Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

It is three o'clock in the morning. Raimundo Silva puts down his pen, slowly gets to his feet, supporting himself with both hands spread on the table, as if suddenly overcome by the burden of all his years on this earth. He goes into the bedroom that is barely illuminated by a dim light, and carefully undresses, trying not to make a noise, but hoping deep down that Maria Sara will wake up...

The utmost care has to be taken in the use of words, never using them before the epoch in which they came into the general circulation of ideas, otherwise we shall immediately be accused of an anachronism, which, amongst the reprehensible acts in the terrain of writing, is second only to plagiarism.

Perhaps it will sound less like a platitude if I tell you that in my opinion, madness is the result of the shock produced in man by his own intelligence and we still haven't recovered from the trauma three million years later. So, according to this hypothesis of yours, we're going from bad to worse,I'm no fortune-teller but I fear so.

We're positively mad,Do you mean us, No,I was referring to people in general, I'm one of those people who thinks that human beings have always been mentally deranged,As platitudes go, that isn't bad,

...during a pause between coping with the problems of the siege and the trivialities of the novel which the publisher is waiting for, Raimundo Silva went out for a break. To amuse himself, mull over ideas. But on passing a florist's shop, he went in and bought a rose. White. And now he is returning home, a trifle embarrassed to be seen carrying a flower in his hand.

Everything, in the final analysis, is a question of vanity, the desire to keep up appearances, both physically and immorally, it being possible even now to imagine a time in which all human behavior will be artificial, disregarding without further thought sincerity, spontaneity, simplicity, those most excellent and shining qualities of character which were so difficult to define...

There are very few old men in the encampment, this is an age when most people die young, besides their legs would soon give way and their arms weaken in battle, for not everyone has the resistance of Goncalo Mendes de Maia, the Warrior who even at the age of seventy gives the impression of being in his prime, and will only at ninety be struck down by the sword of the King of Tangiers and finally die.

Dr Maria Sara remained seated but she would be on her feet to say those final words, the ones we usually disregard, those phrases on parting which repetition and habit have robbed of any meaning, a comment which is no less repetitive, introduced here to echo a comment made elsewhere at some other time and not worth any further elaboration, see Portrait of the Poet in the Year of his Death.

Leonard Cohen made a gesture as if to thank him, now he could sing, and he sang of things only someone who has lived can sing of, and asks himself how much and for what, someone who has loved and asks himself who and why, and, having asked all these questions, he can find no answer, not one, contrary to the belief that all the answers are there and that all we have to do is to learn how to phrase our questions.