At the entrance I noticed, in gold on a green spine, the name of Adam Smith. This, then, was clearly the Economists’ section. I ventured further in and walked, wondering, past more than twenty-six feet of Political Economy. Then I spotted the Philosophers and their commentators, who filled a whole wall, from the pre-Socratics to the neo-pessimists. These shelves were piled high with over two thousand systems of thought, all contradicting each other. You could guess the doctrines from the bindings: Hobbes, near the bottom, was heavy in black leather; Plato, up above, glowed in soft white calf. Further on began the ranks of Universal Histories, but these shelves were obscured by an immense pile of books smelling of fresh ink and paper, like alluvial soil covering a centuries-old river bank. I skirted this hill and headed into the Natural Sciences, wandering, with growing incredulity, from Orography to Paleontology, and from Morphology to Crystallography. This shelf came to an end next to an ample window that once looked out over the Champs-Elysées. I drew back the velvet curtains and behind it discovered another portentous mound of books – treatises on the History of Religions and Religious Exegesis – which climbed mountain-like up to the highest panes, thus blocking out, on bright mornings, the Good Lord’s air and light.

Beyond, though, in pale morocco leather, glowed friendlier shelves devoted to the Poets. As a respite for the spirit grown weary of all that positive knowledge, Jacinto had created a cosy corner, with a divan and a lemonwood table as glossy as the finest enamel and covered with cigars, oriental cigarettes and eighteenth-century snuffboxes. On a smooth wooden box, someone had left a dish of dried damsons from Japan. I surrendered to the seduction of the cushions, bit into a damson and opened a book; I could hear beside me an odd buzzing sound, like the noise of some insect borne on harmonious wings. I smiled at the thought that they might be bees making honey out of that florilegium of verses. Then I noticed that this distant, drowsy whisper was coming from that apparently innocent mahogany box. I pushed aside a copy of the Gazette de France and discovered, emerging from a hole cut out of the box, a string to which was attached, at the other end, an ivory funnel. Out of curiosity, I held the funnel to my trusting ear, which was still attuned to simple, country sounds, and suddenly, a very gentle yet very confident voice – taking advantage of my curiosity in order to invade and take over my mind – whispered slyly: ‘And so by studying the way in which the diabolical cubes are arranged, I can then calculate the hypermagical spaces …’

I shrieked and leapt to my feet:

‘Jacinto, there’s a man in here! A man inside the box, talking!’

Accustomed to such prodigies, my friend did not so much as blink an eye.

‘Oh that, it’s the Conferencephone; it’s the same as the Theatrephone, except that it’s linked up to the lecture halls at the universities. It’s frightfully convenient. What’s the man saying, Zé Fernandes?’

Still wild-eyed, I stared at the box.

‘I don’t know, something about diabolical cubes and magical spaces, all kinds of nonsense …’

In the other room, I sensed Jacinto’s superior smile.

‘That’ll be Colonel Dorchas: “What Positive Metaphysics can teach us about the Fourth Dimension”. Pure conjecture and a total bore! Listen, Zé Fernandes, do you want to have dinner tonight with me and a couple of friends?’

‘Certainly not, Jacinto. I’m still wearing the Sunday suit my country tailor made for me!’

And I went back into the study to show my friend the thick flannel jacket and the scarlet-spotted tie that I wore on Sundays in Guiães to visit the House of Our Lord. Jacinto told me that his guests – both of whom were artists – would find such rustic simplicity interesting. Who were these guests? The author of The Triple Heart – a transcendently intelligent psychologist with feminist leanings and an experienced teacher of and authority on the Sentimental Sciences – and Vorcan, a painter of myths, who, a year ago now, had managed to tune into the ether and channel the rhapsodic symbolism of the siege of Troy into one vast composition, entitled Helen the Destroyer.

I was scratching my beard:

‘No, Jacinto, no. I’ve only just come back from Guiães, from the mountains. I need to re-enter Civilisation slowly and cautiously, because if I don’t, I’ll explode.