for eight months, then my time runs out, Eight months, at the beginning, seems a lifetime, Whenever possible, I will come to see you, Wouldn't you like to fix a day, an hour, a place, Impossible, Very well, see you soon, Fernando, it was good seeing you again, And you, Ricardo, Should I wish you a Happy New Year, Go ahead, go ahead, it can't do me any harm, they're only words, as you well know. Happy New Year, Fernando, Happy New Year, Ricardo.
Fernando Pessoa opened the bedroom door and went out into the corridor, his footsteps inaudible. Two minutes later, the time it took to descend that steep flight of stairs, the front door banged, the buzzer having droned briefly. Ricardo Reis went to the window. Fernando Pessoa was already disappearing down the Rua do Alecrim. The tram rails shone, still running parallel.
...
Whether because they themselves believe it or because someone took them in hand after they failed to respond to suggestions and hints, the newspapers inform us, as if it were a great prophecy, that over the ruins of the mighty states ours, the Portuguese state, will demonstrate its remarkable strength and the prudence and intelligence of the men who govern it. For fall those states shall, and their crash will be resounding. The proud nations who boast of their present supremacy are much deceived, because the day is fast approaching, the happiest day of all in the annals of this nation among nations, when the leaders of other states come to these Lusitanian shores to seek advice, assistance, wisdom, benevolence, oil for their lamp from our great Portuguese statesmen. Who are these rulers, starting with the next cabinet, which is already being formed. In supreme command is Oliveira Salazar, President of the Council and Minister of Finance, then, at a respectful distance and in the order in which the newspapers publish their photographs, Monteiro of Foreign Affairs, Pereira of Commerce, Machado of Colonies, Abranches of Public Works, Bettencourt of the Navy, Pacheco of Education, Rodrigues of justice, Sousa of War, Sousa of the Interior, the former is Passos de Sousa and the latter Paes de Sousa, write their names out in full so that petitions will reach them without delay. And we must not forget to mention Duque of Agriculture, without whose opinion not a grain of wheat would be produced in Europe or elsewhere. For the posts that remain, In Parentheses Lumbrales of Finance and Andrade of Corporations, because this new state of ours, although in its infancy, is corporate, which explains why an undersecretary is quite sufficient. The newspapers here also say that most of the country has reaped the abundant fruits of an exemplary administration keen on maintaining public order, and if such a statement smacks of self-praise, read that paper from Geneva, Switzerland, which at length and with greater authority, because it is in French, describes the abovementioned dictator of Portugal, calling us most fortunate to be led by this wise leader, and the author of the article is absolutely right, and we thank him with all our hearts. But please bear in mind that Pacheco is no less wise if tomorrow he should say, as say he will, that elementary education must be given its due and no more, because knowledge, if imparted too soon, serves no real purpose, and also that an education based on materialism and paganism, which stifle noble impulses, is much worse than the darkness of illiteracy, therefore Pacheco concludes that Salazar is the greatest educator of our century, if that is not too bold an assertion when we are only one-third of the way through it.
Do not think that these items all appeared on the same page of the same newspaper, for then they would be seen as linked, they would be given the mutually complementary and consequential meaning they appear to have. These are the reports, rather, of the last few weeks, juxtaposed here like dominoes, each half set against its equal unless it happens to be double, in which case it is placed crosswise. These are current events seen from a distance. Ricardo Reis reads the morning newspapers as he savors his coffee with milk and eats the delicious toast served at the Branganca Hotel, greasy and crisp, clearly a contradiction, the pleasure of an age long forgotten, which explains why combining the two adjectives might strike you as inappropriate. We already know the maid who brings in his breakfast, it is Lydia, who also makes the bed and cleans and tidies up the room. When speaking to Ricardo Reis, she addresses him always as doctor, whereas he calls her simply Lydia, nothing else, but being an educated man he never uses the familiar form when he requests of her, Do this, Bring me that. Unaccustomed to such politeness, she is flattered, because as a rule the guests treat her with the familiarity shown servants, believing that money bestows every right, although to be fair, there is another guest who treats her with the same consideration, that is Senhorita Marcenda, the daughter of Doctor Sampaio. Lydia must be about thirty years of age, a mature and well- developed young woman, dark-haired and unmistakably Portuguese, short rather than tall, if there is any point in mentioning the physical traits of an ordinary maid who so far has done nothing but scrub floors, serve breakfast, and on one occasion laugh as she watched a man on another man's back while this guest stood there smiling. Such a nice person, yet sad, he cannot be happy, although there are moments when his face lights up just like this gloomy room when the clouds allow the sun to come through. It is more moonlight than the light of day, a shadow of light. Because it caught Lydia's head at a favorable angle, Ricardo Reis noticed the birthmark at the side of one nostril. It becomes her, he thought, although later he could not say if he was referring to the birthmark or to her white apron, or to the starched cap on her head, or to the embroidered collar she wore around her neck. Yes, you may remove the tray.
