The Cave by José Saramago

paper their six chosen types, using the classic grid method to enlarge them to the exact size the dolls would be once they had been fired, a hand span tall, not the span of her hand, which is small, but of her father's. Then came the business of coloring the drawings, this was complicated not because of any excessive care taken in the execution, but because they had to choose and combine colors which they did not know for certain would be right for the figures since the encyclopedia, illustrated in accordance with the printing technology of the time, contained minutely detailed copperplate engravings, but the only chromatic effects were apparent shades of gray achieved by printing black lines on the unvarying white of the paper. The easiest of all was, of course, the nurse. White hat, white blouse, white skirt, white shoes, all white white white, impeccably white, as if she were an angel of charity come down to earth with the mission of relieving suffering and mitigating pain until, eventually, another identically dressed angel had to be summoned urgently in order to mitigate and relieve her own pain and suffering. The Eskimo did not present any great problems either, the skins he wore could be painted half beige half gray, with a few whitish patches to imitate the skin of a bear turned inside out, the main thing was that the Eskimo should have the face of a real Eskimo, which is what he came into the world to be. As for the clown, the problems would be far greater, simply because he was poor. If, instead of being the miserable ragamuffin he is, he were a rich clown, any bright, cheerful color would do, with a random scattering of sequins on his conical hat, his shirt, and his trousers. But he is a poor clown, really poor, and wears a heterogeneous collection of rags showing neither taste nor judgment and patched from head to toe, a waistcoat that comes down to his knees, baggy trousers, a collar large enough to accommodate three necks, a bow tie that looks like a ceiling fan, a lurid shirt, and shoes as big as barges. All of this can be painted in whatever colors one chooses, because, since he is only a poor clown, no one is going to waste their time checking to see if the colors of this clay creation have the decency to respect the colors the poor man would have worn even when he was not working as a clown. The trouble is that this jack-of-all-trades is not actually going to be any easier to model than the hunter or the musketeer, which had seemed so problematic at the start. Moving from the clown to the jester will mean moving from similar to same, from alike to identical, from comparable to analogous. Though applied differently, the colors used on one can be used on another, and a couple of changes of costume will rapidly transform the jester into a clown and the clown into a jester. Strictly speaking, they almost duplicate each other as regards clothes and function, the only difference between them, from the social point of view, is that clowns do not usually visit the palaces of kings. The mandarin in his long gown and the Assyrian in his tunic will require no special attention either, a few touches to the Eskimo's eyes and he can serve as a Chinaman, and
the Assyrian's long, curly beard will make it easier to work on the lower part of the face. Marta made three series of drawings, the first totally faithful to the originals, the second stripped of all accessories, the third free of any superfluous detail. This would facilitate any examination of them by whichever Center official has the last word on the fate of the proposal, and, if the proposal is approved, it will perhaps make less likely, or so they hope, the possibility of any future complaints about a discrepancy between the drawing and the actual clay figure. Until Marta had moved on to the third series of drawings, Cipriano Algor had merely watched what was happening, frustrated because he could not help, all the more because he was aware that any intervention