keep an eye on him. The man contemplating the water didn't strike him as a scoundrel or tramp but might be thinking of throwing himself into the river. At the thought of all the trouble this would cause, having to raise the alarm, fishing out the corpse, writing up a formal report of the incident, the policeman decided to approach him, not quite knowing what to say but hoping that his presence would be sufficient to discourage the would-be suicide, to persuade him to postpone this act of madness. Ricardo Reis heard footsteps, felt the coldness of the flagstones penetrate his feet. He must buy boots with thick soles. It was time to get back to the hotel before he caught a chill. He said, Good evening, officer. The policeman, reassured, asked, Is there anything wrong. No, nothing, it is the most natural thing in the world for a man to stroll along the quay, even at night, to watch the river and the ships. This is the Tagus which does not flow through my village, because the Tagus that flows through my village is called the Douro, but the fact that it does not have the same name does not mean that the river that flows through my village is any less beautiful. The policeman went off in the direction of the Rua da Alfandega, reflecting on the madness of certain people who appeared in the middle of the night. Whatever possessed this man to think he could enjoy a view of the river in such weather, if he were obliged like me to patrol the docks night after night he would soon find it tiresome. Ricardo Reis continued along the Rua do Arsenal and within ten minutes arrived at the hotel. Pimenta appeared on the landing with a bunch of keys, looked down, and withdrew, not waiting, as he usually did, for the guest to come upstairs, why should this be. Asking himself this natural question, Ricardo Reis began to worry. Perhaps he already knows about Lydia, he is bound to find out sooner or later, a hotel is like a glass house. Pimenta, who never leaves the place and knows every nook and cranny, must suspect something. Good evening, Pimenta, he said with exaggerated warmth, and the other replied with no apparent reserve, no trace of hostility. Perhaps I'm mistaken, Ricardo Reis thought, and when Pimenta handed him his key, he was about to continue on but turned back and opened his wallet, This is for you, Pimenta, and handed him a twenty-escudo note. He gave no explanation and Pimenta asked no questions.
No light came from any of the rooms. Ricardo Reis went quietly down the corridor for fear of disturbing the sleeping guests. For three seconds he paused outside the door of Marcenda's room. In his room the air was cold and damp, not much better than out by the river. He shivered, as if still gazing at those livid ships and listening to the policeman's footsteps. What would have happened had he replied, Yes, there is something wrong, although he would not have been able to elaborate. Approaching the bed, he noticed a bulge in the eiderdown, something had been placed between the sheets, a hot-water bottle, he was sure, but to make certain he put his hand on top. It was warm. She was a good sort, Lydia, just like her to remember to warm his bed, these were little comforts for the chosen few. She probably won't come tonight. He lay down, opened the book at his bedside, the one about Herbert Quain, glanced at a couple of pages without taking in the sense. Three motives had been suggested for the crime, each in itself sufficient to incriminate the suspect, on whom all three converged, but the aforesaid suspect, availing himself of the law, argued that the real motive, were it to be proven that he was in fact the criminal, might be a fourth or fifth or sixth motive, each motive equally feasible, and so the full explanation of the crime could be reached only in the interrelation between all these motives, in the effect of each on each in every combination until finally the effects all canceled out, the result being death. Moreover, one had to consider to what extent the victim himself was responsible, which possibility could provide, both morally and legally, a seventh and even definitive motive. Ricardo Reis felt restored, the hot-water bottle was warming his feet, his brain worked without any interference from the outside world, the tediousness of the book made his eyelids heavy. He shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, Fernando Pessoa was sitting at the foot of the bed as if he had come to visit the sick. That same estranged look had been captured for posterity in several portraits, the hands crossed over the right thigh, the head slightly forward, deathly pale. Ricardo Reis put his book aside between the two pillows. I didn't expect you at this late hour, he said, and smiled amiably lest his visitor catch the note of impatience in his voice, the ambiguity of his words which amounted to saying, I could have done without your visit today. And he had good reason, two to be precise, the first being that he felt like talking, but not to Fernando Pessoa, about his evening at the theater, the second being that Lydia might enter the room at any moment. Not that there was any danger of her crying out, Help, a ghost, but Fernando Pessoa, though it was not in his nature, might wish to stay and witness these intimacies of flesh and spirit, the possibility could not be ruled out. God, who is God, frequently does this, nor can He avoid it, since He is everywhere, but that is something we accept. Ricardo Reis appealed to masculine complicity, We cannot chat for long, I am expecting a visitor, you must agree that it could be embarrassing. You don't waste time, you've been here less than three weeks and already you're involved in amorous intrigues, at least I presume they are amorous. It depends what you mean by amorous, she's a chambermaid in the hotel. My dear Reis, you, an aesthete, intimate with all the goddesses of Olympus, sharing your bed with a cham bermaid, with a servant, and I used to listen to you speak incessantly and with the utmost constancy of your Lydia, Neaera, and Chloe, and now you tell me you are infatuated with a chambermaid, you deeply disappoint me. The chambermaid's name is Lydia and I am not infatuated, I am not one for infatuation. Ah, so this much-praised poetic justice exists after all, what an amusing situation, you clamored for Lydia at such length that Lydia finally came, you have been more fortunate than Camoes who, in order to win his Natercia, was obliged to invent the name but got no further, so the name Lydia came but not the woman, don't be ungrateful, how do you know what the Lydia of your odes is like, supposing such a phenomenon exists, an intolerable embodiment of passivity, thoughtful silence, and pure spirit, indeed, it is doubtful, as doubtful in fact as the existence of the poet who wrote your odes. But I did write them. Allow me to be skeptical, my dear Reis, I see you there reading a detective story with a hot-water bottle at your feet and waiting for a chambermaid to come and warm the rest of you, if you'll pardon the expression, and you expect me to believe that you are the same man who wrote,
Half an hour later, the door was pushed open. Lydia, shivering after a lengthy crossing of stairs and corridors, slipped into his bed, curled up beside him, and asked, Was the theater nice, and he told her the truth, Yes, very nice.
...
Marcenda and her father did not appear for lunch. To discover why did not require any great tactical subtlety on the part of Ricardo Reis, or any of the dialectical cunning of a detective carrying out an investigation, he simply gave Salvador and himself a little time, chatting idly, his elbows resting on the reception desk with the self-assured air of a friendly guest, and in passing, as a parenthesis or fleeting rhetorical digression, a melody that unexpectedly surfaces during the development of another, he informed Salvador that he had met and made the acquaintance of Doctor Sampaio and his daughter, the most agreeable and refined of people. The smile on Salvador's face became slightly contorted, after all he had spoken to the two guests when they left and they had not mentioned the encounter with Doctor Reis in the theater. Now he knew, true, but not until almost two in the afternoon. How could
