43
" She had the feeling that life ran thick and slow inside her, bubbling like a hot sheet of lava. Maybe she loved herself . . . And what if she thought distantly, a bugle suddenly cut through that mantle of night with its sharp sound and left the plains free, green and vast . . . And then nervous white horses with rebellious neck and leg movements, almost flying, crossed rivers, mountains, valleys . . . Thinking of them, she felt the cool air circulate inside herself as if it had come out of a cool, moist, hidden grotto in the middle of the desert. "
― Clarice Lispector , Near to the Wild Heart
44
" Anyhow, I get distracted a lot," she repeated.
She felt like a dry branch, sticking out of the air. Brittle, covered in old bark. Maybe she was thirsty, but there was no water nearby. And above all the suffocating certainty that if a man were to embrace her at that moment she would feel not a soft sweetness in her nerves, but lime juice stinging them, her body like wood near fire, warped, crackling, dry. She couldn't soothe herself by saying: this is just a pause, life will come afterwards like a wave of blood, washing over me, moistening my parched wood. She couldn't fool herself because she knew she was also living and that those moments were the peak of something difficult, of a painful experience for which she should be thankful: almost as if she were feeling time outside herself, in a detached manner. "
― Clarice Lispector , Near to the Wild Heart
49
" With your teacher, she said, playing with intimacy, and she was white and smooth. Not miserable and not knowing anything, not abandoned, not dirty-kneed like Joana, like Joana! Joana got up and she knew that her skirt was short, that her blouse was clinging to her minuscule, hesitant bust. Flee, run to the beach, lie face-down in the sand, hide her face, listen to the sound of the sea. "
― Clarice Lispector , Near to the Wild Heart