As the last stroke of eight echoed on the pendulum clock that adorned the wall above the reception desk, Ricardo Reis descended punctually to the dining room. The manager, Salvador, smiled, raising his mustache above his teeth, which looked none too clean, as he hurried forward to open the double doors. Their glass panels, engraved with the initials H and B, the B entwined with curves and countercurves, with appendages and floral elongations, stylized acanthuses, palm fronds, and spiraling foliage, bestowed dignity on this otherwise modest hotel. The maître d' led the way. There were no other guests in the dining room, only two waiters who had finished setting the tables. Noises could be heard coming from behind the pantry door, which bore the same monogram. From that door soup tureens, covered dishes, and platters would soon make their entrance. The furnishings were what you might expect, anyone who has seen one of these dining rooms has seen them all, a few dim lights on the ceilings and walls, immaculate white cloths on the tables, the pride of the establishment, freshened up with bleach in the laundry, if not in the Caneças, which only uses soap and sunshine, but with so much rain for days on end, it must be well behind with its work. Ricardo Reis is now seated. The maître d' tells him what is on the menu, soup, fish, meat, unless the doctor prefers something lighter, that is, another kind of meat, fish, soup. I should advise the latter until you get used to your new diet, since you have just come back from the tropics after an absence of sixteen years. So even in the dining room and kitchen they know all about him. The door leading from the reception desk was pushed open in the meantime and a couple entered with two young children, a boy and a girl, both of them the color of wax though their parents were florid, but both legitimate, to judge from appearances, the head of the family in front, guiding his tribe, the mother pushing her children forward from behind. Then a man appeared, fat and heavy, with a gold chain crossing his stomach from one little waistcoat pocket to another, and almost immediately after him came another man, very thin, with a black tie and a mourning band on his arm. No one else arrived for the next quarter of an hour. The noise of cutlery could be heard against the plates. The father of the children, authoritative, struck the knife against his wineglass to summon the waiter. The thin man, his mourning disturbed and good breeding offended, gave him a severe look, but the fat man calmly went on chewing. Ricardo Reis contemplated the blobs of grease that floated on his chicken broth. He had chosen the lighter meal, following the maître d's suggestion out of indifference rather than conviction, for he could see no real advantage to it. A ruffling sound against the windowpanes told him that it had started raining again. These windows do not face onto the Rua do Alecrim, what street could it be, he cannot remember, if he ever knew, but the waiter who comes to change his plate informs him, This is the Rua Nova do Carvalho, Doctor, before asking, Did you enjoy your soup. From the waiter's pronunciation, which is good, one can tell that he is Galician.
Through the door now entered a middle-aged man, tall and distinguished in appearance, with a long, lined face, along with a girl in her twenties, if that, and thin, although it would be more correct to describe her as slender. They made their way to the table facing Ricardo Reis and it suddenly became clear that the table had been awaiting them, just as an object awaits the hand that frequently reaches out and takes possession. They must be regular clients, perhaps the owners of the hotel. It is interesting how we forget that hotels have an owner. These two, whether the owners or not, crossed the room at their leisure as if in their own home. Such details you notice when you pay attention. The girl sat in profile, the man with his back to Ricardo Reis, and they conversed in a whisper, but she raised her voice as she reassured him, No, Father, I'm fine. So they are father and daughter, an unusual pairing in any hotel nowadays. The waiter came to serve them, solemn but friendly in his manner, then went away. The room was silent again, not even the