He sang, in a soft and gentle voice, a song from a faraway country. The music made the strange words familiar. It sounded like the soul’s fado,* though it didn’t in the least resemble fado.

Through its veiled words and human melody, the song told of things that are in the hearts of us all and that no one knows. He sang in a kind of stupor, a kind of ecstasy right there in the street, his gaze oblivious to his listeners.

The crowd that had gathered listened to him without any discernible scoffing. The song belonged to everyone, and the words sometimes spoke to us – an oriental secret of some lost race. We didn’t hear the city’s noises, even if we heard them, and the carts passed by so close that one of them brushed against my coat. But I only felt it; I didn’t hear it. There was a rapt intensity in the stranger’s song that was soothing to what in us dreams or doesn’t succeed. It was a street incident, and we all noticed the policeman slowly turning the corner. He approached with the same slow gait, then stood still for a while behind the boy selling umbrellas, as if something had caught his eye. That’s when the singer stopped. No one said anything. Then the policeman intervened.