Читать книгу The Lives of Things - José Saramago - Страница 7

The Chair

The chair started to fall, to come crashing down, to topple, but not, strictly speaking, to come to bits. Strictly speaking, to come to bits means bits fall off. Now no one speaks of the chair having bits, and if it had bits, such as arms on each side, then you would refer to the arms of the chair falling off rather than coming to bits. But now that I remember, it has to be said that heavy rain comes down in buckets, so why should chairs not be able to come down in bits? At least for the sake of poetic licence? At least for the sake of being able to use an expression referred to as style? Therefore accept that chairs come to bits, although preferably they should simply fall, topple, or come crashing down. The person who does end up in pieces is the poor wretch who was sitting in this chair and is seated there no longer, but falling, as is the case, and style will exploit the variety of words which never say the same thing, however much we might want them to. If they were to say the same thing, if they were to group together through affinity of structure and origin, then life would be much simpler, by means of successive reduction, down to onomatopoeia which is not simple either, and so on and so forth, probably to silence, to what we might term the general synonym or omnivalent. It is not even onomatopoeia, or cannot be formed from this articulated sound (since the human voice does not have pure, unarticulated sounds, except perhaps in singing, and even then one would have to listen up close) formed in the throat of the person who is toppling or falling although no star, both words with heraldic echoes, which now describe anything which is about to come to pieces, therefore it did not sound right to join the parallel ending to this verb, which would settle the choice and complete the circle. Thus proving that the world is not perfect.

One could say that the chair about to topple is perfect. But times change, tastes and values change, what once seemed perfect is no longer judged to be so, for reasons beyond our control, yet which would not be reasons had times not changed. Or time. How much time need not concern us, nor need we describe or simply specify the style of furniture which would identify the chair as being one of many, especially since as a chair it naturally belongs to a simple sub-group or collateral branch, altogether different in size and function, from these sturdy patriarchs, known as tables, sideboards, wardrobes, display-cabinets for silver and crockery, or beds from which it is obviously much more difficult, if not impossible, to fall, for it is while getting out of bed that one is in danger of breaking a leg or while getting into bed that one can slip on the mat, when in fact the breaking of a leg was not precisely caused by slipping on the mat. Nor do we think it important to say from what kind of wood such a small item of furniture is made, its very name suggests it was destined to fall, unless the Latin verb cetera is some linguistic trap, if cetera is indeed Latin, as it sounds it ought to be. Any tree would have served with the exception of pine which has exhausted its properties in the making of warships and is now quite commonplace, or cherry which can easily warp, or the fig-tree which is prone to splintering, especially in hot weather or when one reaches out too far along the branch to pluck a fig; with the exception of these trees which are flawed, and others because of the many properties they possess, as in the case of ironwood which never decays yet has too much weight for the required volume. Another unsuitable wood is ebony, which is simply another name for ironwood, and we have already seen the problem of using synonyms or what are assumed to be synonyms. Not so much in this analysis of botanical matters which pays no attention to synonyms, yet scrupulously observes the two different names which different people have given to the same thing. You may be sure that the name ironwood was given or weighed up by whoever had to carry it on his back. There is no safer bet.

Were it made of ebony, we should probably have to classify the chair that is falling as being perfect, and by using verbs such as to classify or categorise, we will prevent it from falling, or only let it fall very much later, for example, a hundred years hence, when its fall would no longer be of any use to us. It is possible that another chair may topple in its place, in order to produce the same fall with a similar result, but that would mean telling a different story, not the story of what happened because it is happening, but the story of what might happen. Certainty is preferable by far, especially when you have been waiting for something far from certain.

