Journey to Portugal by José Saramago

The traveller has little clear memory of Póvoa de Varzim beyond a general sense of passing confusion, searching for the right road, buildings scattered along the beach like building blocks in a child's game and, somewhere along the way, a crazily ceramic-tiled house, a mosaic of every colour and shape in the universe. And when he reached A-Ver-o-Mar, of smooth name and contemplative aspect, it must have been his fault that he chose the wrong moment: the beach was teeming with millions of flies, swarming over strewn fish innards, gelatinous weeds and all sorts of disgusting garbage. The cubatas, the stone supports for the straw thatching with a collar of thick, irregular pearls, were a sight to be seen but, once seen, there was nothing further to observe. And so the traveller continued on, with a sufficient degree of self-criticism to suspect that the blame for this dissatisfaction should rest with Junqueira, at that irrecoverable hour on a November afternoon which would never return.

And, since he had seen something of the world and of life, he also knew that while going to visit Agucadoura at this hour of the morning to view the campos-masseiras, Sleeping Beauty's garden would be bathed in a different light and smell, someone would be sweeping up the leaves for the compost bin and, as a final indignity, the enigmatic young lady of the convent would now be ordering the maids around and shouting at the poor unfortunate who dropped the teapot. The traveller is also aware of other matters: he knows, for example, how to retain in his memory the indestructible image, forever and as long as he lives, of Sleeping Beauty's palace.