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.Perhaps this was her protection from the enormous temptation to be unhappy and to feel sorry for herself.(When I consider that I might have been born her — and why not? — I shudder.The fact that I am not her strikes me as being a cowardly escape.I feel remorse, as I explained in one of my titles for this book.)In any case, the future looked brighter.The future, at least, had the advantage of not being the present, and the worse can always take a turn for the better.There wasn't a trace of human misery in the girl.She carried within her an aura of innocence.For, strange though it may seem, she had faith.Composed of fine organic matter, she existed.Pure and simple.And what about me? The only thing that can be said about me is that I am breathing.Even though all she possessed within was that tiny essential flame: the breath of life.(I am having a hellish time with this story.May the Gods never decree that I should write about a leper, for then I should become covered in leprosy.) (I am delaying the events that I can vaguely foresee, simply because I need to make several portraits of this girl from Alagoas.Also because if anyone should read this story, I'd like them to absorb this young woman like a cloth soaked in water.The girl embodies a truth I was anxious to avoid.I don't know whom I can blame, but someone is to blame.)Is it possible that in penetrating the seeds of her existence, I am violating the secrets of the Pharaohs?Will I be condemned to death for discussing a life that contains, like the lives of all of us, an inviolable secret? I am desperately trying to discover in the girl's existence at least one bright topaz.Perhaps I shall succeed before finishing my story.It's much too early to say, but I am hopeful.I forgot to mention that sometimes this typist is nauseated by the thought of food.This dates from her childhood when she discovered that she had eaten a fried cat.The thought revolted her for ever more.She lost her appetite and felt the great hunger thereafter.She was convinced that she had committed a crime; that she had eaten a fried angel, its wings snapping between her teeth.She believed in angels, and because she believed in them, they existed.The girl had never eaten lunch or dinner in a restaurant.She ate her food standing at the snack-bar on the street corner.She fancied that a woman who enters a restaurant must be French and on the loose.There were certain words whose meaning escaped her.One such word was ephemeris.For didn't Senhor Raimundo ask her to copy from his elegant handwriting the word ephemeris or ephemerides? She found the word ephemerides altogether mysterious.When she copied the word out she paused over each letter.Her workmate Glória could do shorthand and, not only did she earn more, but she even seemed unperturbed by those difficult words that the boss was so fond of using.Meanwhile, the girl became enamoured of the word ephemeris.Another portrait: she had never received gifts from anyone.It didn't worry her for she needed so little.One day, however, she saw something that, for one brief moment, she dearly wanted: it was a book that Senhor Raimundo, who was fond of literature, had left on the table.The book was entitled The Shamed and Oppressed.The girl remained pensive.Perhaps for the very first time she had established her social class.She thought and thought and thought! She decided that no one had ever really oppressed her and that everything that happened to her was inevitable.It was futile trying to struggle.Why struggle? I ask myself: will she one day experience love and its farewell? Will she one day experience love and its deceptions? Will she experience love's rapture in her own modest way? Who can tell? How can one disguise the simple fact that the entire world is somewhat sad and lonely? The girl from the North-east was lost in the crowd.She caught the bus in Maua Square.It was bitterly cold and she had no warm clothing to protect her from the wind.But there were the cargo ships that filled her with yearning for who knows what.This happened only on the rare occasion.Most of the time she walked out of her gloomy office into the fading light, and noted that every day at the same hour, it was exactly the same hour.Nothing could be done about the great clock that marked time within time.Yes, to my exasperation, the same hour.Well, so what? So nothing! Speaking for myself, the author of this human character, I cannot stand repetition: routine divides me from potential novelties within my reach [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]