My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tambours I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.
— Pessoa
One day, when all knowledge ceases, the door beyond will open and everything that we were - a mere detritus of stars and souls – will be swept from the house in order that whatever remains may begin again.
My heart aches as if it were not mine. My brain lulls to sleep everything I feel.
Yes, it is the beginning of autumn that touches both the air and my soul with the same unsmiling light that edges with dull yellow the hazy contours of the few clouds at sunset. Yes, it is the beginning of autumn and, in this limpid hour, the beginning of a clear understanding of the anonymous inadequacy of all things.
The autumn, yes, the autumn, as it is and always will be: an anticipation of weariness in every gesture, of disillusionment with every dream. What possible hopes can I have?
In my thoughts, I already walk amongst the leaves and dust of the atrium, caught up in this senseless orbit around nothing, my footsteps the only human sound on the clean flagstones that an angular sun - from where I know not - burnishes with death.
…In the dark depths of my soul, invisible unknown forces engaged in a battle in which my being was the battleground, and the whole of me was shaken by this secret struggle. With my waking was born a physical nausea for all of life. A horror at having to live awoke and sat up with me in bed.
Everything rang hollow to me and I was filled with the cold realization that every problem, whatever it might be, would prove insoluble.
Down the steps of my dreams and my weariness, descend from your unreality, descend and be my substitute for the world.
You can find this poetic passage in Fernando Pessoa’s dreamlike book—The Book of Disquiet
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