the woodshed and calm his heated head as a first step, confused
and distracted he went off in the opposite direction. At first the
lack of understanding of what he himself proposed to do made
him stagger, and he went forward almost as if he were going
backwards. Then the direction of his flight became something
more than an obscure impulse-and when he suddenly understood, panic came over him and he almost ran. "All right," he still said, like a man who has time to tuck in his shirt before he
falls down dead. It was then that he really began to run, run for
all he was worth in the direction of the river, and his foggy
objective was the woods, the dark woods. Dominated by the
sound of his own panic, he passed through the cold water.
Slipping on the rocks, his legs terrified by the icy black water, he
ran very frightened, and he went into the woods-but the edge
of the woods was not enough for him. With the avidity of a
shout, what he wanted was the black heart of the forest; he
could not run freely because of the branches, but he ran along
getting scratched and breaking branches like a wild horse.
Until he suddenly felt that he had arrived where he wanted
to be and he stopped, panting, his chest heaving, his eyes wide
open in the dark. And God is witness that he did not know what
( 2 3 0 )
The Apple in the Dark
he had come to look for in the woods. But there he was, still
breathless, and the mere possibility of not being there frightened
him. The heavy air was close against his face, as if the darkness
were filled with the panting of a dog.
The man remained there, tall and getting back his wind; his
eyes were open and evil. He felt that he was basically protected
by the darkness, despite the fact that it was the darkness itself
that frightened him most. No thought occurred to him; his
hungry soul was feeding on the total blindness of the dark, and
he was breathing crudely and astutely; he listened, hungry,
to his own breathing, which had become his most basic guarantee. As long as he breathed, he would be a great expert. He moved his head from one side to the other, ready to take a
leap, and, if he took it, he would give a ferocious shout at the
same time. The feeling that he had the ability to make that
shout also calmed him. But none of those guarantees stopped his
body from trembling or his teeth from chattering.
He passed his hand across his mouth several times; and with
fright he noticed that he was laughing. Without being able to
remove the idiotic laugh from his mouth, he then looked in the
dark at the hand that had touched the smile, as if it might have
come away covered with blood. His teeth were chattering lightly
and precisely, without Martim's having control over them. And
as if they had just told him that he was afraid, he laughed.
It was a fear that had nothing to do with the equations he
had prepared before the professor's arrival, as if the fear had
been happening to someone else. Except that, that someone else
was, frighteningly, himself. Who was he? Martim had fallen so
deep into himself that he could not recognize himself. As if up
till now he had just been playing. Who was he? He had the
intuitive certainty that we are nothing, that we think we are and
that we are what he was being now. One day after we are born
we invent ourselves-but we are what he was now. Martim had
fallen into truth the way a person falls into madness, and then
his teeth were chattering. The truth would become chaotic only
when he tried to understand it. But in itself it was absolutely
( 2 3 l )
T H E A P P L E
I N T H E D A R K
perfect. And he-he was the one whose teeth were chattering.
His teeth were chattering from a fear that made him forget that
he had taken on the task of a superman. He was frightened as if
he had finally fallen into the trap-into that trap which he had
denied as long as he could. And yet he would feel frustrated if he
did not fall into it-Martim, who had been created to fall. But
he kept on denying it; and his fear was base, as if he had stolen
something-not the lofty and punishable fear of someone who
has committed murder, .but the fear of a thief.
In a little while the darkness calmed him down. But then, it
impassiveness of the dark, which had just terrified him, calmed
him down once more with that very quality of impassive permanence, and he stopped trembling just as quickly as he had started.
At once, taking that as a sign that the crisis had passed and
that everything had not gone beyond being merely a crisis,
Martim said to himself mechanically : "Well, all right! " And he
began to recover as quickly as possible, striving to put himself
mentally into the past which had been interrupted by the
professor's threat. To his surprise, he could not do it. Then he
passed his hand over his mouth that was still smiling. But he
simply could not do it. An instant of real fear made him come
to his senses. And the man was being hurled about with no
support from any of the thoughts that j ust a few days before had
begun to make of him the man that he had invented himself to
be. Right now! Right when he had begun to feel that the sandals
were almost completed, close now to the domination of the
smoky circle where the cauldron was boiling-right now it was
the end of the journey! But what had he attained at the end of
the journey? Fear . . .
