Literature, contrary to what it may seem, does not need readers in order for it to survive. In fact, it does not need any readers, ever—a handful of true artists is enough. As long as there is someone, like Pessoa, who sees in Antero a brother in spirit, literature will endure. And it does not matter that humanity does not know these men, that the overwhelming majority will never hear a word about them: all it takes is for one of them to be born, and fulfill the mission of putting another link in the chain.
The Flame of Vocation
Perhaps it is really impossible to explain to an imbecile indoctrinated in psychoanalysis, who has devoted his entire life to the meanest interests, cultivated the most futile relationships, and has never witnessed a noble act, a courageous act of assumption that goes against what is convenient what this flame is, this active impulse that, once manifested in the spirit, draws a dividing line in the life of the one who experiences it. And it is also inevitable that a subject like the former uses the lens he possesses to judge others’ actions: how else could he do it? So the insult itself is inevitable, and perhaps has to be forgiven because it originates from an involuntary and insurmountable misunderstanding. On one side, we have an unbreakable resolution, a spirit willing to the ultimate consequences and to give up everything for the mission that seems to him the purpose of existence; we have a transformation sometimes so complete that it nullifies any identification with the past. On the other side, we have an ordinary man.
There Is Nothing More Comfortable for the Inconsequent…
There is nothing more comfortable for the inconsequent, the coward, the immature and the scoundrel than Freud’s ideas, which attribute human action either to an uncontrollable impulse or to unconscious conditioning, always exempting the individual from responsibility for his own actions. The fault, then, is never in the being that deliberately chooses, because he can never do so, since he is dominated by superior forces from which he can never free himself. Freud’s enormous success stems mainly from the fact that he greatly stimulated the human propensity to victimization, which is infinitely more comfortable than the thankless path of maturity. If psychoanalysis were not obscene, it would be fair to compare it to a grandmother incapable of giving her innocent grandchild any treatment other than that of rubbing her hand on his head and giving him a piece of sponge cake.
The Intelligence That Is Manifested by the Style
It is curious how translations, no matter how faithful they are to the meaning of the text, no matter how grammatically correct, almost always fail to transmit the style, or rather the intelligence that is manifested by the style of an author. There is something almost always untranslatable from one language to another, which is the creative organization of the sentences that exploits not only the syntax, but also the particular semantics of the language being spoken in. Thus, the translation most often sounds strange when the translator prudently chooses to convey the meaning to the detriment of the translated author’s style. To do otherwise, one must allow oneself a freedom that will be in trouble to free itself from falsification.