and alert. The dusty face beneath the hat slightly out of place on her head was looking dark and oppressed by a vague fear. What was happening! because all of her past was fading and a new time was horribly beginning? Suddenly she began to sweat, her stomach clenched in a single wave of nausea, she was breathing terribly oppressed and panting — what was happening to her? or what was going to happen? In an effort in which her chest seemed to endure a viscous weight, with an unsurpassed malaise, she crossed the street pale and the car turned the corner, she took a step back, the car hesitated, she advanced and the car came into light, she perceived it with a shock of heat over her body and a fall without pain while her heart was looking astonished at nothing in particular and a man’s shout was coming from somewhere — it was speedily the same day three years ago when she’d halted ahead avoiding by a hair’s breadth stepping on a rigid and dead kitten and her heart had retreated while, with her eyes for an instant deeply closed out of disgust, all her body was saying toward the inside of itself in a dark and concave moment, deep in the sonorous hollow of a silent church: arrh! in deep vivifying nausea, her heart retreating white and solid in a dry fall, arrh! And since she was thinking darkly about Vicente she saw Adriano, Vicente, Miguel, Daniel — Daniel, Daniel! in a bright and dizzying race through the streets of the city like a wind through flowing hair, she entered the Farm for an instant, she rocked herself quick, quick in the chair and with absolute amazement looked at herself white and with dark eyes in a mirror — long corridors were taking shape inside her, long tired corridors, difficult and dark, doors closing one after the next without noise with fright and care while a moment of Daniel’s rage was thought by her and the instants were brightly following one after the next — she and Daniel chewed the last of the fruit that was running down their chins and were looking at each other with shining and intelligent eyes, almost one of them enjoying what the other was eating, it was cold, her red and painful nose in the courtyard of the Farm; she directed a shiver at Daniel. She who’d never wasted time — confused, deaf, fast, bright, dissonant, the noise that comes from the orchestra tuning and tuning itself for the concert and a movement of well-being seeking comfort, the unaccustomed heart. What was happening was so simple that she didn’t know from where to understand. In the frozen twilight black corridors, narrow, empty and damp, a dormant and numb substance: and suddenly! suddenly! suddenly! the white butterfly fluttering in the shadowy corridors, getting lost at the end of the darkness. She was obscurely wanting to cut herself off, she was obscurely wanting to cut herself off. The street was steaming cold and sleepy, her own heart was being taken by surprise, her head heavy, heavy with stunning grace — while the streets of Upper Marsh were heading fast and flickering inside their smell of apple, sawdust, import and export, that lack of sea. And suddenly ravished by her own spirit. It was an extremely intimate and strange moment — she was recognizing all of this, how often, how often had she rehearsed it without realizing it; and now, extraordinarily hushed, purified of her own sources of energy, surrendering even future possibilities — ah, not to have recognized then that type of gesture, almost a position of thought, the head leaning to one side, like that, like that . . . not to have paid attention to it then . . . how frightened she would have been if she’d understood it — but now she wasn’t frightened, the urge was inferior to the most secret quality of being, in the frozen twilight a new exactness being born; no! no! it wasn’t a decaying sensation! but wanting obscurely, obscurely to cut herself off, the difficulty, the difficulty that was coming from the sky, that was coming. The first real event, the only fact that could serve as a beginning to her life, free like throwing a crystal glass through the window, the irresistible movement that could no longer hold itself back. She’d also tried to rehearse when she would seek to distinguish the smell in the construction sites, had rehearsed the smell in the half-twilight, whitewash, wood, cold iron, fallen dust watching. - - - how could she have forgotten: yes - - - , - - - . The field empty of weeds in the wind without her, entirely without her, without any sensation, just the wind, unreality approaching in iridescent colors, at high, light, penetrating speed. Mists fraying and uncovering firm shapes, a mute sound bursting from the divined intimacy of things, silence pressing down on particles of earth in darkness and black ants slow and tall walking atop thick grains of earth, the wind running high far ahead, a limpid cube dangling in the air and the light running parallel to every point, was present, thus it had been, thus it would be, and the wind, the wind, she who had been so steady.
The people then gathered around the woman while the car sped off.
“But I really saw how the car arrived just then, but just then, and ran her over!”
“Those drivers are crazy, my son almost got hit one day but luckily . . .”
“He said that just then, but really just then . . .”
“Nobody’s calling the paramedics?”
“Why don’t you call then, sir? what a crazy . . .”
“Step aside because I’m going to check that woman’s pulse, I’m a medical student . . .”
“I’m not calling because I’m not from here, could you, sir . . .”
“Ah, he’s a medical student, he said he’s going to check the woman’s pulse . . .”
“The driver sure was clever and got out of here, didn’t he . . .”
“Get the paramedics, nobody move
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