Near to the Wild Heart (13 page)

Breaking the rule he adopted when working — a concession — he took up pen and paper before he was actually ready. But he excused himself, he didn't want to lose that note, it might come in handy some day: 'One needs to be blind to some extent in order to perceive certain things. Perhaps that is the mark of the artist. Any man is capable of knowing more than he does and of reasoning with confidence, according to the truth. But it's precisely those things which escape one in the light. In the dark, they become phosphorescent.'

He thought a little. Then, despite the concession going on for too long, he jotted down: 'It's not the degree that separates intelligence from genius, but the quality. Genius is not so much a question of intellectual power, but the form in which that power manifests itself.' So one can easily be more intelligent than a genius. But
he's the genius.
How childish that
he's the genius.
I must see if I can apply this discovery in relation to Spinoza. — Was it really him? Every idea that occurred to him, for he would familiarize himself with it within seconds, came with the fear that he might have stolen it.

Fine, now for some order. Having laid aside his pencil, he told himself, I must get rid of these obsessions. One, two, three! I deeply regret suffering as I do amidst the bamboos of the north-east of this city, he began. I do as I please — he continued — and no one is forcing me to write the
Divine Comedy.
There is no way of being other than the way it is, the rest is useless embroidery and just as embarrassing as those heavily embroidered angels and flowers with which cousin Isabel used to decorate my pillows. When I was distracted and she would come like a purple, idiotic cloud, guess what I'm thinking, say what, what four more times, what, what, what, what. Like this, like this, don't run away: 'What did you say? You're still alive? You're still not dead?' Yes, yes, that was it, I mustn't run away from myself, I mustn't run away from my handwriting, how delicate and horrid it is, a spider's web, I mustn't run away from my defects, I adore you. My virtues are so few, like those of other men, my defects, my negative side is as beautiful and hollow as any abyss. What I am not would leave an enormous hole in the ground. I don't conceal my mistakes, while Joana doesn't make mistakes, there is the difference. Eh, eh, say something, fellow. The women look at me, the women, the women, my mouth, I let my moustache grow again, they die of happiness and a deep love filled with plums and prunes. I buy all of them without money, money I keep. If one of them slips on a banana-skin there in the road, all one can do is to feel ashamed. Nothing is lost, nothing is nurtured. The man who can feel this, in other words, who doesn't simply understand, but adores, should be as happy as the man who truly believes in God. In the beginning it hurts a little, but then you get used to it. The person writing this page was born one day. It is now precisely a few minutes past seven in the morning. There is mist outside, beyond the window, the Open Window, the grand symbol. Joana would say: I feel myself to be so inside the world that I appear not to be thinking, to be adopting a new method of breathing. Farewell. Such is the world, I am me, it's raining in the world, it's a lie, I'm someone who works with my intellect, Joana is asleep in the bedroom, someone must be waking up at this moment, Joana would say: another is dying, another is listening to music, someone has gone into the bathroom, such is the world. I intend to arouse the feelings of everyone, to call upon them to share my compassion. I live with a woman who is naked and cold, I mustn't escape, I mustn't escape, who looks into my eyes, I mustn't escape, who watches me, it's a lie, it's a lie, but it's the truth. Now she's in bed sleeping, she's overcome with sleep, overcome, overcome. She is a slender bird in a white nightdress. I intend to arouse the feelings of everyone, I don't conceal my mistakes, but let everyone shield me.

He sat up straight, patted his hair down, remained serious. Now he was going to work. As if everyone were standing by and nodding with approval, closing his eyes in agreement. Yes, that's right, very good. Someone real was disturbing him and on his own he became frustrated and nervous. For 'everyone' was looking on. He gave a little cough. He cautiously moved away the inkwell. He began: 'The tragedy of modern times is man's vain attempt to adapt to the state of things he has created.'

