The History of the Siege of Lisbon

The proof-reader is taking another look, he enters by the Arco Escuro in order to examine the stairway which the historian claims was one of the points of access to the battlements of the stockade, or rather, this stairway, the steps of which have only been in existence for three generations, is located where the original one stood. Raimundo Silva carefully examines the dark windows, the grimy façades eroded by saltpetre, the tiled insets, this one dated one thousand seven hundred and sixty-four, with St Anne teaching her daughter Mary how to write, and medallions on either side depicting St Martial, who wards off fire, and St Antony who restores earthenware jugs and is something of a wizard when it comes to finding lost objects. The inscription, in the absence of any authentic certificate, is the next best thing, if the date it carries, which we have no reason to doubt, is that of the year when the edifice was built, nine years after the earthquake. The proof-reader studies the information he has gathered and finds it has been much enriched, so when he returns to the Rua dos Bacalhoeiros, he will look with disdain upon those ignorant passers-by, who show no interest in the curiosities of the city and life, and who are quite incapable of making any connection between these two explicit dates. But shortly, when he arrives before the Arco das Portas do Mar, thinking to himself that the ñame deserved some other architectural commemoration, and not the prosaic name-plate of customs officials, reflecting at that moment on the discrepancy between the word and its meaning, he observed himself and disapproved of what he saw, After all, what right do I have to pass judgment on others, I have lived in Lisbon all my life and it has never occurred to me to come and see with my own eyes things described in books, things that I have often looked at time and time again, without actually seeing them, as blind as the muezzin, and were it not for this threat from Costa, I should probably never have thought of checking the lay-out of the wall, the gates, which I now recognise as belonging to the fortress of Dom Fernando, obviously by the time I have finished my stroll I shall know more, but it is also true that I'll know less, in other words, let's see if I can explain myself, this awareness of knowing more, brings me to an awareness of knowing little, besides, one is tempted to ask what it means to know, the historian was right, I ought to have been a philosopher, one of those admirable philosophers who can pick up a skull and spend the rest of their lives probing its importance in this world and wondering if there is any good reason why the world should concern itself with a skull, and now we come, ladies and gentlemen, tourists, travellers, or those of you who are merely curious, says the indispensable guide, to the Arco da Conceiçao, where once stood the celebrated fountain known as the Preguiça, whose refreshing waters have abated the thirst and any desire to work of so many people right up to the present day.