The gloom had bleached the skin to the colour of damp
ivory, and against the background of his immobility they moved with
a certain amazing monstrousness, interminably. No, they were never
still. One wondered what they could be at. Surely he could not have
had enough work now to keep those insatiable hands so monstrously in
motion. Even far into the night. Tap-tap-tap! Blows continuous and
powerful. On what? On nothing? On the bare iron last? And for what
purpose? To what conceivable end?
Well, one could imagine those arms, growing paler, also growing
thicker and more formidable with that unceasing labour; the muscles
feeding themselves omnivorously on their own waste, the cords
toughening, the bone-tissues revitalizing themselves without end.
One could imagine the whole aspiration of that mute and motionless
man pouring itself out into those pallid arms, and the arms taking it
up with a kind of blind greed. Storing it up. Against a day!
"That _cachorra_! One day--"
What were the thoughts of the man? What moved within that motionless
cranium covered with long hair? Who can say? Behind everything, of
course, stood that bitterness against the world--the blind
world--blinder than he would ever be. And against "that _cachorra_.
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