him, turned left at the road, away from the village, and strode out into the countryside. Found did not leave his master's heels, he must have been remembering his unhappy times as a wanderer, when he was driven from farms and even denied the means to slake his thirst. Although he is not a fearful dog, although he is not afraid of the dark, he would much prefer to be lying down in his kennel right now, or, better still, curled up in the kitchen at the feet of one of those three people, he does not say this out of indifference, as if it didn't matter, because he would keep the other two within sight and smell, and because he could change places whenever he wanted without spoiling the harmony and happiness of the moment. It was not a long walk. The stone on which Cipriano Algor has just sat down will serve as his bench of meditations, that was why he left the house, if he had gone to the real bench, his daughter would have seen him from the kitchen door and it would not have been long before she came out to ask him if he was all right, such acts of consideration are gratefully received, but human nature is so strangely made that even the most sincere and spontaneous gestures of the heart can occasionally prove importunate. It is not worth describing what Cipriano Algor thought about because he had thought about it on other occasions and we have supplied more than enough information on the subject already. The only new thing here is that he allowed a few painful tears to run down his cheeks, tears that had been dammed up for a long, long time, always just about to be shed, but, as it turned out, they were being reserved for this sad hour, for this moonless night, for this solitude that has not yet resigned itself to being solitude. What was truly not a novelty, because it had happened before in the history of fables and in the history of the marvels of the canine race, was that Found went over to Cipriano Algor to lick his tears, a gesture of supreme consolation which, however touching it might seem to us, capable of touching hearts normally not given to displays of emotion, should not make us forget the crude reality that the salty taste of tears is greatly appreciated by most dogs. One thing, however, does not detract from the other, were we to ask Found if it was because of the salt that he licked Cipriano Algor's face, he would probably have replied that we do not deserve the bread that we eat, that we are incapable of seeing beyond the end of our own nose. There they stayed for more than two hours, the dog and his owner, each one immersed in his own thoughts, with no tears now for one to cry and the other to dry, waiting perhaps for the world to turn and to restore everything to its proper place, even those things which, up until now, had not found a place.
...
The following morning, as agreed, Cipriano Algor took the finished figurines to the Center. The others were already in the kiln, awaiting their turn. Cipriano Algor had gotten up early, while his daughter and son-in-law were still asleep, and when Marcal and Marta finally lurched into wakefulness and appeared at the kitchen door, most of the work had been done. They had breakfast together, making the usual polite noises, would you like more coffee, can you pass me the bread, there's jam if you'd like it, then Marcal went and helped his father-in-law complete the work and began the delicate task of placing the three hundred figurines in the boxes they used to use for transporting the crockery. Marta told her father that she would go with Marcal to his parents' house, they had to tell them about the imminent move, let's see how they react, but, whatever happened, they would not stay there for lunch, We'll probably be here when you get back from the Center, she concluded. Cipriano said that he would take Found with him, and Marta asked if he had been thinking of someone in the city when he said last night that he had a possible solution for the problem of the dog, and he said no, but it was worth thinking about, that way Found would at least be nearby, and they could see him whenever they wanted. Marta remarked that, to her certain knowledge, her father had no close friends in the city, not people trustworthy enough to merit, and she used the word merit deliberately, being given charge of a creature whom they, as a family, considered to be as worthy of respect as a person. Cipriano Algor replied that he did not recall ever having said that he had close friends in the city, and that the reason he was taking the dog with him was to distract himself from unwanted thoughts. Marta said that if he had such thoughts then he should share them with his daughter, who was there with him now, to which Cipriano Algor replied that talking to her about any thoughts he had would be a waste of time, because she was as familiar with them as he was himself, not word for word, of course, as if captured on tape, but she knew the underlying essence, and then she said that, in her humble opinion, the reality was quite different, she knew nothing about the underlying essence of his thoughts and, besides, many of the words he uttered were merely smoke screens, which, in a way, is hardly surprising, since words are often used for precisely that purpose, but it's