Free The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector

sailors.
    — Excuse my asking: is it painful being ugly?
    — I've never really thought about it, I suppose it's a little painful. How do you feel about it being ugly yourself?
    — I am not ugly! — Glória howled at her.
    Peace was soon restored between them, and Macabéa continued to be happy thinking about nothing. Empty, empty. As I said before, she had no guardian angel. But she made the best of things. Beyond that, she was almost impersonal. Glória probed:
    — Why are you always asking me for aspirin? I don't grudge you the odd aspirin, but pills cost money.
    — To stop the pain.
    — What do you mean? Eh? Are you in pain?
    — I'm in pain all the time.
    — Where?
    — Inside. I can't explain it.
    More and more, she was finding it difficult to explain. She had transformed herself into organic simplicity. She had contrived a way of finding grace in simple, authentic things. She liked to feel the passage of time. She did not possess a watch, and perhaps for that very reason, she relished the infinity of time. Her life was supersonic. Yet no one noticed that she had crossed the sound barrier with her existence. For other people, she didn't exist. Her only advantage over others was to know how to swallow pills at one go, without any water. Glória, who supplied her with aspirin, was full of admiration and this kindled a pleasing warmth in Macabéa's heart. Glória warned her:
    — One of these days the aspirin will stick in your throat and you'll be running around the office like a beheaded chicken.
    One day Macabéa enjoyed a moment of ecstasy. It happened in front of a tree that was so enormous that she couldn't put her arms around its trunk. Yet despite her ecstasy, she did not abide with God. She prayed with total indifference. True. Yet that mysterious God of others sometimes bestowed on her a state of grace. Bliss, bliss, bliss. Her soul almost took flight. She, too, had become a flying saucer. She had tried to confide in Glória but decided against it. She didn't know how to express herself and what was there to confide? The atmosphere? One doesn't confide everything, for everything is a hollow void.
    Sometimes, grace descended upon her as she sat at her desk in the office. Then she would go to the washroom in order to be alone. Standing and smiling until it passed. (It strikes me that this God was extremely merciful towards her: He restored what He had taken from her.) Standing and thinking about nothing, a vacant expression in her eyes.
    Not even Glória could be called a friend: just a workmate. Glória, who was buxom, white and tepid. Her body exuded a peculiar smell, and it was quite obvious that she didn't wash much. She bleached the hairs on her legs and under the armpits without bothering to shave them. Olímpico wondered: was she bleached down below as well?
    Towards Macabéa, Glória felt vaguely maternal. Whenever she saw Macabéa looking more shrivelled than usual, she would chide her:
    — Why are you looking like . . . ?
    Macabéa, who never lost her temper with anyone, had to control her impatience with Glória, who had this irritating habit of never finishing a sentence. Glória used an overpowering cologne that smelled of sandalwood, and Macabéa, who had a delicate stomach, always felt queasy when she inhaled the odour. She preferred to say nothing because Glória was now her only remaining contact with the world. A world that consisted of her aunt, Glória, Senhor Raimundo and Olímpico — and more remotely, the girls with whom she stared a room. To compensate, she identified with a portrait of the young Greta Garbo. This surprised me, for I could not imagine any affinity between Macabéa and an actress with a face like Garbo. Although she couldn't explain it, Macabéa was convinced that Garbo was the most important woman in the world. She herself felt no inclination to be like the haughty Greta Garbo, whose tragic sensuality placed her on a solitary pedestal. What Macabéa wanted most of