'Obsession,' By Clarice Lispector, From New Directions' 'Complete Stories' - Tablet Magazine

Now that the affair is behind me, I can recollect it more serenely. I won’t try to make excuses for myself. I’ll try not to point fingers. It simply happened. I don’t recall very clearly how it started. I transformed myself independently of my consciousness and when I opened my eyes the poison was circulating through my blood irremediably, its power already ancient. I must tell a bit about myself, before my encounter with Daniel. Only thus can one understand the ground in which his seeds were scattered. Though I didn’t think one could entirely comprehend why those seeds bore such sad fruit. I was always serene and never showed the least sign of possessing those elements that Daniel brought out in me. I was born of simple creatures, steeped in that wisdom one acquires through experience and figures out with common sense. We lived, from childhood until I was fourteen, in a nice house on the outskirts of town, where I went to school, played and roamed without a care beneath the benevolent

Now that the affair is behind me, I can recollect it more serenely. I won’t try to make excuses for myself. I’ll try not to point fingers. It simply happened. I don’t recall very clearly how it started. I transformed myself independently of my consciousness and when I opened my eyes the poison was circulating through my blood irremediably, its power already ancient. I must tell a bit about myself, before my encounter with Daniel. Only thus can one understand the ground in which his seeds were scattered. Though I didn’t think one could entirely comprehend why those seeds bore such sad fruit. I