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Authors: Clarice Lispector
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exquise and unpleasant. It isn’t
spontaneous. It needs a glass dome. But it is a magnificent woman and that
cannot be denied. Nor can it be denied that it is noble because it is epiphytic.
Epiphytes are born on other plants without however taking nutrition from them. I
was lying when I said it was unpleasant. I adore orchids. They’re born
artificial, they’re born art.
The tulip is only a tulip in Holland. A single tulip
simply is not. They need an open field in order to be.
Cornflowers only grow amidst the wheat. In their
humility they have the audacity to appear in various shapes and colors. The
cornflower is biblical. In the nativity scenes of Spain it isn’t separated from
the stalks of wheat. It is a little beating heart.
But angelica is dangerous. It has the perfume of the
chapel. It brings ecstasy. It recalls the Host. Many wish to eat it and fill
their mouths with the intense sacred scent.
Jasmine is for lovers. It makes you want to put an
ellipsis now. They walk holding hands, swinging their arms and giving each other
gentle kisses to the fragrant almost-sound of jasmine.
Bird-of-paradise is pure masculinity. It has an
aggressiveness of love and of healthy pride. It seems to have a cock’s comb and
his crow. It just doesn’t wait for dawn. The violence of your beauty.
Night jessamine has a perfume of the full moon.
It’s phantasmagoric and a bit frightening and is for people who like danger. It
only emerges at night with its dizzying scent. Night jessamine is silent. And
also belongs to the deserted street corner and in the dark and the gardens of
houses whose lights are off and windows are shut. It’s highly dangerous: it’s a
whistle in the dark, which no one can bear. But I can bear it because I love
danger. As for the succulent flower of the cactus, it is large and scented and
of a vivid color. It’s the succulent revenge that the desert plant makes. It is
splendor being born of the despotic sterility.
I can’t be bothered to speak of edelweiss. Because it’s
found at an altitude of three thousand four hundred metres. It’s white and
woolly. Rarely reachable: it’s aspiration.
Geranium is the flower of window boxes. You find it in
São Paulo, in the neighborhood of Grajaú and in Switzerland.
Giant water lilies are in the Botanical Gardens in Rio de
Janeiro. Enormous and up to two metres in diameter. Aquatic, they’re to die for.
They are the Amazonian: the dinosaur of flowers. They give off great calm. Both
majestic and simple. And despite living on the water’s surface they cast shade.
What I’m writing you is in Latin: de natura florum. Later I’ll show you my study
already transformed into a linear design.
The chrysanthemum is of a deep happiness. It speaks
through its color and its unruly shock of hair. It’s a flower that untidily
controls its own wildness.
I think I’m going to have to ask permission to die. But I
can’t, it’s too late. I heard “The Firebird”—and drowned entirely.
I must interrupt because—didn’t I say? didn’t I
say that one day a thing would happen to me? Well it just happened. A man called
João spoke to me on the phone. He grew up in the depths of the Amazon. And he
says that there’s a legend there about a talking plant. It’s called the tajá.
And they say that once indigenous people have charmed it in a ritual way, it may
even say a word. João told me something that has no explanation: once he came
home late and when he was walking down the hall where the plant was he heard the
word “João.” So he thought it was his mother calling him and replied: I’m
coming. He went upstairs but found his mother and father snoring and sound
asleep.
I’m tired. My tiredness comes often because I’m an
extremely busy person: I look after the world. Every day I look from my terrace
at a section of beach and sea and see the thick foam is whiter and that during
the night the waters crept forward uneasy. I see this by the mark which the
waves
spontaneous. It needs a glass dome. But it is a magnificent woman and that
cannot be denied. Nor can it be denied that it is noble because it is epiphytic.
Epiphytes are born on other plants without however taking nutrition from them. I
was lying when I said it was unpleasant. I adore orchids. They’re born
artificial, they’re born art.
The tulip is only a tulip in Holland. A single tulip
simply is not. They need an open field in order to be.
Cornflowers only grow amidst the wheat. In their
humility they have the audacity to appear in various shapes and colors. The
cornflower is biblical. In the nativity scenes of Spain it isn’t separated from
the stalks of wheat. It is a little beating heart.
But angelica is dangerous. It has the perfume of the
chapel. It brings ecstasy. It recalls the Host. Many wish to eat it and fill
their mouths with the intense sacred scent.
Jasmine is for lovers. It makes you want to put an
ellipsis now. They walk holding hands, swinging their arms and giving each other
gentle kisses to the fragrant almost-sound of jasmine.
Bird-of-paradise is pure masculinity. It has an
aggressiveness of love and of healthy pride. It seems to have a cock’s comb and
his crow. It just doesn’t wait for dawn. The violence of your beauty.
Night jessamine has a perfume of the full moon.
It’s phantasmagoric and a bit frightening and is for people who like danger. It
only emerges at night with its dizzying scent. Night jessamine is silent. And
also belongs to the deserted street corner and in the dark and the gardens of
houses whose lights are off and windows are shut. It’s highly dangerous: it’s a
whistle in the dark, which no one can bear. But I can bear it because I love
danger. As for the succulent flower of the cactus, it is large and scented and
of a vivid color. It’s the succulent revenge that the desert plant makes. It is
splendor being born of the despotic sterility.
I can’t be bothered to speak of edelweiss. Because it’s
found at an altitude of three thousand four hundred metres. It’s white and
woolly. Rarely reachable: it’s aspiration.
Geranium is the flower of window boxes. You find it in
São Paulo, in the neighborhood of Grajaú and in Switzerland.
Giant water lilies are in the Botanical Gardens in Rio de
Janeiro. Enormous and up to two metres in diameter. Aquatic, they’re to die for.
They are the Amazonian: the dinosaur of flowers. They give off great calm. Both
majestic and simple. And despite living on the water’s surface they cast shade.
What I’m writing you is in Latin: de natura florum. Later I’ll show you my study
already transformed into a linear design.
The chrysanthemum is of a deep happiness. It speaks
through its color and its unruly shock of hair. It’s a flower that untidily
controls its own wildness.
I think I’m going to have to ask permission to die. But I
can’t, it’s too late. I heard “The Firebird”—and drowned entirely.
I must interrupt because—didn’t I say? didn’t I
say that one day a thing would happen to me? Well it just happened. A man called
João spoke to me on the phone. He grew up in the depths of the Amazon. And he
says that there’s a legend there about a talking plant. It’s called the tajá.
And they say that once indigenous people have charmed it in a ritual way, it may
even say a word. João told me something that has no explanation: once he came
home late and when he was walking down the hall where the plant was he heard the
word “João.” So he thought it was his mother calling him and replied: I’m
coming. He went upstairs but found his mother and father snoring and sound
asleep.
I’m tired. My tiredness comes often because I’m an
extremely busy person: I look after the world. Every day I look from my terrace
at a section of beach and sea and see the thick foam is whiter and that during
the night the waters crept forward uneasy. I see this by the mark which the
waves
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