Sobbing with rage and fear he clenched his teeth and
punched the tree several times, and the more his hands hurt the
more he felt compensated, and the more the rage grew the
more fear closed up his still so unknown heart. At the point
where he was, it was as if no step had ever been taken ! As if all
( 2 3 2)
The Apple in the Dark
of his steps had been useless. "Oh, stupid, stupid ! " he said to
himself as he wept. He had had everything at his disposal but
" I don't know how to figure things out!" he said as he punched
the tree. "A bird doesn't even have a place in the plan, much less
I "
me.
After which, as if he had said something so great that it had
been incomprehensible even to him, he quieted down, grumbling. "Stupidity," he said then, passing his hand over his unshaven face and feeling by the touch that the laugh was no
longer coming out of his face. He blew his nose with precise
care.
As if no step had been taken. Because in the dark he was now
merely that shapeless thing with one single primary feeling.
With one single jump backwards he had once more merely
removed himself from the territory of the word-he who had
begun to be able to do more than just babble. And as if no step
had been taken, he was now indistinguishable from a frightened
horse in the dark. But the truth was that Martim at that
moment no longer even wanted one of the minimal things that
he had once proudly wanted and he was even surprised at hav
ing
wanted them; he was puzzled by them the way a man at the
hour of death is frightened at having been worried because the
tailor was late. Now all he miserably wanted was the immediate
and urgent solution to his fear, and he craved to make any
bargain.
The worst was that there was not even any glory in that
punishment, not even martyrdom. That thing who, with frightened eyes had one day suddenly ascended to the point of a crime and then to the top of a mountain, that thing who was Martim
could no longer be distinguished from an animal that had had
the courage to escape its trap. Both of them would have the
same indiscriminate punishment, the fear that reduced them
suddenly to the same grave fate.
Suddenly it even seemed to Martim that until now he had
been traveling along roads that had been superimposed, and that
his real and invisible journey had been made underneath the
( 2 3 3 )
T H E A P P L E
IN
T H E DARK
reality of the road that he had thought he was trudging along,
that the real journey was now suddenly coming out into the
light, as if from a tunnel. And the real journey had been this :
one day he had left his house of a man and his city of a man in
search, for the adventure of precisely the thing that he was now
experiencing in the dark, in search of the great humiliation; and
along with himself, with ferocious pleasure, he was humiliating
the whole human race. Fear humiliated him and then he blew
his nose violently.
If he had undertaken the task of a man, it now seemed to
him that he had meddled in things that should not be touched.
He had touched illusion too closely. And he had tried to understand more than was permitted and to love more than was possible. A monk renounced life to take on life-he did not act.
Had acting been his mistake? He had committed a total act, but
he was not total; he was afraid just as one loves one woman and
not all women, he was afraid just as if he had his own hunger
and not that of the others; he was only himself, and his fear had
its own particular size.
Then in the dark, not knowing for certain what he was afraid
of, he became afraid of the great crime he had committed.
Face to face with the word crime he began to tremble again
and feel cold, without being able to erase the laugh that had
returned. And the criminal was so afraid that for the first time
he completely understood his inexpressible feeling, which meant
salvation.
Salvation? His heart pounded strongly then, as if the barriers
had fallen away. Because, who knows, maybe that was the great
bargain that he could make-salvation. Then everything that
was individual in Martim ceased. Now he only wanted to join
those who had been saved and who belong-fear had brought him
to that. To salvation. And with his heart wounded by surprise
and joy, it seemed to him for an instant that he had just found
the word. Had it been in search of the word that he had left
home? Or once more would it be only the remains of an ancient
word? Salvation-what a strange and contrived word, and the
darkness surrounded him.
The Apple in the Dark
Salvation? He was startled. And if that was the word-had it
happened then? Had he had to live everything that he had lived,
then, in order to experience what could have been stated in just
one word? If that word could be spoken he still had not said it.
