Still crying, fumbling, she was seeking her shoes behind the tree. She grabbed them with dirt in her nails, sat on the great rock in the garden lifting her skirt and blowing her nose on the cotton slip. She looked at the old construction half-covered by the tree beside which she had sat: weak light was shining yellowish and somber in the tall windows, nothing could be heard, noises were being born and getting lost even inside the mansion. The house seemed to her hushed, supernatural, distant — as if she’d died and was trying to remember, as if the house could vanish a few seconds from now and the ground would stay behind smooth, empty, dark. Who would know if death really was reality — as if her entire life had been a nightmare and she finally woke up dead. But moments later a kind of calm buzzing started coming from the center of the house as if noises, movements, and conversations crushed together in a single sound. It was her house, her house — she possessed a place that wasn’t the forest or the dark road, nor tiredness and tears, that wasn’t even joy, that wasn’t raving and pointless fear, a place that belonged to her without anyone ever having said so, a place where people would accept without surprise that she was coming in, sleeping and eating, a place where nobody would ask her if she’d been afraid but where they’d greet her while continuing to eat beneath the lamp, a place where in the most serious instants people could wake up and maybe suffer too, a place you could run to frightened after rapture, where you could return after the experience of laughter, after having tried to surpass the limit of the possible world — it was her, her, her house. She wiped her eyes, sought with trembling and such weak hands to clean the dirt from her feet, put on her shoes, got up. Standing on her tall heels she found herself in a slightly familiar sensation, felt some assurance, ran her dirty hands over her face trying to erase the expression of the tears, lifted her skirt, once again blowing her swollen nose. Nearing the mansion she was wanting to have a thought that thanked the vague salvation she was feeling in her chest, she halted looking at the white old walls immersed in shadow and silence, the windows blinking all lit up. She’d live at the Farm, she then thought in a beginning and it seemed to her that she might have lived her whole life in search of that thought, just as some would live leaning through confusion toward love, glory, or themselves. She smiled biting her lips with shame and pride in already laughing — to live her whole life at the Farm — for an instant she herself vibrating inside her smile with an unmixed joy, for a quick instant. She went straight to the staircase without looking at the family already sitting at the table.
“I’ll be back in a minute . . .”
She washed her face, her feet, her hands, put iodine on the scratches on her body. She wet her hair, combed it trying to smooth it, every once in a while a kind of little sob as a reminiscence. She looked at herself in the mirror — in the dark and dizzy light her face was seeming big, fresh, blossoming and shining, her dark eyes were moist and intense, she was looking like a monstrous flower open in the water — she went down the stairs feeling extraordinarily young and shaky. They were eating, nobody asked her anything; after all night had hardly fallen and she’d come back on time. She served herself black beans, peas, meat, rice, and cornbread, started eating slowly, eating everything painstakingly, guilty and happy, holding back the odd sob. The black countryside seemed impotent to her, she was sometimes remembering the almost mad pleasure she’d felt in the meadow, but recalling with nausea and fear, with hatred and flight, like a thing that hurt so, so badly, like a vice, she who had been expelled from pleasure, she who had been expelled from paradise. Mother said:
“Potatoes?”
She handed over her plate with docility and got potatoes. Her mother looked at her with approval and harshness:
“When you were a girl you got in a lot of trouble with your father for eating potatoes.”
Virgínia laughed feeling her eyes shining wet and flickering in front of her own vision.
“You have a cold,” the old woman asked.
“I don’t know, Mama . . .”
“Take some cough syrup before going to sleep . . . Esmeralda has it in her room” — she looked at Esmeralda with politeness and leisure, she’d always be her favorite daughter.
“Come by my room before you go to sleep,” said Esmeralda.
She looked tired and sluggish.
“And what’s wrong with you?” asked Virgínia.
“Nothing . . .” the other responded. “I just woke up like this. I actually slept well last night.”
“But how do you feel?”
“I don’t know, I told you!” Esmeralda got irritated, “leave me alone.”
Father was eating, his glasses on his forehead, staring at the plate. Daniel was cutting the meat, putting it in his mouth and leaning toward the folded newspaper.
“I don’t know how you can read in this light,” said Virgínia — she was wanting to touch each person with a word.
He quickly lifted his head, annoyed, distracted. He said: “yes . . . ,” went back to his reading, his face lowered, chewing.
“Papa, do you want more corn?” she asked blushing. Because she remembered right away how he couldn’t stand being uncomfortable, that he was the boss at the table, the one who would invite and force others to eat. The old man didn’t reply, didn’t hand over his plate. Without knowing how to proceed, she said one more time, darkly offering herself as a daughter, disturbed to keep pushing but not knowing what course to take:
“And rice?”
“Nobody has to order me to eat,” he said at last, “I know all by myself what’s good for me,” he concluded resistant.
