[Maricá, January 1941]

[…]

There is also… whatever. Maybe something worthwhile. At least to look out the bus window and smile.  

Otherwise, why not surrender to the world, even without understanding it? It’s absurd to look for the solution individually. It’s found mixed up with the centuries, with all mankind, with all of nature. And even your greatest idol in literature or science has done nothing more than blindly add one more bit of information to the problem.  

What’s more: what would you do, you individually, if there weren’t wickedness in the world? Its absence would be ideal for all mankind as a whole. Just for one person wouldn’t be enough. I guarantee you there’d always be the art of escape and the prayers and the fugues for Bach. As my friend Tasso de Silveira would say: “It all comes from original sin…”    

Oh well. I don’t believe there’s sin right from the beginning. And I suppose that this letter will already find you in another mood and be useless, which actually it would be anyway.  

As for me, I’m more or less O.K. Nonetheless, I haven’t been able to loosen up. Plans, programs, consciousness, vigilance. What matters is that, mixed up with all of this, life goes on. 

Hugs,

Clarice

P.S. I’ve never seen anything uglier than my handwriting.