Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector Page B

side he would be able to go on sinning.
    When Otávio had kissed her, he had held her hands, pressing them against his chest, Joana had bitten her lips, at first enraged, because she still didn't know with which thought she should clothe that violent sensation, like a cry surging from her breast and making her feel dizzy. She looked at him without seeing him, her eyes clouded, her body martyred. They had to make their farewell. She withdrew abruptly and went off without turning back, without any nostalgia.
    Back in her room, lying undressed on the bed, she was unable to sleep. Her body felt oppressive, existed beyond her like some stranger. She felt it throbbing, feverish. She put out the light and closed her eyes, she tried to escape, to sleep. But she lay there for many hours, examining herself, watching the blood creep sluggishly through her veins like an inebriated animal. And thinking. How little she had known herself until now. Those light, slender forms, those delicate lines of adolescence. They were opening up, breathing as if they were suffocating and ready to explode.
    As dawn broke, the gentle breeze caressed her bed and ruffled the curtains. Joana gradually calmed down. The freshness of early morning consoled her aching body. She was slowly overcome with weariness and, suddenly exhausted, she fell into a deep sleep.
    She woke up late and felt happy. She imagined that every cell in her body had burst into flower. Miraculously, all her resources of strength were aroused and ready for battle. When she thought of Otávio, she breathed cautiously, as if the atmosphere might be harmful. During the days that followed, she neither saw him nor attempted to see him. She avoided him as if his presence were superfluous.
    And she was so completely physical, that she was pure spirit. Incorporeal, she passed through events and hours, weaving between them with the swiftness of an instant. She scarcely took any nourishment and her sleep was as tenuous as a veil. She woke up frequently during the night, unconcerned, preparing to smile before giving it any thought.
    She went back to sleep without changing her position, simply closing her eyes. She often searched for herself without vanity. Her smooth complexion, her bright lips made her turn her back on her image almost out of shame, without the strength to go on confronting that woman's gaze, fresh and moist, so subtly open and assured.
    The happiness ceased.
    Plenitude became sad and oppressive and Joana was a cloud ready to turn to rain. She breathed with difficulty as if there were no room inside her for air. She paced up and down, perplexed by the change. How? — she asked herself and felt that she was being ingenuous. Were there two sides to this? Was she suffering for the same reason that had made her terribly happy?
    She carried her diseased body with her, a troublesome wound by day. Lightheartedness was replaced by gloom and fatigue. Satisfied — an animal that had quenched its thirst, filling its body with water. Yet anxious and unhappy as if despite everything there were still lands without water, arid and parched. Above all, she suffered from misunderstanding, alone, dumbfounded. Until leaning her head against the window-pane — the street peaceful, the evening drawing in, the world outside there — she felt moisture on her face. She wept freely, as if this were the solution. Large tears ran down her cheeks, without her moving a single facial muscle. She wept so profusely that she couldn't speak. Afterwards she felt as if she had reverted to her real proportions, tiny, shrunken, humble. Serenely empty. She was prepared.
    She then looked for him. And her new glory and suffering were now more intense and somehow more unbearable.
    She got married.
    Love came to confirm all the familiar things of whose existence she only knew without ever having accepted and experienced them. The world revolved beneath her feet, there were two sexes among humans, a thin line linked hunger