Ricardo Reis invariably sets out from this street, the Rua do Alecrim, then takes any other, up, down, left, right, Ferragial, Remolares, Arsenal, Vinte e Quatro de Julho. These are the first unwindings of the skein, of the web, Boavista, Crucifixo. After a while his legs begin to tire, a man cannot wander about forever. It is not only the blind who need a walking stick to probe one step ahead or a dog to sniff out danger, even a man with the sight of two eyes needs a light he can follow, one in which he believes or hopes to believe, his very doubts serving in the absence of anything better. Now Ricardo Reis is watching the spectacle of the world, a wise man if one can call this wisdom, aloof, indifferent by upbringing and temperament, but quaking because a simple cloud has passed. One can easily understand the Greeks' and Romans' belief that they moved among gods, under the gaze of the gods at all times and in all places, whether in the shade of a tree, beside a fountain, in the dense, resounding depths of a forest, on the seashore, or on the waves, even in bed with one's beloved, be she woman or goddess, if she agrees. What Ricardo Reis requires is a guide dog, a walking stick, a light before him, because this world, and Lisbon too, is a dark mist in which north, south, east, and west all merge, and where the only open road slopes downward. If a man isn't careful, he will fall headlong to the bottom, a tailor's dummy without legs or head. It isn't true that Ricardo Reis returned from Rio de Janeiro out of cowardice or, to phrase it better, out of fear, it isn't true that he returned because Fernando Pessoa died, because one cannot put a thing back in the space and time from which it was removed, whether it be Fernando or Alberto. Each of us is unique and irreplaceable, which is the greatest of platitudes and may not be entirely true. Even if he appears before me at this very moment, as I make my way down the Avenida da Liberdade, Fernando Pessoa is no longer Fernando Pessoa, and not only because he is dead. The important and decisive thing is that he is no longer able to add to what he was and what he achieved, to what he experienced and what he wrote. He can no longer even read, poor fellow. It will be up to Ricardo Reis to read him this other article published in a magazine with the poet's portrait in an oval frame. A few days ago death robbed us of Fernando Pessoa, the distinguished poet who spent his short life virtually ignored by the masses, one could say that because he knew the value of his work, he jealously hoarded it like a miser lest it be taken from him, some day full justice will be rendered to his dazzling talent, as has been rendered to other great geniuses in the past, dot dot dot. The bastards. The worst thing about journalists is that they believe they are authorized to put into the readily accepting heads of others ideas such as this one, that Fernando Pessoa hoarded his poems in the fear that others might steal them. How can they print such rubbish. Ricardo Reis impatiently tapped the pavement with the tip of his umbrella, which he could use as a walking stick but only so long as it didn't rain. A man can go astray even when he follows a straight line. He entered the Rossio and might just as well have been at a crossroads formed by four or eight choices which, if taken and retraced, would all end, as everyone knows, at the same point in infinity. There is little to be gained, therefore, in taking any of them. When the time comes, we will leave this matter to chance, which does not choose but simply drives and is driven in turn by forces about which we know nothing, and even if we knew, what would we know. Much better to rely on these nameplates probably manufactured in the fully equipped workshops of Freire the Engraver, which bear the names of doctors, lawyers, notaries, people to whom we have recourse in time of need and who have learned how to use a compass. Their compasses may not coincide, but this matters little, it is enough for the city to know that directions exist. You are not obliged to leave, because this is not the place where streets branch out, nor is it that magnificent point where they converge, rather, it is here that they change their sense, north becoming south, and south north. The sun has stopped between east and west, the city is a scar that has been burned, beset by earthquake, a teardrop that will not dry and has no finger to remove it. I must open an office, don a white coat, receive patients, even if only to allow them to die, Ricardo Reis muses. At least they will keep me company while they are alive, their last good deed being to play the ailing doctor of the ailing doctor. We are not saying that these are the thoughts of all doctors, but of this one certainly, for reasons of his own, reasons as yet barely glimpsed. What kind of practice shall I set up, where, and for whom. If you think that such questions require nothing but answers, you are deceived. We reply with actions, just as with actions we ask questions.