All The Names - Jose Saramago

emained lying down for a few more minutes, not moving, recovering his calm and his strength. It had
proved a difficult dialogue, with traps and false doors swinging open at every step, the slightest slip
could have dragged him into a full and complete confession if his mind had not been attentive to the
multiple meanings of the words he carefully pronounced, especially those that appeared to have only one
meaning, those are the ones you have to be most careful with. Contrary to what is generally believed,
meaning and sense were never the same thing, meaning shows itself at once, direct, literal, explicit,
enclosed in itself, univocal, if you like, while sense cannot stay still, it seethes with second, third and
fourth senses, radiating out in different directions that divide and subdivide into branches and branchlets,
until they disappear from view, the sense of every word is like a star hurling spring tides out into space,
cosmic winds, magnetic perturbations, afflictions.
At last, Senhor José got out of bed, put his feet in his slippers and drew on the dressing gown that he
also used as an extra blanket on cold nights. Although gripped by hunger, he opened the door and looked
out into the Central Registry. He could feel within himself a strange boldness, a feeling of absence, as if
many days had passed since the last time he had been there. Nothing had changed though, there was the
long counter where they dealt with petitioners and supplicants, beneath them the drawers where they kept
the index cards of the living, then the eight tables for the clerks, the four for the senior clerks, the two for
the deputies, the large desk belonging to the Registrar with the light above it still on, the huge shelves
reaching up as far as the ceiling, the petrified darkness on the side inhabited by the dead. Although there
was no one in the Central Registry, Senhor José locked the door, there was no one in the Central Registry,
but still he locked the door. Thanks to the new plasters that the nurse had put on his knees, he could walk
more easily, the dressing no longer pulled on his wounds. He sat down at the table, undid the package,
there were two pans, one on top of the other, first the soup and below it a dish of meat and potatoes, still
warm. He ate the soup eagerly, then, unhurriedly, finished off the meat and potatoes. I'm lucky to have a
boss like him, he murmured, remembering the nurse's words, if it weren't for him, I'd be stuck here dying
of hunger and neglect, like a lost dog. Yes, I'm lucky, he repeated, as if he needed to convince himself of
what he had just said. Feeling restored, he returned to bed, first visiting the cubicle that served as his
bathroom. He was just about to fall asleep when he remembered the notebook in which he had set down
the first stages of his search. I'll write it tomorrow, he said, but this new urgency was almost as pressing
as that of eating, which was why he went to fetch the notebook. Then, sitting on the bed, wearing his
dressing gown, his pyjama jacket buttoned up to the neck and bundled up in blankets, he picked up the
story where he had left off. The Registrar said to me, If you're not ill, how do you explain the poor work
you've been doing recently, I don't know, sir, perhaps it's because I haven't been sleeping well. Assisted
by his fever, he continued writing long into the night.