Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

songs from popular revues, strident and grating even though barely audible. In this light, or because of these somber faces, the mirror resembles an aquarium, and when Ricardo Reis crosses the lounge on the far side and comes back by the same route in order not to turn around and make a beeline for the doorway, he sees himself in the greenish abyss as if he were walking on the ocean floor amid wreckage and drowned corpses. He must leave this place at once, reach the surface, breathe again. He goes up to his chilly room. Why should these minor irritations depress him so, if that is what is troubling him, after all they are simply two people who live in Coimbra and come to Lisbon once a month. This doctor is not looking for patients, this poet has plenty of muses to inspire him, this man is not seeking a wife, he did not return to Portugal with that intention, and consider the difference in their ages. It is not Ricardo Reis who thinks these thoughts, nor one of those innumerable beings who exist within him, it is perhaps thought thinking itself while he looks on in amazement as a thread unwinds, leading him down unknown paths and corridors, at the end of which there waits a girl dressed in white, who cannot even hold a bouquet of flowers, because her right arm will be in his as they return from the altar treading the solemn red carpet to the strains of the wedding march. Ricardo Reis, as you can see, has already taken up the reins of thought, already controls and guides it, makes use of it to mock himself. The orchestra and red carpet are flights of fancy, and now, so that this poet's tale may have a happy ending, he accomplishes the clinical miracle of placing a bouquet of flowers in Marcenda's left arm and having it remain there without any assistance. The altar and priest can now disappear, the music cease, the wedding guests vanish in smoke and dust. The bridegroom withdraws, his services no longer required, the doctor has cured the patient, the rest must have been the work of the poet. These romantic episodes cannot be fitted into an Alcaic ode, which goes to prove, if any proof is needed, that what is written is often confused with what, having been experienced, gave birth to it, therefore one does not ask the poet what he thought or felt. It is precisely to avoid having to reveal these things that he composes verses.

The night passed and Lydia did not descend from the attic, Doctor Sampaio came back late, Fernando Pessoa is God knows where, then it was day, Lydia took away the suit for pressing, and Marcenda left with her father to keep their appointment with the specialist. She's gone for physiotherapy, says Salvador, who like most people cannot pronounce the word properly. For the first time Ricardo Reis finds it odd that a disabled girl should come to Lisbon when she lives in Coimbra, a city with such a wide range of specialists, for a course of treatment that can be administered just as easily there as here. Ultraviolet rays for example, unless applied with a certain frequency, provide little benefit. Ricardo Reis turns these doubts over in his mind as he goes down the Chiado on his way to the box office at the Teatro Nacional, but he was distracted at the sight of so many people wearing signs of mourning, a number of women in veils and the men even more conspicuous in their black suits and grave expressions, some even with mourning bands on their hats. George V of England, our oldest ally, was being buried. Despite the official mourning, there is a performance this evening, no disrespect intended, life must go on. The man in the box office sold him a seat in the stalls, and informed him, The fishermen will be in the audience tonight. What fishermen, asked Ricardo Reis before realizing that he had committed an unforgivable blunder. The box-office attendant frowned and altered his tone of voice, snapped, The fishermen from Nazare, obviously. What others did he expect, there would be little sense in bringing fishermen from Caparica or from Povoa. The journey and lodgings of the fishermen from Nazare had been paid so that they might participate in this cultural event. Because they had inspired the play, it was only right that they should be represented, both the men and the women. Let's go to Lisbon, let's go and see the sea there, what gimmicks will be used to produce waves breaking over the stage, and what will Dona Palmira Bastos be like in the role of Ti Gertrudes, and Dona Amelia as Maria Bern, and Dona Lalande as Rosa, and Amarante in the role of Lavagante, how well will they imitate our lives. And since we are going, let's take this opportunity to ask the government, for the sake of the suffering souls in Purgatory, to build us the little port of refuge we have been in such need of since the first boat was launched from our shore, whenever that was. Ricardo Reis whiled away the afternoon in cafes, went to inspect the work being carried out on the Teatro Eden. Any day now they will remove the hoardings, the Chave de Ouro is almost ready to be inaugurated, and both natives and foreigners can see that Lisbon is progressing so rapidly that it will soon be able to compete with the great cities of Europe, and rightly so as the capital of a great empire. He did not dine in the hotel, only went back to change his clothes. His jacket, trousers, waistcoat too had been put neatly on a hanger, beautifully pressed, the work of loving hands, pardon the hyperbole, for how can there be love in the nocturnal coupling of a hotel guest and a chambermaid, he a poet, she by chance named Lydia, a different Lydia, although still fortunate, because the Lydia in his poems never heard his moans and sighs, she only sat on a riverbank listening to someone confide, I suffer¦, Lydia, from the fear of destiny. He ate a steak at the Restaurante Martinho, the one in the Rossio, and watched a keenly contested game of billiards, the chipped ball of Indian ivory rolling smoothly over the green baize. Since it was almost time for the performance to begin, he left, making a discreet approach and entering the theater, flanked by two large family groups. He had no wish to be seen until he himself chose the moment, heaven knows what emotional strategy he was pursuing, and crossed the foyer without pausing, one day it will be called a hallway or vestibule, unless some other term is borrowed from some other foreign language to say the same thing. At the entrance to the auditorium he was met by an usher, who led him down the left-hand aisle to the seventh row, It's that seat there, beside the lady. Don't let your imagination run riot, the man said lady, not girl, an usher in the Teatro Nacional can be relied upon to speak with decorum and the utmost clarity, his masters are the great dramatists of the classical and modern repertoire. Marcenda is sitting three rows ahead and to the right, too far to be near, and not even aware of my presence, she is sitting on her father's right, and just as well, for when she speaks to him and turns her head a little, Ricardo Reis can see her in profile. Is it because she is wearing her hair down that her face seems longer. She raises her right hand to the level of her chin, to clarify some word she has uttered or is about to utter, perhaps she is discussing the specialist who is treating her, perhaps the play they are about to see. Who is this Alfredo Cortez, her father cannot tell her much, he saw The Gladiators on his own two years ago and was not impressed, but this play caught his attention because of its traditional theme. It won't be long now before we discover what the play is like. This conversation, assuming it ever took place, was interrupted by the dragging of chairs overhead, by a loud whispering that made all the heads turn around and look upward. The fishermen from Nazare have arrived and are getting into their seats in the boxes on the upper tier. They sit tall in order to see and be seen, both the men and the women are dressed in their own fashion, they are probably barefoot, one cannot see from down here. Some people in the audience applaud, others condescendingly join in. Irritated, Ricardo Reis clenches his fists, snobbish affectation in one who does not have blue blood, we might say, but this is not the case, it is simply a question of decorum, Ricardo Reis finds the outburst of applause vulgar, to say the very least.

