The Collected Novels of José Saramago by José Saramago Read Free Book Online Page A

dreamed behind those eyelids is of no great importance, what interests us is the frightening thought still troubling Dona Maria Ana as she is about to fall asleep, that on Maundy Thursday she will have to go to the Church of the Mother of God, where the nuns will unveil the Holy Shroud in her presence before showing it to the faithful, a shroud that bears the clear impression of the Body of Christ, the one true Holy Shroud that exists in the Christian world, ladies and gentlemen, just as all the others are the one true Holy Shroud, or they would not all be shown at the same hour in so many different churches throughout the world, but because this one happens to be in Portugal it is the truest Holy Shroud of all and altogether unique. When still conscious, Dona Maria Ana imagines herself bending over the sacred cloth, but it is difficult to say whether or not she is about to kiss it with reverence, because suddenly she falls asleep and finds herself in a carriage that is taking her back to the Palace at dead of night with an escort of halberdiers, when unexpectedly a man appears on horseback, returning from the chase, accompanied by four servants mounted on mules, with furred and feathered creatures inside nets dangling from their pommels, the mysterious horseman races toward the carriage, his shotgun at the ready, the horse’s hooves cause sparks to ignite on the cobbles, and smoke erupts from its nostrils, and when he charges like a thunderbolt through the Queen’s guard and reaches the carriage steps, where he brings his mount to a halt with some difficulty, the flames of the torches illumine his face, it is the Infante Dom Francisco, from what land of dreams could he have come, and why should he appear time and time again. The horse is startled, no doubt because of the clattering of the carriage on the cobblestones, but when the Queen compares these dreams she observes that the Infante comes a little closer each time, What can he want, and what does she want.
    For some Lent is a dream, for others a vigil. The Easter festivities passed and wives returned to the gloom of their apartments and their cumbersome petticoats, at home there are a few more cuckolds, who can be quite violent when infidelities are practised out of season. And since we are now on the subject of birds, it is time to listen in church to the canaries singing rapturously of love from their cages decorated with ribbons and flowers, while the friars preaching in the pulpits presume to speak of holier things. It is Ascension Thursday, and the singing of the birds soars to the vaults of heaven regardless of whether our prayers follow, without their assistance, our prayers have little hope of reaching God, so perhaps we shall all remain silent.

 
     
     
     
     
    T HIS SCRUFFY-LOOKING FELLOW with his rattling sword and ill-assorted clothes, even though barefoot, has the air of a soldier, and his name is Baltasar Mateus, otherwise known as Sete-Sóis or Seven Suns. He was dismissed from the army where he was of no further use once his left hand was amputated at the wrist after being shattered by gunfire at Jerez de los Caballeros, in the ambitious campaign we fought last October with eleven thousand men, only to end with the loss of two hundred of our soldiers and the rout of the survivors, who were pursued by the Spanish cavalry dispatched from Badajoz. We withdrew to Olivença with the booty we had taken in Barcarrota, feeling much too down-hearted to enjoy it, gaining little by the ten leagues march there, and then making a rapid retreat over the same distance, only to leave behind on the battlefield so many casualties and the shattered hand of Baltasar Sete-Sóis. By great good fortune, or by the special grace of the scapular he was wearing around his neck, his wound did not become gangrenous, nor did they burst his veins with the force of the tourniquet applied to stop the bleeding, and thanks to the surgeon’s skill, it was only a matter of