Day 79. Monsanto

День 79. Монсанту

Монсанту... Здесь остановилось не время, а камни. Они двигались, сталкивались, разговаривали и внезапно замерли, застыли...

"He is looking for another kind of stone, the kind that has never seen a chisel, or if it has, still bears the scars proudly. He won’t be in Monsanto long enough to know how much of the stone has entered its people; but he thinks he will be able to understand what they gave to stone. To judge the former, he would have to stay; for the latter, he can move on.
He heads for the summit. Between the last house and the walls of the castle there is an almost untouched realm of huge boulders, the barrocos, vast empty spaces which could fit a whole city of rocks, ad above all these, four huge boulders, on of them almost completely buried in the ground, which serves as a base for two others at its ends, and balanced on top an almost perfect sphere, like a satellite fallen to earth. The traveler thought he had seen all there was to see regarding stones. That was before he came to Monsanto." (© J.Saramago “Journey to Portugal”)

Из них выросли дома, замки, крепости, ворота, церкви и башни... Они превратились в фундамент, стены, крыши и лестницы, стали основой для могил и колодцев с водой.

“Now it’s the castle’s turn. The gate is in on e corner surrounded by massive walls with arrow-slits protecting the way in.

Above the castle walls rise other walls: the boulders that are the true defense of this mountain, the indestructible shoulders of a fortress that men simply have to cover with pads of walls. Inside he feels pure astonishment. A comparison with the Cyclops is obvious, and the way they gathered heaps of boulders either because they enjoyed doing so, or to try to sink Ulysses’ ship. But there’s no ship here, and little pleasure, so the traveler is left unable to make comparisons, can simply assess his own almost unbearable disarray faces with these stones that emerge from the ground like bones, huge skulls, granite knuckles. He climbs to the top of the highest wall, and it is only here that he can feel breeze, a cold wind from the north; and it is perhaps this which brings tears to his eyes. What kind of people lived in this castle? What men, what woman could bear the weight of these walls, what words were shouted from tower to tower, or whispered on these staircases or at the rim of the well? This is the stronghold of Gualdim Pais, with his iron-shod feet and his pride as a master Templar. These walls are there ordinary people fought off assaults, wounded and bleeding. The traveler wants to hear explanations but only finds questions: Why this? What is it for? Can it simply be for me, a traveler to be here today? Can things have such a flimsy reason for being? Or is that the only reason they have?” (© J.Saramago “Journey to Portugal”)

И были войны. И были битвы. И была инквизиция...

Замок превратился в руины. Стены и крыши рухнули. Дома опустели.

“The traveler has already said that he was not particularly looking for churches.

But now he stumbles across one, although it has nothing more to offer him than four bare walls and is roofless. This is the chapel of St. Michael. It’s set in a hollow, in the midst of boulders all the same color that seem to form their own chapels. The traveler hesitates: should he head first for the castle, which is on his right, or for the ruined temple, on the left? He decides on the latter.

He walks down a rock-strewn path. The chapel porch is plain and deep; the chapel itself is on a lower level than the threshold. To enter it is like entering a crypt; this feeling must have been even more intense then the chapel had a roof and the only light came from candles or through the small high window. Now the nave is open to the skies. Grass grows on the earthern floor and on fragments of sculpted stone. The traveler has already accumulated a long list of ruins, but this chapel, despite being so obviously another one, somehow resists being categorized as such. It’s as though the chapel of St Michael has nothing missing.

It was built as a place of worship, and functioned as such, but this was its true destiny, to be simply four walls exposed to rain and sun, to be covered in moss and lichens, silence and solitude. On the northern wall there are two empty niches, and on the ground the tombs have lost their lids and are half full of water. To the east is the mountainside and as far as the eye can see, the valley of the River Ponsul and the slopes of Monfortinho. The traveler is happy. He has never felt in less of a hurry. He sits on the edge of one of the tombs, touches the chill, fresh water with his fingertips and just for a second believes he can unravel all the secrets of the universe. This is an illusion that grips him only very occasionally, so don’t think too harshly of him.” (© J.Saramago “Journey to Portugal”)

Но камни остались... Живые, но неподвижные они продолжают свой тихий разговор...

“He leaves the castle and walks back down the hillside to the village. Old men and women are sitting at their doorsteps, in the Portuguese way. They too are part of the reason. Take a man, take a stone, man, stone, stone, man, if there were time to take them and tell all their stories, to tell them and to listen, to listen and tell, once you’ve learned their common tongue, the essential I, the essential you, buries beneath all the tons of history and of culture, so that just like the boulders in the castle, the entire body of Portugal would emerge from the ground. Oh, the traveler dreams and dreams, but never gets beyond that, and soon the dreams are forgotten, as they are now when he leaves the hills and looks back up at Monsanto, all solitude, wind and silence.” (© “Journey to Portugal” J. Saramago)

И «дом с одной черепицей» :)