Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) by Jose Rizal

Author:Jose Rizal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 32

THE CRANE

The yellow man was as good as his word. To lower the enormous granite slab he hadn’t built merely a simple crane over the open pit, a tripod from whose vertex Master Juan had wanted to hang a tackle-block, it was way beyond that: it was both machine and decoration, a gigantic, imposing decoration.

The confusing, complex scaffolding rose more than eight meters high: four thick logs sunk into the earth were its soul, held together by colossal beams crossed diagonally, which were themselves held together by thick spikes sunk halfway in, perhaps so that, the whole apparatus having a provisional character, it all - could be easily dismantled. Enormous cables stretched down on all sides, providing an air of solid grandiosity, and it was crowned by variously colored flags, floating banners, and monstrous garlands composed of artfully interwoven leaves and flowers.

Up above, in the shadows created by the logs, banners, and flags, hangs an extraordinary, three-wheeled tackle-block, held tightly by ropes and iron hooks, over whose shining edges three attached, even larger cables pass and hold suspended the enormous, full stone carved out of its center to form the excavation for the other rock already lowered into the pit, the tiny space destined to hold the history of that day, newspapers, writings, coins, and the like, and perhaps transmit them to distant generations. The cables descended from above to below, mirrored by another, no less thick tackle-block attached to the apparatus at its foot and twisting itself around the cylinder of a winch held to the earth thanks to thick beams. This winch, which could be set in motion by two controls, increases a man’s strength a hundredfold, thanks to the play of great cogs, though what one gains in force, one loses in speed.

“Look,” the yellow man said, turning the control. “Look, Master Juan, how with just my strength I can make this giant mass go up and down . . . it is so well disposed that at my will I can measure its ups and downs inch by inch in such a way that with complete ease a man at the edge can bring together both stones as I maneuver it from here.”

Master Juan could not but admire the man who smiled so strangely. A few curious people made comments and praised the yellow man.

“Who taught you about this machinery?” Master Juan asked him.

“My father, my late father,” he answered, with that strange smile.

“And to your father . . . ?”

“Don Saturnino, Don Crisóstomo’s grandfather.”

“I didn’t know that Don Saturnino . . .”

“Oh, he knew a lot of things! Not only did he flog everyone properly and keep his workers out in the sun, he could wake up sleepers and put the awake to sleep. In time you’ll see what my father taught me, you’ll see!”

The yellow man smiled, but in an odd way.

On a table covered by a Persian carpet lay the lead cylinder and the objects to be held in the type of

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