Page 158 - Textos de Matemática Vol. 34

148 F. J. CRAVEIRO DE CARVALHO
both have a special affection for that class. And yet we can’t forgive them for not inviting us to the commemoration of their twenty-fifth anniversary at the University. We hope that they will not forget us, by then a bit touched by decrepitude, for their fiftieth.
After my return, our companionship grew and our academic careers ran parallel courses. For example, we ended up having sabbaticals the same year and in the same country, at the University of Sussex and Southampton. We discovered at the time a way to talk for free, using the university’s telephone systems, for an hour each Friday. And if we were found out, at least no one ever sent us the bill.
His management talents well recognized, Professor Sampio Martins performed tasks which were hugely important for the destiny of the Department of Mathema- tics. And he did so - I was a witness to this - with great dedication and personal force. He often flattered me by soliciting my opinion and I would like to evoke an episode which occurred during a period in which we worked closely together. Bluntly disagreeing with a proposal which he intended to present during a meeting, I decided not to show up for the first part of the meeting in order to avoid an embarrassing situation. Professor Sampaio Martins had the delicacy to have me called in right after the proposal had been discussed.
He was an excellent professor and the research which he engaged in throughout his career was of the highest quality. He published articles, for example, in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society, The Quarterly Journal of Mathematics and Annali di Matematica Pura ed Applicata.
He could have doubtlessly produced more. He did not do so certainly not for a lack of talent, but by choice. I always admired his refinement and knowledge, especially his mathematical knowledge, and the rapidity of his reasoning compared with the slowness of my own was always a fresh surprise for me, and was often verified when I would go to him with mathematical questions.
Having started by citing Paul Nizan, I will conclude by seizing on the idea of the two final lines of a poem by Helder Macedo (“Poesia” (1957 - 1968)): “When someone still so young chooses to retire, there’s hardly anything left for those who stay on.”
∗ After “Louvor e Simplifica¸c˜ao de A´lvaro de Campos”, by M´ario Cesariny de Vasconcelos.
(Translation by Martin Walter Earl)