To those observers who can see an entire Olympus of gods and goddesses where there are nothing but passing clouds, or to those who have Jupiter Tonans before their eyes but refer to him as atmospheric vapor, we shall never tire of pointing out that it is not enough to speak of circumstances, with their bipolar division into antecedents and consequences, as one does to reduce the mental effort, but that one must rather consider what is infallibly situated between the former and the latter, let us spell them all out in the right order, time, place, motive, means, person, deed, manner, for unless we measure and ponder everything, we are bound to make some fatal mistake in the very first opinion we offer. Man is undoubtedly an intelligent being, but not as intelligent as one would like, and this is a proof and confession of humility, which should always begin at home, as one says of charity in the proper sense of the word, before you reproach us.
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They arrived in Lisbon as night was falling, at that hour when the gentle light fills souls with sweet remorse, now one sees how right that admirable judge of sensations and impressions was when he maintained that landscape was a state of mind, what he was not able to tell us was what it looked like in the days when there was nothing but pithecanthropus in the world, with as yet scant soul, and not just scant but confused as well. Thousands of years later, and thanks to evolution, Pedro Orce can now recognize in the apparent melancholy of the city the faithful image of his own intimate sadness. He had grown accustomed to the company of these Portuguese who had come to look for him in those inhospitable parts where he was born and lived, soon they will have to go their separate ways, each man to his own destination, not even families can resist the erosion of necessity, so what are mere acquaintances to do, friends of recent vintage and delicate roots.
Deux Chevaux crosses the bridge slowly, at the lowest speed permitted, to give the Spaniard time to admire the beauty of the views of land and sea, and also the impressive feat of engineering that links the two banks of the river, this construction, we are referring to the sentence, is periphrastic, and is used here to avoid repeating the word bridge, which would result in a solecism, of the pleonastic or redundant kind. In the various arts, and above all in that of writing, the shortest distance between two points, even if close to each other, has never been and never will be, nor is it now, what is known as a straight line, never, never, to put it strongly and emphatically in response to any doubts, to silence them once and for all. The travelers were so absorbed in the wonders of the city, so thrilled by this prodigious achievement, that they did not even notice how the starlings suddenly took fright. Drunk on altitude, gliding dangerously close to the enormous pillars that rose from the waters to support the sky, on this side the city with its windowpanes aflame, beyond the sea and the sun, and below the great river flowing past, like a sluggish current of lava burning beneath the ashes, the birds abruptly changed course, with a rapid cascade of wing-flaps, and it was as if the earth were rotating around the bridge, the north becoming east and then south, the south west and then north, where in the world shall we end up when we ourselves are forced one day to move just as much or even more. As we have already stated, men, even when they see these things, fail to understand them, nor did these men understand what they saw on this occasion.
They were halfway across the bridge when Pedro Orce murmured, Nice city, words as amiable as these call for no reply, except perhaps for a modest, Yes, isn't it. There would still be enough timé to leave Pedro Orce settled in a hotel and continue their journey, at least as far as the town in Ribatejo where José Anaiço lives, and where Joaquim Sassa could if he wished spend another night beneath the fig tree, but it would have been impolite to abandon their visitor, so the two Portuguese had made a joint decision, they would remain there for a few days, sufficient time for the Spaniard to get to know the city and once back in Orce to make his own the words of that old saying that innocently boasts, Lisbon the lovely, Lisbon the fair, Never to see her's to miss something rare, praise be to God who has given us rhymes without denying us His blessings.
Joaquim Sassa and José Anaiço are not short of money, they had gathered what they had for their excursion across the border and back, and they had managed to economize, as we know, sleeping on one occasion under the moonlight, on another spending the night at the home of an Andalusian pharmacist, and, profiting from the anarchy and disorder in the Algarve, they received no bill for their stay in a hotel. Here in Lisbon, hotels have only been besieged and occupied on the outskirts of the city, the more central hotels were spared, two countervailing factors came into play, first, this being the capital, as in most countries you are likely to find the greatest concentration of the forces of law and order, or repression, here, second, that timidity peculiar to the city-dweller, who often becomes uneasy, withdrawing once he senses that he is being observed and judged by his neighbor, and vice versa, the protozoa in the drop of water certainly disturb the lens and the eye behind it that observes and disturbs them. Because of the lack of clients, nearly all the hotels had closed their doors, for repairs, this was their excuse, but some continued to function, offering low-season tariffs and special reductions, to the point where some large families seriously considered abandoning the houses for which they were being charged colossal rents, and taking up residence in the Méridien or some such hotel. The aspirations of the three travelers did not rise to so dramatic a change of status, which is why they decided to install themselves in a modest hotel, at the end of the Rua do Alecrim, on the left as you go down, the name has no bearing on this story, once was enough and perhaps even superfluous.
Starlings are starlings, and the word is also used for people who are frivolous and giddy, in other words people who rarely reflect on their actions, who are incapable of foreseeing or imagining anything beyond the here and now, which is not incompatible with certain acts of generosity, even the sacrifice of one's own life, as we saw in the episode at the frontier, when so many tender little bodies dropped dead, shedding their blood for the sake of others, remember we're speaking about birds, not people. But frivolity and giddiness are the least one can attribute to these thousands of birds who foolishly go and perch on a hotel roof, attracting the attention of the crowd and of the police, of ornithologists and of gourmets who relish a tasty meal of little fried birds, and thus betray the presence of the three men who, with no guilt weighing on their conscience, have nevertheless become the target of some unwelcome attention from the authorities. For unbeknownst to the travelers, the Portuguese papers, on the page that regularly features unusual events, had reported the irresistible attack the starlings waged on the unsuspecting border guards, invoking, as one might have expected, though with scant originality, the Hitchcock film we mentioned earlier. Now the newspapers, the radio and television stations, informed promptly about the strange happenings at the Cais do Sodré, sent reporters, photographers, video technicians to the scene, which might have had no consequences beyond enriching the Lisbon folklore, if the methodical and, why not say it, scientific mind of a certain journalist had not led him to consider a possible connection between the starlings outside on the roof and the guests inside the hotel, either permanent or simply passing through. Unaware of the danger literally hovering over their heads, Joaquim Sassa, José Anaiço and Pedro Orce, each in his own room, were unpacking the little luggage they were carrying, within a few minutes they would be down on the street, having decided to take a quick look around the city, until it was time for dinner. But at this precise moment the quick-witted journalist is consulting the guest list, running through the names of those registered, and suddenly two of those names begin to set the wheels of memory in motion, Joaquim Sassa, Pedro Orce, he would not be much of a journalist had those names escaped his eye, the same thing might have happened with another name, Ricardo Reis, but the book where that name was once registered, many, many years ago, is stored away in the archives, covered with dust in the attic, written on a page that may never come to light, and if it should, most likely the name will be illegible, the line will be faded, or even the entire page, that's one of the effects of time, to blot out everything. To this day there has been no greater achievement in the art of hunting than killing two rabbits at one blow, from now on the number of rabbits within the scope of the hunter's skill will be increased from two to three, this will mean reversing all the books of proverbs, so where you see two, read three, and perhaps we won't stop here.