However, we must acknowledge a degree of perfection in this singular chair which is still falling. It was not purpose-made for the body which has been sitting in it for many years but chosen instead for its design, so as to match rather than clash excessively with the other items of furniture nearby or at a distance, not made of pine, or cherry, or fig, for the reasons already stated, but of a wood commonly used for durable, high-quality furniture, for example, mahogany. This is a hypothesis which exempts us from any further verification, incidentally quite undeliberate, of the wood used to carve, mould, shape, glue, assemble, tighten up and allow to dry, this chair which is near to collapsing. So let us settle for mahogany and say no more. Except to mention how pleasant and comfortable the chair is to sit in, and if it has arms and is made entirely of mahogany, how pleasant to touch that solid and mysterious surface of smoothly polished wood, and if the arms are curved, the kind of shoulder, knee or hip-bone that curve possesses.

Mahogany, for example, unfortunately does not have the resistance of the aforementioned ebony or ironwood. The experience of men and carpenters has proved as much, and any one of us, if we can work up enough enthusiasm for these scientific matters, will be able to test this for ourselves by biting into each of these different woods and judging the difference. A normal canine tooth, however unfit to prove its strength in a circus ring, will leave a nice clear imprint on mahogany. But not on ebony. Quod erat demonstrandum. Whereupon we can assess the problems of rot.

There will be no police inquiry, although this might have been exactly the right moment, when the chair was tilting at a mere two degrees, since, if the whole truth be told, the sudden dislocation of the centre of gravity may be irremediable, especially when uncompensated by an instinctive reflex or force subject to that reflex; this might be the moment, I repeat, to give the order, a strict order to take everything back from this moment which cannot be postponed, not so much to the tree (or trees, for there is no guarantee that all the items of furniture come from the same planks of wood), but to the merchant, storekeeper, joiner, stevedore, shipping company responsible for shipping from remote parts the tree-trunk stripped of its branches and roots. As far back as might be necessary in order to discover where the rot first set in and what caused it. Sounds, as we know, are articulated in the throat, but they will not be capable of giving this order. They simply hesitate, as yet unaware that they are vacillating, between an exclamation and a cry, both primary. Therefore impunity is guaranteed on account of the victim’s silence, and the oversight of the investigators who will simply make a routine check, once the chair has stopped falling and its collapse, not as yet fatal, has been consummated, to see whether the leg or foot has been maliciously, not to say criminally, damaged. Anyone carrying out this check will feel humiliated, for it is nothing less than humiliating to be carrying a pistol under your arm and be holding a stump of worm-eaten wood that is crumbling beneath a fingernail that need not be all that thick for this purpose. And then push the chair with the broken leg aside without showing the slightest annoyance, and then drop the leg itself, now that it has served its purpose which is precisely that of being broken.

It happened somewhere, if you will permit me this tautology. It happened somewhere that an insect of the order Coleoptera, belonging to the genus Hylotrupes, Anobium or some other genus (no entomologist has succeeded in establishing its identity) introduced itself into some part or other of the chair, from whence it then travelled, gnawing, devouring and evacuating, opening galleries along the softest veins to the ideal spot for a fracture, who knows how many years later, but ever cautious, bearing in mind the short life of the coleoptera, and how many generations must have fed on this mahogany until the day of glory, noble race, brave nation. Let us reflect on this painstaking labour, this other pyramid of Cheops, if this is how hieroglyphics are spelt, which the coleoptera built without anything showing on the outside, while opening tunnels inside which were eventually to lead into a burial chamber. There is no reason why the Pharaohs should be deposited inside mountains of stone, in some dark, mysterious place, with ramifications which first open on to abysses and perditions, where they will leave their bones and their flesh until it is devoured, however much imprudent and sceptical archaeologists may laugh at curses, the so-called Egyptologists in the former case, the experts in Lusitanian or Portuguese culture in the latter. When we come to consider the differences between the place where the pyramid is built and this other where the Pharaoh has been or is about to be installed, let us recall the wise and prudent words of our forefathers: a place for everything, and everything in its place. Therefore we need not be surprised if this pyramid called chair sometimes not only refuses its ultimate destiny, but for the duration of its fall becomes a kind of farewell, forever looking back to the beginning, not so much because of the sorrow of absence once far away, but as a perfect and convincing manifestation of what a farewell means for, as everyone knows, farewells are always much too fleeting to be truly worthy of the name. There is neither the time nor opportunity when making farewells for that sorrow ten times distilled until it becomes pure essence, nothing but confusion and panic, the tear that welled up and had no time to appear, the expression that was intended to convey deep sadness or that melancholy of another age, only to end up with a grimace or leer which is even worse. Falling like this, the chair undoubtedly falls, but all we want is the time of its falling, and as we watch this fall which nothing can stop and which none of us is likely to stop, for it is already inevitable, we can turn it back like the river Guadiana, not in fear but in bliss, which is a heavenly way of rejoicing, and once more undoubtedly deserved. With the assistance of St Teresa of Avila and the dictionary, we must try to understand that this bliss is that supernatural happiness which produces grace in the souls of the just. As we watch the chair fall, we cannot help receiving this grace, for as we stand there watching, we do nothing and will continue to do nothing to stop it from falling. Thus proving the existence of the soul because we could not possibly experience any such reaction without a soul. So let the chair go back to an upright position and recommence its fall while we get back to what we were saying.

