ends up not knowing.
Oh, let's not get too complicated. After all, in the last
( 3 4 4 )
The Apple in the Dark
analysis everything is reduced to yes or no. He wanted a "yes."
Which could be given with his head bowed or along with all of
the rest of the cast on stage; it is a small matter of personal
preference, and de gustibus non disputandum.
And the truth was that Martim was about to collapse from
fatigue. For months he had been working beyond his capacity
because it was a question of an inferior person. His breath was
short, and the capacity of his stomach small. The crime itself
had been a performance that had drained him. "In jail I'll see if
I can get some vitamin pills," he thought vaguely, he who had
always had the secret desire to be fat. His breath was short and
he was becoming nauseated over being a person; he had swallowed more than he could digest.
Out of fatigue then, with the quick balm of a vision, he took
refuge among the thick plants of his plot of ground, which must
now be peacefully getting ready for night among the running of
the rats. "I'm going to the devil," he then said to himself,
looking at the men, nauseated at being a man. The peaceful
plants were calling him. "Not to be," that was a man's vast
night. "Even if it's not even the intelligence with which one
goes to bed with a woman," he thought, deceiving himself, and
so deep that he really did not understand what he had meant by
it. His desirous thoughts went back to the plants of his Tertiary
plot, with a longing for the black rats. A softness made up out of
sensuality dragged him out of the struggle; it gave him a nostalgic shamelessness, a wandering melancholy. He still tried vaguely to stand up straight and make himself over: "I'm a
Brazilian, after all, what the hell !" But he could not make it.
That man was sated; he wanted refuge and peace.
But in order to find that peace he would have to forget about
other people.
To find that refuge he would have to be himself, that
himself that has nothing to do with anybody else. "But I have a
right to that!" he justified himself in a tired way. "What the
hell ! What do I have to do with other people? There's a place
where, before order and before names, I am I ! And who can tell
( 3 4 5)
T H E A P P L E
IN
T H E D A R K
if that's not the real place in common with what I set out to
find? That place which is our common and solitary land, and
where we just feel around like blind men. Isn't that all we ask
for? I accept you : place of horror where cats meow contentedly,
where angels have nighttime space to flap their beautiful wings,
where the innards of a woman are a future child, and where God
rules that grave disorder of which we are the happy offspring.
Then why fight? Inside a man there was a place which was
pure light, but it did not show itself in the eyes or cloud them
over. It was a place where, all tricks aside, one exists; a place
where, without the least pretension, one exists; or will we be,
from the fact of just being, warhorses! Let's not complicate life;
we have a right to this tranquil pleasure! And it isn't even a
matter for discussion; we don't have the capacity for argument.
To be honest, long before we were aware of it, dogs were already
loving each other; in short, by the right of having been born, we
have the right to be what we are. So let's take advantage of it,
let's not exaggerate the importance of other people! Because
there exists in a man a point that is just as sacred as the existence
of other people. Let other people take care of themselves ! From
birth a man has the right to be able to go to sleep peacefullybecause things are not as dangerous as all that, and the world won't come to an end tomorrow. Fear may have confused reality
with desire a little bit, but the dog in us knows the way. "What
the hell ! What blame do I have for the silent faces of men? You
have to trust a little too, because thank God we have strong
instincts and sharp teeth, not to mention intuition. After all is
said and done, from birth we have that capacity to sit down
quietly beside the door of a house at night. And there are ideas
that come out of that . . ."
and fright. Fright, rage, love, and then the door of the house
becomes small, and those feelings and those rights are not
enough. You have to be born to something greater . . . What's
missing? When the house itself becomes small, the man leaves
at dawn to bring something back.
( 3 4 6 )
The Apple in the Dark
Martim came to rapidly. His softness had passed. That was
his chance! He could not lose it out of mere fatigue, he who had
gone through a whole life without knowing what to do with his
small self, and who now at last had found what to do with
himself, small as he was. Join up with the small ones. He came
to rapidly, now that he had finally reached a small apotheosis.
"O.K., let's get going," the detective said, folding up the
map.
"I hope, ma'am," the mayor said, "that he hasn't caused you
any trouble. You were very brave, there aren't many women who
could have had a criminal in their house without being afraid.
Many ladies like you, that is. Those of us in the town hall hope
that it hasn't been any trouble for you."
"No, no," Vit6ria said rapidly, blushing because she was
confused.