He sat back in his chair, looked at his notebook, straightened his pyjamas. 'Imagination is so essential to man—Joana once more — that his entire world finds its
raison d'être
in the beauty of creation and not in its utility, not in being the result of a series of objectives conforming to his needs. That is why we find an increasing number of remedies aimed at uniting man to existing ideas and institutions — education, for example, which is so difficult — and why we continually find him outside the world he has created. Man builds houses to look at, not to live in. For everything follows the path of inspiration. Determinism is not a determinism of objectives, but a strict determinism of causes. To play, to invent, to pursue the ant to its ant-hill, to mix water with lime in order to see the result, that's what one does when one is small and when one is grown up. It's a mistake to believe that we attain a high level of pragmatism and materialism. In truth, pragmatism — the plan directed towards a genuine and given objective — would be understanding, stability, happiness, the greatest victory of adaptation which man can hope to achieve. Meanwhile to do things "so that" strikes me, in the face of reality, as being the kind of perfection one cannot expect of man. The beginning of everything he construes is "so that". Man's curiosity, dreams, imagination — these have formed the modern world. Following his inspiration, man has blended these ingredients, invented combinations. His tragedy: to have to nourish himself with them. He was confident that he might be able to imagine in one life and find himself in another, set apart. In fact, that other life continues, but its purification over the imagined one works slowly and a man on his own cannot find foolish thought on one side and the peace of the true life on the other. One cannot think with impunity.' Joana thought without fear and without reprisal. Would she finally possess madness, or what? She could not tell. Perhaps only suffering.

He paused, re-read what he had written. Don't step outside this world, he thought with a certain ardour. Not to have to confront the rest. Simply to think. Simply to think and go on writing. He didn't mind being asked to write articles on Spinoza, so long as no one obliged him to plead in court, to look at and contend with those offensively human beings lining up and shamelessly revealing themselves.

He re-read his notes from earlier readings. The pure scientist stops believing in what he likes. The need to like things: the mark of mankind. — One must not forget: 'the intellecual love of God' is the true knowledge and excludes any mysticism or idolatry.

— Many answers can be found in Spinoza's statements. In the idea, for example, that there can be thought without extension (the modality of God) and vice-versa, surely the soul's mortality is affirmed? Of course it is: mortality as a distinct and reasoning soul, the clear impossibility of the pure form attributed to the angels by St Thomas Aquinas. Mortality in relation to the human. Immortality through the transformation in nature. — Within the world there is no place for other creations. There is merely the opportunity of reintegration and continuation. All that could exist already exists. There is nothing more to be created unless revealed. If the more man evolves, the more he tries to synthesize, to abstract and establish principles and laws for his life, how could God — in any acceptance, even that of the conscious God of religions — be without absolute laws for his own perfection? A God endowed with free will is inferior to a God with only one law. Just as a concept is all the truer when it is only one and does not need to be transformed before each particular case. God's perfection is more readily proved with the impossibility than the possibility of miracles. To work miracles, for a God rendered human by religions, is to be unjust — thousands of people have the same need of this miracle at the same time — or to recognize an error, amending it — which, more than an act of kindness or 'proof of character', means to have erred. — Neither understanding nor volition pertain to God's nature, Spinoza affirms. That makes me feel happier and gives me greater freedom. For the idea of the existence of a conscious God leaves us horribly dissatisfied.

At the top of my essay I should put a literal translation from Spinoza: 'Bodies distinguish themselves from each other in relation to substance.' He had shown the phrase to Joana. Why? He shrugged his shoulders, without seeking any deeper explanation. She had shown herself to be curious, she had wanted to read the book.

Otávio reached out his hand and grabbed it. There was a sheet of notepaper inserted between the pages. He looked at it and discovered Joana's indistinct handwriting. He couldn't resist looking closer: 'The beauty of words: the abstract nature of God. Just like listening to Bach.' Why did he prefer not to have written this phrase? Joana always caught him unawares. He felt embarrassed as if she were clearly lying and he was forced to deceive her, by saying that he believed her...

To read what she had written was like standing before Joana. He evoked her, and avoiding her eyes, he saw her in moments of distraction, her face white, vague and delicate. And suddenly, a great sadness descended upon him. What am I doing after all? he asked himself, and he didn't know why he had so suddenly rounded on himself. No, you mustn't write today. And since that was a concession, an order not to be questioned — he questioned himself: if he wanted to, could he honestly work? and the reply was definite: no — and once the decision was more powerful than himself, he felt almost happy. Today, someone was giving him respite. Not God. Not God, but someone. Someone very powerful.