Behold Anobium, whose name has been chosen for whatever trace of nobility it might contain, an avenger from beyond the prairie, mounted on his horse White-face, and taking his time to arrive so that all the credits can be screened and we are left in no doubt, just in case some of us missed seeing the posters in the cinema foyer about the team who made the film. Behold Anobium, now in close-up, with his coleopteral face, eaten away in its turn by the wind and the hot sun, which, as we all know, burn out the open galleries in the leg of the chair that has just broken and, thanks to which, the aforesaid chair is beginning to fall for the third time. This Anobium, as has already been stated in a form more appropriate for the banalities of genetics and reproduction, had predecessors in this act of revenge: they were called Fred, Tom Mix and Buck Jones, but these are names immortalised in the epic history of the Far West and they should not allow us to forget the anonymous coleoptera who had the much less glorious, not to say ridiculous task, of perishing while crossing the desert, or of slowly crawling through a swamp where they slipped and fell into the mire giving off the most awful stench, to hoots of laughter and catcalls from the stalls and gallery. Not one of them had settled his final account when the train gave three whistles, holsters were greased inside so that pistols could be drawn at once, with the index finger on the trigger and the thumb poised to pull back the hammer. Not one of them received the prize waiting on Mary’s lips, nor was White Flash there to come from behind and push the shy cowboy into the girl’s expectant arms. All pyramids have stones underneath, and the same is true of monuments. The conquering Anobium is the last in this line of anonymous heroes who preceded him, at any rate no less fortunate, for they lived, worked and died, everything in its own good time, and this Anobium, as we know, completes the cycle, and, like the male bee, he will die in the act of impregnation. The beginning of death.

Marvellous music which no one had heard for months or years, incessant, uninterrupted by day and by night, at the glorious, dazzling hour of sunrise and at this no less amazing moment when we bid the light farewell until morning, this continuous gnawing, as persistent as the endless repetition of the same note, harping on, eating away at one fibre after another and everyone entering and leaving, distractedly, absorbed in their own affairs, unaware that at the appointed hour Anobium will appear, pistol at the ready, marking out the enemy or target, taking aim which means hitting dead centre, at least that is what it means from now on, for someone had to be the first. Marvellous music, composed and played by generations of coleoptera for their pleasure and our profit, as was the destiny of the Bach family, both before and after Johann Sebastian. Music unheard, and if heard, what could it do for the person seated in this chair who will fall with it and, in fear or surprise, emit this articulated sound which may not even be a cry or shriek, much less a word. Music that will fall silent, that has fallen silent this very instant: Buck Jones sees his rival fall inexorably to the ground, beneath the harsh glare of the Texas sun, he puts his pistols away in their holsters and removes his wide-brimmed Stetson to wipe his forehead, and also because Mary, in a white dress, is running towards him, now that any danger has passed.