Trouble? No, no. Hadn't she got what she wanted out of
him, hadn't she?
"Let's go then," the detective said, looking at Martim in a
way that was feigned a little, he being really quite used to
prisoners. "You don't seem to be the kind of person who would
try to make an escape, but I'd better tell you that I'll shoot you
at the first sign."
Large and unarmed, Martim was quick to say:
"No, I'll behave! " He said it with pleasure and attention,
trying with pleasure to repeat some previous situation, by means
of which this one would become understandable. "And don't
forget that I didn't do anything, see? Don't forget to tell that to
the judge: I didn't do anything! Don't forget that I could have
tried to run away," he said in his wisdom.
"Try it and see."
"Oh, I don't mean that I could run away now!" Martim
corrected him respectfully. "I meant that I could have run away
before! Because before you got here, don't forget, I had months
in which to run away!"
What passed rapidly through his head was this : i t would
have been in his favor if he had lied, saying that he had not run
( 3 4 7 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
away because he had planned to give himself up . . . Butthinking well and on new terms-how could anyone understand why he had not run away unless he had planned to give himself
up? That he had not run away for other reasons was a truth that
no longer existed. For an instant Martim
remembered the sheet
of paper on which he had written his plans, and he remembered
that he had not run away because he had wanted to have enough
time to carry them out-but that had now become so incomprehensible and was so far removed from the thinking of the four men that it only had one real and final meaning: it had stopped
him from running away. Which could be called a lack of
resistance. Which could be an extenuating circumstance. How
perfect everything had turned out! He blinked.
"You couldn't have run away if you'd wanted to," the
detective answered. "After this lady told the professor about her
suspicions, we began investigating; and you were under surveillance. If we didn't move sooner it was because our method is to be sure of what we're doing," he added with dignity.
Martim nodded his head with surprise and curiosity; he had
completely forgotten how, in a general way, people are stupid.
"But I couldn't have guessed that I was being watched,
could I?" he argued with patience. "I didn't know that I was
being watched, and yet I still didn't try to run away, did I?"
"No, that's right," the detective agreed reluctantly, looking
at him a little fascinated : there was something wrong with it all,
but the detective couldn't say what.
"Sure he knew he couldn't get away," dared the one with
tobacco on his lapel, who was one of the liveliest people that
Martim had created. "He knew he couldn't get to run away," he
said, trying to clear up the confusion into which the prisoner had
plunged them-"and knowing he was surrounded, he decided
not to run away so he could look like a person who's sorry and
wants to surrender!" he suggested with sagacity.
�artim looked at him, surprised. He was going to have to
expenence everything! Even innocence. Unjustly accused, for
the first time Martim was experiencing innocence. His eyes
blinked damply, gratefully. Another symbol had been reached.
( 3 4 8)
The Apple in the Dark
And Martim understood then why his father, already near
the end of his life, would say stubbornly, inexplicably, "I always
got what I wanted." Yes, in some way, one always got it. "And I,
what did I get? I got experience, which is the thing that people
are born for; and there is deep freedom in experience. But
experiencing what? Experiencing that thing which we are and
you are? It's true that the most we experience comes with pain,
but it's also true that that is the inescapable way of reaching the
one maximum point, and everything has one moment, and then
we get ready for the other moment, which will be the first oneand if all of this is confusing, we are completely protected in all of this by what we are, we who are desire."
"But in the end, what did I get from all of that? A lot. And
so many times our freedom is so intense that we turn our faces
away. Yes, but in everything I got, what can I do with the evil?
Oh, but it's as if evil were the same thing as good, except that it
has different practical results. It comes from the same blind
desire, as if evil were the lack of organization of good; so many
times a very intense goodness overflows into evil. The natural
fact is that evil is a more rapid means of communication. But
from now on I'm going to organize my evil into good, now that I
no longer have the same hunger to be good. Now that I'm ready
for my own soul, now that I love other people. Will I still be
able to get something? But I did manage to give the world
existence! Which means that now I should be ready to take part
in a war of vengeance or of goodness or of error or of glory, and
that I'm ready to make mistakes or be right, now that I am at
last common."
