Francis Mora, Morning News, 1912

Meditations between Cascais and Lisbon. I went out to Cascais to make a payment for my boss Vasques, for a house he has in Estoril. Even beforehand I enjoyed the pleasure of going, one hour out, one hour back, seeing the always various aspects of the great river and its meeting with the Atlantic. In truth, on the way out, I lost myself in abstract meditations, looking at the aquatic landscapes I was happy to go see without seeing them, and on the way back I lost myself in the fixity of these sensations. I couldn't know if that is better or worse than the contrary, which I also do not know how to define. The rain stops bouncing, it is Caes do Sodré. I've reached Lisbon, but I haven't reached any conclusion.

 in «Book of Disquiet» by Bernardo Soares,
translated by Afred Mac Adam

Every time my purpose, under the influence of my dreams, raises itself above the quotidian level of my life, for a moment I feel as if I'm high in the air, like a child on a swing. Each of those times, I've had to descend to the city park, and know my defeat without war banners flying, with no sword that I might have strength enough to pull from its sheath.

"The Book of Disquiet", Bernado Soares

For a long time - I don' know if it's a matter of days or months - I haven't written down a single impression; I'm not thinking, therefore I'm not existing. I have forgotten who I am; I don't know how to write because I don't know how to be. Because of an oblique sleep, I was someone else. Knowing that I don't remember myself is waking up.

I fainted during a bit of my life. I regain consciousness without any memory of what I was, and the memory of who I was suffers for having been interrupted. There is in me a confused notion of an unknown interval, a futile effort on the part of my memory to want to find that other memory. I don't connect myself with myself. If I've lived, I forget having known it.

[...]

from «Book of Disquiet» translated by Alfred Mac Adam,
Exact Change, Boston, 1998

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