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

She’d experienced some thing that seemed to redeem the human condition, though at the same time the narrow limits of that condition were accentuated. And exactly because after grace the human condition was revealing itself in all its imploring poverty, you learned to love more, hope more. You’d start to have a kind of trust in suffering and in its so often unbearable paths.

There were days that were so arid and desolate that she’d give years of her life in exchange for a few minutes of grace.

Two days later Ulisses called and this time he seemed to be demanding her presence, as if he could no longer bear to wait.

She went. As she was approaching Ulisses, who was sitting at the terrace of the bar drinking, he looked at her coming over and out of so much disappointed surprise didn’t even get up:

— But you cut your hair! You should have asked me first!

— I hadn’t planned to, I just did.

She knew how he was feeling because she’d had an excruciating sense of loss as her hair was cut and the dead locks were falling to the floor.

— I’m going to let it grow out again but long enough to make braids I can tie above my forehead.

He agreed but was disappointed. Lóri observed him: he was looking tired. And she guessed that his fatigue was also coming from the wait she’d forced him to have.

— Ulisses, remember how you once asked me why I voluntarily kept away from people? Now I can tell you. It’s because I don’t want to be platonic in relation to myself. I’m profoundly defeated by the world I live in. I separated myself just for a while because of my defeat and because I felt that other people were defeated too. So I closed myself up in an individualization that if I hadn’t been careful could have been transformed into a hysterical or contemplative solitude. What saved me were always my pupils, the children. You know, Ulisses, they’re poor and that’s why the school doesn’t require uniforms. In the winter I bought them each a red sweater. Now, for spring, I’m going to buy the boys blue shirts and trousers, and the girls blue dresses. Or maybe I’ll order them, that might be easier. I’ll have to get all the pupils’ measurements because—

The one who got up to leave was Ulisses, to Lóri’s surprise. He said:

— You’re ready, Lóri. Now I want what you are, and you want what I am. And the whole exchange will happen in bed, Lóri, at my house and not at your apartment. I’m going to write my address on this napkin. You know when I’m teaching and when I give private lessons. Outside of those hours, I’ll be home waiting for you. I’ll fill my bedroom with roses, and if they wilt before you come, I’ll buy new roses. You can come whenever you want. If I’m in the middle of a private lesson, you’ll wait. If you want to come in the middle of the night and are afraid of taking a taxi by yourself, call and I’ll come get you.

As he was speaking, he was writing his address on the napkin, calling the waiter, and paying the bill. He held out the napkin to Lóri who took it, terrified.

— Lóri, I won’t call you again. Until you come on your own. I’d rather you not call to let me know you’re coming. I’d like you, without a word, just to come.

It was liberty he was offering her. Though she’d rather he order her around, set a day and time. But she felt there was no point in trying to make him change his mind. At the same time she was happy just to go to his house whenever she wanted. Because, suddenly, she was determined never to go. For they had reached a maturity in their relations, and she was afraid that sleeping together in a bed would break the spell.

During the first days Lóri was bothered because she was sure Ulisses was waiting. It pained her for the roses to wilt and for him pathetically to replace them with others that would wilt too. It consoled her to think that his wait wouldn’t be too painful for him, since he was an extremely patient man who was capable of suffering. So she calmed down. She thought now that the ability to bear suffering was the measure of a person’s greatness and saved that person’s inner life.

Over the next days she was much helped in passing the time because she’d brought home the exam papers for marking.

Besides she was full and didn’t need anyone, it was enough to know that Ulisses loved her and that she loved him. Moreover she was enveloped in a new love for things and people. For things: she bought a green glass vase and painted it an opaque white and that way the flowers she’d buy at the market would leap out of the white. She bought a soapstone ashtray, and couldn’t resist: with her nail she scratched the bottom of it, marking it, engraving it. And she bought a white dimity dress: if she went to see Ulisses, she’d wear this dress. As for people, she was being sincerely sweet and joyous with the pupils whom she now loved with a mother’s love.

One night she called her friend the fortune-teller and said she was coming over. She didn’t much care what the fortune-teller would tell her about the future and a certain love. What she cared most about was this: she’d seen a Thing. It was ten at night in Praça Tiradentes and the taxi was going fast. Then she saw a street she’d never forget. She wasn’t even planning to describe it: that street was hers. She could only say that it