children raised their voices. How strange that Ricardo Reis cannot remember having heard the children speak, perhaps they are mute or have their lips stapled together with invisible clips, an absurd thought, since they are both eating. The slender girl, finishing her soup, puts down the spoon, and her right hand starts to caress her left hand as if it were a little lapdog resting on her knees. Surprised by this, Ricardo Reis realizes that her left hand has never moved, he remembers that she used only her right hand to fold her napkin, and now she is holding the left and is about to rest it on the table, very gently, like the most fragile crystal. There she leaves it, beside her plate, a silent presence at the meal, the long fingers extended, pale, inert. Ricardo Reis feels a shiver, no one is feeling it for him, his skin shivers within and without, as in utter fascination he watches that hand, paralyzed and insensible, ignorant of where it should go unless taken, resting to catch the sun or listen to the conversation or be seen by the doctor who has just arrived from Brazil. A tiny hand which is left on two counts, left because it is lying on the left side and left because it is a gauche, disabled, lifeless, and withered thing that will never knock on any door. Ricardo Reis observes that the plates for the girl come from the pantry already prepared, the fishbones removed, the meat diced, the fruit peeled and cut into segments. It is clear that the daughter and father are well known to the hotel staff, they may even live in the hotel. He finished his meal but lingered a while, to allow time, but what time and for what. At last he got up, drew back his chair, and the noise he made, too loud perhaps, caused the girl to turn around. Seen from the front, she looks older than twenty, but in profile her youth is immediately restored, her neck long and fragile, her chin finely molded, the entire restless line of her body insecure, unfinished. Ricardo Reis got up from the table, headed for the glass-paneled door with the monograms, where he was obliged to exchange courtesies with the fat man who was also leaving. After you, sir, Please, after you. The fat man went out, Thank you, kind sir, a somewhat obsequious use of the word sir, for if we are to take all words literally, Ricardo Reis would have passed first, for he is innumerable men, according to his own understanding of himself.
The manager Salvador is already holding out the key of room two hundred and one. He makes a solicitous gesture, as if about to hand it over but then slyly drawing back. Perhaps the guest wishes to slip out quietly in search of Lisbon by night and its secret pleasures, after so many years in Brazil and so many days crossing the ocean, although the wintry night makes the cozy atmosphere of the lounge seem more enticing, here at hand, the deep high-backed armchairs in leather, the chandelier in the center of the room so rich in crystal pendants, and that big mirror that encompasses the entire room and duplicates it in another dimension. This is no simple reflection of the common and familiar proportions the mirror is confronted with, length, width, height, they are not reproduced in it one by one and readily identifiable. Instead they are fused into a single intangible apparition on a plane that is at once remote and near, unless there is some paradox in this explanation which the mind avoids out of laziness. Here is Ricardo Reis contemplating himself in the depths of the mirror, one of the countless persons that he is, all of them weary. I am going up to my room, I'm exhausted after my journey, two whole weeks of the most awful weather, have you by any chance some newspapers, I'd like to catch up on the national news until I'm ready to fall asleep. There you are, Doctor, help yourself. Just at this moment the girl with the paralyzed hand and her father passed into the lounge, he in front, she behind, one pace apart. Ricardo Reis had already picked up his key and the newspapers, the color of ashes, the print blurred. A gust of wind caused the front door to bang downstairs, the buzzer sounded. There is no one there, only the storm which is gathering. This night will bring nothing more of interest, only rain, tempest over land and sea, solitude.
