Eye of the Heart: Short Stories from Latin America, ed. by Barbara Howes, 1973. Avon-Bard (1974). No cover artist or designer credited. 576 pages.
A promising mixtape, via many translators. Clarice Lispector might not have been a big enough name for English-reading audiences in the 1970s to make the front or back cover, but editor Barbara Howes included two of her stories.
Here is a piece (the shortest) from the collection:
“Why Reeds Are Hollow”
by
Gabriela Mistral
Translated by William Jay Smith
For don Max. Salas Marchant
I
Even in the peaceful world of plants, a social revolution once took place. It is told that in this case the leaders were those vain reeds. A master of rebellion, the wind, disseminated propaganda, and in no time at all there was talk of nothing else in the vegetal centers. Virgin forests fraternized with silly gardens, in a common struggle for equality.
Equality of what? Of their thickness of trunk, the excellence of their fruit, their right to pure water?
No, simply equality of height. The ideal was that all should raise their heads uniformly. The corn had no thought of making itself strong like the oak, but only of stirring its hairy tassels at the same elevation. The rose did not strive to be useful like the rubber plant, but just wanted to reach that high crown, and make of it a pillow on which to lull its flowers to sleep.
Vanity, vanity! Delusions of grandeur, even if they went against Nature, caricatured their aims. In vain, some modest flowers—the shy violet and flat-nosed lily—spoke of divine law and the evils of pride. Their voices seemed dotty.
An old poet, bearded like the River God, condemned the project in the name of beauty, and had some wise things to say about uniformity, hateful to him in every respect.
II
How did it all turn out? People tell of strange influences at work. Earth spirits blew upon the plants with their monstrous vitality, and so it was that an ugly miracle took place.
One night, the world of lawn and shrub grew dozens of feet, as if obeying some imperious appeal from the stars.
Next day, the country people were dismayed—when they came out of their huts—to find clover high as a cathedral and wheat fields wild with gold!
It was maddening. Animals roared with fright, lost in the darkness of their pastures. Birds chirped in desperation, their nests having risen to unheard-of heights. Nor could they fly down in search of seed: gone was the sunbathed soil, the grass’s humble tapestry.
Shepherds lingered by their flocks beside dark pastures; their sheep refused to enter anything so dense, afraid they might be swallowed up completely.
Meanwhile, victorious, the reeds laughed aloud, whipping their riotous leaves against the blue tops of the eucalyptus.
III
Thus a month is said to have passed. Then the decline set in.
And it came about in this fashion: violets, which delight in shade, dried up when their purple heads were exposed to full sunlight.
“It doesn’t matter,” the reeds hastened to say. “They’re a mere nothing.”
(But in the country of the spirits, they were mourned.)
Lilies, stretching their height to fifty feet, broke in two. Like the heads of queens, white marble heads lay lopped off all around.
The reeds argued as before. (But the Graces ran wild through the wood, lamenting.)
Lemon trees at that height lost all their blossoms to the violent winds. Adios, harvest!
“It doesn’t matter,” the reeds stated yet again. “Their fruit was so bitter.”
The clover dried out, its stems twisting like threads in a fire.
Corn tassels drooped, but no longer from gentle lassitude. In all their extravagant length they fell upon the earth, heavy as rails.
Potatoes, to strengthen their stems, put forth feeble tubers; these were little bigger than apple seeds.
Now the reeds laughed no more; at last they grew serious.
Blossoms of shrub or grass were no longer being fertilized: the insects could not reach them without overheating their little wings.
Furthermore, it was said that man had neither bread nor fruit nor forage for his animals; hunger and sorrow were abroad in the land.
In such a state of things, only the tall trees remained sound, trunks rising strongly as ever: they had not yielded to temptation.
The reeds were the last to fall, signaling the total disaster of their tree-level theory; roots rotted from excessive humidity, and even the network of foliage could not keep them from drying out.
It was then clear that, compared with their former solid bulk, they’d become hollow. They reached hungry leagues upward, but, their insides being empty, they were laughable, like marionettes or dolls.
In the face of such evidence, no one could defend their philosophy; no more was said about it for thousands of years.
Nature—generous always—repaired the damage in six months, seeing to it that all wild plants would again spring up in the usual way.
The poet, bearded like the River God, appeared after a long absence and, rejoicing, sang of the new era.
“So be it, dear people. Beautiful is the violet for its minuteness, and the lemon tree for its gentle shape. Beautiful are all things as God made them: the noble oak and the brittle barley.”
The earth bore fruit once again; flocks fattened, the people were nourished.
But the reeds—those rebel chieftains—bore for all time the mark of their disgrace: they were hollow, hollow . . .
Biblioklept 