his foot, a hot sound filled the vehicle, he pursed his lips with firmness thinking vaguely how he could make a good living making the car neigh in preparation for a fare, then earning money, keeping it safe in his pocket, opening the door to let the passenger out, putting back up the sign acquired at City Hall: Free. Yes, Free, Free, Free. He closed his lips furrowing eyebrows full of responsibility and severity while honking the horn, looking at the traffic light and thinking with a certain benevolence, feeling the car seat already warm and familiar in a promise of a full day, of a nice interruption for a nice lunch, of lots of fares through which places?: this first passenger was friendly.
She’d take the night train that would leave around six in the afternoon. And this day that was preparing her departure, she went through it with calm eyes, dry and surprised, flung into the empty time that was the unknown future. What would come? what if Vicente showed up? the journey, waking up at dawn already in the train . . . and maybe never again to smell the quiet odor of the morning awakening with dust in the city: how violated she’d be. Each gesture she attempted to express that luminous opening that was squeezing itself in her chest, each gesture in that direction was wearing itself out without involving for so much as an instant the true meaning of her pain. It was pain that dry thing suddenly tearing her apart. Wearing only that short slip, her fat arms naked, she was standing with a nightgown in her hands before stowing it in the suitcase, almost saying to herself: but I am crazy against myself, against reality! because all she??
She lay down and right away the fatigue of the poorly slept night weighed upon her. Ah, how horribly happy she was to be exhausted. A vague lament took shape in her entrails and she told herself feeling agitated and painfully contrite: it’s fatigue, nothing more. She fell asleep falling falling falling through the darkness. She halted: the metallic city. The metallic city. The Metallic City. Everything was sparkling excessively clean and inside her was the fear of being unable to reach the same great sparkle and of extinguishing herself humble and dirty. The women were blonde and with a movement of the head would get new hairdos; fine, straight, and silky, almost fleeting and irritating hair flowing like rivers from their round heads. Someone could reach the city’s highest dome, see the metals shining below and shout: I want to die, I want to die — she interrupted herself: it was the first time she’d wanted to die since she’d been alive. And some thing was also saying: my God, with infinite tenderness, almost with shame, almost with mischief: my little God. At that point the pillow was a heap in which you’d sink your head and find warmth, warmth of feathers smelling of your own body that was inhaling the perfume; a warm and persistent power was slowly sucking the person toward the center of the bed and of sleep, and you were falling, falling, no use to try to free yourself from the dream and head toward the whitish and sickly sunlight that was existing atop the eyelids like a wobbly weight. Escape the dream, escape the dream. But the director of the city, with eyeglasses and a smile, how painful it was to stand before her, she was coming and forcing her to eat eggs cracked in frying pans hot with lard, to eat them one after the other, dozens, Vicente, dozens, feeling her stomach crying with disgust. Then the “I want to die” was coming again — it was the first time since she’d been alive — but now so strong and serious that she was thinking that up till then it had just been a rehearsal. With a sigh she was finding a job as a washerwoman of the tubs of the blonde women of the city of the director — how quick and whirling it was. They were great smooth bathtubs and the women were so beautiful, their thighs so big that she was ending up being one of them. They were seeking eggs in vain; how rare they were, how rare they were! When they’d find them they’d eat them raw and naked, thin as silk, entering the bath. Then the thing she feared most — brown, shining, and agonizing — was growing slowly, growing growing growing until simply somebody was forced to laugh to belie the tragedy; it was increasing until being too much for the ears and for the eyes and for the taste in the mouth and to annihilate any idea of grandeur you could have, the oceans invading and covering the earth; then at last diminished. But how much? tell me how much? enough, enough! she was arguing with her hand outstretched — tapering in such a way that one thread was penetrating the other as the thread pierces the needle and the sensitive fabric. You could understand that one more little effort and it would be possible to wake up. With an extra-human thrust she lifted her body from the shifting mud with the panting power of her own desire alone and was violently flung into the void of the yellow day that was buzzing; the smell of the room erected by the heat revived her consciousness and she realized with a light sigh that she’d awoken — a light hand was surfacing upon the water and the dream was growing clouded. In a powerful migraine her stomach was writhing, her head pulsing. With the slip hitched up she sat almost unconscious upon the bed and as in the first surges of sleep gave herself over for a long time. She’d sometimes open her eyes still wider, lightly peek out, then cringe horrified. She finally awoke. A clock was striking closed in a faraway apartment, shadow and dust. She half-stood. From the awakened and newly anxious fatigue, like that of agitated matter, a tenuous urging was seeming to exude, disoriented at first, then sharp, almost shouting with the contained power of blooms — she stood. But am I mad? but no, she kept repeating radiant and weak, but no . . . , she kept repeating unawares, what does it matter what’s to come . . . it was so simple . . . a shudder of life ran through her fast, intolerable, she almost vomited. In a bewildered impression she was feeling that there was no wretchedness too great for her body . . . yes, that she could stand anything, no, not out of courage but because vaguely, vaguely, because the initial thrust had already been given and she’d been born; she was thinking the very sensation of inevitability that after all was her final certainty of being alive, the impossibility of in the deepest part of her flesh admitting that in that same instant she could be killed. Yes, and afterward she kept seeming to have reached her own limits, there where joy, innocence, and death commingled, there where in a blind transubstantiation sensations were tumbling into the same pitch . . . and since she’d reached her own limit, she sat again, quiet and white and lightly glanced at the things without waiting, without memory; she smoothed the strap of her slip, one of her big pale breasts, suddenly reduced to the beginning. From the construction sites the voices were coming. She’d reached a rare instant of solitude in which even the body’s most truthful existence was seeming to waver. She didn’t know which would be the next instant — as for the first time life was faltering thinking about itself, reaching a certain point and awaiting its own order; destiny had worn itself out and what she was still seeking was the primary sensation of living — the theme interrupted and the rhythm throbbing dry. The moments were resounding free from her existence and her being detached from the time atop which it was gliding. She pressed her hand to her chest — actually what she was feeling was just a difficult taste, a hard and persistent sensation like that of insoluble tears too quickly swallowed. From the construction sites voices were coming. She seemed to reflect an instant and set to listening.
“The little girl answered: go on, that’s right!”
“But did she?”
“Well then, man! . . .”
The ending was rounded out with a mean, low guffaw penetrated by another brighter laugh mixed with a deep long one; in a higher tone a young man laughed so calm and virile that she perked up her ears and before he finished they all started back up together dissonant and violent. They stopped and the scraping of the shovel on the ground could be heard, followed by resounding thumps upon hollow wood. She quickly sighed, lowered her head looking at the dusty floor. The idea came to her fatigued that things were awaiting continuation, that she should move and set them in motion. The train, the suitcases, Vicente. And since she was quite removed from herself and from her own power, she tried, without even knowing the nature of her urge, to connect herself to a more sensitive and more possible pain, the kind that might set off a solution; she got up confusedly thinking that she was going to separate from everything and cried fakely. But there was no sadness, there was fatigue and