By Clarice Lispector, from The Chandelier, a novel that will be published in March by New Directions. Lispector (1920–77) was the author of more than a dozen novels and story collections. Translated from the Portuguese by Magdalena Edwards and Benjamin Moser.

She was looking at herself in the mirror, her white and delicate face lost in the half-light, her eyes open, her lips without expression. She was enjoying herself, liking that sleek, so sinuous way about her, her shaded hair, her small and skinny shoulders. How lovely I am, she said. Who will buy me? Who will buy me?—she’d…