António wonders how Tertuliano acquired his phone number and address. Meanwhile, Tertuliano and Maria get engaged to be married. Tertuliano sends the fake beard to António, who has not been able to stop thinking about their encounter. To this António responds, 'Well, I hope you enjoy those thirty-one minutes of personal, absolute, and exclusive identity, because that is all you will enjoy from now on.' The men agree that they have no reason to ever meet again, and Tertuliano leaves. Tertuliano gets up to leave, saying that he at least has the compensation of knowing that António will be the first to die, and that he will become the original in turn. António smugly informs Tertuliano that he was born a half-hour earlier, making him the original. Tertuliano says that he was born at two in the afternoon. He wants to know which of them is the 'original' and which the copy. António asks Tertuliano to clarify one more thing: the exact time he was born. Their voices are identical and they share the same scars and moles. Upon arrival, the men strip down and find that they are indeed physically identical. Tertuliano buys a fake beard and goes to meet António. They decide to meet at António's country home in a week. Initially, António dismisses Tertuliano and refuses to meet, but later contacts him and agrees. António's wife answers and mistakes Tertuliano's voice for her husband's. After acquiring the actor's phone number and address, Tertuliano stalks his double, António Claro, and eventually telephones him. His relationship with his girlfriend, Maria da Paz, suffers because he refuses to disclose his motives to her.

Posing as a film student and using his girlfriend's address, he sends a letter to the production company asking to be put in contact with the actor. Tertuliano becomes obsessed with meeting the actor and spends weeks discovering the actor's name. One day Tertuliano rents a movie recommended by a colleague and sees an actor who looks exactly like him. Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is a divorced high school history teacher who spends his nights reading about Mesopotamian civilizations. In Portuguese, the title is literally 'The Duplicated Man.' It was translated into English and published as The Double in 2004. The Double ( Portuguese: O Homem Duplicado) is a 2002 novel by Portuguese author José Saramago, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998.

The double jose saramago