All The Names - Jose Saramago

ack to sleep, If she is the woman on the card, he repeated, if, after all this, she is the same woman, I'll
tear up that wretched card and think no more about it. He knew he was merely trying to disguise his
disappointment, he knew that he could not bear to return to his usual gestures and thoughts, it was as if he
had been on the point of setting off to discover a mysterious island and, at the last moment, with his foot
already on the gangplank, someone had come up to him holding an outspread map, There's no point in your
going now, the unknown island you wanted to find is here, look, on latitude so-and-so, longitude such and
such, it's got ports and cities, mountains and rivers, all with their names and histories, you'd better just
resign yourself to being who you are. But Senhor José did not want to resign himself, he continued to stare
out at the horizon that appeared to be lost, and suddenly, as if a black cloud had lifted and allowed the sun
to shine through, he realised that the idea which had woken him was misleading, he remembered that there
were two entries on the card, one for marriage, the other for divorce, and the woman in that apartment
was certainly married, if it was the same woman, there should be another entry on the card for a second
marriage, of course, the Central Registry did sometimes make mistakes, but Senhor José preferred not to
think about that.