Henrique Dinis da Gama - Loanda - Cidade Alta

Before going to bed, he looked out the living room window at Bahia and Porto.

Despite his tiredness, he remained meditating on the city, now quite different from the one he had found upon his arrival in 1906. The Salvador Correia High School already had its own facilities, the Avenida do Hospital climbing the gentle slope, the Port, a project that had been undertaken by his company, the National Cinema-Theatre—what a undertaking! The urbanization and sanitation, so many battles he had fought through the press when he was at the helm of the City Council's plans! He could hardly imagine that the city had also grown by his hand: he had extended the Upper City. And the Luanda he had conquered, the one in whose house he had entertained himself until dawn, now inhabited this new neighborhood. More than ever, the city offered them a blessed future. Hadn't he already decided that this beloved land would devour his bones? And what destiny did it hold for his native Lisbon?

He fell into a deep sleep in his armchair. Remnants of clownish makeup gave her corpulence the opposite meaning of the joviality she had achieved under the mask that mocked the Bey of Tunis.