All The Names - Jose Saramago

aware of society's need for a continuous updating of working methods and processes, but I understand, as
did those who were in charge of the Central Registry before me, that the preservation of the spirit, of the
spirit of what I will call continuity and organic identity, must prevail over any other consideration, for if
we fail to proceed along that path, we will witness the collapse of the moral edifice which, as the first
and last depositories of life and death, we continue here to represent. There will doubtless be those who
protest because there is not a single typewriter to be seen in the Central Registry, still less other far more
modern equipment, because the cabinets and shelves are made of wood, or because the staff still have to
dip their pens in inkwells and use blotters, there will be those who consider us to be ridiculously frozen
in time, who demand of the government the rapid introduction into our work of advanced technologies, but
while it is true that laws and regulations can be altered and substituted at any moment, the same cannot be
said of traditions, which is, as such, both in form and sense, immutable. No one is going to travel back in
time in order to change a tradition that was born in time and that was fed and sustained by time. No one is
going to tell us that what exists did not exist, no one would ever dare, like a child, to want what has
happened not to have happened. And if they did, they would be wasting their time. These are the
foundations of our reason and our strength, this is the wall behind which we have, until today, been able to
defend both our identity and our autonomy. Thus we have continued and thus we would continue if new
thoughts had not surfaced indicating to us the need for new paths.
So far there had been nothing new in the Registrar's speech, although it was true that this was the first
time that anyone in the Central Registry had heard something resembling a solemn declaration of
principles. The uniform mentality of the staff had been based on providing a service, which was regulated
in the early days by rigour and precision, but, due perhaps to a certain degree of historical institutional
weariness, had allowed among more recent generations the grave and continuing acts of neglect
mentioned before and which were worthy of censure even from the most benevolent of viewpoints. Their
dulled consciences touched, the staff assumed that this would be the main subject of the unexpected
lecture, but they were soon undeceived. Besides, if they had paid a little more attention to the expression
on the Registrar's face, they would have realised at once that his objective was not of a disciplinary
nature, it wasn't a general reprimand, in which case his words would have sounded like sharp blows and
his whole face would have been filled with a look of scornful indifference. None of these signs was
apparent in the attitudes the Registrar struck, merely a feeling as of someone who, having been
accustomed always to winning, finds himself for the first time in his life confronted by a force greater than
his. And the few, in particular the deputies and the odd senior clerk, who thought they had deduced from
the Registrar's last words that he was about to announce the immediate introduction of modernisations
which were already current coinage beyond the walls of the Central Registry, were soon forced to
recognise, much to their amazement, that they had been wrong. The Registrar continued to speak, Do not
imagine, however, that the thoughts to which I refer are merely such thoughts as would lead us to open our
doors to modern inventions, that would not even require any thought, we would simply call in the
appropriate technician and within twenty-four hours we would have the place full of machinery of every
kind. Much as it pains me to say this and however scandalous it may seem to you, the matter that my
thoughts called into question, much to my surprise, was one of the fundamental aspects of Central Registry
tradition, that is, the spatial distribution of the living and the dead, their obligatory separation, not only
into different archives, but in different areas of the building. There was a faint whispering, as if the
common thought of the astonished workers had become audible, there can be no other explanation, since
none of them would have dared to utter a word. I realise that this troubles you, continued the Registrar,
because, when I first thought it, I too felt almost as if I had committed a heresy, worse still, I felt guilty of
offending against the memory of those who held this position of authority before me, and against those
who worked at the desks now occupied by you, but the irresistible pressure of evidence forced me to
confront the weight of tradition, a tradition which, all my life, I had considered immovable. Becoming