It would be something of an exaggeration, however, to assert that man’s entire destiny is to be found inscribed in the oral chewing apparatus of the coleoptera. Were this so, we should all be living in houses made of glass and iron, and therefore be protected against Anobium, but not completely protected, because for some reason or other there is this mysterious illness which we potential victims of cancer refer to as glass cancer, and this all too common rust which, and solve who can these other mysteries, does not attack ironwood, yet literally destroys anything made simply of iron. Not only are we humans fragile, but we are even obliged to assist our own death. Perhaps it is a question of personal honour: not to be so helpless and submissive, to give something of ourselves, otherwise what is the point of being in this world? The blade of the guillotine cuts, but who offers his neck? The condemned man. The rifle-shot hits its target, but who bares his chest? The man who gets shot. Death has this strange beauty of being as lucid as a mathematical demonstration, as straightforward as drawing a line between two points, so long as it does not exceed the length of the ruler. Tom Mix fires his two pistols, but there has to be enough gunpowder pressed into the cartridges to ensure sufficient power for the bullet to cover the distance in its slightly curved trajectory (no need for a rule here), and once having met the requirements of ballistics, it has to pierce the man’s cloth collar at a good height, then his shirt, which might be made of flannel, then the woollen vest that keeps him warm in winter and absorbs his sweat in summer, and finally his soft, elastic skin which initially yields, supposing, if skin supposes rather than simply suppurates, that the force of the missile will stop there and the bullets fall to the ground, into the dust on the road, and let the criminal off the hook until the next time. However, things turned out otherwise. Buck Jones is already holding Mary in his arms and the word END is coming from his mouth and about to fill the screen. Time for the spectators to rise slowly from their seats and proceed up the aisle in the direction of the harsh light coming from the exit, for they have been to the matinée, struggling to return to this humdrum reality, feeling a little sad, a little courageous, and so indifferent to the life awaiting them in the shooting gallery, that some even remain seated for the second session: once upon a time.

And now this old man is seated, having come out of one room and crossed another, then going along a passageway which could be the aisle of a cinema, but it is not, it is part of the house, not necessarily his, but simply the house in which he lives or is living, therefore not all of it is his, but in his care. The chair still has not fallen. It is condemned like a prostrate man who has not quite reached the limits of exhaustion: he can still bear his own weight. Looking at the chair from a distance, it does not appear to have been transformed by Anobium, cowboy and miner, in Arizona and Jales, in a labyrinthine network of galleries likely to make anyone lose their mind. The old man sees the chair from afar and as he gets closer, he sees, if in fact he can see the chair, that notwithstanding the thousands of times he has sat in it, he has never looked closely, and that is his mistake, now as before, never to pay attention to the chairs in which he sits because he assumes they are all capable of what only he is capable. St George would have seen the dragon there, but this old fellow is a false devotee in a skull-cap who made common cause with the cardinal patriarchs, and united, he and they, in hoc signo vinces. Even as he reaches the chair with a smile of innocent satisfaction, he fails to see it or notice how effectively Anobium is destroying the remaining fibres in the last gallery and is tightening the holster belt around his hips. The old man thinks he will perhaps rest for half an hour, that he might even doze a little in this pleasant autumnal weather, and that he most certainly will not have the patience to read the papers he is holding in his hand. No cause for surprise. This is not a horror film; splendid comic films have exploited and will continue to exploit similar falls, we all remember the slapstick scenes played by Chaplin or by Pat and Patachon, and there are sweets for those who can give me the titles. But let us not be hasty even though we know the chair is about to break: but not just yet, first the man has to sit down slowly, we old men are usually unsteady on our feet, we have to rest our hands or grip with force the arms or wings of the chair, to prevent our wrinkled buttocks and the seat of our pants from suddenly collapsing into the chair which has had to put up with everything, and we need not elaborate, for we are all human and know these things. We are talking about his intestines, let it be said, because this old man has many different reasons which have caused him to doubt his humanity for some considerable time. Meanwhile, he is seated like a man.

