Comfortably settled on the sofa in the study, Fernando Pessoa asked as he crossed his legs, Who was that friend of yours. He is not a friend. Thank goodness, he stank to high heaven, I've been wearing the same suit and shirt for the last five months, I haven't even changed my underwear, and I don't smell like that, but if he's not your friend, who is he then, and that deputy chief who seems to think so highly of you. They're both members of the police force, not long ago I was called in for questioning. I thought you were a law-abiding man, incapable of upsetting the authorities, I am a law-abiding man, You must have done something to be called in for questioning, I arrived here from Brazil, that is all. I'll bet Lydia was a virgin and she went, anguished and dishonored, to lodge a formal complaint. Even if Lydia had been a virgin and I had dishonored her, it would not be to the Department for State Security and Defense that she would have taken her complaint. Is that the department that called you in, Yes, And here I was thinking it was an offense against public morality, There is nothing wrong with my morals, they are certainly no worse than those I see around me. You never mentioned this brush with the police, There was no opportunity, you stopped coming to see me. Did they do you any harm, arrest you, charge you, No, I was only asked a few questions, who were my friends in Brazil, why did I come back here, what contacts I made in Portugal since my return. What a joke if you had told them about me. I can imagine the look on their faces if I told them that from time to time I met with the ghost of Fernando Pessoa. Excuse me, my dear Reis, but I am no ghost. What are you then, I can't tell you, a ghost comes from the other world, I simply come from the cemetery at Prazeres. Then is the dead Fernando Pessoa the same as the Fernando Pessoa who was once alive. In one sense, yes. Anyhow, it would be extremely difficult to explain these meetings of ours to the police. Did you know that I once wrote some verses attacking Salazar, Did he realize that he was the object of the satire, I don't believe he did, Tell me, Fernando, who is or what is this Salazar that fate has wished upon us. He is Portugal's dictator, protector, paternal guide, professor, gentle potentate, one quarter sacristan, one quarter seer, one quarter Sebastião, one quarter Sidónio, the best of all possible leaders, given our character and temperament. Many p's and's's. A coincidence, I was not trying for alliteration. There are certain people who have that mania, they go into rapture over repetitions, actually believing that this device brings order to the world's chaos. We must not laugh at them, they are fastidious people, like the fanatics of symmetry. The love of symmetry, my dear Fernando, comes from a vital need for balance, it keeps us from falling, Like the pole used by tightrope walkers, Precisely, but to get back to Salazar, he is much praised in the foreign press. Bah, those are articles commissioned and paid for by the contributors themselves, as I've heard people say, But the press here also waxes lyrical in singing his praises, you only need to pick up a newspaper in order to learn that our Portugal is the most prosperous and contented nation on earth, or will be very soon, and that if other nations follow our example they will prosper. That's the way the wind is blowing. I can see you don't have much faith in newspapers, I used to read them, You say that in a tone that suggests resignation, Exhaustion, rather, you know what I mean, after one makes a strenuous physical effort the muscles become slack, one feels like closing his eyes and sleeping. You are sleepy. I still feel the exhaustion I experienced in life. Death is a strange thing, Stranger still when you see it from the shore where I am standing and suddenly realize that no two deaths are alike, to be dead is not the same for everyone, in some cases a man takes with him all life's burdens. Fernando Pessoa closed his eyes and lay back on the sofa. Ricardo Reis thought he saw tears between his eyelashes, but they might have been like the two shadows seen by Victor, the effects of reflected light, for as everyone knows, the dead do not weep. That exposed face without glasses, and with a thin mustache, because the hair on one's face and body lives longer, expressed a deep sorrow, a sorrow without redress, like the hurts of childhood. Then Fernando Pessoa opened his eyes, smiled, I dreamed I was alive. An interesting illusion. What is interesting is not that a dead man should dream he is alive, after all he has known life, he has something to dream about, but rather that a man who is alive should dream that he is dead, because he has never known death. Soon you will be telling me that life and death are the same. Precisely, my dear Reis. In the space of one day you have stated three quite different things, that there is no death, that there is death, and now that life and death are the same. There was no other way of resolving the contradiction of the first two statements. And, as he said this, Fernando Pessoa gave a knowing smile.