To Lydia, who is also nobody, Ricardo Reis speaks of the events in the neighboring nation. She tells him that the Spaniards in the hotel celebrated the latest news with a great party, not even the general's tragic death dampened their spirits, and now not an evening passes without bottles of French champagne, Salvador is as happy as a clam, Pimenta talks in Castilian to the manner born, and Ramón and Felipe could not contain their joy upon learning that General Franco is Galician, a native of El Ferrol. Only the other day someone had the idea of hoisting a Spanish flag on the hotel verandah to mark the Hispano-Portuguese alliance. And you, Ricardo Reis asked, what do you think of Spain, of what is happening there. I am not educated, you are the one who ought to know, Doctor, with all the books you've read to get where you are today, the higher one goes, the farther one can see. Therefore the moon shines on every lake. Doctor, you say the prettiest things. The situation in Spain had been going from bad to worse to utter chaos, it was about time someone came along to put an end to all the squabbling, the only hope was for the army to step in, just as happened here, it's the same everywhere. I know nothing about these things, but my brother says. I already know what your brother says. How can you know, Doctor, you and my brother are such different people. What does he say then. He says that the military will not win because all the people will be against it. Let me assure you, Lydia, that the people are never all on one side, but I'm curious to know what you mean when you say the people. The people are like me, a hotel chambermaid who has a revolutionary brother and sleeps with a doctor who is against revolutions. Who taught you to say these things. When I open my mouth to speak, the words are already there, it's just a matter of letting them come out. Generally, one thinks before he speaks. Well perhaps in my case it is like having a baby, which grows without our noticing it and is born when the time comes. How have you been feeling lately. If it weren't for missing my periods, I wouldn't believe I was pregnant. You are still determined, then, to have the child, My baby boy, Your baby boy, Yes, and I am not likely to change my mind, Think about it carefully, But I don't think. With these words Lydia gave a contented laugh, and Ricardo Reis was left without a reply. He drew her to him, kissed her on the forehead, then on the corner of her mouth, then on her neck, the bed was not far and soon both serving maid and doctor were on it. No more was said about her sailor brother. Spain is at the other end of the world.
Les beaux esprits se rencontrent, as the French say, a remarkably subtle race. Ricardo Reis speaks of the need to preserve order, and in an interview given to the Portuguese newspaper O Século General Francisco Franco has just declared, We desire order in our nation. This prompted the newspaper to print in bold letters, The Spanish Army's Task of Redemption, thus showing how numerous those beaux esprits are, if not indeed innumerable. A few days later, the newspaper raises the question, When will a First International of Order be organized against the Third International of Disorder. The beaux esprits are already giving their reply, the initiative is under way, Moroccan soldiers continue to land, a governing junta has been set up in Burgos, and there is a rumor that within a matter of hours the final confrontation will take place between the army and the forces of Madrid. As for the fact that the population of Badajoz has taken up arms to resist the military advance, we should not attribute any special importance to that, it provides only an interesting footnote to our discussion about what the people are or are not. Men, women, and children armed themselves with rifles, swords, cudgels, scythes, revolvers, daggers, and hatchets, whatever came to hand, perhaps this is the way the people arm themselves, but the philosophical question of what the people are, if you will forgive my presumption, remains a moot point.
