Read Online The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector - Free Book Online
Authors: Clarice Lispector
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twenty-eight days?
— That's a downright lie!
— No it's not, I swear before God that the announcer said so on Radio Clock.
— Well, I don't believe you.
— May I drop dead this minute if I'm telling a lie. May my father and mother burn in hell, if I were to deceive you.
— You'd better watch out or you will drop dead. Listen to me: are you playing dumb or are you just plain stupid?
— I don't know what I am. I think I'm a little . . . how can I put it? — Honestly, I don't know what I am.
— At least you know that you're called Macabéa?
— That's true. But I don't know what's inside my name. The only thing I know for certain is that I've never had much to offer . . .
— Well, you'd better get it into your thick skull that my name will be in all the papers one day and I'll be famous.
She asked Olímpico:
— Did I tell you that in the street where I live there's a cockerel that sings?
— Why do you have to tell so many lies?
— I swear it, may my mother drop dead if it isn't true!
— Isn't your old girl already dead?
— Oh, so she is . . . How awful. . .
(But what about me? Here I am telling a story about events that have never happened to me or to anyone known to me. I am amazed at my own perception of the truth. Can it be that it's my painful task to perceive in the flesh truths that no one wants to face? If I know almost everything about Macabéa, it's because I once caught a glimpse of this girl with the sallow complexion from the North-east. Her expression revealed everything about her. As for the youth from Paraíba, I must have had his face imprinted on my mind. When one registers a face spontaneously without any preconceptions, that face reveals everything.)
I am now about to efface myself once more and return to my two characters who were transformed by circumstances into two semi-abstract human beings.
I still haven't filled in all the details about Olímpico. He came from the backwoods of Paraíba. His determination to survive stemmed from his roots in a region noted for its primitive, savage way of life, its recurring spells of drought. Olímpico had arrived in Rio with a tin of perfumed vaseline and a comb, his sole possessions purchased at an open market in Paraíba. He rubbed the vaseline into his hair until it was wet and glossy. It never occurred to him that the girls in Rio might be put off by that lank, greasy hair. He had been born looking more shrivelled and scorched than a withered branch or a stone lying in the sun. Olímpico had a better chance of surviving than Macabéa, for it wasn't by accident that he had killed a rival in the heart of the backwoods: his long, sharp knife had punctured his victim's soft liver with the greatest ease. He had kept this crime a secret, and he enjoyed that sense of power which secrecy can bestow. Olímpico had proved his manliness in combat. Yet he lost all courage when it came to attending funerals: sometimes he attended as many as three funerals a week; the funerals of complete strangers whose names appeared in the obituary columns of O Dia . As he read them, his eyes would fill with tears. It showed weakness on his part, but everyone has some weakness or other. A week that passed without a funeral left Olímpico feeling empty. It sounds like madness, but Olímpico knew precisely what he was after. He wasn't the least bit mad. Macabéa, unlike Olímpico, was a crossbreed between one 'quiddity' and another. Truly she seemed to have been conceived from some vague notion in the minds of starving parents. Olímpico at least stole, whenever he had the opportunity, even from the watchman at the factory who provided him with shelter. To have killed someone and to have stolen meant that he was no mere accident of nature. His crimes gave him prestige and made him a man whose honour had already been purged. He had an additional advantage over Macabéa. Olímpico had a considerable talent for drawing instant caricatures of well-known
— That's a downright lie!
— No it's not, I swear before God that the announcer said so on Radio Clock.
— Well, I don't believe you.
— May I drop dead this minute if I'm telling a lie. May my father and mother burn in hell, if I were to deceive you.
— You'd better watch out or you will drop dead. Listen to me: are you playing dumb or are you just plain stupid?
— I don't know what I am. I think I'm a little . . . how can I put it? — Honestly, I don't know what I am.
— At least you know that you're called Macabéa?
— That's true. But I don't know what's inside my name. The only thing I know for certain is that I've never had much to offer . . .
— Well, you'd better get it into your thick skull that my name will be in all the papers one day and I'll be famous.
She asked Olímpico:
— Did I tell you that in the street where I live there's a cockerel that sings?
— Why do you have to tell so many lies?
— I swear it, may my mother drop dead if it isn't true!
— Isn't your old girl already dead?
— Oh, so she is . . . How awful. . .
(But what about me? Here I am telling a story about events that have never happened to me or to anyone known to me. I am amazed at my own perception of the truth. Can it be that it's my painful task to perceive in the flesh truths that no one wants to face? If I know almost everything about Macabéa, it's because I once caught a glimpse of this girl with the sallow complexion from the North-east. Her expression revealed everything about her. As for the youth from Paraíba, I must have had his face imprinted on my mind. When one registers a face spontaneously without any preconceptions, that face reveals everything.)
I am now about to efface myself once more and return to my two characters who were transformed by circumstances into two semi-abstract human beings.
I still haven't filled in all the details about Olímpico. He came from the backwoods of Paraíba. His determination to survive stemmed from his roots in a region noted for its primitive, savage way of life, its recurring spells of drought. Olímpico had arrived in Rio with a tin of perfumed vaseline and a comb, his sole possessions purchased at an open market in Paraíba. He rubbed the vaseline into his hair until it was wet and glossy. It never occurred to him that the girls in Rio might be put off by that lank, greasy hair. He had been born looking more shrivelled and scorched than a withered branch or a stone lying in the sun. Olímpico had a better chance of surviving than Macabéa, for it wasn't by accident that he had killed a rival in the heart of the backwoods: his long, sharp knife had punctured his victim's soft liver with the greatest ease. He had kept this crime a secret, and he enjoyed that sense of power which secrecy can bestow. Olímpico had proved his manliness in combat. Yet he lost all courage when it came to attending funerals: sometimes he attended as many as three funerals a week; the funerals of complete strangers whose names appeared in the obituary columns of O Dia . As he read them, his eyes would fill with tears. It showed weakness on his part, but everyone has some weakness or other. A week that passed without a funeral left Olímpico feeling empty. It sounds like madness, but Olímpico knew precisely what he was after. He wasn't the least bit mad. Macabéa, unlike Olímpico, was a crossbreed between one 'quiddity' and another. Truly she seemed to have been conceived from some vague notion in the minds of starving parents. Olímpico at least stole, whenever he had the opportunity, even from the watchman at the factory who provided him with shelter. To have killed someone and to have stolen meant that he was no mere accident of nature. His crimes gave him prestige and made him a man whose honour had already been purged. He had an additional advantage over Macabéa. Olímpico had a considerable talent for drawing instant caricatures of well-known
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