In any case, until that day comes, the books are here, like a pulsating galaxy, and the words, inside them, form another cosmic dust hovering in anticipation of that glance which will impose some meaning or will search therein for some new meaning, for just as the explanations of the universe tend to vary, so does the statement that once seemed for ever immutable, suddenly offer another interpretation, the possibility of some latent contradiction, the evidence of his own error. Here, in this study, where the truth can be no more than a face superimposed on endless different masks, stand the usual dictionaries and vocabularies of the Portuguese language, Morais, Aurélio, Moreno and Torrinha, several grammars, the Handbook of the Model Proof-reader, the vade-mecum of the profession, but there are also histories of Art, of the World in general, of the Romans, Persians, Greeks, Chinese, Arabs, Slavs and Portuguese, in short, of almost everything that constitutes an individual race and nation, and the histories of Science, Literature, Music, Religions, Philosophy, Civilization, the pocket Larousse, the abridged Quillet, the concise Robert, the Encyclopaedia of Politics, the Luso-Brazilian Encyclopaedia, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, incomplete, the Dictionary of History and Geography, a World Adas on these subjects, that of Joao Soares, ancient, the Historical Yearbooks, the Dictionary of Contemporaries, the Universal Biography, the Manual for Booksellers, the Dictionary of Fable, the Dictionary of Mythology, the Biblioteca Lusitana, the Dictionary of Comparative Geography, Ancient, Medieval and Modern, the Historical Atlas of Contemporary Studies, the General Dictionary of Literature, Fine Arts and Moral and Political Sciences, and, to conclude, not the general inventory, but what is most in evidence, the General Dictionary of Biography and History, Mythology, Ancient and Modern Geography, Antiquities and Greek, Roman, French and other Foreign Institutions, without forgetting the Dictionary of Rarities, Inverisimilitudes and Curiosities, which, a surprising coincidence, fits in perfectly with this adventurous account and contains as an example of error the affirmation by the wise Aristotle that the common domestic fly has four legs, an arithmetical reduction that subsequent authors continued to repeat for centuries thereafter, when even children knew from their cruel experiments that the fly has six legs, for since the time of Aristotle, they have been pulling them off and voluptuously counting one, two, three, four, five, six, but these very same children, when they grew up and came to read the Greek sage, said amongst themselves, The fly has four legs, such is the influence of learned authority, to such an extent is truth undermined by certain lessons we are always being taught.
This unexpected incursion across the frontiers of entomology shows us, conclusively, that the errors ascribed to the proof-reader are not his after all, but of those books which have gone on repeating, unchallenged, much earlier works, and, this being so, we regret that he came to be the victim of his own good faith and of another's error. It is true that, by being so condescending, we might fall for that universal excuse we have already censured, but we shall not do so without one prior condition, namely, that for his own good, the proof-reader reflect on the extraordinary lesson about errors given by Bacon, another sage, in his book entitled Novum organum. He divides errors into four categories, as follows, idola tribus, or the errors of human nature, idola specus, or the errors of individuals, idola fori, or linguistic errors, and finally, idola theatri, or errors of systems. In the first instance, these result from the imperfection of the senses, from the influence of preconceptions and passions, from our habit of judging everything according to inherited wisdom, from our insatiable curiosity notwithstanding the limitations imposed on our mind because of our tendency to find more analogies amongst things than actually exist. In the second instance, the source of errors comes from the difference between minds, some that lose themselves in details, others in vast generalisations, as well as from our preference for certain sciences to which we are inclined to reduce everything. As for the third category, that of linguistic errors, the problem is that words often no longer have any meaning, or that meaning is indeterminate, and, finally, in the fourth category, there are so many errors of systems that we should never finish if we were to start listing them here. So let the proof-reader avail himself of this catalogue and he will prosper, and let him also take advantage of that statement by Seneca, reticent as befits this day and age, Onerat discentem turba, non instruit, the perfect maxim which the proof-reader's mother, many years ago, without knowing any Latin and very little about her native language, translated with blatant scepticism, The more you read, the less you learn.
But if there is anything to be saved from this inquiry and debate, it is the confirmation that it was not wrong to write, for, after all, it is written, that the muezzin was blind. The historian, who only speaks of minaret and muezzin, is probably unaware that nearly all muezzins, at that time and for some time to come, were blind. And if he is aware of this fact, perhaps he imagines that the chanting of prayers is the special vocation of the disabled, or that the Moorish communities so decided, partly, as has always been and always will be the practice, to solve the problem of giving work to people without the precious organ of sight. An error on his part, this time, which invariably affects everyone. The historical truth, take note, is that the muezzins were chosen from amongst the blind, not because of any humanitarian policy of providing work or professional training they could cope with physically, but to prevent them from infringing upon the privacy of the courtyards and roof terraces from the dominant position at the top of the minaret. The proof-reader no longer remembers how he came by this information, he almost certainly must have read it in some book he trusted, and since nothing has changed, he can now insist that, yes, Sir, muezzins were blind. Almost all of them. Yet when he happens to think about this, he cannot help wondering whether they did not pierce the bright eyes of these men, as they once did and perhaps still do to nightingales, so that they might experience no other manifestation of light than the voice heard in the darkness, theirs, or perhaps the darkness of that Other who does nothing except repeat the words we are inventing, those words with which we try to say everything, blessing and malediction, even that which shall forever be nameless.
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THE PROOF-READER has a name, he is called Raimundo. It is time that we should know the person about whom we have been talking indiscreetly, if name and surnames could ever add anything useful to the normal identifying features and other statistics, age, height, weight, morphological type, skin tone, colour of eyes, whether the hair is smooth, curly or wavy, or has simply disappeared, timbre of voice, clear or harsh, characteristic gestures, manner of walking, since experience of human relationships has shown that, once apprised of these details and sometimes many more, not even this information serves any purpose, nor are we capable of imagining what might be missing. Perhaps only a wrinkle, or the shape of the nails, or the thickness of the wrist, or the line of an eyebrow, or an old invisible scar, or simply the surname that has never been mentioned, the one that is most esteemed, in this case Silva, his complete name being Raimundo Silva, for that is how he introduces himself when necessary, omitting the Benvindo which he does not like. No one is satisfied with his lot in life, this is generally true, and Raimundo Silva, who above all else should appreciate being called Benvindo, which says precisely what it means, bem-vindo or welcome to life, my son, but no Sir, he does not like the name, and fortunately, says he, the tradition has been lost whereby one's godparents settled the delicate question of proper names, although he recognises that he is very pleased with Raimundo, a name which somehow conveys the solemnity of another age. Raimundo's parents expected that an inheritance from the woman who had accepted to be his godmother would provide for their son's future, and for this reason, since it was the custom only to give the godfather's name, they added that of the godmother in the masculine form. Destiny, as we well know, does not look after everything in quite the same manner, but in this case some concurrence has to be acknowledged between the possessions from which he was never to benefit and a name so resolutely disclaimed, although no one should suspect the existence of a relationship of cause and effect between his disappointment and disavowal. Raimundo Benvindo Silva's motives, which at no time in his life had been provoked by resentful frustration, nowadays are either merely aesthetic, for he does not like the sound of those two gerunds stuck together, or, in a manner of speaking, ethical and ontological, because according to his disillusioned way of thinking, only the darkest irony would expect anyone to believe that we are truly welcome in this world, without contradicting the evidence of those who find themselves nicely settled.