With a bit of fright, Martim understood that he had not
been looking for freedom. He had been trying to free himself,
yes, but only so that he could go on without any barriers to meet
his fate. He had wanted to be unencumbered; the truth was that
he had unencumbered himself of a crime. He did not want to
invent a destiny, but he wanted to copy some important thing
which was fateful in the sense that it was something that already
existed, and of whose existence he had always known, like one
who has the word on the tip of his tongue and cannot remember
( 3 4 9 )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
it. He had wanted to be free to go out and meet what existed
and what was not any more attainable. It was as unattainable as
inventing. No matter how much freedom he might have, he
would only be able to create what already had existed. The great
prison! The great prisonl But it had the beauty of difficulty.
Finally he had got what he wanted. I have created what already
exists. And he had added something more to what had existed :
the immaterial addition of himself.
"Let's go," Martim said, going over to the four men and the
security they were offering him. "Let's go," he said with the
dignity of a fireman. "Good-bye, Dona Vit6ria-"
Remembering with sudden pleasure a very ancient and
humble phrase, gospel words, he then added, almost marvelling,
slowly, little by little :
"Forgive me for anything I may have done that I did not
mean to do."
What bothered Martim then was the fact that he had not
quoted the phrase exactly. No, that was not how the phrase he
vaguely remembered went!-and it became important for him
to reproduce it without the slightest error, as if a simple change
in syllables would change its ancient meaning and take away the
perfection of a perfect way to say good-bye-any transformation
in ritual makes a man individual, which leaves in danger all the
construction and work of millions; any mistake in the phrase
would make it personal. And, frankly, there was no need to be
personal. If it were not for that stubbornness, a person could
discover that perfect formulas already exist for everything he
wants to say, that everything he had wanted to come into
existence had already really existed; that the word itself came
before man-and those four representatives knew that. They
knew that the whole question is a matter of knowing how to
imitate, because when the imitation is original, it is our experience. Martim had come to understand why people imitated.
And suddenly, just like that, Martim remembered what the
phrase was!
"Forgive me for any thoughtless remark!" he corrected himself then with vanity, because that was the ritual phrasel ( 3 5 ° )
The Apple in the Dark
"Come now," Vit6ria said, blushing, turning her eyes away.
"All of us," Martim said, suddenly illogical, "all of us were
very happy I"
"Come now," Vit6ria repeated.
Martim stuck out his hand impulsively. But because the
woman had not expected the gesture, she drew back frightened
as she put out her own. In that fraction of a second, the man
withdrew his own hand without offense-and Vit6ria, who now
had hers outstretched, stood there with her arm uselessly and
painfully extend
ed, as if hers had been the initiative of reaching
out-with a gesture that suddenly had become one of appealfor the hand of the man. Martim, perceiving in time the thin outstretched arm, ran forward emotionally with both of his
hands uplifted, and he warmly squeezed the icy fingers of the
woman, who could not restrain a movement of retreat and fear.
"Did I hurt you? ! " he shouted.
"No, no! " she protested, terrified.
Then they were silent. The woman did not say anything else.
Something had ended definitively. Martim looked at that
empty, tremulous female face, that shapeless, human thing that
had two eyes.
And then the mercy that he had been waiting for all of his
life broke out inside his chest heavily and impotently, the
exposed heart of Jesus, mercy attacked him like a pain. The
man's eyes became glassy, his features filled up with a beauty that
only God would not be repelled by, he seemed about to have
had an attack of paralysis. He babbled :
"Please forgive me for not having . . ." -and the worst
part of what he said was happily inaudible, as if the paralysis had
already reached that mouth, which was twisted with mercy.
Vit6ria raised her heard. Her insulted face became white,
tragic, and hard. But her look did not tremble, and the face that
had been slapped stayed haughty and empty. Martim had the
feeling that his very kindness had been a terrible blow-did he
have the right to be good?
"Please forgive me for not having . . .
" he murmured as he
excused himself like someone who was impotent.
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
But she would never forgive him. Why had he asked for
pardon? She would never forgive him. If until then there had
been no question of accusing him, at that moment in which he
begged forgiveness he had opened up a wound that could not be
healed. And he saw that, that she would not forgive him. He saw
that, even if it were something that he had thought of or spoken
about. But he knew; she would never forgive him. That was not
a thing that could be spoken; it was a thing that was happening,
and it was not the absence of words that makes something that
was existing stop existing, and a plant feels when the wind is
dark because it trembles, and a horse in the middle of the road
seems to have had a thought, and when the branches of a tree