The Lives of Things by José Saramago Read Free Book Online Page A

wailing and weeping in blind despair. The open wounds on his head and hand began bleeding again. While he, sobbing his heart out and whining like a frightened animal, went on driving the car. Allowing himself to be driven.
    He travelled all night without knowing where he was going. He passed through villages unknown to him, covered long, straight roads, went up and down mountain slopes, circled curves and bends, and as dawn broke, he was somewhere on an old road where the rain had formed puddles rippling on the surface. The engine rumbled furiously as it dragged its wheels through the mud, and the whole car was vibrating and making the most alarming noises. Morning came without any sign of the sun appearing but the rain suddenly stopped. The road became a simple track which, further ahead, constantly gave the impression of losing itself amidst boulders. Where had the world gone? Before him he saw mountains and an ominously low sky. He screamed and beat on the wheel with clenched fists. Just then he saw that the indicator was pointing to zero. The engine appeared to be starting up by itself and dragged the car another twenty metres. Beyond, he could see the paved road again but he had used up all his petrol.
    A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Overcome with nausea, he could feel a veil being drawn over his eyes three times. Groping, he opened the door to prevent himself from suffocating and, at that moment, either because he was dying or the engine had gone dead, his body slumped to the left and slid out of the car. It slipped a little further and ended up lying on the road. The rain had started again.

Reflux
    First of all, since everything must have a beginning, even if that beginning is the final point from which it cannot be separated, and to say cannot is not to say wishes not, or must not, it is simply impossible, for if such a separation were feasible, we all know that the entire universe would collapse, inasmuch as the universe is a fragile construction incapable of withstanding permanent solutions – first of all, the four routes were opened up. Four wide roads divided the country, starting from their cardinal points in a straight line or ever so slightly bent to follow the earth’s curvature, and therefore as rigorously as possible tunnelling through mountains, dividing plains, and overcoming, supported on pillars, passing over rivers and valleys. Five kilometres from the place where they would intersect, if this were the builders’ intention or rather the order received from the royal personage at the appropriate moment, the roads divided off into a network of major and secondary routes, like enormous arteries which had to transform themselves into veins and capillaries in order to proceed, and this self-same network found itself confined within a perfect square which clearly measured ten kilometres on each side. This square which also had started out, bearing in mind the universal observation that opened the story, as four rows of trig points set out on the ground, subsequently became – once the machines that opened, levelled and paved the four roads appeared on the horizon, coming, as we said, from the four cardinal points – subsequently became a high wall, four curtain-walls which could soon be seen, as was already clear from the drawing-boards, delimiting a hundred square kilometres of flat or levelled ground, because a certain amount of clearing had to be done. Land chosen to meet the basic need of equidistance from that place to the frontiers, a relative advantage, which was fortunately confirmed later by a high lime content which not even the most optimistic had the courage to forecast in their plans when asked for their opinion: all of this simply brought greater glory to the royal personage, as might have been predicted from the outset if greater attention had been paid to the dynasty’s history: all its monarchs had always been right, and others less so, according to the accounts of events