G.H., a well-to-do Rio sculptress, enters her maid's room, sees a cockroach crawling out of the wardrobe, and, panicking, slams the door on it. The sight of the dying insect provokes a mystical crisis, at the height of which comes one of the most famous and genuinely shocking scenes in Latin American literature. Clarice Lispector wrote that of all of her works this novel was the one that "best corresponded to her demands as a writer."