The wave swells and gathers. In Portugal, volunteers are flocking to enroll in the Portuguese Youth Movement, these are patriotic youths who decided not to wait for the inevitable conscription. With a hopeful hand and neat lettering, under the benevolent gaze of their fathers, they sign the letter and vigorously march to the post office, or, trembling with civic pride, they deliver the letter personally to the doorman at the Ministry of National Education. Only their respect for religion prevents them from declaring, Here is my body, here is my blood, but it is clear for all to see that they long for martyrdom. Ricardo Reis runs his eye down the lists, trying to visualize faces, postures, ways of walking that might give substance, meaning to the abstraction of these proper nouns, which are the emptiest words of all unless we put human beings inside them. In years to come, twenty, thirty, fifty years, what will these grownup men or old men, if they live that long, think of their ardent youth, when they heard or read the clarion words of the German youths who said, We are nobody, and rallied like heroes repeating, We, too, we, too, are nobody. They will use such phrases as, The foolishness of youth, A mistake made in my innocence, I had no one to turn to for advice, I have repented at leisure, My father ordered me to sign up, I sincerely believed in the movement, The uniform was so impressive, I would do it all over again, It was one way of getting on with my life, The first to enlist were much admired, A young man is so easily persuaded, so easily deceived. These and similar excuses are offered, but now one man gets to his feet, raises his hand, requesting to be heard. Ricardo Reis nods, anxious to hear a person speak of one of the other people he once was, to hear age describing youth, and this is the speech the man made. You have to consider the individual motives, whether the step we took was taken out of ignorance or malice, whether of our own free will or because we were compelled. The judgment, of course, will vary, depending on the times and on the judge. But whether we are pardoned or condemned, our life must be weighed on the scales of the good and evil we did, let everything be taken into account, if that is possible, and let the first judge be our conscience. Perhaps we should say once again, though for a different reason, that we are nobody. At that time a certain man, loved and respected by some of us, I will say his name to spare you the trouble of guessing, Miguel de Unamuno, then rector at the University of Salamanca, no mere fourteen- or fifteen-year-old stripling like us but a venerable gentleman in his seventies, the author of such highly acclaimed books as Del sentimiento trâgico de la vida, La agonia del cristianismo, En torno al casticismo, La dignidad humana, and many others, a guiding spirit from the first days of war, pledged his support to the ruling Junta of Burgos, exclaiming, Let us save western civilization, I am here at your disposal O sons of Spain. These sons of Spain were the insurgent troops and the Moors from Morocco, and he made a personal donation of five thousand pesetas to what was even then called the Nationalist Spanish Army. Since I cannot remember the prices of those days, I cannot say how many bullets one could buy with five thousand pesetas. Unamuno urged President Azaña to commit suicide, and a few weeks later he made further statements that were no less vehement, My greatest admiration, my deepest respect goes to those Spanish women who held the communist rabble at bay and long prevented it from seizing control of Spain. In a transport of ecstasy he called them holy women. We Portuguese have also had our share of holy women, two examples will suffice, Marilia, the shining heroine of Conspiracy, and the innocent saint of The May Revolution. If the Spanish women have Unamuno to thank for their sainthood, let our Portuguese women give thanks to Senhor Tomé Vieira and Senhor Lopes Ribeiro, one day I should like to descend into hell and count for myself the holy women there. But about Miguel de Unamuno, whom we admired, no one speaks now, he is like an embarrassing wound one tries to conceal, and only his words, almost his last, spoken in reply to General Milan d'Astray, the one who shouted in that same city of Salamanca, Long live death, have been preserved for posterity. Doctor Reis will never learn what those words are, but life is too short for a man to learn everything, and so is his. Because those words were spoken, some of us reconsidered our decision. It was good that Unamuno lived long enough to see his mistake, although only to see it, because he did little to correct it, having little time left, and perhaps too he wished to preserve the tranquillity of his final days. And therefore all I ask is that you wait for our last word, or the next to last, if on that day our minds are still clear and yours is too. I am finished. Some of those present vigorously applaud this hope of salvation, but others protest, indignant at the malicious distortion of Unamuno's Nationalist doctrine, because it was only out of senility, with one foot in the grave, or pique or capriciousness, that Unamuno dared question the magnificent battle cry of the great patriot General Milan d'Astray, who only had wisdom to impart, none to receive. Ricardo Reis does not know what Unamuno will say to the General, he is too shy to ask, or afraid to penetrate the veil of the future, How much better to pass in silence, without anticipation, this is what he once wrote, this is what he tries to achieve each day. The old soldiers leave, discussing as they go the words of Unamuno, judging those words as they themselves would like to be judged, for everyone knows that the accused, in his eyes, is always absolved.