He would get up, tidy his papers, put the book back on the shelf, get into some warm clothes, go and see Lídia. The consolation of Order. How would Lídia receive him? Before the open window, watching the children walk to school, he saw himself take her by the shoulders, suddenly in a temper, perhaps a little forced, when confronted by that same question: what am I doing after all?

— Aren't you afraid? — he had screamed at her.

Lídia had remained impassive.

— Aren't you afraid of your future, of our future, of me? Don't you realize that... that... being simply my lover... the only place you have is at my side?

She had shaken her head, surprised and tearful:

— But no...

He had given her a good shake, remotely ashamed at having shown so much force, when in the company of Joana, for example, he would say nothing.

— Aren't you afraid that I might leave you? Don't you realize that if I should leave you, you would be a woman without a husband, without anything... A poor devil... who one day was jilted by her fiancé and then became his mistress when he married another...

— I don't want you to leave me...

— Ah...

—... but I'm not afraid.

He had looked at her in amazement. She was getting thinner, he noticed. But she still looked healthy. Despite everything, she was more nervous, much given to weeping, readily became emotional. Suddenly, he had burst out laughing.

— Honestly, I don't know what to make of you. Lídia, too, had laughed, glad that it was all over. He had been intimidated by her radiant expression, he had drawn her close to him rather than look into those eyes. And they stood there for a moment in each other's arms, wishing for different things.

And now? Lídia would receive him as always. He wrote a note to Joana, letting her know that he wouldn't be home for lunch. Poor Joana... he could tell her if he wished. She would never know. So completely wrapped up in her blind conceit... But he would protect her ferociously, he laughed, his heart pounding. Never mind, tomorrow he would write something definitive for his article.

He looked at himself in the mirror before leaving, with half-closed eyes he observed his well-shaped face, his straight nose, his full, fleshy lips. But after all, I'm not to blame for anything, he said. Not even for having been born. And suddenly he didn't understand how he ever came to believe in responsibility, to feel that constant weight at every hour. He was free... How simple everything became at times.

He made his way on to the street, went to buy some sweets which he chose carefully. He finally decided on a fairly large bag of boiled sweets, apricot-flavoured. The moment he got round the corner, he would suck the first sweet, his hands in his pockets. His eyes filled with tenderness at the thought. Why not? — he asked himself, suddenly irritated. Who said that great men don't eat sweets? Only in biographies are those details never mentioned. Suppose Joana were to know what he was thinking? No, to be frank, she had never been sarcastic about... He felt a moment of anger, began walking more quickly.

Before turning the corner, he took the bag of sweets and emptied them into the gutter. In distress, he watched them merge with the mud, roll to a dark opening, covered with cobwebs.

He continued on his way, walking more slowly, shrunken. It was a little cold. Now someone would be satisfied, he thought remotely. Like a punishment, a confession.

— Even great men are only truly recognized and honoured once they are dead. Why? Because those who praise them need to feel themselves somehow superior to the person praised, they need to feel they are making some concession. From which... there stems a patent superiority... the person who is praising... has succeeded in holding his own ... there is even a certain condescension... that finishes up as... pity, Otávio told her.

Lídia was observing him in one of his ugly moments. Those thin lips, that wrinkled forehead, his foolish expression — Otávio was thinking. And she loved him at this moment. His ugliness neither excited her nor aroused her pity. It simply drew her closer to him and with greater happiness. The happiness of wholly accepting, of feeling that she was uniting all that was true and primitive in herself to someone, independent of any preconceived ideas about beauty. She recalled her former schoolmates — those girls who were always so lively, who knew everything, were up to date with the latest films, books, love affairs, fashions, those girls with whom she had never really had much in common, withdrawn as she was, never really having much to say for herself. She remembered them and felt certain that they would find Otávio ugly at this moment. For she accepted him to such an extent that she would have preferred him even uglier in order to give even greater proof of her effortless love.