Chronicles of time

Revolutions are like this: they are quick to reveal two characteristic types: the opportunistic "revolutionaries," a jabbering crowd, a legion of mediocrities, intermediaries of ready-made ideas, a bunch seeking to exploit the confusion for personal gain, who scream that they are victims of the past, and who wander about, wielding knife and fork, starving for positions; and the true revolutionaries, those of collective sense, firm ideas, constructive conceptions, the future.
The geniuses of our Square – in the arts, in literature, in journalism, in politics – seem, poor things, to have been unemployed since April 25, 1974. One only needs to look around (where are they?), one only needs to know how to read (what do they write?), enough, enough, enough.
Vera Lagoa, that very one. The one of the "misses." The one of the "gossip." The one of the frivolities of the past, of April 24. The one who invented the daily superfluous in a country where, for 48 years, invention was forbidden. What tremendous risks the Revolution brought her, what dangers she faced when the coffee-house talents blossomed, when all our little geniuses flourished in the strong sun of Liberty, the shackles of fascism broken; no longer with long dresses, no sequins for women, no dinners, no hand-kissing – what would become of "poor" Vera Lagoa in the Revolution, when the geniuses of the arts, of literature, of the sciences, of journalism, created, wrote, invented, chronicled in freedom?
Time, which forgives nothing, which dares to challenge marble columns let alone hearts of wax, has already provided part of the answer. In "Tempo," where these chronicles that you are now reading were published. Without long dresses, without misses, without sequins, without dinners, without hand-kissing. But in flesh and blood, in democracy and freedom, in courage, in People. The People who, week after week, read Vera Lagoa in the communion of a simple, solid, direct, free language – as simple as stones, as solid as trees, as direct as democracy, as free as freedom.