worse still when the words remain unspoken and become a thick wall of silence, because, when confronted by such a wall, it's very hard to know what to do, Last night I sat up here waiting for you, Marcal went to bed after an hour, but I waited and waited, while you, my dear father, were off heaven knows where walking the dog, We went into the countryside somewhere, Ah, yes, the countryside, there's nothing nicer than going for a walk in the countryside at night, when you can't even see where you're putting your feet, You should have gone to bed, That's what I did in the end, before I turned into a statue, So that's all right then, there's nothing more to be said, No, it's not all right, Why not, Because you robbed me of what I most wanted at that moment, And what was that, To see you come back, that's all, just to see you come back, One day you'll understand, Well, I certainly hope so, but no more words, please, I'm sick of words. Marta's eyes shone with tears, Take no notice, she said, it seems that when we fragile women are pregnant, we don't know how else to behave, we experience everything too intensely. Marcal called from the yard to say that he had finished loading and that his father-in-law could leave whenever he wanted, Cipriano Algor left the house, got into the van, and called to Found. The dog, who had never even imagined the possibility of such good fortune, leaped up beside his master and sat there, smiling, his mouth open and his tongue lolling, thrilled at the prospect of the journey about to begin, in this, as in so many other things, human beings are very like dogs, they pin all their hopes on what might appear around the corner, and then say, oh, well, we'll see what happens next. When the van disappeared behind the first houses, Marcal asked, Did you have a fight, Oh, it's the usual problem, if we don't talk, we're unhappy, if we do talk, we disagree, We have to be patient, it doesn't take twenty-twenty vision to see that your father feels as if he were living on an island that is getting smaller with each day that passes, one piece gone, then another piece, right now, he's just driven off to take the figurines to the Center, then he'll come back home and light the kiln, but he's doing all these things as if he didn't quite know why any more, as if he wished some insurmountable object would place itself in his path so that he could at last say, that's it, it's over, Yes, I think you're probably right, Well, I don't know if I'm right or not, I'm just trying to put myself in his position, in a week's time everything we can see around us now will lose much of its meaning, the house will still be ours, but we won't live in it, the kiln won't deserve the name of kiln if someone doesn't call it that every day, the mulberry tree will still produce its mulberries, but there will be no one to come and pick them, I wasn't born and brought up under this roof, but even for me it's not going to be easy to leave all this, so for your father, We'll often come back, Yes, to our house in the country, as he ironically referred to it, Is there any other solution, asked Marta, you could stop being a guard and come and work with us in the pottery, making pottery that no one wants or figurines that no one is going to want for very long, The way things are, there's only one solution for me, to be a resident guard at the Center, You've got what you wanted, That was when I thought it was what I wanted, And now, Recently I've learned from your father something I didn't know before, you may not have noticed, but it is my duty to warn you that the man you are married to is much older than he seems, That's not news to me, I've had the privilege of witnessing the aging process, said Marta, smiling. But then her face grew grave, It's true, though, my heart aches at the thought of having to leave all this. They were sitting together under the mulberry tree on one of the drying shelves, opposite them was the house with the pottery beside it, if they turned their heads slightly, they could see the open door of the kiln through the foliage, it's a lovely sunny morning, but cool, perhaps the weather is changing. They felt good, despite their sadness, they felt almost happy, in that melancholy way in which happiness sometimes chooses to manifest itself, but suddenly Marcal got up from the drying shelf and cried, Oh, no, I'd forgotten, my parents, we have to go and talk to my parents, I'll bet you anything you like that they'll start going on and on about how they should be the ones to come with us to the Center and not your father, They probably won't if I'm there, it's a question of politeness, of good taste, Well, I certainly hope so, I certainly hope you're right.
She wasn't. When Cipriano Algor, on his return from taking the figurines to the Center, was driving through the village toward the house, he saw his daughter and son-in-law walking along ahead of him. Marcal had his arm around her shoulders as if to console her. Cipriano Algor stopped the van, Get in, he said, and he did not send Found to the back seat because he knew that they would want to be together. Marta was trying to brush away her tears, and Marcal was saying, Don't get upset, you know what they're like, if I'd known how they would react, I
