“…It was a dazzling morning in June, the morning brightness flooded unmoving through the streets—I was standing in the Rua Garrett at a display widow where the blinding light made me look at my reflection instead of the merchandise. …I was about to make my way inside through the shadowy funnels of my hands, when behind my reflection—it reminded me of a threatening storm shadow that changed the world—the figure of a tall man emerged. He stood still…his look strayed and finally fixed on me. We humans: what do we know of one another? …The stranger saw a gaunt man with graying hair, a narrow, stern face and dark eyes behind round lenses in gold frames. I cast a searching place at my reflection. …I looked like an arrogant misanthrope who looked down on everything human, a misanthrope with a mocking comment ready for every thing and everyone. That was the impression the smoking man must have gotten.

How wrong he was!” ~ Pascal Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon (77-78)