Read Online Cain by José Saramago - Free Book Online Page B

journeys
used to be made, leaving things to
chance or, as they used to say even
then, in the lap of the gods. Cain again spurred his donkey on and soon found himself in open countryside. The city had become a dull grey-brown stain, which, gradually,
with increasing distance, and even though the donkey was moving at only a moderate pace, seemed to merge with the earth. The landscape was dry, arid, with not so much as a thread of water in sight. Faced by such desolation, it was inevitable that cain would remember the hard journey on foot he had made after the lord drove him out of the fateful valley where poor abel would remain for ever. With nothing to eat and no water to drink, apart from that which miraculously fell from the sky just when his soul had lost all strength and his legs were threatening to give way
beneath him. At least this time he would
not lack for food, the saddlebags are crammed full, a loving thought on the
part of lilith, who,
it would seem, was not such a bad housewife as her dissolute ways might lead one to believe. The problem is that there is not a scrap of shade to be had anywhere. By mid-morning, the sun is already pure fire and the air a shimmering
mass that makes us doubt what our eyes can see. Cain said, At least I won't have to go to the trouble of dismounting in order to eat. The road rose and rose, and the donkey, who was clearly no ass, was following a zigzag path, now to the right, now to the left, and one imagines that he must have learned this trick from mules, who know all there is to know about mountain-climbing. A few more steps and they had reached the summit. And to cain's surprise, astonishment and stupefaction, the landscape that lay before him was completely different, full of every imaginable
shade of green, with leafy trees and cultivated fields, glittering water, a mild temperature, and white clouds drifting across the sky. He looked back and saw that nothing had changed, the same parched, arid scene lay behind him. It was as if there were a frontier, a line separating the two countries, Or two different times, said cain, unaware that he had said anything, as if someone else were thinking for him. He looked up at the sky and saw that the clouds moving in the direction from which we have come stopped precisely at that point and then, by some unknown art, vanished. We must bear in mind the fact that cain is ill-informed about cartographical matters, one might even say that this, in a way, is his first trip abroad, and so it is only natural that
he should feel surprise at seeing
other lands, other people, other
skies and other customs. That's all very well, but what no one can explain to me is why the clouds cannot pass from here to there. Unless, says the voice issuing from
cain's mouth, this is a different time,
and this land cared-for and cultivated
by the hand of man was once, in ages past, as sterile and desolate as the land of nod. So are we in the future, then, we ask, having seen a few films and read a few books on the subject. Yes, that is the usual formula used to explain what appears to have happened here, the future, we say, and we breathe more easily, now that we have placed a label on it, a docket, but, in our opinion, it would be
clearer to call it another present, because
the land is the same, but has
various presents, some are past presents, others are future presents, and that, surely, is simple enough for anyone to understand. The creature who appears to feel the greatest joy at this change is the donkey. Born and bred in drought- stricken lands, fed on straw and thistles, with water often rationed, or almost, the vision before him verged on the sublime. It's a shame there was no one there capable of interpreting
the twitchings of his ears, that form of semaphore with which nature had endowed him, never thinking that the fortunate beast would one day have to express the ineffable,
and the ineffable, as we know, is precisely that which cannot be expressed. Cain is