Álvaro de Campos · Notes for the Memory of My Master Caeiro

(…)

My master Caeiro wasnʾt a pagan; he was paganism. Ricardo Reis is a pagan, António Mora is a pagan, and Iʾm a pagan; Fernando Pessoa himself would be a pagan, were he not a ball of string inwardly wound around itself. But Ricardo Reis is a pagan by virtue of his character, António Mora is a pagan by virtue of his intellect, and Iʾm a pagan out of sheer revolt, i.e. by my temperament. For Caeiroʾs paganism there was no explanation; there was consubstantiation. 

 I will clarify this in the weak-kneed way that indefinable things are defined: through example. If we compare ourselves with the Greeks, one of the most striking differences we find is their aversion to the infinite, of which they had no real concept. Well, my master Caeiro had the same nonconcept. I will now recount, with what I dare say is great accuracy, the astounding conversation in which he revealed this to me.

Elaborating on a reference made in one of the poems from The Keeper of Sheep, he told me how someone or other had once called him a “materialist poet.” Although I donʾt think the label is right, since there is no right label to define my master Caeiro, I told him that the epithet wasnʾt entirely absurd. And I explained the basic tenets of classical materialism. Caeiro listened to me with a pained expression, and then blurted out: 

“But this is just plain stupid. Itʾs the stuff of priests but without any religion, and therefore without any excuse.”

I was taken aback, and I pointed out various similarities between materialism and his own doctrine, though excluding from this his poetry. Caeiro protested.

“But what you call poetry is everything. And itʾs not even poetry: itʾs seeing. Those materialists are blind. You say they say that space is infinite. Where did they ever see that in space?”

And I, confused: “But donʾt you conceive of space as being infinite? Canʾt you conceive of space as being infinite?” 

“I donʾt conceive of anything as infinite. How can I conceive of something as infinite?”

“Just suppose thereʾs a space,” I said. “Beyond that space there is more space, and then more space, still more, and more, and more…. It never ends….”

“Why?” asked my master Caeiro.

I reeled in a mental earthquake. “Then suppose it ends!” I shouted. “What comes after?”

“If it ends,” he replied, “nothing comes after.”

This kind of argumentation, which is both childish and feminine, and therefore unanswerable, stumped my brain for a few moments, until finally I said, “But do you conceive of this?”

“Conceive of what? Of something having limits? Small wonder! What doesnʾt have limits doesnʾt exist. To exist means that thereʾs something else, which means that each thing is limited. Whatʾs so hard about conceiving that a thing is a thing and that itʾs not always some other thing thatʾs beyond it?”

At this point I had the physical sensation that I was arguing not with another man but with another universe. I made one last attempt, with a far-fetched argument that I convinced myself was legitimate.

“All right, Caeiro, consider numbers…. Where do numbers end? Letʾs take any number – 34, for example. After 34 comes 35, 36,37,38, etc., and it keeps going like that forever. No matter how large the number, thereʾs always a still larger one….”

“But thatʾs all just numbers, “objected my master Caeiro. And then he added, looking at me with a boundless childhood in his eyes: “What is 34 in Reality?” 

PESSOA, Fernando, The Selected Prose, Edited and translated by Richard Zenith. New York: Grove Press, 2001, pp.40-41.