Surprised, but that was Father — she looked timidly at her family . . . Papa, Papa, that’s how you are, don’t ever die . . . How dumb she was, she said to herself a bit suddenly, straightened up and set to eating with resolve. At the end of the dinner some thing seemed to diminish like disappearing mists and reality was emerging almost like the reality before her walk. The scene had already been seen, it was that of the daily dinner — she felt calmer, more indifferent. She was remembering the walk through the night, feeling it inside her like a still aching and tender spot, like an inexplicable place to which you could return; she was pushing away the thought immediately with a gesture but already reflecting: maybe I overdid it, maybe I’m sick. Yet suddenly the electric power started to fade rapidly, the lamp was almost going out and in the half-shadow full of wind they all halted with their forks in hand, their eyes looking up. The interrupted dinner. Later, in a single surge, the light rekindled with power a shining brightness spread over the long table and over the faces . . . reality emerged whole, some thing was coming to an end — the family was starting dinner again. Contrite, angry with herself, Virgínia couldn’t help noticing how calm and emotionless she was. But she’d stay at the Farm forever! she thought with ardor and harshness, wounding herself. It was strange that she loved them so much, that she couldn’t stand the pain of imagining them dead and nevertheless wanted, yes, she wanted to leave. Then they got up, the old people went upstairs, Daniel went out, Esmeralda and she sat in the rocking chairs in the parlor without speaking. That room that was at the end of the dining room would only get a bit of the brightness of the other room and was growing quiet almost in shadow; it was the mansion’s hottest room, the smallest and most comfortable. Virgínia saw Esmeralda close her eyes and huddle clasping the corners of the dark shawl on her chest. She herself began to rock herself gently, her hands on the curved arms of the chair, her eyes fixed on the ceiling unconsciously watching the back-and-forth movement. She was loving and understanding people more and more and nevertheless more and more was realizing that she ought to isolate herself from them. But she needed to stay, stay . . . Esmeralda looked so old to her . . . how hadn’t she noticed it before? the wide eyelids closed in an abandon that was bothersome, the legs curled atop the chair, all of her nestled as if she were cold or had a fever, so wilted, so much smaller than she really w
as. But if she called her she’d hear an irritated exclamation. Yes, stay, watch the end of those lives with which she’d been born, reconstruct her forgotten childhood with the help of the memory of the place, live at the Farm where she’d had her greatest instants, take back, take back. She was rocking herself quickly, quickly, gently. But with the stubbornness of a world that warns with impotent eyes of the danger, she was feeling without even comprehending that the place where one was happy is not the place where one can live. She was closing her eyes while rocking herself quick and smooth and intimately she had to go on, deeply she was wrapping herself in anxiety and sweetness, deeply she had to go on in that ineffable perfecting that never would go to a higher point but was in the continuation of instants itself. What would be the intimate understanding of that slow succession without hope? why wasn’t it living off a single time . . .? She was lulling herself in search — obscurely whatever it was that always remained exactly equal to itself, through the instants was already imponderably something else — in a confused way it was from there that her most pent-up hope was coming. Deeply hidden and discreet she was rocking herself — and that was the meaning of living second by second breathing in and out; you couldn’t breathe right away everything you had to breathe, you couldn’t live all at once, time was slow, unfamiliar to the body, you could live off time. And it would be an instant just like the lost instant that would bring an end. That’s what she was experiencing extraordinarily entangled, with open and thoughtful eyes; without feeling cold beneath the shirt ripped by thorns she was saying to herself surprised and distraught as in the face of a nausea, beneath a muffled worried joy, in a fatigue with shudders of intense exhaustion: but what’s wrong with me? my God, so I’m leaving, yes! She was also suffering and wondering sweetly now, submissive to herself: but for what? why after all do I wish to go? How uniform her story was, she was now feeling without words. That she was living in agreement with something; diffusion had been the most serious thing she’d experienced — chrysanthemums, chrysanthemums, she had always desired them. She was feeling that she’d recovered a lost meaning and was telling herself apprehensively and rocking herself quickly and gently deceiving herself: and now? and now? Leave, suffer, and be alone; how to touch on all the rest? Esmeralda had fallen asleep huddled up, her cheek dead; a distant inexplicable expression was fluttering in some indefinable feature of her face as in the murky bottom of a well. And now? and now? All the Farm asleep and dark was seeming to be wrapped up with the chair above the countryside.
