An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures by Clarice Lispector (a book to read TXT) 📗

It was a red apple, with a smooth tough skin. She took the apple in both hands: it was fresh and heavy. She replaced it on the table in order to see it as before. And it was as if she were seeing the photo of an apple in empty space.

After examining it, turning it over, seeing as never before its roundness and its scarlet color — then slowly, she took a bite.

And, oh God, as if it were the forbidden apple of paradise, but this time she knew good, and not just evil as before. Unlike Eve, when she bit the apple she entered paradise.

She just took a bite and put the apple back down on the table. Because some unknown thing was gently happening. It was the start — of a state of grace.

Only someone who has been in grace, could recognize what she was feeling. It wasn’t an inspiration, which was a special grace that so often happens to people who work in art.

The state of grace she was in wasn’t used for anything. It was as if it came just to let you know you really existed. In this state, besides the tranquil happiness that would shine from people remembered and from things, there was a lucidity that Lóri was only describing as light in weight because in grace everything was so, so light. It was a lucidity of someone who’s no longer guessing: who, without effort, knows. Just that: knows. Don’t ask what, since the person could only answer in the same childish way: without effort, you know.

And there was a physical beatitude to which nothing could be compared. The body was transforming itself into a gift. And she felt that it was a gift because she was experiencing, from a direct source, the unquestionable blessing of existing materially.

In the state of grace, you can see the profound beauty, once unreachable, of another person. Everything, in fact, acquired a kind of halo that was not imaginary: it came from the splendor of the almost mathematical radiance of things and of people. You’d start to feel that everything that exists — person or thing — was breathing and exhaling a kind of fine sheen of energy. That energy is the world’s greatest truth and is impalpable.

Not in the slightest could Lóri imagine what the state of grace of the saints must be. She had never known that state and couldn’t even guess at it. What was happening to her was just the state of grace of an average person who suddenly becomes real, because she is average and human and recognizable and has eyes and ears to see and hear.

The discoveries in that state were unutterable and incommunicable. She remained seated, quiet, silent. It was like an annunciation. It wasn’t however preceded by the angels who, she assumed, would come before the grace of the saints. But it was as if the angel of life were coming to announce to her the world.

Afterward she slowly came out of that situation. Not as if she’d been in a trance — there hadn’t been a trance — she was emerging slowly, with a sigh of someone who had the world as it is. It was also already a sigh of longing. Because having experienced gaining a body and a soul and the earth and the sky, you want more and more. But there was no point desiring it: it would only come spontaneously.

Lóri couldn’t explain why, but she thought that animals entered the grace of existing more often than humans. Except they didn’t know, and humans realized it. Humans had obstacles that didn’t get in the way of animals’ lives, like reason, logic, understanding. While animals had the splendor of something that is direct and moves directly.

The God knew what he was doing: Lóri thought it was right that the state of grace wasn’t given to us often. If it were, we might pass once and for all to the “other side” of life, which other side was real too but nobody would ever understand us: we’d lose the common language.

It was also good that it didn’t come as much as you’d like: because she could get used to happiness. Yes, because you’re very happy in a state of grace. And to get used to happiness, that would be a social danger. We’d get more selfish, because happy people are, less sensitive to human pain, we wouldn’t feel the necessity to try to help those in need — all because in grace we have understanding, and the sum of life.

No, even were it up to Lóri, she wouldn’t often want to have the state of grace. It would be like falling prey to an addiction, it would attract her like an addiction, she’d become as contemplative as users of opium. And if it appeared more often, Lóri was sure she’d take advantage of it: she’d start to want to live permanently in grace. And that would represent an unforgivable escape from human destiny, which was made of struggle and suffering and confusion and joys.

It was also good that the state of grace lasted only a few moments. If it lasted longer, she was well aware, she who knew her almost childlike ambitions, she’d end up trying to enter the mysteries of Nature. As soon as she tried, moreover, she was sure that grace would disappear. For grace was a blessing and, if it demanded nothing, it would vanish if we asked it for an answer. You couldn’t forget that the state of grace was just a small opening onto the world that was a kind of paradise — but it wasn’t like a way in, nor did it give you the right to eat of the fruit of its orchards.

Lóri emerged from the state of grace with a smooth face, her eyes open and thoughtful and, though she hadn’t smiled, it was as if her whole body had just emerged from a gentle smile. And had emerged