An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures, Clarice Lispector [story books to read .TXT] 📗

I know you get all dressed up for me, but that’s because I’m seducing you. And I’m not a fisherman, I’m a man who you’ll realize one day knows less than he seems to, though he’s lived and studied a lot. Now that your eyes are normal (!) again, we can go watch the fishermen, though given how hot it is I had thought of going to dinner with you in Tijuca Forest. But doing both would be too much for you. Lóri, you’re waking up through curiosity, that curiosity that drives you into real life. But don’t be afraid of the dislocation that will come. That dislocation is needed so you can see everything that, if it were joined up and harmonious, couldn’t be seen, would be taken for granted. The dislocation involves a clash between you and reality, you should be prepared for that, Lóri, the truth is that I’m telling you about part of the journey I’ve already been on. In the worst moments, remember: whoever can suffer intensely, can also feel intense joy. If you want to see the fish, Loreley, let’s go.

He paid the check, they got up and started to walk since they weren’t far from Posto 6.

They were walking slowly in the breeze that was now blowing in from the sea, and chatting every so often like old friends.

— I wonder if the restaurant in Tijuca Forest still serves chicken in black sauce, nice and black because of the thick blood they use there. When I think of our voracious pleasure in eating the blood of others, I realize how cruel we are, said Ulisses.

— I like it too, Lóri said quietly. Me of all people who could never kill a chicken, I like them so much alive, darting around with their ugly necks and looking for worms. Wouldn’t it be better, if we go there, to eat something else? she asked somewhat shaken.

— Of course we should eat it, we mustn’t forget and should respect the violence inside us. Small acts of violence save us from greater ones. Maybe, if we didn’t eat animals, maybe we’d eat people in their own blood. Our life is cruel, Loreley: we’re born with blood and with blood the possibility of perfect union is cut forever: the umbilical cord. And many are they who die from blood spilled inside or out. We must believe in blood as an important part of life. Cruelty is love too.

They were almost there. Ulisses said:

— You walk, Loreley, as if carrying a jug on your shoulder and raising one hand to keep your balance. You’re a very ancient woman, Loreley. It doesn’t matter that your clothes and hair are in fashion, you’re ancient. And it’s rare to meet a woman who hasn’t broken from the lineage of women down through time. Are you a priestess, Loreley? he asked with a smile.

The good thing, she thought, was that he said disturbing things but immediately cut through the seriousness, which would have upset her, with a smile or an ironic word.

They reached Posto 6 and there was still some light. For the discovery of what Ulisses wanted and which might be called the discovery of living, Lóri preferred the fresh and timid light that came before day or the almost luminous twilight that comes before the night.

Yes, the fish were already there, piled up, silvery, their scales flashing, but their bodies bent by death. The fishermen kept emptying new nets onto the sand where the fish were still squirming almost dead. And from them came the strong sensual smell that raw fish has. Lóri inhaled deeply that almost bad, almost great smell. Only the person herself can express to herself the inexpressible smell of raw fish — not in words: the only way of expressing it is to feel it once again. And, she thought, and to feel the great urge to live more profoundly which that smell would awaken in her. Maybe, she mused, she came from a line of Loreleys for whom the sea and the fishermen were the song of life and death. Only another person who had experienced it would know what she was feeling, since almost everything that matters can’t be spoken of. Lóri would have liked to tell Ulisses how the tangy smell of the sea also reminded her of the smell of a healthy man, but she’d never dare. She inhaled again the violently scented and living death of the bluish fish, but the sensation was stronger than she could stand and, at the same time, as she was feeling an extraordinarily nice sensation of being on the verge of fainting from love, she also felt, now out of self-defense, an emptying of herself:

— Let’s go, she said almost roughly.

— I warned you, Ulisses said rather severely, that you’d have to be prepared for things to be ruptured. You’re wanting to “cut corners,” skip the necessary stages and head voraciously into something, whatever it may be. Would you like me to take you home or did you bring money for a cab?

— I did.

— Then go home, Loreley. Farewell.

A long and gloomy winter followed, so Lóri read to the children during class and they understood why the cold was wrapping them up in themselves and there was no way to fight it: almost all the children were poor and didn’t have enough warm clothes. Lóri used her father’s allowance to buy a thick woolen sweater for every pupil in her class, and all were red to heat up their view as well as to stop their lips going purple from the cold which was also coming through the cement floor, in that winter that was colder than other winters, Lóri would come in, she herself dressed warmly like the children, there were multiple voices in the room, she’d teach secure in the knowledge that