The Chandelier

vigorous, ardent. And sometimes in a fleeting moment that would long ring in the body the voices would join in a full and fast line, in a single vibration, drawn and tense, as if being born from the cave into the light. Virgínia would open her eyes astonished, the instant that followed was new and bristly, she was peering at the world with its smooth surface, the sun more pale and happy, the girls’ dresses with white, red trappings, moist mouths opening, flickering in a breath of light. Sharp as if to surprise all things into confessing that same moment, she would point her head in a second, without prior notice, toward a piece of furniture — toward the inside of the school — toward the students’ feet . . . In the sky, through the window, white clouds were coming undone, running loose from the calm blue. The windowpane isolated itself from the classroom and the courtyard, sparkling with steely light. A cone of brightness was lighting a whirlwind of dusts that were dancing with hallucinatory slowness . . . Virgínia awake in the hurried instant was turning back, lightly in order not to destroy anything, and yes, there was the slate half burning alive under the heat of the sun, half coolly black . . . dead and morose, a lake in the forest. Virgínia was breathing, her face mobile, loose. Without seeing, she could nonetheless surprise the shady field behind the school, the long weeds vibrating nervous and green in the wind. A moment later, in a tiny and silent crash, things were rushing into their true color. The classroom, the sky, the girls, communicated amongst themselves with distances already established, fixed colors and sounds — the unfurling of an oft-rehearsed scene. Virgínia was understanding, disappointed, that everything had been seen years before. In order to distinguish once again what she’d seen and which had now fled as if forever, she was trying to start from the end of the feeling: she’d open her eyes very wide with surprise. But in vain: she wouldn’t make the same mistake again and would see nothing more than reality. She was drawing back. Now the sheaf of voices was separating into fragile shafts and these were breaking an instant before they reached the center of the sounds; the other things too now were slack and nothing was touching any longer the living point of itself. Virgínia would be quiet for the rest of the afternoon, vague, misty, distant, slightly tired as if something had actually happened. There were days like that, when she’d understand so well and see so much that she’d end up in a gentle and dizzy drunkenness, almost anxious, as if her perceptions without thoughts were dragging her in a shiny and sweet swirl to where, to where.

Slowly, looking, fainting, grasping, breathing, waiting, she would start connecting more deeply with whatever existed and having pleasure. Slowly without words she was subcomprehending things. Without knowing why, she was understanding; and the intimate sensation was one of contact, of existence looking and being looked at. It was from that time that something of an indecipherable brightness would survive. And where was it coming from that perhaps everything deserved the perfection of itself? And where was that inclination coming from that was almost like: connecting yourself to the next day through a desire. Where had it arisen? but she almost didn’t have desires . . . She almost didn’t have desires, she almost didn’t possess strength, she was living at the end of herself and at the beginning of something that already no longer was, finding her balance in the indistinct. In her state of weak resistance she was receiving in herself something that would be excessively fragile in order to fight and conquer any power of body or soul. She was too dumb to have difficulties, Daniel would repeat.

Then the lost time — he would move away, moving through mists and returning more elongated, more brutish, more sad and more innocent, yet impassable. His life was getting more and more stubborn. She had also isolated herself through fatigue, a bit of insomnia but had soon shown herself even and calm again, her skin taut, her legs scratched by branches, one eye more tired than the other. That was the time that Daniel had said to her for the first time, almost for no particular reason:

“By God and the Devil . . .”

She’d stopped short. A great silence had followed. She’d looked at him and discovered in his trembling victory the same disturbance. He had timidly brought her a scream. They stared at each other for an instant and everything was indecisive, fragile, so new and nascent. And everything was so dangerous and agitated that both looked away almost abruptly. But there was some enchanted thing between them at that moment. Though she never truly worried about God and rarely prayed. Before the idea of Him she would stay surprisingly calm and innocent, without so much as a thought. Daniel was moving off. Around that time he had started to think and say difficult things with zest and love. She would listen uneasy. He’d pace back and forth through the shadowy hallways of the mansion with his arms crossed, engrossed. Virgínia would uselessly scrutinize his face with his closed mouth, his dark indecisive eyes, that near-ugliness that was getting worse with age, suffering, and pride.

“What are you thinking?” she couldn’t contain herself sweetening her voice, effacing herself with humility.

“Nothing,” he’d answer.

And if she would dare ask again she’d get an answer that disturbed her even more because of its mystery and because of the jealousy it would awake in her.

“I’m thinking about God.”

“But what about God?” she’d inquire with effort, in a low and ingratiating voice.

“I don’t know!” he’d scream with brutality, irritated as if she were accusing him. “Even you are so stupid that you’d die before you understood” — and he’d keep pacing through the hallways, as if walking cleared his thoughts. The most she could manage was