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The first act of the play is over, the scenery has been removed, the actors are resting from their exertions in the final climactic scene. Not a single piece of pottery made by the Algor family remains in the Center's warehouses, apart from a scattering of red dust on the shelves, it is always as well to recall that the cohesive nature of matter is not eternal, if the continual rubbing of time's invisible fingers can so easily destroy marble and granite, what will it not do to mere clay of precarious composition and doubtless the product of somewhat hit-and-miss firing. marçal Gacho went unrecognized in the buying department thanks to the beret and dark glasses he was wearing, not to mention his unshaven face, which he had deliberately left unshaven in order to make his protective disguise still more effective, since among the various distinguishing characteristics of a Center security guard is a perfect, closely shaven chin. The assistant head of department was, however, puzzled by the suddenly improved mode of transport, a logical feeling for a person who had more than once allowed himself an ironic smile at the sight of Cipriano Algor's ancient van, but what was surprising, to say the least, was the barely contained irritation evident in his eyes and in his face when Cipriano Algor informed him that he had come to take away the rest of the crockery, All of it, the man asked, All of it, replied the potter, I've brought a truck and someone to help me. If this demonstrably ill-natured assistant head of department were to have any kind of future in the story we have been following, we would probably eventually get around to asking him to explain what lay behind his feelings on that occasion, that is, to explain the underlying reason for his clearly illogical annoyance, which he either made no attempt to hide or else was simply incapable of doing so. He would doubtless try to fob us off by saying, for example, that he had grown used to Cipriano Algor's daily visits and, although he could not in all honesty say that they were friends, he had grown rather fond of him, especially given the poor man's distinctly inauspicious professional situation. A barefaced lie, of course, since if we go beyond merely uncovering the depths and excavate the even lower depths, we will see that his sense of exasperation betrayed his frustration at losing that most perverse of pleasures, that of gloating over other people's misfortunes even when one stands to gain nothing from them oneself. On the pretext that the work would take too long and that they would get in the way of other suppliers unloading their goods, the ghastly man even tried to stop them loading the truck, but Cipriano Algor, as the eloquent phrase has it, dug his heels in, and asked who then would pay for the hire of the truck if they had to turn back, he demanded to be given the complaints book, and his final, desperate gambit was to say that he would not leave until he had spoken to the head of the buying department. Any book on elementary applied psychology, in the chapter on behavior, will tell you that nasty people are often cowards, and so we should not be too surprised that the assistant head of department's fear of being overruled in public by his hierarchical superior produced an instantaneous change of attitude. He made some rude comment to cover up his feelings of humiliation, then disappeared into the back of the warehouse and remained there until the truck, fully loaded up, had left the basement. Neither Cipriano Algor nor marçal Gacho sang a victory song, either literally or figuratively, they were too tired to waste what was left of their breath on trills and congratulations, the older man merely said, He'll make our lives a misery when we deliver the other merchandise, he'll examine the dolls with a magnifying glass and reject them by the dozen, and the younger man said that, yes, he might, but it was by no means certain, and, besides, it was the head of the buying department who was in charge, at least we've solved one problem, Pa, and we'll deal with the next one when it arises, that's how life should be, when one person loses heart, the other must have heart and courage enough for both. They had parked the van on a nearby street corner, and it would stay there until they returned from unloading the last bits of crockery in the hollow near the river, then they would return the truck to the garage and, finally, as dusk was falling, they would arrive home, exhausted, more dead than alive, one because he had grown too used to walking the smooth corridors of the Center and had thus lost the healthy habit of physical effort, the other because of the all too familiar disadvantages of age. The dog Found will come down the road to meet them, leaping and barking the way dogs do, and Marta will be waiting at the door. She will ask, So, is it all taken care of then, and they will say, yes, it's all taken care of, and then all three of them are bound to think or feel, always assuming that there is some imbalance or contradiction between feeling and thinking, that the part that has just finished is the same part that is now impatient to begin, that the first, second, and third acts, whether in the theater or in life, are always part of one play. It is true that some of the props have been removed from the stage, but the clay from which the new props will be made is the same as yesterday's clay, and the actors, when they wake tomorrow from their sleep in the wings, will place their right foot in front of the mark made by their left foot, then place the left foot in front of the right, and, do what they will, they will not depart from that path. Despite marçal's exhaustion, he and Marta will repeat, as if it were the first time, the gestures, movements, groans, and sighs of love. And the words too. Cipriano Algor will sleep dreamlessly in his bed. Tomorrow morning, as usual, he will take his son-in-law to work. Perhaps, on the way back, he will have a look at the hollow by the river, for no particular reason, not even out of curiosity, he knows exactly what is there, but despite that, he might nevertheless walk to the edge of the hollow and, if he does, he will look down and wonder if he should cut a few more branches in order to camouflage the pots and plates more effectively, it is as if he did not want anyone to know about them, as if he wanted the pots to stay there, hidden, stored away, until the day when they are needed again, ah, how difficult it is to separate ourselves from what we have made, be it reality or a dream, even if we have actually destroyed it with our own hands.