José Saramago - Baltasar and Blimunda

To arrive at the site from this direction, the men are obliged to go through the town and pass under the shadows of the Viscounts' Palace and alongside the threshold of the house where Sete-Sóis lives, and they know as little about the one as about the other, despite the existing genealogies and annals, Tomas da Silva Teles, Visconde de Vila Nova da Cerveira, and Baltasar Mateus, builder of airships, in the fulness of time we shall see who will win this war. The palace windows are not opened to witness this procession of miserable wretches, the stench they give off, your Ladyship, is quite bad enough. But the front door of the house of Sete-Sóis was opened, and Blimunda peeped out, the scene is familiar, so many detachments have passed this way, but whenever she is at home, Blimunda always watches them go by, it is one way of welcoming whosoever may arrive and when Baltasar returns that evening she tells him, More than a hundred men passed by today, forgive this vagueness on the part of someone who has never learnt how to count properly, however great or small the number involved, just as when she refers to her age by saying, I have passed the age of thirty, and Baltasar retorts, They tell me that five hundred men have arrived in town, So many, Blimunda exclaims in astonishment, and neither he nor she knows exactly how many five hundred make, not to mention that there is nothing in the world so imprecise as numbers, one says five hundred bricks just as one says five hundred men, and the difference between a brick and a man is the difference that one believes to exist between five hundred and five hundred, and anyone who fails to grasp my meaning the first time around does not deserve to have it explained a second time.

The men who entered Mafra today are herded together and settle down to sleep wherever possible, tomorrow they will be sorted out. Just like bricks. If a load of bricks is judged to be no good, it is dumped on the spot, and the bricks will end up being used for jobs of lesser importance, someone will make use of those bricks, but when they are men, they are dismissed without further ado, You're no good to us, go back to where you came from, and off they go along unfamiliar routes, they get lost on the way, become vagrants, die on the road, sometimes they steal or murder, sometimes they actually reach their homes.

Y ET CONTENTED FAMILIES are still to be found. The Royal Family of Spain is one of them. That of Portugal is another. The offspring of the one marry the offspring of the other, from the Spanish dynasty comes Mariana Vitória, from that of Portugal, Maria Bárbara, their bridegrooms José from Portugal and Fernando from Spain respectively, as one would say. These unions are the fruit of careful planning, and negotiations have been under way since the year seventeen hundred and twenty-five. Innumerable discussions have taken place, there has been much shuttling of ambassadors, much haggling, much coming and going of plenipotentiaries, many arguments about the various clauses in the wedding contracts, about their respective prerogatives and the dowries of the Princesses, for these royal marriages cannot be entered into lightly or quickly settled at the butcher's shop, as the lower orders quip when referring to some illicit affair, only now after almost five years of protracted negotiations has an agreement been reached about a formal exchange of Princesses, one for you and one for me.

Maria Bárbara has just turned seventeen, her face is as round as a full moon, pockmarked, as we already mentioned, but she has a sweet nature and as good an ear for music as anyone has a right to expect of a royal princess, the lessons she received from Maestro Domenico Scarlatti have borne fruit, and soon he will follow her to Madrid, whence he will not return. The bridegroom who awaits her is two years younger, the said Fernando, who will be the sixth descendant of the Spanish dynasty to bear that name, but he will merely be king in name, a detail we mention in passing lest we are accused of interfering in the internal affairs of a neighbouring country. A country from which, once historical links have been established with Portugal, Mariana Vitória will come, an eleven-year-old girl who, despite her tender years, has already experienced great sorrow, suffice it to say that she was about to marry Louis XV of France when he repudiated her, a word that may seem excessive and lacking in diplomacy, but how else can one describe it if a child at the age of four is sent to reside at the French court in order to be prepared for the aforesaid marriage, only to be sent back home two years later because her betrothed suddenly decided he wanted an heir to the crown, or it suited the interests of whoever was advising him, a demand that would have been physiologically impossible for another eight years. So the poor child, delicate and undernourished, was sent back to Spain on the feeble pretext that she was visiting her parents, King Felipe and Queen Isabel, and there she remained in Madrid, waiting for a bridegroom to be found who would be in less of a hurry to beget heirs, perhaps even our own Infante José, who will soon be fifteen. There is not much to say about the things that afford pleasure to Mariana Vitória, she is fond of dolls and adores sweetmeats, which is not surprising since she is still a mere child, she already shows considerable aptitude for hunting, and as she grows older she will develop a taste for music and literature. When all is said and done, there are those who govern with fewer accomplishments.

Stories about nuptials often relate how some people are treated as outsiders, therefore, to avoid any disappointment, never go to a wedding or a baptism without being invited. Someone who most certainly was not invited was João Elvas, who had befriended Sete-Sóis during the years he spent in Lisbon before he met Blimunda and came to live with her, João Elvas had offered him shelter in the hut where he slept along with other tramps and vagabonds close to the Convent of Hope, as you will remember. Even then João Elvas was getting on in years, and he is now in his sixties, weary and filled with nostalgia for the land of his birth, from which he took his name, certain longings take possession of the elderly, while there are other things they no longer crave. He hesitated about starting out on the journey, not because of his weak legs, which were still remarkably strong for a man of his age, but because of those vast barren plains of the Alentejo, no one is safe from some evil encounter, such as that experienced by Baltasar Sete-Sóis in the pine forests of Pegões, although on that occasion it was the brigand killed by Baltasar who encountered evil, and his corpse would have lain there exposed to vultures and stray dogs if his companion had not returned to the spot in order to bury him. For a man never really knows what fate awaits him, what good or evil is likely to befall him. Who could ever have told João Elvas when he was still a soldier, or even now that he has become a harmless vagabond, that the day would come when he would accompany the King of Portugal on his journey up the river Caia to deliver one royal princess and bring back another, who would have believed it. No one ever told him, no one ever predicted such a thing, fate alone knew that this would happen, as it began to select and weave the threads of destiny, diplomatic and dynastic intrigues in both courts and a lasting sense of nostalgia and destitution for the veteran soldier. If we ever succeed in unravelling those threads, we shall finally solve the mystery of existence and attain supreme wisdom, if such a thing exists.

Needless to say, João Elvas does not travel by coach or mounted on a horse. We have already mentioned those sturdy legs of his, and he puts them to good use. But, whether farther ahead or farther behind in the procession, Dom João V will continue to keep him company, as will the Queen and the Infantes, the Prince and the Princess and all the powerful nobles who are making the journey. It will never occur to these mighty lords that they are escorting a vagabond, and that their supreme authority is protecting his life and worldly possessions, which will soon be at an end. But lest they should come to an end too quickly, especially his life, which João Elvas cherishes, he carefully avoids getting too close to the main procession, for everyone knows how readily soldiers, God bless them, may strike and with what dire consequences, if they should suspect that the safety of their precious sovereign is at risk.