imposing taxes, with the money of blood and with the blood of money, but there are those who favour prayers, such as the Queen, a natural and dedicated mother who came into the world solely to bear children, she will give birth to six children altogether, but her prayers should be calculated in millions, she is constantly making pilgrimages to the Jesuit Novitiate or the Parish Church of St Paul, or making a novena at the Shrine of St Francis Xavier, then she visits the shrine of Our Lady, Consoler of the Afflicted, then she goes to the Monastery of St Benedict run by the friars of St John the Evangelist, then she visits the Parish Church of the Incarnation, then the Convent of the Holy Conception at Marvila, then the Convent of St Benedict the Healer, then the Shrine of Our Lady of Light, then the Church of Corpus Christi, then the Church of Our Lady of All Graces, then she goes to the Church of St Rock, then to the Sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, then to the Royal Convent of the Mother of God, then she visits the Shrine of Our Lady of Remembrance, then the Churches of St Peter of Alcantara and Our Lady of Loreto, and the Convent of Good Counsel, and the moment she is about to leave the Palace to fulfil her religious devotions, there is a drum roll and the shrill sound of flutes, not emanating from her, good heavens, as if a queen would play a drum or a flute, and the halberdiers line up, and since the roads are perpetually filthy, despite numerous warnings and edicts demanding that they be cleaned up, porters run ahead of the Queen carrying wooden planks on their shoulders, when she steps from her carriage, the planks are set on the ground, there is quite a stir, no sooner does the Queen step over the planks than the porters move them forward, so that while she remains clean they are forever walking in the mire, our mistress, the Queen, is like our Lord Jesus Christ when He walked over the waters, and in this miraculous fashion she proceeds to the Convents of the Trinitarians, of the Cistercian Nuns, of the Sacred Heart and of St Albert, the Church of Our Lady of Mercy, whose mercy we implore, to the Church of St Catherine, to the Convent of the Sisters of St Paul, and that of the Holy Hour, which is looked after by the discalced Augustinians, and to that of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, to the Church of Our Lady of Martyrs, for we are all martyrs in our own way, to the Convent of Princess Joan the Saint, to the Convent of Christ the Saviour, to the Convent of the Sisters of St Monica, to the Royal Convent of Holy Redress, and to that of the Beneficiaries, but we know where she dare not go, to the Convent of Odivelas, and we can all guess why, a sad and deceived queen who is undeceived only by praying every hour of each day, sometimes for a good cause, at other times for no apparent reason, sometimes for her wayward husband, for her family so far away, for this country which is not hers and the children who are only partly hers, and perhaps not even that, as the Infante Dom Pedro swears in heaven, for the Portuguese Empire, for deliverance from imminent plague, for the war that has just finished and that which is about to break out, for the Infantas and Infantes, for her royal in-laws, and for Dom Francisco, too, and to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph for the trials of the flesh, for the delights glimpsed or visualised between a man's legs, for arduous salvation, for the hell that covets her soul, for the torture of being a queen, for the sorrow of being a woman, and for those two inseparable woes, transient life and approaching death.
Dona Maria Ana will now have other, more urgent motives for praying. The King is far from well these days and is subject to sudden bouts of flatulence, a debility from which he has long suffered but is rapidly worsening, the fainting fits now last much longer than usual, and it teaches one humility to see such a mighty king reduced to a state of unconsciousness, what good does it do him to be Lord of India, Africa, and Brazil when we are nothing in this world and must leave all our possessions behind. Custom and caution dictate that the last rites should be administered without delay, His Majesty must not die unconfessed like any common soldier on the battlefield where chaplains are not to be seen and have no desire to be seen, yet from time to time certain problems arise, such as when the King is in Setubal watching a bullfight from the windows of his apartments and suddenly, without any warning, goes into a deep swoon, a doctor is hastily summoned, who checks the King's pulse and summons a blood-letter, the father confessor comes with the holy oils, but no one can tell what sins Dom Joao V may have committed since he made his last confession, and that was only yesterday, how many evil thoughts could he have had, how many wicked acts could he have committed within the past twenty-four hours, and on top of everything, this awkward situation whereby bulls are dying in the arena while the King, his eyes staring upwards, may or may not be close to death, and if he should die it will not be from some wound, like those being inflicted on the animals below, who nevertheless succeed now and then in taking their revenge on the enemy, which is precisely what happened a moment ago to Dom Henrique de Almeida, he was tossed into the air with his horse and is being carried away on a stretcher with two fractured ribs. The King has finally opened his eyes, and he has escaped death after all, but his legs are still wobbly, his hands tremble, and his face is deathly pale, he no longer resembles that gallant gentleman who conquers nuns at a glance and for nuns substitute another word, as recently as last year, a French girl gave birth to a child he had fathered, and if those women of his, whether locked up or on the loose, were to see him now, they would not recognise this shrivelled, pathetic little man as the royal and indefatigable seducer they once knew. Dom Joao V makes the journey to Azeitao to see if a cure and good country air will rid him of this illness, which the doctors have diagnosed as melancholy, in all probability, His Royal Highness is suffering from a disturbance of the humours, which often results in bouts of flatulence and bilious attacks, infirmities that stem from black melancholy, for that is the King's real problem, so let us hope that he is not suffering from any diseases in his private parts, despite his amorous excesses and those traces of gallic acid, which are treated with extracts of comfrey, an excellent remedy for mouth ulcers and any infection of the testicles and upper appendages.
