Although it may not be the most important problem to resolve, Raimundo Silva took the trouble to reflect long enough to conclude that, logically, although as we well know reality does not always follow the straightforward path of logic, it would not make sense, waters on land generally being sweet, to presume to distinguish a fountain by the properties associated with fountains, just as we would not call a fountain surrounded by ferns, a fountain of maidenhairs, then he thought, until he had further evidence of other fountains, historical and authenticated, that the waters of Atamarma must have been bitter, and, continuing to think, that one day he will find out by the most practical means, namely, by drinking them, whereby he will finally reach the firm conclusion, in terms of experimentation and probability, that they are brackish, thus satisfying everyone, since you could say that brackish is somewhere between sweet and bitter.
Raimundo Silva is less concerned, however, with names and taste buds as may appear, despite the extent and duration of these latest debates, perhaps simply indicative of that oblique thinking Dr Maria Sara thought she could detect, even before she really got to know him. What really worries the proof-reader, now that he has accepted Mogueime as his character, is to find him in contradiction, if not in flagrant falsehood, a situation for which there can be no other alternative than the truth, inasmuch as there is no space left here for a new fountain of Atamarma capable of offering in conciliation, waters that are neither yea nor nay. Mogueime described, and explained quite clearly, how he climbed on to Mem Ramires's shoulders to secure the ladder between the battlements, which, moreover, would serve to demonstrate, on the basis of historical evidence, what we might imagine those ages to have been, so close to the golden age that they still retained the brilliance of certain deeds, in this case that a nobleman from the court of Dom Afonso should have loaned his precious body as support, plinth and pedestal for the thoroughly plebeian feet of a soldier with no other apparent merit than that of having grown more than the others. But what Mogueime said, and, on the other hand, is confirmed by Fray Antonio Brandao, contradicts the earliest version of
But as Jesus said, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. It is, in fact, very easy to make accusations, Mogueime is lying, Mogueime lied, but those of us here present, who know rather more about the lies and truths of the last twenty centuries, with psychology nurturing souls, and the much misinterpreted psychoanalysis, together with all the rest which it would take some fifty pages to list, should not hold the defects of others up to ridicule, when we tend to be so indulgent with our own, the proof being that there is no recorded evidence of anyone who, as a severe and intransigent judge of their own actions, carried that judgment to the extreme of stoning their own body. Besides, returning to the quotation from the gospel, we are entitled to question whether the world at that time was so hardened by vice that its salvation could only be brought about by the Son of a God, for it is the episode itself about the adulteress which illustrates that things were not going all that badly there in Palestine, not like today when they are at their worst, consider how on that remote day not another stone was thrown at the hapless woman, Jesus only had to utter those fatal words for aggressive hands to withdraw, their owners declaring, confessing and even proclaiming in this manner that, yes, Sir, they were sinners. Now a people that was capable of acknowledging its sins in public, however implicitly, could not have been entirely lost, it preserved intact an inner principle of kindness, thus authorising us to conclude, with the minimum risk of being proved wrong, that there was some precipitation in the coming of the Saviour. Today, His coming would have done some good, for not only do the corrupt persevere on the path of corruption, but it becomes increasingly difficult to find any reason for interrupting the stoning once it gets under way.
At first sight, it will not appear that these moralising digressions are in any way related to the reluctance Raimundo Silva has shown in accepting Mogueime as a character, but their usefulness will become apparent when we remember that Raimundo Silva, assuming that he is immune from any greater faults, is habitually guilty of another, certainly no less serious, yet tolerated everywhere because so very widespread and accessible, and that is deception. Besides, he knows there is no real difference between lying about who climbed on to whose back, whether I climbed on to that of Mem Ramires or Mem Ramires on to mine, and; to give but one example, the mundane act of dyeing one's hair, everything, in the final analysis, is a question of vanity, the desire to keep up appearances, both physically and immorally, it being possible even now to imagine a time in which all human behaviour will be artificial, disregarding without further thought sincerity, spontaneity, simplicity, those most excellent and shining qualities of character which were so difficult to define and put into practice in times long since past when, although conscious of having invented falsehood, we still believed ourselves capable of living the truth.
Halfway through the afternoon, during a pause between coping with the problems of the siege and the trivialities of the novel which the publisher is waiting for, Raimundo Silva went out for a break. This was all he had in mind, to take a little stroll, amuse himself, mull over ideas. But on passing a florist's shop, he went in and bought a rose. White. And now he is returning home, a trifle embarrassed to be seen carrying a flower in his hand.
...
WITHOUT ANY WARNING, Japanese aeroplanes suddenly made a surprise attack on the United States fleet that was docked in Pearl Harbour, an act of destruction, as everyone knows, that was nothing out of the ordinary regarding the loss of human lives, if we compare it with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but with catastrophic consequences in terms of material losses, battleships, aircraft-carriers, destroyers, and the rest, a serious financial loss, thirteen ships sunk in all without a single shot being fired seriously, apart from the usual manoeuvres. One remote cause of this naval disaster was having lost, at some hour in that night of ages that guards secrets, having lost, as we were saying, the gentlemanly custom of declaring wars with three days' notice, in order to give the enemy enough time to prepare themselves or, if they preferred, to seek refuge, also so that anyone who might decide to break the truce should not be accused of having sullied military honour. Those times are gone for ever. Because, when all is said and done, it is one thing to attack at dead of night, without either drums or trumpets, but having sent a message, and another to arrive surreptitiously and with blackened weapons, enter gates that have been carelessly left unlocked, and massacre everyone in sight. We know that no one can escape his destiny, and it is obvious that the women and children of Santarem were fated to die that night, this had been agreed between the Allah of the Moors and the God of the Christians, but at least the poor wretches could not complain that they had not been warned, if they remained it was of their own free will, for our good king, had despatched Martim Moab along with two companions to the town of Santarem to warn the Moors that there would be war in three days' time, so there was no guilt on the part of Dom Afonso Henriques when he told his men, before engaging in battle, Kill regardless of sex or age, no matter whether a babe in arms, some senile old man, a young maiden, or a decrepit old woman, because he imagined, having given the notice prescribed in the code, that they might be expecting to find only Moorish warriors awaiting them, all male and in their prime.
Now then, in this episode with which we are concerned, namely, the Siege of Lisbon, any warning would have been superfluous, not only because the peace, in a manner of speaking, had been broken since the capture of Santarem, but also because the objectives of whosoever had assembled this huge army on the hills beyond were clear for all to see, and he had only been prevented from adding several more divisions because of a typographical error aggravated by feelings of resentment and wounded pride. But even so, formalities have to be observed and respected, adapting them to every situation, therefore the king determined that Dom Joao Peculiar together with