The sofa in his room is comfortable, the springs on which so many bodies have reclined form a human hollow, and the light from the lamp which stands on the writing desk illuminates the newspaper at the correct angle. This is like being at home, in the bosom of one's family, by the fireside I do not possess and perhaps never will. Thes
e are the newspapers of my native Portugal, they inform me that the Head of State has inaugurated an exhibition in honor of Mousinho de Albuquerque at the Colonial Office, one is not spared imperial commemorations or allowed to forget imperial personages. There is cause for anxiety in Golegã, I can't even remember where it is, ah yes, in the province of Ribatejo, that the floods may burst the dike known as Vinte, a most curious name, where could it have come from, we shall see a repetition of the disaster of eighteen ninety-five. In ninety-five I was eight years old, naturally I don't remember. The tallest woman in the world is Elsa Droyon, two and a half meters tall, the water won't rise that much. And that girl, I wonder what her name is, that paralyzed hand, so limp, it might have been an illness or perhaps some accident. The fifth national contest for beautiful babies, half a page of photographs of infants, stark naked, their rolls of puppy fat bulging, nourished on powdered milk. Some of these babies will grow up to become criminals, vagabonds, and prostitutes, after being photographed like this, at such a tender age, before the lewd eyes of those who have no respect for innocence. The military operations in Ethiopia continue. What news from Brazil, nothing new, everything destroyed. General advance of the Italian troops. There is no human force capable of stopping the Italian soldier in his heroic onslaught, what can the Abyssinian rifle achieve against him, the inferior lance, the wretched cutlass. The lawyer of a famous woman athlete has announced that his client has undergone a major operation in order to change her sex, within a few days she will be a man, as if from birth, do not forget to change her name too, what name, Bocage, before the Tribunal of the Holy Office. A painting by the artist Fernando Santos, the fine arts are cultivated in this country. At the Coliseu they are showing The Last Wonder with Vanise Meireles, a statuesque figure clad in silver, a Brazilian celebrity. Funny, I must have missed her in Brazil, my fault. Here in Lisbon one can get a seat in the gallery for three escudos, a seat in the stalls costs five escudos and up, there are two performances daily and matinees on Sundays. The Politeama is showing The Crusades, a spectacular epic. Numerous contingents of English troops have landed at Port Said, every era has its crusades, these are the crusades of modern times, it is rumored that they are making for the borders of Italian-occupied Libya. A list of the Portuguese who have died in Brazil during the first half of December. These names are unknown to me, I don't need to express my sympathy or go into mourning, but clearly lots of Portuguese immigrants die down there. Charity fetes with free dinners for the poor throughout the country, the quality of food has been improved in the hospices for the poor, the elderly are so well treated in Portugal, not to mention abandoned children, little flowers left on the streets. Then this item of news, the president of the city council in Oporto sent a telegram to the Minister of the Interior, At today's session the council over which I preside resolved, after discussion of the decree which will provide assistance for the poor throughout the winter, to congratulate Your Excellency on this admirable enterprise. Other news, polluted drinking troughs full of cattle dung, smallpox is spreading in Lebução and Fatela, an outbreak of flu in Portalegre and typhoid fever in Valbom, a sixteen-year-old girl has died of smallpox, a pastoral flower of bucolic innocence, a lily cruelly severed from its stem and so prematurely. I have a foxhound bitch, not a purebred, who has already had two litters and on both occasions she was found eating her young, not one escaped, tell me, dear editor, what should I do. In reply to your question, dear reader, the cannibalism of bitches is generally due to malnutrition during the period of gestation. The dog must be well fed with meat as her staple diet and supplemented with milk, bread, and vegetables, in brief, a well-balanced diet. If this does not change her habits, there's no remedy, either destroy the dog or do not allow her to mate, let her put up with being in heat or you can have her spayed. Now let us try to imagine what would happen if women suffering from malnutrition during pregnancy, starved of meat, bread, and green vegetables, which is fairly common, were also to begin eating their infants. After trying to imagine it and having confirmed that such crimes do not occur, it becomes easy to see the difference between people and animals. The editor did not add these comments, nor did Ricardo Reis, who is thinking about something else, a suitable name for the bitch. He will not call her Diana or Lembrada, but a name to throw light on her crime or motives, and will the wicked creature die from eating poisoned food or from a rifle shot fired by her own master. Ricardo Reis persists and finally finds the right name, one which comes from Ugolino della Gherardesca, that most savage, lusty nobleman who ate his children and grandchildren, there are testimonies to this in the History of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, also in the Divine Comedy, chapter thirty-three of the Inferno. Therefore let the bitch who eats her young be called Ugolina, so unnatural that her heart suffers no compassion as she tears the warm and tender skin of her defenseless brood with her jaws, slaughtering them, causing their delicate bones to snap, and the poor little pups, whining, perish without realizing who is devouring them, the mother who gave them birth. Ugolina, do not kill me, I am your offspring.
The page which calmly narrates these horrors falls onto the lap of Ricardo Reis. He is fast asleep. A sudden gust of wind rattles the windowpanes, the rain pours down like a deluge. Through the deserted streets of Lisbon prowls the bitch Ugolina slavering blood, sniffing in doorways, howling in squares and parks, furiously biting at her own womb, where the next litter is about to be conceived.