So far he has not leaned back. His weight, give or take a gramme, is equally distributed on the seat of the chair. Unless he moves, he might well sit there safely until sunset when Anobium normally recovers his strength and starts gnawing again with renewed vigour. But he is about to move, he has moved, reclining for no more than a second against the weaker side of the chair. And it breaks. First there was a crack, then when the old man shifted his weight, the leg of the chair snapped and daylight suddenly penetrated Buck Jones’s gallery and lit up the target. Because of the difference between the speed of light and sounds, between the hare and the tortoise, the explosion is only heard later, dull and muffled, like the thud of a body dropping to the ground. Let us bide our time. There is no longer anyone in the parlour or bedroom, on the veranda or terrace; and while the sound of the fall goes unheard, we are the masters of this show, and we can even practise that degree of sadism, in however passive a form, which we are fortunate enough to share with the doctor or the madman, in the person who only sees and ignores or, from the outset, rejects any obligation even if only humanitarian to render any help. Certainly not to this old man.

He is about to fall backwards. There he goes. Here, right in front of him, the chosen spot, we observe that he has a long face and an aquiline nose, sharp as a hook cum knife, and were it not for the fact that he has suddenly opened his mouth, we would be entitled, like any eye-witness who can say I saw him with my own eyes, to swear that he has no lips. But his mouth has opened, opens in surprise, alarm and bewilderment, making it possible to perceive, however indistinctly, two folds of flesh as colourless as larvae, which only because of the difference in dermal texture are not to be confused with the surrounding pallor. His double chin trembles over the larynx and other cartilages, and his whole body accompanies the chair backwards, while on the floor the broken leg has rolled over to one side, not far away, because we are there to look on. It has scattered a dense, yellow dust, not all that much, but enough for us to delight in the image of an hour-glass with sand that consists eschatologically of the excrement of coleoptera: which goes to show just how absurd it would be to put Buck Jones and his horse White-face here, that is assuming that Buck changed horses at the last hostelry and is now riding Fred’s horse. But let us forget this dust which is not even sulphur, and would greatly enhance the scene if it were, burning with a bluish flame and giving off the foul stench of sulphuric acid. Such a sonorous phrase! And what an excellent way of conjuring up hell in all its horror, as Beelzebub’s chair breaks and falls backwards, taking with it Satan, Asmodeus and his legion.

The old man is no longer gripping the arms of the chair, his knees have suddenly stopped trembling and are now obeying the other law, and his feet which were always clad in boots to disguise the fact that they were cloven (no one read with sufficient haste or attention, it is all there, the goat’s cloven hoof), his feet are already in the air. We shall watch this impressive gymnastic feat, the back somersault, the latter much more spectacular, despite the absence of an audience, than those others seen in stadiums and arenas, from some lofty tribune, at a time when chairs were still solid and Anobium an improbable hypothesis of labour. And there is no one to fix this moment. My kingdom for a polaroid, shouted Richard III, and no one paid any heed, for his request was much too premature. The nothing we possess in exchange for this everything of showing a photograph of our children, our membership card and a faithful image of the fall. Ah, those feet in the air, ever further from the ground, ah, that head ever closer, ah, Santa Comba, not the saint of the afflicted, but rather the patron saint of that which ever afflicted them. The daughters of Mondego do not as yet lament obscure death. This fall is not any old Chaplin stunt, it is impossible to repeat, it is unique and, therefore, as excellent as when Adam’s accomplishments were linked with the graces of Eve. And speaking of Eve, domestic and servile, and demanding whenever necessary, benefactress of the unemployed if they are frugal, honest and catholic, such martyrdom, soaring and souring power in the shadow of this Adam who falls without apple or serpent, where are you? You have spent far too much time in the kitchen, or on the telephone listening to the Daughters of Mary or the Handmaidens of the Sacred Heart, or the Children of St Zita, you are wasting far too much water on those potted begonias, much too easily distracted, a queen bee who never comes when summoned, and if you were to come to whom would you render assistance? It is late. The saints have turned away, they whistle, pretend not to notice, for they know very well that there are no miracles, there never have been, and that whenever something extraordinary happened in the world, it was their good fortune to be present and to take advantage. Not even St Joseph, who in his time was a carpenter, and a better carpenter than a saint, could have glued that wooden leg in time to avoid its collapse, before this latest Portuguese champion gymnast made a somersault, and domestic Eve who looks after the house is even now sorting out the bottles of pills and drops the old man must take, one at a time, before, during and after his next meal.

