Free The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector

his eyelids, the spider retracts its claws and is reduced to a red, moving speck. But it’s a question of honor. The one who should leave is the monster. He points and shouts:
    “Get out! You’re made of gold, but get out!”
    The dark girl, in a white dress, rises and says:
    “You poor thing. The light’s bothering you.”
    She turns on the light. He feels humiliated, deeply humiliated. Now what? it would be so easy to explain that it had been a light bulb . . . Just to hurt him. He turns his head to the wall and starts weeping. The dark girl lets out a small cry:
    “Oh don’t do that, darling!”
    She runs her hand over his forehead, stroking it slowly. A cool, small hand, that leaves in its wake a span of time in which there are no more thoughts. Everything would be fine if the doors weren’t slamming so much. He says:
    “The Earth shriveled up, girl, just shriveled up. I didn’t even know there was so much light inside her . . .”
    “But I just turned it off . . . See if you can sleep.”
    “You turned it off?” he tries to make her out in the darkness. “No, it went out by itself. Now all I want to know is: given the choice, would she have refused to create, if only to avoid dying?”
    “Poor thing . . . Oh you’re so feverish. If you’d sleep you’d definitely get better.”
    “Later on she got her revenge. Because the creatures felt so superior, so free that they imagined they could get by without her. She always gets her revenge.”
    The dark girl is now running her fingers through his damp hair, sending his ideas spinning with gentle motions. He takes her by the arm, interlaces his fingers with those delicate fingers. Her palm is soft. The skin a little rough near the nails. He rests his mouth on the back of her hand and moves it every which way, meticulously, his eyes wide open in the darkness. Her hand tries to escape. He holds onto it. It stays. Her wrist. Delicate and tender, it goes tick-tick-tick. It’s a little dove that he’s caught. The little dove is frightened and its heart goes tick-tick-tick.
    “Is this a moment?” He asks in a very loud voice. “No, not anymore. And this one? Not anymore either. All you have is the moment to come. The present is already past. Lay the cadavers of these dead moments upon the bed. Cover them with a snow-white sheet, put them in a child’s coffin. They died while still children, sinless. I want adult moments! . . . Miss, come here, I want to tell you a secret: miss, what should I do? Help me, for my world is shriveling . . . Then what will become of my light?”
    The room is so dark. Where is the Virgin Mary his aunt tucked into his suitcase, before he left? Where is she? At first he feels something moving very close to him. Then two cool lips alight on his parched mouth, gently, then more firmly. His eyes aren’t stinging anymore. Now his temples stop throbbing because two moist butterflies are hovering over them. Then they fly off.
    He feels good, very, very sleepy . . .
    “Miss . . .”
    He falls asleep.
    Now he’s on the terrace off Dona Marta’s bedroom, the one that opens onto the large yard. They brought him there, laid him on a wicker lounge chair, a blanket swaddling his feet. Though he was carried there like a baby, he’s worn out. He thinks that not even a fire would make him get up now. Dona Marta wipes her hands on her apron.
    “Now then, my boy, how are your legs? This is my boardinghouse; I’m happy you’re living here, sir. But, my own business interests aside, I’d suggest you go back to the North. Only your own family could keep you to this restful routine, with regular hours for sleeping and eating . . . The doctor didn’t like it when I told him how you’ve been keeping the light on into the wee hours, reading, writing . . . Not only because of the electricity, but, for Heaven’s sake, that’s no way to live . . .”
    He hardly pays attention. He can’t think much, his head suddenly hollow. His