She sat in the steaming train with her brown hat now trimmed with red — she sought in her purse the pack of cigarettes abandoned since she’d entered Upper Marsh. She was feeling cheerful, as if cold and fresh inside her body. Alone again, she was starting to experience “the things,” to allow them. She was thinking about Vicente, with a bothered sigh taking out a cigarette and lighting it. What had happened anyway? that was the sudden question to which she was desiring secretly but firmly to reach a certain impossible-to-define answer; she was sighing intolerantly in the face of her impotence that nonetheless was making her better possess the very state in which she was finding herself. What had happened? she wasn’t sure what she was trying to learn with that question. She was smoking. The vague notion of what she’d always wanted seemed to have been constantly thrashing around inside her without ever taking shape. She was guessing however, by a mysterious assent to her own lie, that having lived so continually, with patience and perseverance as in a daily job, guessing that amidst all the lost gestures the true one must have escaped — though she could never get to know it. And that she’d resolved at some indistinct minute of her life, in some glance or a brief sensation, a bodily movement or a merely curious and unnoticed thought, who would ever know. A chain of confused and indecipherable instants seemed to have served as the ritual for a consummation. And whatever might be too delicate to be accomplished through the brightness of facts, had worn out the thick defense of an entire daily existence. She herself, against herself, might have secretly agreed to the sacrifice of the mass of her life, heaping upon herself lies, false love, ambitions and pleasures — just as she’d protect somebody’s silent escape by capturing everyone’s attention with uproar and confusion. She was feeling complete and a bit tired, smoking, but her eyes were shining calm and inexpressive. Before that indeterminable instant she had been imperceptibly stronger as if held up by a clouded thrust from an unknown direction; now she was just a weak and watchful woman, yes, starting secretly an old age that someone would call maturity. There was some clearer word that almost brought her closer to her true thought and then, without understanding herself, she looked at herself in the glass of the window, examining herself. Her own face had lost its importance. She sat better adjusting her position. She was smoking and thinking inexplicably, without reaching herself. And really how could she ever foresee whatever was happening without interruption inside the most being of her body? . . . Sensations had always held her up with a light continuous strength and that’s how she’d arrived at the present moment. Even at that instant, if she stopped deeply, she could still discover primal impressions flowing like delicate noises pure words ringing out, the sea bestowing foam upon the deserted beach, maybe in memory, maybe in foreboding, being itself, through the guile of its distraction, murmuring essential, disintegrating gathering getting up: wash, place in the sun, the damp thing loses its dampness, new skin shining smooth in the shade, wash, place in the sun, the damp thing loses its dampness, new skin shining smooth in the sun, wash, put in the sun, let it lose its dampness, skin brightens up, wash, put in the sun, let it lose its dampness, wash . . . Clouded by the cigarette she was refusing to go ahead. Maybe she was referring to some serious and deep thing that was worrying her; or that might not be worrying her, that was just carrying on its natural life as the heart that beats now simply continues the past moment. The meaning of that junk of sensations was obscure and carrying on with perfect mystery; her unfurling wasn’t giving her pleasure, wasn’t giving her fatigue, wasn’t making her happy or unhappy, it was the person herself living and she was looking out the train window calculating how long it would take to arrive at the next station, wanting at last to stand and move around a bit her legs tired by motionlessness. Ah, the chandelier. She’d forgotten to look at the chandelier. It seemed to her that they’d put it away or otherwise that she hadn’t had time to seek it with her eyes. Especially also she hadn’t seen many other things. She thought she’d lost it forever. And without understanding herself, feeling a certain void in her heart, it also seemed to her that in fact she’d lost one of her things. What a shame, she said surprised. What a shame, she repeated to herself with regret. The chandelier . . . She was looking through the window and in the lowered and dark glass was seeing mixed with the reflection of the seats and the people the chandelier. She smiled contrite and timid. The featherless chandelier. Like a great and quavering cup of water. Capturing in itself the luminous raving transparency the chandelier for the first time all alight in its pale and frigid orgy — motionless in the night that was running with the train behind the glass. The chandelier. The chandelier. Without understanding herself, gingerly putting out the cigarette with the hard heel of her shoe, as if through it she were feeling the heat of the ash on her heel, the confused impression was returning. From which she after all had lived, even intact through the events, from which she’d had the occasional instant full of meaning — the pure sensation was coming and going with a touch of wonder and really she’d never know how to think whatever she was experiencing. As if for no reason, she remembered that when she was little she would play at trying not to move, like all children who’d already forgotten it; she’d stay quiet, enduring; the instants would pulse in her tense body, one more, one more, one more. And suddenly movement was irresistible, some thing impossible to hold back like a birth, and she’d carry it out electric, harsh, and brief. Confusedly there was in everything she knew that same moment of indomitable attainment. And for
all she knew, the uncontrolled gesture would secretly escape in every life. Without knowing why, she thought of her dead grandmother. She’d always observed in old people something that couldn’t be summed up, that wasn’t exactly lack of desire, or satisfaction, or experience, ah, never experience — something that only the imponderable living of all the incomprehensible instants of sleep and wakefulness seemed to grant. So strange and imperceptible were the power and fecundity of the rhythm. Nothing would seem to escape the continuous sequence, the intimate spherical movement, inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling, death and resurrection, death and resurrection. Anyway everything was the way it was, she thought almost brightly, almost cheerful — and that was meaning her deepest sensation of existence as if things were made of the impossibility of not being what they were. She seemed suddenly to understand, without however explaining herself, because lately her unease had grown like a girl’s body that, suffocated, foresees puberty.