Dona Maria Ana has remained in Lisbon to pray and then gone on to continue her prayers at Belem. It is rumoured that she is peeved because Dom Joao V refuses to entrust her with governing the kingdom and it really is wrong for a husband to be so mistrustful of his wife's capacity to govern, he will soon relent, and eventually the Queen will be appointed regent while the King pursues his cure amidst the rural delights of Azeitao, where he is nursed by the Franciscan friars from Arrabida and the lapping of the waves, the colour of the sea, the tang in the air remain unchanged, the magic spell is the same, and nature exudes the same intoxicating odours as before while the Infante Dom Francisco remains alone in Lisbon, wooing the Queen, and the plot starts to thicken and events to unfold, calculating the death of his brother and his own life, If no remedy should be found for the melancholy that cruelly torments His Royal Highness, and if God were to decide to end his mortal life prematurely so that he might embark upon eternal life all the sooner, then it would be possible for me as next in line, as a close member of the Royal Family, as Your Majesty's brother-in-law, and a deeply devoted admirer of your beauty and virtue, to presume to suggest that I might succeed to the throne and to your bed on the way, by wedding you in holy matrimony, and when it comes to manly attributes I can assure you that I am not inferior to my brother, Good heavens, such an unseemly conversation between a brother- and sister-in-law, the King is still alive, and should God hear my prayers, His Majesty's life will be saved for the greater glory of the kingdom and, most of all, for the sake of those six children I am destined to bear him, for there are three more still to come, Yet I know that Your Majesty dreams about me nearly every night, I cannot deny that I have such dreams, these are weaknesses of womanhood, which I conceal in my heart and do not even discuss with my father confessor, although others may clearly surmise our dreams by looking into our eyes, Well, then, when my brother dies let us wed, If such a union were to bring prosperity to the realm, give no offence to God, and safeguard my honour, then I should consent, How I wish my brother would die, for I want to be king and to sleep with Your Majesty, I'm tired of being simply the Infante, And I'm tired of being queen, but I cannot aspire to anything else, so I resign myself and pray that my husband will live, lest I find myself saddled with an even worse fate, Is Your Majesty suggesting, then, that I would be worse than my brother, All men are evil in their own way, and on this astute and cynical note their conversation in the Palace ends, the first of many such conversations with Dom Francisco, who would importune the Queen on every possible occasion, in Belem, where she is in residence at present, in Belas, where she will journey at her leisure, and in Lisbon when she finally becomes regent, at court and in the country, until Dona Maria Ana's dreams are no longer as enjoyable as before, so uplifting for the spirit if distressing for the body, for now the Infante only appears in her dreams to tell her that he wants to become king, and much good may it do him, he is wasting his time, say I who am queen. The King became so gravely ill that Dona Maria Ana's dream vanished, but the King will eventually recover his health while the Queen's dreams will never be revived.
...
BESIDES THE CONVERSATION of women, it is dreams that keep the world in orbit. But dreams also form a diadem of moons, therefore the sky is that splendour inside a man's head, if his head is not, in fact, his own unique sky. Padre Bartolomeu Lourenco has returned from Holland, whether he succeeded or failed to solve the mystery of ether we shall know later, it is even possible that the secret cannot be resolved with the alchemy of ancient times,