Had he walked all over the land just because it was more
difficult to take the one and only step? If that step could ever be
taken I
Absurdity enveloped the man, logical, magnificent, horrible,
perfect-darkness enveloped him. In the meantime, from what
little he could understand, he seemed to feel the perfection
there had been in his obscure path until he had reached · the
woods. There was an impersonal perfection in his steps, and it
was as if the time of one life had been the time rigorously
calculated for the ripening of a fruit, not a minute more, not a
minute less-if the fruit were to ripen! Because it seemed to him
that fear had established a harmony, the frightful harmony-"!
tell you, God, I understand you! " -and once more he had just
fallen into the trap of harmony, as if groping along twisted
paths. Out of pure obedience he had traced a perfect fateful
circle until he found himself again, as he found himself now, at
the very starting point which was the final point itself. At the
very base of his fear, and as if the path that was just a circle had
ended up by rendering useless all the steps he had taken, the
man suddenly seemed to agree with that path, with pain and
with fear, he seemed to admit that his unknown nature was
more powerful than his freedom. Because what good has freedom been to me? he shouted to himself. He had got nothing from it . . .
What good had he got out of a freedom that was deep but
powerless? He had tried to invent a new way of seeing and
understanding and organizing, and he had wanted that way to be
as perfect as that of reality. But what he had experienced had
only been the freedom of a toothless dog; the freedom of going
off in search of the promise that surrounded him, the man
thought, trembling. And so vast was the promise that if a person
lost sight of it for a second he would then lose himself in an
empty and complete world that seemed to have no need for an
( 2 3 5 )
T H E APPLE
I N T HE
D A R K
extra man. He lost himself until, exhaustively and born out of
nothing, hope arose. And then again, just as for a toothless dog,
the world would become able to be walked through, touched.
But only touchable. Then the one who shouted loudest or
howled most melodiously would be the king of dogs. Or the one
who kneeled down most deeply-because kneeling down was
still a way of not losing sight of the promise from one instant to
another. Or then the one who would revolt. His strike!
His strike, which was the only thing that up until today he
could take some pride in.
Until the desire of a toothless dog would be born again? Yes,
that was it. And all of that just to die some day? Well, he was
dying. In his fear the man saw that he was dying. And if it was
not the pain-which is our reply-that is all it could have been.
Would he die some day?
But not so simple as all that! The man shouted to himself,
horrified, because in the dark he seemed to have the great intuition that one dies with the same intense and impalpable energy with which one lives, with the same kind of offering that one
makes of one's self, and with that same mute ardor; that one
would die strangely happy in spite of all, submissive to the
perfection that makes use of us-to that perfection which makes
us, right up to the last instant of life, sniff out the dry world with
intensity, sniff out with joy and acceptance . . . Yes, fated
through love, accepting with a strange accommodation, accepting . . .
&n
bsp; Only that? Practically nothing! The man was still rebelling,
but, my God, that's practically nothing.
No, that's a lot. Because, through God, there was much
more than this. For every man there was probably a certain
unidentifiable moment in which he would have more than he
could sense, in which the illusion would be so much greater that
he would reach the intimate veracity of the dream, where the
stones would open up their hearts of stone, and the animals
would reveal their secret of the flesh; and men would not be
"the others"-they would be "us." Where the world would be a
( 2 3 6 )
The Apple in the Dark
hint that is as recognized as if it had been dreamed about. Might
there not be for every man that unidentifiable moment in which
even the monstrous patience of God would be accepted?-that
patience which for centuries permitted men to annihilate other
men with the same stubborn mistake, the monstrous kindness of
God which is not in any hurry, that certainty of His that made
Him let a man commit murder because He knew that one day
that man would be afraid and in an instant of fear, be finally
captured, unable to avoid looking himself in his own face. That
man would say "yes" to the harmony made up of beauty and
horror and perfection and beauty and perfection and horror, the
perfection that makes use of us.
And that man, with great respect for his fear, would say
"yes," even knowing with shame that this would perhaps be his
greatest crime because there was an essential lack of rightness
in finding all of that beautiful and inevitable, there was an
essential lack of rightness in a man's joining himself to the
divinity. Up to what point did a man have the right to be
divine and say "yes"? At least not until he had put his affairs
in order!
But no. Even without knowing how to put his affairs in
order, the man would end up by committing the crime of saying
yes. Because having touched upon the incomprehensible knot of
the dream he accepted the great absurdity that mystery is
salvation.
"Oh God! " Martim then said in calm despair. "Oh God! " he
said. "Our parents are now dead and it is useless to ask them
'What's that light?' It is no longer they, it is ourselves. Our
parents are dead. When will we finally face up to that? Oh God! "