The old man notices the ceiling. He merely notices it but has no time to look. He moves his arms and legs like an upturned turtle with its belly in the air, before looking more like a seminarian in boots masturbating at home during the holidays while his parents are out harvesting. Just this and nothing more. Simple earth, sweet and rough for one to tread and then say that it is nothing but stones, that we are born poor and fortunately we shall die poor, and that is why we are in God’s grace. Fall, old man, fall. See how your feet are higher than your head. Before making your somersault, Olympic medallist, you will reach the zenith that boy on the beach failed to reach for he tried and fell, with only one arm because he had left the other behind in Africa. Fall. But not too quickly: there is still plenty of sunshine in the sky. We spectators can actually go up to a window and look out at our leisure, and from there have a grand view of towns and villages, of rivers and plains, of hills and dales, and tell scheming Satan that this is the world we want, for there is no harm in wanting what is rightfully ours. With startled eyes we go back inside and it is as if you were not there: we have brought too much sunshine into the room and we must wait until it gets used to the place or goes back outside. You are now much closer to the ground. The good leg and damaged leg of the chair have already slid forward, all sense of balance gone. The real fall is clearly imminent, the surrounding atmosphere has become distorted, objects cower in terror, they are under attack, their whole body twisting and twitching, like a cat with rheumatism, therefore incapable of giving that last spin in the air that would bring salvation, its four paws on the ground and the quiet thud of an all too live animal. It is obvious just how badly this chair was placed, unaware of Anobium’s presence and the damage he was doing inside: worse, in fact, or just as bad as that edge, tip or corner of a piece of furniture extending its clenched fist to some point in space, for the time being still free, still unperturbed and innocent, where the curve of the circle formed by the old man’s head is about to be interrupted and stand out, change direction for a second and then fall once more, downwards, to the bottom, inexorably drawn by that sprite at the centre of the universe who has billions of tiny strings in his hand, which he pulls up and down, like a puppeteer here on earth, until one last tug removes us from the stage. That moment has still not come for the old man, but he is already falling in order to fall again for the last time. And now that there is space, what space remains between the corner of the piece of furniture, the clenched fist, the lance in Africa, and the more fragile side of the head, the predestined bone? If we measure it we will be shocked at the tiny amount of space there is to cover, look, not even enough space for a finger, much less a fingernail, a shaving-blade, a hair, a simple thread spun by a silkworm or spider. There is still some time left, but soon there will be no more space. The spider has just expelled its last filament, is putting the finishing touch to its cocoon, the fly already trapped.

This sound is curious. Clear, somehow clear, so as not to leave those of us present in any doubt, yet muffled, dull, discreet, so that domesticated Eve and the Cains of this world do not arrive too soon, so that everything may take place between what is alone and solitary as befits such greatness. His head, as foreseen and in accordance with the laws of physics, hit the ground before bouncing a little, let me say about two centimetres up and to one side; now that we are at the scene and have taken other measurements. From now on the chair no longer matters. Not even the rest of the fall is of any further consequence for it is now irrelevant. Buck Jones’s plan included, as we have already mentioned, a trajectory, it had a goal in mind. There it is.

