that put the pen in my hand
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que me põem a penna na mão.
that put the pen in my hand.
that put the pen in my hand.
The sentence closes on a fine image of compulsion: 'os motivos que me põem a penna na mão' — the motives that put the pen in my hand. He does not quite say that he chose to write; he says the reasons place the pen in his fingers, as if the writing were something done to him, a thing his circumstances press upon him. There is modesty in the figure — the reluctant author, moved by forces rather than vanity — but there is also a quiet disclaiming of responsibility that is worth marking in a narrator who will spend the book insisting he is more acted upon than acting, more sinned against than sinning. The pen in the hand recurs: within a page it will be trembling with the pleasure of an idea. For now the image simply grounds the abstract 'motives' in a body, a hand, a physical man — and readies us for the answer to the question the whole chapter poses, which is why, at the end of a shut-in life, this particular hand should reach for this particular pen.
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