The Máximo and the Afonso, which are in more common usage, he can just about tolerate, depending, of course, on the mood he's in, but the Tertuliano weighs on him like a gravestone and has done ever since he first realized that the wretched name lent itself to being spoken in an ironic, potential...
A light shower of rain falls gently amid the sunshine, Autumn is early this year, therefore Inês Antónia scolds her little boy, Come away from there or you'll get wet, but the child pretends not to hear, even in those days it was what one expected of children, although their acts of disobedience ...
Just as beneath the bronze cuirass of achilles there once beat a sentimental heart, think only of the hero's ten years of jealousy after agamemnon stole away his beloved, the slave-girl briseis, and then the terrible rage that made him return to war, howling out his wrath at the trojans when his ...
Throughout this gospel there have been many coincidences, and if we look carefully at the life of Jesus, especially after he left home, we can see that there has been no lack of encounters either. Leaving aside his unfortunate adventure with the thieves, since it is too early to tell what the con...
He awoke feeling thirsty and asked for water which he drank in great gulps, and then looked out of the tent to study the night sky, impatient with the slow movement of the stars. There was a full moon, one of those moons that transform the world into a ghosdy apparition, when all things, living a...
He realized at once that the clerk in charge of recording the letter had been less discreet than the president's clerk, how else explain the rumors that had been flying around for the last two days, rumors which, in turn, were either the result of a leak by mid-level civil servants eager to demon...
His shoeless hooves gripped the round, slippery stones covering the river-bed which was almost dry. Using his hands, the man cautiously pushed back the thorny branches which obstructed his view of the plain. Day was breaking. Far away, where the land rose, first in a gentle slope, for he remember...
In this instance, and bearing in mind the peculiar circumstances of the situation, the Prime Minister thought it best simply to say, Sons of Portugal, Daughters of Portugal, salvation lies in retreat. But to find accommodation deep in the interior for the millions of people who live along the coa...
Olga the secretary came to collect the portrait, accompanied by a messenger (for the first time I noticed on the lapel of the man’s jacket the initials SPQR, and here I was thinking I had invented the anachronism), and she was in every way the efficient and solicitous employee with that touch of ...
Those Europes, where another war has just begun, play a far greater part, and from what one can ascertain, which is not very much in a land of such ignorance, so removed from the rest of the world, Spain is in such a state of ruin it would break your heart. But any war is a war too many, that wou...
Nicole Witt e. K., Frankfurt am Main, Germany English translation copyright © 2009 by Margaret Jull Costa ALL RIGHTS RESERVED For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New Yor...