José Saramago
Baltasar and Blimunda
Translated from the Portugese by Giovanni Pontiero
© Editorial Caminho, SARL, Lisboa, 1982
English translation copyright © 1987 by Harcourt, Inc.
A man was on his way to the gallows when he met another, who asked him: Where are you going, my friend? And the condemned man replied: I'm not going anywhere. They're taking me by force.
Padre Manuel Velho
João
Je sais que je tombe dans l'inexplicable, quand j'affirme que la réalité-cette notion si flottante-la connaissance la plus exacte possible des êtres est notre point de contact, et notre voie d'accès aux choses qui dépassent la réalité.
Marguerite Yourcenar
DOM JOÃO, THE FIFTH monarch so named on the royal list, will pay a visit this night to the bedchamber of the Queen, Dona Maria Ana Josefa, who arrived more than two years ago from Austria to provide heirs for the Portuguese crown, and so far has shown no signs of becoming pregnant. Already there are rumours at court, both within and without the royal palace, that the Queen is barren, an insinuation that is carefully guarded from hostile ears and tongues and confided only to intimates. That anyone should blame the King is unthinkable, first because infertility is an evil that befalls not men but women, who for that very reason are often disowned and second, because there is material evidence, should such a thing be necessary, in the horde of bastards produced by the royal semen, who populate the kingdom and even at this moment are forming a procession in the square. Moreover, it is not the King but the Queen who spends all her time in prayer, beseeching a child from heaven, for two good reasons. The first reason is that a king, especially a king of Portugal, does not ask for something that he alone can provide, and the second reason is that a woman is essentially a vessel made to be filled, a natural supplicant, whether she pleads in novenas or in occasional prayers.