I'm going to clean out the kiln, said Cipriano Algor when he got home. The dog Found's previous experiences made him think that his master was about to sit down again on the bench of meditations, the poor man's mind must still be clouded with conflicts, his life turned upside down, and it is on just such occasions that dogs are most needed, when they sit before us with the infallible question in their eyes, Do you need help, and although, at first glance, it might seem beyond the ken of an animal like that to offer a remedy for pain, anxiety and other human afflictions, perhaps it is only because we are incapable of perceiving what lies beyond our humanity, as if other afflictions in the world only have a tangible reality if they can be measured by our standards or, put more simply, as if only what is human existed. Cipriano Algor did not sit down on the stone bench, he walked straight past it, then, having drawn back, one after the other, the three great bronze bolts installed at different heights, at the top, in the middle and at the bottom, he opened the kiln door, which creaked gravely on its hinges. After the first few days of sensorial investigations, which had satisfied his immediate curiosity as a newcomer, the dog Found had shown no further interest in the kiln. It was a brick structure, old and crudely built, with a high, narrow door, it was a building with no known use and where no one lived, with three things on the top like chimneys, but which were obviously not chimneys, since the provoking smell of food had never once issued forth from them. And now the door had unexpectedly opened and his master had gone inside as nonchalantly as if he were entering his house, just like the other house over there. On principle and as a precautionary measure, a dog should always bark at any surprises life throws at him, because he has no way of knowing beforehand if the good surprises could turn bad or the bad cease to be what they were, therefore Found barked and barked, first out of concern when his master appeared to vanish into the shadowy depths of the kiln, then out of joy to see him emerge whole and with a changed look on his face, these are the small miracles of love, for caring about what you do also deserves that name. When Cipriano Algor went back into the kiln, this time wielding a broom, Found was not in the least concerned, for, when you think about it, a master is in some ways like the sun and the moon, we must be patient when he disappears and wait for time to pass, a dog, of course, will be unable to say whether a long time or a short time has passed, for he cannot distinguish between such periods as an hour and a week, between a month and a year, for such an animal there is only absence and presence. During the cleaning of the kiln, Found made no attempt to go in, he moved to one side to avoid the shower of small fragments of fired clay and shards from broken pots expelled by the broom, and lay down, his head between his paws. He seemed absorbed, half-asleep, but even a person inexperienced in canine ways would know, if only from the furtive manner in which the dog occasionally opened and closed his eyes, that the dog Found was simply waiting. Once the task of cleaning was done, Cipriano Algor left the kiln and went over to the pottery. As long as he remained in view, the dog did not move, then he slowly got up, advanced with outstretched neck toward the kiln door and looked in. It was a strange, empty house with a vaulted ceiling, utterly devoid of furniture or decoration and lined with off-white slabs, but what most impressed Found's nose was the extreme dryness of the air inside, as well as the pungency of the one perceptible smell, the final smell of an infinite process of calcination, and do not be surprised by that flagrant and conscious contradiction between final and infinite, for we are dealing here not with human sensations, but with what it was humanly practicable for us to imagine a dog might have felt on entering an empty kiln for the first time. Contrary to what one would naturally expect, Found did not mark the new place with urine. It is true that he began to do as instinct ordered him, it is true that he did threateningly raise one leg, but he controlled himself and stopped at the very last moment, perhaps terrified by the surrounding mineral silence, by the rough construction of the place, by the whitish, phantasmagorical color of walls and floor, perhaps, more simply, it was because he thought his master might react violently if the kingdom, throne and dossal of the fire, the crucible in which the ordinary clay dreams of being turned into a diamond, were found to be sullied by urine. With the hairs along his back bristling, with his tail between his legs, as if he had been spurned and driven far away, the dog Found left the kiln. He could not see either of his owners, the house and the countryside looked utterly empty, and the mulberry tree, though this was doubtless merely the effect of the sun's angle of incidence, seemed to cast a strange shadow that lay on the ground as if it had been cast by an entirely different tree. Contrary to the general view, dogs, however well cared for and however kindly treated, do not have an easy life, first, because they have not as yet reached a satisfactory understanding of the world into which they were born, and, second, because that difficulty is continually exacerbated by the contradictory and unstable behavior of the human beings with whom they share, if we may put it like that, house, food, and occasionally bed. His master has disappeared, his mistress is nowhere to be seen, so the dog Found vents his melancholy and his full bladder on the stone bench whose only use is as a place of meditation. It was then that Cipriano Algor and Marta emerged from the pottery. Found ran to meet them, it is at moments like this that he has the feeling that he is finally going to understand everything, that feeling did not last, however, it never does, his master bawled at him, Get out of here, his mistress, alarmed, shouted, Down, boy, there really is no fathoming these people, only afterward will the dog Found notice that each of his owners is carrying some clay figures balanced on small planks, three apiece and three on each plank, you can imagine how disastrous it would have been if they hadn't reined in his enthusiasm in time. The funambulists move toward the long drying shelves which, for weeks now, have been empty of plates, mugs, cups, saucers, bowls, jugs, jars, pitchers, pots, and other ornaments for house and garden. These six dolls, which are going to dry in the open air, protected by the shade of the mulberry tree, but touched occasionally by the sun that slips in and out between the leaves, are the advance guard of a new occupation, that of hundreds of identical figures whose serried ranks will fill the long shelves, one thousand two hundred figurines, six times two hundred according to their earlier calculations, but the calculations were wrong, the joy of victory is not always a good counselor, these potters, despite their three generations of experience, seem to have forgotten that, since even scissors can eat the cloth they cut, it is vital to allow some margin for losses, a piece can fall or break, can become distorted, can contract too much or too little, can crack under heat because it was poorly made, can emerge badly fired because of the faulty circulation of hot air, and to all of this, which is directly related to the physical contingencies of a craft that has much to do with alchemy, that, as we know, is not an exact science, to all of this, as we were saying, must be added the rigorous examination to which, as is only to be expected, the Center, not to mention that assistant head of department who seems to have it in for them, will subject each of the dolls. Cipriano Algor only thought of these two threats, one definite and one potential, when he was sweeping out the kiln, that's the good thing about the association of ideas, they draw each other out, one after the other, the skill lies in not losing the thread, in understanding that a shard of pottery on the ground is not only what it is at present, it is also what it was in the past when it was something else, as well as what it might become in the future.