The Collected Novels Of José Saramago - Plot & Excerpts
His lack of experience of the necessary techniques meant that he mistook the proportions of plaster and water needed for making the mold piece, made everything worse by getting the wrong quantities of clay, water, and deflocculant to make a balanced mixture for the casting slip, and then poured the resulting mixture in far too quickly, thus creating air bubbles inside the mold. The first three days were spent making and unmaking, despairing over his mistakes, cursing his own clumsiness and trembling with joy whenever some delicate operation turned out well. Marta offered to help, but he asked her, please, to leave him in peace, a turn of phrase that bore very little resemblance to the reality inside the old workshop, what with plasters that hardened too soon and water added too late, what with clay that wasn’t dry enough and slips that were too thick to be sieved, it would have been far nearer the truth if he had said, Just leave me in peace to wage my own war. On the morning of the fourth day, as if the mischievous, slippery goblins, which were the various materials he was using, had repented of their cruel treatment of this unexpected beginner in the new art, Cipriano Algor began to find softnesses where before he had found only harshness, docilities that filled him with gratitude and secrets that willingly unveiled themselves to him.
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