Three days went by and Fernando Pessoa did not reappear. Ricardo Reis did not ask himself the obvious question, Could it have been a dream, he knew that Fernando Pessoa, with enough flesh and bone to embrace and be embraced, had been in this very room on New Year's Eve and had promised to return. He believed him, but was beginning to lose patience at the delay. His life now seemed suspended, expectant, problematic. Meticulously he scanned the newspapers for signs, threads, outlines of a whole, the features of a Portuguese face, not simply to evoke an image of the country but to clothe his own portrait with a new substance, to be able to raise his hands to his face and recognize himself, to be able to place one hand upon another and clasp them together, It is I and I am here. On the last page he came across a large advertisement, two columns wide. In the top right-hand corner was depicted Freire the Engraver, in monocle and cravat, an old-fashioned sketch. Underneath, down to the bottom of the page, a cascade of other drawings advertised his workshops, the only ones that could justly claim to offer a comprehensive range of goods, with explanatory and su perfluous captions, as if proving that a picture is as good or better than any description in words, except that no picture can show the excellent quality of the products of a firm established fifty-two years ago by a master engraver, a man of unblemished character and reputation, who studied in the major capitals of Europe and whose children after him have learned the skills and techniques of his trade. Unique in Portugal, he has been awarded three gold medals, has installed in his factory sixteen machines worked by electricity, one worth sixty contos, and these machines can do almost everything except speak, good Lord. A whole world is portrayed here, and since we were not born in time to see the fields of Troy or the shield of Achilles that reflected all heaven and earth, let us admire this Portuguese shield here in Lisbon, depicting the nation's latest wonders, number plates for buildings and hotels, for rooms, cupboards, and umbrella stands, strops for razor blades, whetstones for knives, scissors, pens with gold nibs, presses and scales, glass plates with chains in polished brass, machines for punching checks, seals made of metal and rubber, enameled letters, stamps for labeling clothing, sealing wax, numbered disks for lines at banks, business firms, and cafes, irons with which to brand cattle and wooden boxes, penknives, municipal registration plates for automobiles and bicycles, rings, medals for every type of sport, badges for the caps worn by the employees in milk bars, cafes, and casinos. Look at this one for the Leitaria Nivea, not for the Leitaria Alentejana, since the employees of the latter do not wear caps with badges. And lockers, and those pennants in enameled metal that are placed above the doors of institutes and foundations, and soldering irons, electric lanterns, knives with four blades as well as other types, emblems, puncheons, printing frames, molds for biscuits, toilet soaps, rubber soles, monograms and coats of arms in gold, metal for every imaginable purpose, cigarette lighters, rollers for inking type, stone and ink for taking fingerprints, escutcheons for Portuguese and foreign consulates, yet more plaques for doctors, for lawyers, for registry offices where births and deaths are recorded for the parish council, Midwife, Notary Public, those that say No Entry, and rings for pigeons, and padlocks, etc., etc., etc., and another three etc.'s, to abridge and treat the rest as having been said. Let us not forget that these are the only workshops offering a comprehensive inventory, you can even have made to order ornamental iron gates for family tombs, but enough, period. Compared with this, what are the achievements of the divine blacksmith Hephaestus, he who chiseled and embossed the entire universe on the shield of Achilles but forgot to save a little space on which to engrave the heel of the illustrious warrior pierced by the quivering arrow of Paris. Even the gods forget about death, but no wonder, if they are immortal. Or was this an act of charity on the part of Hephaestus, a cloud cast over the transitory eyes of men, for whom it is enough, in order to be happy, to know neither where nor when nor how. Freire, however, is the more rigorous god and engraver,