Whatever may happen now is on the inside. First let it be said, however, that the body fell again, and the accompanying chair, of which no more will be said or only in passing. It is indifferent to the fact that the speed of sound should suddenly equal the speed of light. What had to be, happened. Eve might frantically rush to help, muttering prayers as one does on these occasions, or perhaps not on this occasion, if it is true that catastrophes leave their victims speechless, although they can still scream. Which explains why domesticated Eve, such martyrdom, kneels and asks questions now that the catastrophe is over and all that remains are the consequences. It will not be long before the Cains appear from everywhere if it is not unfair to call them by the name of the wretched fellow on whom the Lord turned his back, thereby taking human revenge on an obsequious and scheming brother. Nor shall we call them vultures, even though they move like this, or don’t, or do: much more accurate under the dual heading of morphology and characterology, to include them in the chapter of hyenas, and this is a great discovery. With the important exception that hyenas, just like vultures, are useful animals who clear dead flesh from the landscapes of the living, and for this we should be grateful to them, while they continue to be the hyena and its own dead flesh, and this, in the final analysis, is the great discovery we mentioned earlier. The perpetuum mobile, contrary to what amateur inventors and enlightened wonder-workers of carpentry ingenuously imagine, is not mechanical. Rather it is biological, it is this hyena feeding on its dead and putrefied body, thereby constantly reconstituting itself in death and putrefaction. To interrupt the cycle, not everything would suffice, yet the slightest thing would be ample. At times, were Buck Jones not away on the other side of the mountain in pursuit of some simple and honest cattle-rustlers, a chair would serve, both as a fulcrum to lever the earth, as Archimedes said to Heron of Syracuse, and to burst the blood vessels which the bones of the cranium judged they were protecting, and judged is used here literally, for it seemed unlikely that bones so near to the brain could be incapable of carrying out, by means of osmosis or symbiosis, a mental operation as simple as passing judgment. And even so, should this cycle be interrupted, we must pay attention to what might graft itself on at the moment of rupture, for it could turn out to be, not through grafting this time, another hyena emerging from that festering flank, like Mercury from Jupiter’s thigh, if I might be permitted this comparison with ancient mythology. But that is another story which has probably been told before.

Domesticated Eve ran from this place, calling out and uttering words not worth repeating, so similar as to make little difference, although scarcely mediaeval, to those spoken by Leonor Teles when they murdered Andeiro, and, besides, she was a queen. This old man is not dead. He has simply fainted, and we can sit cross-legged on the floor at our ease, for a second is a century, and before the doctors and stretcher-bearers and hyenas in striped trousers arrive weeping their eyes out, an eternity will have passed. Let us take a closer look. Deathly pale, but not cold. His heart is beating, his pulse steady, the old man appears to be asleep, and I’ll be damned if this has not been one great blunder, a monstrous ruse to separate good from evil, wheat from the chaff, friends from foes, those in favour from those who are opposed, given the part played by that raffish and disreputable trouble-maker Buck Jones in this whole business about the chair.

Now then, you Portuguese, calm down and listen patiently. As you know, the skull consists of the bones enclosing the brain, which in its turn, as we can see from this anatomical chart in natural colours, is nothing less than the upper part of the spinal cord. Compressed all the way down the back, it found a space there and opened out like a flower of intelligence. Note that the comparison is neither gratuitous nor disparaging. There is an enormous variety of flowers, and we need only remember, or let each of us remember the one we like best, and in the last resort, for example, the one we dislike most, a carnivorous flower, de gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum, assuming we share this horror of anything that denatures itself, although in keeping with that basic rigour demanded of those who teach and learn, we ought to question the justice of this accusation, and although, once more so that nothing is overlooked, we should ask ourselves what right a plant has got to nourish itself twice, first on the soil and then on whatever is flying through the air in the multiple form of insects, or even birds. Let us note in passing how easy it is to suspend judgement, to receive information from all sides, accept them at face value, and remain neutral on the grounds that we are an undivided spirit, and offer daily sacrifice at the altar of prudence, our best fornication. We were not neutral, however, as we watched that fall in slow motion. And a degree of prudence has to be sacrificed if we are to accompany, with due attention, the movement of the pointer passing over this incision in the brain.

