“What’s good and what scares us is that . . . for example, I can do my things . . . that I’ve got ahead of me a thing that still doesn’t exist, you know?”
Daniel looked straight ahead inflexible:
“And then what? the future . . .”
“Yes, but it’s horrible, isn’t it?” she’d say fiery and smiling.
Profoundly ignorant she’d do little exercises and comprehensions involving things like walking, looking at tall trees, waiting on a bright morning for the end of the day but just waiting for an instant, picking out one ant just like all the rest from many, strolling slowly, paying attention to silence by almost grabbing on to a slight sound with her ears, breathing quickly, placing an expectant hand over the heart that didn’t stop, looking emphatically at a stone, at a bird, at her own foot, swinging about with her eyes closed, laughing out loud when she was alone and then listening, dropping her body onto the bed without the least strength almost aching all over from such an effort to annihilate herself, trying coffee without sugar, looking at the sun until she cried without pain — space would then turn woozy as before a terrible rain —, carrying in the palm of her hand a little bit of river without spilling it, placing herself beneath a flagpole in order to look up and grow dizzy with herself — changing with care the way she lived. The things that would inspire her were so brief. Vaguely, vaguely, if she’d been born, plunged her hands in the water and died, she’d exhaust her strength and her forward movement would have been complete — that was her impression without thoughts.
In the afternoon the palm trees had been knocked down for some reason and great palm leaves hard and verdant were covering themselves nervously with ants that went up and went down mysteriously carrying out a mission or having fun for a reason. Virgínia kneeled down peering at them. She lifted her eyes and saw white smoke rising in the distance, amidst the black kindling. A quick kaleidoscope movement and a still image was taking shape, insoluble and nothing beyond: grasses standing in the sun, hot and calm sun, warm rows of ants, thick stalks of palm, the earth pricking her knees, her hair falling in her eyes, the wind piercing through the rip in her dress and coolly brightening her arm, veiled smoke dissolving in the air and all this connected by the same mysterious interval — an instant after she raised her head and made out the smoke in the distance, an instant before she lowered her head and felt new things. And she also knew vaguely, almost as if she were making it up, that inside that interval there was yet another instant, small, pallid, and placid, without having inside her any of the things she was seeing, like that, like that. And how poor and free were she and Daniel. The whole world could laugh at both of them and they wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t find out a thing. People said they were sad but they were happy. Sometimes Daniel would come talk to her about running away someday — both knew that they didn’t quite want that. She’d lift her head from the ground and see above her lips trembling from nascent imagination a badly drawn arc of already-dried coffee-with-milk! She’d turn aside eyes suddenly wounded in the most tender spot in her heart and haughty, frightened, stumble amidst repugnance, tears, and contempt, at wit’s end, living, living. She’d finally fall into a deep and intolerable devotion, brutal with herself and that eventually drove her to a kind of intimate glory, a bit miserable too. During that time she’d feel quite sorry for herself, with an almost voluptuous violence, feeling in her mouth a flashing taste of blood. In secret, she felt sorry for everything, for the most powerful things. Sometimes, terrified by a scream from her father, her eyes low and frightened would light on those thick boots where a gray shoestring was hesitating to be of use. And suddenly, without warning, all her flesh hurting as if a sweet acid were covering her all at once, she’d slide toward a martyrdom of understanding and her eyes would be covered with moist tenderness. People were so ridiculous!, she felt like crying from joy and shame at being alive. That was her impression. Father was coming in the wagon, asking:
“What’s going on? Virgínia’s crying?”
“No, singing,” the black woman would answer. “She’s been singing loud, loud ballads for hours, it’s awful.”
She was skinny and dirty, the long veins of her neck were trembling — she’d sing awfully, pure sound screaming, going beyond things on their own terms. What mattered were the realms her voice was reaching. First of all, she was still small while standing on the doorstep; meanwhile the notes were rising like soap bubbles, shining