After a night of severe winter, of violent storm, the latter two words, violent storm, have been linked together since their inception, the first pair not quite as much, but both phrases are so pertinent to the circumstance that they spare one the effort of having to invent new words, the morning might well have dawned with bright sunshine, blue skies, and joyful flutterings of pigeons in flight. But there was no change in the elements. The swallows continue to fly over the city, the river is not to be trusted, the pigeons scarcely venture there. It is raining, but tolerably for anyone going out with a raincoat and umbrella, and in comparison with the gales earlier this morning, the wind is a mere caress on one's cheek. Ricardo Reis left the hotel early, he went to the Banco Comercial to change some of his English money into escudos, and for every pound sterling he received one hundred and ten thousand reis. A pity those pounds were not gold, otherwise he could have changed them for almost double that amount. Even so, the returning traveler has no real cause for complaint, seeing as he leaves the bank with five thousand escudos in his wallet, a small fortune in Portugal. From the Rua do Comércio, where he finds himself, the Terreiro do Paço is only a few meters away, but Ricardo Reis will not risk crossing the square. He looks into the distance under the protection of the colonnades, the river dark and choppy, the tide high. When the waves rise offshore, one imagines they are about to inundate and submerge the square, but that is an optical illusion, they disperse against the wall, their impact broken by the sloping steps of the wharf. He recalls having sat there in days gone by, days so remote he doubts whether he really experienced them. It may have been someone on my behalf, perhaps with the same face and name, but some other person. His feet are cold and wet, he also feels a shadow of gloom pass over his body, not over his soul, I repeat, not over his soul. The impression is physical, he could touch it with his hands were they not both gripping the handle of his umbrella, which is needlessly open. This is how a man alienates himself from the world, how he exposes himself to the jesting of some passerby who quips, Hey mister, it's not raining under there. But the man's smile is spontaneous, without a hint of malice, and Ricardo Reis smiles at his own distraction. Without knowing why, he murmurs two lines from a poem by João de Deus, well known to every child in nursery school. Under this colonnade one could comfortably spend the night.
He came here because the square was so near and in order to verify in passing if his memory of the place, clear as an engraving, bore any resemblance to the reality. A quadrangle surrounded by buildings on three sides, a regal equestrian statue in the middle, a triumphal ar
ch which he cannot see from where he is standing. But everything is diffuse and hazy, the architecture nothing but blurred lines. It must be the weather, the hour of day, his failing eyesight. Only the eyes of remembrance remain, as sharp as those of a hawk. It is almost eleven o'clock, and there is much activity under the colonnades, but activity is not the same thing as haste. This dignified lot move at a steady pace, all the men in soft hats, their umbrellas dripping, few women are in sight at this hour, the civil servants are arriving at their offices. Ricardo Reis walks on in the direction of the Rua do Crucifixo, resisting the insistent pleas of a lottery-ticket vendor who tries to sell him a ticket for the next draw. It is number one thousand three hundred and forty-nine, the wheel will spin tomorrow. That is not the number and the wheel will not be spinning tomorrow, but this is how the soothsayer's chant goes, a licensed prophet with a badge on his cap. Do buy a ticket, sir, if you refuse to buy, you will live to regret it, believe me, it's a winner. There is menace in this imposition. Ricardo Reis enters the Rua Garrett, goes up the Chiado, where four porters lean against the plinth of the statue, paying no heed to the drizzle. This is the island of the Galicians. Farther ahead it has actually stopped raining. There is a white patch of light behind Luis de Camoes, a nimbus. That is the trouble with words, nimbus signifies rain as well as cloud as well as halo, and since the poet is neither God nor saint, the rain stopping was merely the clouds thinning out as they passed. Let us not imagine that these are miracles like the ones at Ourique or Fatima, not even the simple miracle of the sky turning blue.
The Collected Novels of José Saramago Page 44