Free Agua Viva by Clarice Lispector

always feel a change in the weather
coming. There’s a thing in the air—the body alerts me that something new is
coming and I bristle all over. I don’t know why. That very spring I was given
the plant called primula. It’s so mysterious that in its mystery is contained
the inexplicable part of nature. It doesn’t look at all unique. But on the
precise day when spring starts its leaves die and in their place are born closed
flowers that have an extremely dumbfounding feminine and masculine perfume.
    We’re sitting nearby and vaguely watching. And suddenly
they start leisurely opening and surrendering to the new season in front of our
aghast eyes: it’s spring that is moving in.
    But when winter comes I give and give and give. I bundle
up quite a lot. I hug nests of people to my warm breast. And you hear the noise
of someone having hot soup. I am now living rainy days: the time nears for me to
give.
    Can’t you see that this is like a child being born? It
hurts. Pain is exacerbated life. The process hurts. Coming-to-be is a slow and
slow good pain. It’s the wide stretching as far one can go. And your blood
thanks you. I breathe, I breathe. The air is
it
. Air with wind is
already a he or she. If I had to force myself to write you I would be so sad.
Sometimes I can’t stand the strength of inspiration. Then I paint with a heavy
heart. It’s so good that things don’t depend on me.
    I’ve spoken a lot about death. But I’m going to speak to
you about the breath of life. When a person is already no longer breathing you
give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation: you place your mouth upon the other person’s
and breathe. And the other starts to breathe again. This exchange of breaths is
one of the most beautiful things that I’ve ever heard about life. In fact the
beauty of this mouth-to-mouth is dazzling me.
    Oh, how uncertain everything is. And yet part of the
Order. I don’t even know what I’ll write to you in the next sentence. We never
say the final truth. May whoever knows the truth come forward. And speak. We
shall listen contritely.
    . . . suddenly I saw him and he was such an
extraordinarily handsome and virile man that I felt a joy of creation. Not that
I wanted him for myself just as I don’t want for myself the boy I saw with the
hair of an archangel running after a ball. I just wanted to look. The man looked
at me for an instant and smiled calmly: he knew how beautiful he was and I know
that he knew that I didn’t want him for myself. He smiled because he felt no
threat at all. Because beings exceptional in any way are subject to more dangers
than your average person. I crossed the street and took a taxi. The breeze made
the hairs on my neck stand up. And I was so happy that I huddled in the corner
of the taxi out of fear because happiness hurts. And all that caused by having
seen the handsome man. I still didn’t want him for myself—what I like are
people who are a little ugly and at the same time harmonious, but he somehow had
given me a lot with his smile of camaraderie among people who understand each
other. I didn’t understand any of this.
    The courage to live: I keep hidden what needs to be
hidden and needs to irradiate in secret.
    I hush.
    Because I don’t know what my secret is. Tell me yours,
teach me about the secret of each one of us. Not a slanderous secret. It’s just
this: secret.
    And it has no formulas.
    I think I’ll now have to beg your pardon to die a little.
Please—may I? I won’t be long. Thank you.
    . . . No. I didn’t manage to die. Am I ending this
“word-thing” here by a voluntary act? Not yet.
    I am transfiguring reality—what is it that’s escaping
me? why don’t I reach out my hand and take it? It’s because I only dreamed of
the world but never saw it.
    What I’m writing to you is contralto. It’s
negro-spiritual. It has a choir and lit candles. I’m now having a dizzy spell.
I’m a bit afraid. Where will my freedom lead me? What is this that I’m