The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa by Fernando Pessoa Read Free Book Online Page B

spent the flight of my days amid fountains, where I dipped the calm tips of my fingers whenever I dreamed of living ... Sometimes I bent over and stared at myself in the ponds... When I smiled, my teeth looked mysterious in the water. They had their own smile, independent of mine ... I always smiled for no reason ... Talk to me about death, about the end of all things, so that I can feel there’s a reason to look back ...
     
FIRST WATCHER Let’s talk about nothing, about nothing ... It’s colder now, but why is it colder? There’s no reason for it to be colder. It’s not really any colder than it is... Why must we talk? Singing, I don’t know why, is better than talking ... Singing, when we do it at night, is a bold and cheery person who bursts into the room and warms it up, comforting us... I could sing you a song we used to sing at home in my past. Don’t you want me to sing it?
     
THIRD WATCHER It’s not worth the bother, sister. .. When someone sings, I can no longer be with myself. I stop being able to remember myself. My entire past becomes someone else, and I weep over a dead life that I carry inside me and never lived. It’s always too late to sing, just as it’s always too late not to sing ...
     
    (pause)
     
FIRST WATCHER Soon it will be day . .. Let’s observe silence. That’s what life urges... Near the house where I was born there was a pond. I’d go there and sit next to it, on a tree trunk that had fallen almostinto the water ... I’d sit on the end of it and dip my feet in the water, reaching down my toes as far as I could. Then I’d stare hard at the tips of my toes, but not in order to see them. I don’t know why, but my impression is that this pond never existed ... To remember it is like not being able to remember anything ... Who knows why Im saying this and whether I was the one who lived what I remember? ...
     
SECOND WATCHER Dreaming at the seashore makes us sad... We can’t be what we want to be, since whatever it is, we always wish we’d been it in the past... When the wave crashes and the foam hisses, it seems like a thousand tiny voices are speaking. The foam only seems cool to those who suppose it is all one ... Each thing is many, and we know nothing ... Shall I tell you what I dreamed at the seashore?
     
FIRST WATCHER You can tell it, sister, but nothing in us needs you to tell it ... If it’s beautiful, I’m already sorry I’ll have heard it. And if it’s not beautiful, wait... Tell it only after you’ve changed it...
     
SECOND WATCHER I’m going to tell it. It’s not entirely false, since surely nothing is entirely false. It must have happened like this ... One day when I found myself leaning back on top of a cold cliff, having forgotten I ever had a mother and father, a childhood and other days besides that one—on that day I vaguely saw, as if I only thought I’d seen it, a sail passing by in the distance ... Then it vanished ... Returning to myself, I realized that I now had this dream ... I don’t know where it began. And I never saw another sail... None of the ships leaving from ports around here have sails that resemble that sail, not even when the moon is out and the ships pass slowly by in the distance ...
     
FIRST WATCHER I see a ship in the offing through the window. Perhaps it’s the one you saw ...
     
SECOND WATCHER No, sister. The one you see is no doubt bound for some port... The one I saw couldn’t have been bound for any port ...
     
FIRST WATCHER Why did you respond to what I said? ... You might be right... I saw no ship through the window. I wanted to see one and told you I’d seen one so as not to feel sorry ... Now tell us what you dreamed at the seashore ...
     
SECOND WATCHER I dreamed of a mariner who seemed to be lost on a faraway island. On the island there were a few tall, unbending palms among which some vague birds flew ... I didn’t notice if they ever alighted ... The mariner had lived there since surviving a shipwreck ...