Book of Disquiet · 24. · Today, feeling almost physically ill

24.

Today, feeling almost physically ill because of that age-old anxiety which sometimes wells up, I ate and drank rather less than usual in the first-floor dining room of the restaurant responsible for perpetuating my existence. And as I was leaving, the waiter, having noted that the bottle of wine was still half full, turned to me and said: ʾSo long, Senhor Soares, and I hope you feel better.ʾ

The trumpet blast of this simple phrase relieved my soul like a sudden wind clearing the sky of clouds. And I realized something I had never really thought about: with these café and restaurant waiters, with barbers and with the delivery boys on street corners I enjoy a natural, spontaneous rapport that I canʾt say I have with those I supposedly know more intimately.

Camaraderie has its subtleties.

Some govern the world, others are the world. Between an American millionaire, a Caesar or Napoleon, or Lenin, and the Socialist leader of a small town, thereʾs a difference in quantity but not of quality. Below them thereʾs us, the unnoticed: the reckless playwright William Shakespeare, John Milton the schoolteacher, Dante Alighieri the tramp, the delivery boy I sent on an errand yesterday, me, the barber who tells me jokes, and the waiter who just now demonstrated his camaraderie by wishing me well, after noticing Iʾd drunk only half the wine. 

PESSOA, Fernando, The Book of Disquiet, Edited and translated by Richard Zenith. London: Penguin Books, 2015, pp. 27-28