The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 79

He returned a week later. The floodwaters had begun to recede. Honorio, the Sardelinha sisters, and the half-dozen laborers who no worked for them were dejected, but Antonio took this latest catastrophe calmly. He inventoried what had been salvaged, made calculations in a little notebook, and raised their spirits by telling them that he still had many debts to collect and that like a cat he had too many lives to live to feel defeated by one flood.