The lights dim, the auditorium is in darkness, the loud knocks ascribed to Moliere can be heard onstage, what terror they must strike in the hearts of the fishermen and their wives, perhaps they imagine them to be the last- minute hammerings of carpenters on the set. The curtain opens, a woman is lighting a fire, it is still night, from behind the scenery a man's voice can be heard, calling Mane Ze, Ah, Mane Ze, the play has started. The audience sighs, wavers, sometimes smiles, becomes excited as the first act ends with that great stampede of women, and when the lights go up, faces are animated, a good sign. There is shouting overhead, people calling from box to box, one could mistake those fishermen for the actors themselves, their way of speaking almost the same, whether better or worse depending on the measure of comparison. Reflecting on this, Ricardo Reis decides that the purpose of an is not imitation, that the author has made a serious error of judgment by writing the play in the dialect of Nazare, or in what he supposed was the dialect of Nazare, because reality does not tolerate its reflection, rather, it rejects it. Only a different reality, whatever it is, may be substituted for the reality one wishes to convey. The difference between them mutually demonstrates, explains, and measures them, reality as the invention it was, invention as the reality it will be. Ricardo Reis thinks these things with even greater confusion, it is difficult, after all, to think and clap one's hands at the same time. The audience applauds, and he joins in out of sympathy, for despite the use of dialect, grotesque as spoken by the actors, he is enjoying the play. Marcenda is not clapping, she cannot, but she is smiling. Most of the women remain seated, it's the men who need to stretch and exercise their legs, to pay a visit to the gents', to smoke a cigarette or cigar, exchange views with their friends, greet acquaintances, to see and be seen in the foyer. If they remain in their seats, it is generally for reasons of love and courtship. As they stand up, their eyes rove like those of hawks, they are the protagonists of their own drama, actors who perform during the intermission while the real actors back in their dressing rooms discard roles they will shortly resume. As he gets up, Ricardo Reis looks between the heads and sees that Doctor Sampaio is also getting up. Refusing with a nod, Marcenda remains seated. Her father, already on his feet, places his hand affectionately on her shoulder, then moves toward the aisle. Hurrying, Ricardo Reis reaches the foyer first. Shortly they will meet face to face, amid all these people who are walking up and down and conversing in an atmosphere soon thick with