Observe, ladies and gentlemen, this longitudinal bridge, as it were, made from fibres: it is called the fornix and constitutes the upper part of the optic thalamus. Behind can be seen two transversal commissures which obviously are not to be confused with those of the lips. Now let us examine the other side. Look here. What you see standing out are the quadrigeminal tubercles or optic lobes (and since this is not a Zoology lesson, the accent on lobes is heavily stressed on the o). This broad section is the anterior brain, and here we have the famous convolutions. Right underneath, as everyone knows, is the cerebellum which contains what is known as the arbor vitae, and in case anyone mistakes this for a Botany lesson, we should explain that this is due to the plicae of nervous tissue in a certain number of lamellae, which in their turn produce secondary folds. We mentioned the spinal cord earlier. Take a good look at this. It is not a bridge yet is known as the bridge of Varolio, which sounds more like the name of an Italian town, and I defy you to disagree. Behind is the elongated medulla. I have almost finished this description, so bear with me. Much more could be explained and in greater detail, but only if we were carrying out an autopsy. Therefore let us simply point out the pituitary gland, a glandular and nervous organ at the base of the thalamus or third ventricle. And to conclude, let me point out the optic nerve, a subject of the greatest importance, and now no one can claim not to have witnessed what happened in this place.

And now to the crucial question: what purpose does the brain, or brains as they are commonly known, serve? They serve for everything because they allow us to think. But we must be careful not to be deceived by the common misconception that everything inside the skull is related to thought and the senses. An unforgivable error, ladies and gentlemen. The greater part of this mass inside the cranium has nothing to do with thought and does not influence it in any way. Only the thinnest layer of nervous tissue, known as the cortex, about three millimetres thick, and covering the anterior part of the brain, constitutes the seat of consciousness. Please note the disconcerting similarity between what we define as the microcosm and what we shall refer to as the macrocosm, between the three millimetres of cortex which allow us to think and the few kilometres of atmosphere which permit us to breathe, each and every one of them insignificant in their turn, not just when compared with the size of the galaxy, but even the simple diameter of the earth. Let us walk in awe, dear brethren, and pray to the Lord.

The body is still here, and will remain here for as long as we wish. Here, where the hair looks dishevelled, is the spot where his head struck the ground. To all appearances, it is nothing serious. The faintest bruise, as if scratched by an impatient fingernail and virtually covered by a root of hair so that one would never suspect death might enter here. In fact, it is already inside. What is this? Are we to take pity on our vanquished enemy? Is death an excuse, a pardon, a sponge, a lye for washing away crimes? The old man has now opened his eyes but fails to recognise us, for he does not know us. His chin trembles, he tries to speak, is disturbed by our presence here, and believes we are responsible for this outrage. He says nothing. Saliva trickles from his gaping mouth down on to his chin. What would Sister Lucia do in this case, what would she do if she were here on her knees, enshrouded in the triple odour of mustiness, petticoats and incense? Would she reverently wipe away the saliva or, with even greater reverence, prostrate herself, using her tongue to gather that holy secretion, that relic, to be preserved in an ampoule? Neither the annals of the church nor, as we know, the history books will say, and not even domesticated Eve will notice, afflicted soul, the outrage the old man is committing by slobbering over himself.

Steps can already be heard in the passage-way, but there is still time. The bruise has turned darker and the hair covering it appears to be bristling. A gentle combing would suffice to tidy up this patch. But to no avail. On another surface, that of the cortex, the blood gathers as it pours from the vessels the blow divided into sections at the precise spot where the fall occurred. A case of haematoma. It is there that Anobium is to be found at this moment, ready for the second shift. Buck Jones has cleaned his revolver and is reloading the barrel with fresh bullets. He is already on his way to look for the old man. That scratching of nails, that hysterical wailing, the laughter of hyenas, with which we are all familiar. Let us go to the window. What do you think of this month of September? We have not had such weather in a long time.