José Saramago - The History of the Siege of Lisbon

His dinner was a quick and simple affair, somewhat lighter than lunch, but Raimundo Silva drank two cups of coffee instead of one, in order to resist the drowsiness that would soon assail him, especially since he had slept so badly the night before. At a steady rhythm, the pages are turned over, scenes and episodes follow upon each other, the historian has now embellished his prose in order to deal with the serious disagreements which arose between the crusaders after the royal harangue, as they debated whether they should or should not help the Portuguese to capture Lisbon, whether they should remain here or travel on, as planned, to the Holy Land, where Our Lord Jesus Christ awaited them, fettered by the Turks. Those who liked the idea of staying on, argued that to expel these Moors from the city and convert them to Christianity would also render service to God, while those who opposed the suggestion replied that any such service would be inferior in the eyes of God and that knights as illustrious as those present prided themselves on being, had an obligation to assist where the struggle was most hazardous, rather than in this hell-hole, amongst peasants and the dregs of humanity, the former, no doubt, being the Moors and the latter the Portuguese, but the historian never found out for certain, perhaps because there was not much to choose between the two insults. The warriors yelled as if possessed, may God forgive me, violent in word and gesture, and those who supported the idea of continuing on their journey to the Holy Places declared that they would derive much greater profit and advantage from the extortion of money and merchandise from the ships at sea, whether from Spain or Africa, merchant ships in the twelfth century being an anachronism which only the historian could explain, than the capture of the city of Lisbon, with less danger of risking lives, because the walls are high and the Moors many. Dom Afonso Henriques could not have been more right when he predicted that any perusal of his proposals would end in turmoil, or, as the Portuguese would say, in algazarra, an Arabic word which serves equally well to describe the shouting and uproar of this mixed gathering of men from Cologne and Boulogne, of Flemings, Bretons, Scots and Normans. The opposing factions finally calmed down after a verbal dispute which lasted throughout the feast of St Peter, and tomorrow, which is the thirtieth of June, the representatives of the crusaders, now in agreement, will inform the king that they are prepared to help with the conquest of Lisbon, in exchange for the possessions of their enemies, who even now are watching them from the ramparts beyond, along with other concessions, whether direct or indirect.

For two minutes, Raimundo has been staring so hard that he looks distracted, at the page where these immutable facts of history are recorded, not because he suspects that some final error may be lurking there, some perfidious misprint skilfully concealed between the folds of this tortuous rhetoric, and now wilfully provoking him, safe from his tired eyesight and the drowsiness that is fast creeping in and making him feel numb. Although it would be more accurate to say, the drowsiness that was making him feel numb. Because for the last three minutes, Raimundo Silva is as wide awake as if he had taken one of the benzedrine pills left over from a prescription given by an idiot of a doctor and which he stores behind some books. As if fascinated, he reads over and over again, keeps going back to the same line, the one that emphatically asserts that the crusaders will help the Portuguese to capture Lisbon. As chance would have it, or perhaps it was fate, these unequivocal words occupied a single line and have all the impact of an inscription, a distich or some irrevocable maxim, but they are also provocative, as if saying ironically, Make me say something else, if you can. The tension became so great that Raimundo Silva suddenly could not bear it any longer, he got to his feet, pushed back his chair, and is now nervously pacing up and down within the confined space that the bookcases, sofa and desk leave free, saying over arid over again, Such rubbish, such utter rubbish and, as if needing to confirm this radical opinion, he picked up the sheet of paper once more, thanks to which, we can now dismiss any earlier doubts and confirm that there is no such nonsense, for it is clearly stated there that the crusaders will help to capture Lisbon, and the proof that this actually happened, we shall find on subsequent pages, where there is a description of the siege, the assault on the ramparts, the fighting in the streets and inside the houses, the indiscriminate slaughter and the sacking of the city. So, Mr Proof-reader, show us where you found this blunder, this error that escapes us, true, we don't have your vast experience, we sometimes look without seeing, but we can read, we assure you, yes, you're absolutely right, we do not always understand everything, easy to see why, we lack the necessary training, Mr Proof-reader, the necessary training, and besides, we have to admit that we are often too lazy to verify the meaning of a word in the dictionary, with inevitable consequences. It is preposterous, insists Raimundo Silva as if he were giving us his answer, Never would I do such a thing, and why should I, a proof-reader takes his work seriously, he does not play games or tricks, he respects what has been established in grammars and reference books, he is guided by the rules and makes no attempt to modify them, he obeys an ethical code which is unwritten but sacrosanct, he must respect tradition, observe the conventions, and suppress his private inclinations, any doubts he may have, he keeps to himself and, as for putting a not where the author wrote yes, this proof-reader simply would not do it. The words just spoken by Mr Jekyll try to contradict others we could not hear, words spoken by Mr Hyde, nor do we need to mention these two names in order to see that in this antiquated building in the district of Castelo we are watching yet another titanic struggle between an angel and a demon, the two conflicting sides of human beings, without excepting proof-readers. But unfortunately it is Mr Hyde who will win this battle, as is clear from the smile on Raimundo Silva's face and a look of utter malevolence we would not have expected of him, all traces of Jekyll have gone from his face, he has obviously taken a decision, and such a bad one, he holds his biro with a steady hand and adds a word to the page, a word the historian never wrote, that for the sake of historical truth he could never have brought himself to write, the word Not, and what the book now says is that the crusaders will Not help the Portuguese to conquer Lisbon, thus it is written and has come to be accepted as true, although different, what we would call false has come to prevail over what we would call true, falsehood has replaced the truth, and someone would have to narrate the history anew, and how.

In all these years of dedication to his profession. Raimundo Silva would never have knowingly dared to infringe the aforementioned ethical code, unwritten but regulating the actions of proof-readers in relation to the ideas and opinions of authors. For the proof-reader who knows his place, the author, as such, is infallible. It is well known, for example, that Nietzsche's proof-reader, although a fervent believer, resisted the same temptation to insert the word Not on a certain page, thus amending the philosopher's phrase, God is dead, God is not dead. If proof-readers were given their freedom and did not have their hands and feet tied by a mass of prohibitions more binding than the penal code, they would soon transform the face of the world, establish the kingdom of universal happiness, giving drink to the thirsty, food to the famished, peace to those who live in turmoil, joy to the sorrowful, companionship to the solitary, hope to those who have lost it, not to mention the rapid disappearance of poverty and crime, for they would be able to do all these things simply by changing the words, and should anyone doubt these new demiurges, they need only remember that this is precisely how the world and man came to be made, with words, some rather than others, so that things might turn out just so, and in no other fashion, Let it be done, said God, and it was done immediately.