The History of the Siege of Lisbon

While drinking his coffee, Raimundo Silva began searching for the pages of The History of the Siege of Lisbon

that interested him, not the king's speech, nor the battle scenes, he has lost all interest whether

balear

or balearic is the correct adjective for those slings, and wants to know nothing more about capitulation and sacking. He has found what he was looking for, four sheets of paper which he separates from the pile and re-reads attentively, running a line over the more important references with a fluorescent yellow marker. The fat woman watches this strange operation with wary respect, and then quite unpredictably, with no direct relationship of cause and effect between another's action and one's own thoughts, she suddenly gathers the crumbs together into a little pile and with five chubby fingertips she scoops them up, squeezes them together and bringing them to her mouth, avidly devours them, smacking her lips. Disturbed by the noise, Raimundo Silva looked away, no doubt, disapprovingly, thinking to himself that the temptation to regress to certain childish habits is a constant trait in the human species, if Dom Afonso Henriques eats voraciously with his fingers, so what, it is the custom of the time, although certain innovations can now be seen, such as sticking a knife into a chunk of beef and bringing it to one's mouth, all that remains now is for someone to have the bright idea to add prongs to the tip of the knife, the invention is long overdue, after all, those absent-minded inventors need only take note of those pitchforks in rough wood with which farmers harvest and gather in their wheat and barley and load them on to carts, besides as experience has all too clearly shown, no one will progress in art or life if they succumb to the comforts of the court. But the woman in the café has no such excuse since her parents took great pains to teach her how to behave at table, yet here she is relapsing into her old habits which probably go back to those primitive times when Moors and Christians had similar habits, a somewhat controversial opinion, for some would argue that the followers of Mohammed were much more civilised, and that the others, out-and-out rustics who rejoiced in their stubbornness, knew little or nothing about good manners, but everything will change one day when they start to worship the Virgin Mary with such fervour that they soon forget Her Divine Son, not to mention their insulting disregard for the Eternal Father. And so we can see how, quite naturally, and without any effort, by passing quietly from one episode to another, we soar from that mille feuille eaten by a woman in the Café Graciosa, to Him who feels no hunger, yet who has endowed us with a thousand desires and needs.