The Departure of the Train - Clarice Lispector

Rating: ★★★★

20/10/16

Angela

Yes. She’d already had plenitude. When she and Eduardo were so in love that while in the same bed, holding hands, they had felt life was complete. Few people have known plenitude. And, because plenitude is also an explosion, she and Eduardo had cowardly begun to live “normally.” Because you can’t prolong ecstasy without dying. They separated for a pointless, semi-invented reason: they didn’t want to die of passion. Plenitude is one of those truths you happen upon.

Dona Maria Rita

The old woman, as if she’d received a mental transmission, was thinking: don’t let them leave me alone. How old am I exactly? Oh I don’t even know anymore.

Right afterward she let the thought drain away. And she was peacefully nothing. She hardly existed. It was good that way, very good indeed. Plunges into the nothing.

Us

Near the end? Oh, how it hurts to die. In life you suffer but you’re holding on to something: ineffable life. And as for the question of death? You mustn’t be afraid: go forward, always.

Always.

Like the train.

A train that I wouldn't want to leave behind, now that I have Lispector's torrent of thoughts flooding every corner of my mind.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.