The History of the Siege of Lisbon

There are three main routes connecting the street in which Raimundo Silva lives to the city of the Christians, one that follows the Rua do Milagre de Santo Antonio, and depending on which street of the trifurcation he chooses, he might end up in Caldas and the Madalena, or in the Largo da Rosa and its immediate surroundings, the Costa do Castelo above, the Escadinhas da Saúde and the Largo de Martim Moniz below, and, in the middle, the steep Canada de Santo André, the Terreirinho and the Rua dos Cavaleiros, another route takes him through the Largo dos Lóios in the direction of the Portas do Sol, and finally, the most common route of all, down the Escadinhas de'Sào Crispim which soon brings him to the Porta de Ferro, where the tram is waiting that will take him to the Chiado, or where he sets off, still on foot, for the Praça da Figueira, if he has to use the underground, as is the case today. The publishing house is situated near the Avenida do Duque de Loulé, much too far away for him to start climbing the Avenida da Liberdade at this late hour, he usually walks up on the right-hand side, for he has never liked the other side, he cannot explain why, although this impression of liking or disliking may not be constant, it has its ups and downs, whether it be here or there, but somehow he feels happier on the right-hand side. One day, even while telling himself that he was being obsessive, he took the trouble to mark out on a map of the city those stretches of the Avenida which he liked and those he disliked, and he discovered to his surprise, that the agreeable part on the left side was more extensive, but taking into account the degree of satisfaction, the right side prevailed in the end, so that he would often go up on this side and look across at the pavement on the other side, wishing he were there. Obviously he does not take these little obsessions too seriously, he is not a proof-reader for nothing, only a few days ago, while holding a conversation with the author of The History of the Siege of Lisbon,

he argued that proof-readers have had wide experience of both literature and life, giving to understand that what they did not know or wish to learn about life, literature more or less taught them, especially when it comes to foibles and manias, for as everyone knows normal characters do not exist, otherwise they presumably would not be characters, which, summed up, may imply that Raimundo Silva may have looked in the books he proof-read for some striking features that, with the passage of time, would come to instil, in combination with any natural traits, this coherent and contradictory totality we normally refer to as character. Now that he is standing on the Escadinhas de'São Crispim, eyeing the dog who is watching him, he might well ask himself which fictional character it most resembles at this moment, a pity it is not a wolf or some other animal, for then St Francis would immediately come to mind, or a pig, and then it might be St Antonino, or a lion, and then it might be St Mark, or an ox, and then it might be St Luke, or a fish, and then it might be St Antony, or a lamb, and then it might be St John the Baptist, or an eagle, and then it might be St John the Evangelist, we could not simply describe the dog as being man's best friend, because the way the world is going it might well be his one and only remaining friend.