Cathedral of the Sea полностью

“One bastaix, one stone,” Arnau repeated to himself when the first bastaix and the first stone came past him on their way down the mountain. He and Ramon had reached the spot where the stonecutters were cutting the huge blocks. He looked at his companion’s taut, tense face. Arnau smiled, but his fellow bastaix did not respond: the time for jokes and pleasantries was over. Nobody was laughing or talking now; they were all staring at the heap of stones on the ground. They all had the leather thongs fixed tightly round their foreheads; Arnau slipped his over his head. The bastaixos were coming past him now, one by one. They were silent, and did not wait for the next one. The group around the stones was growing smaller all the time. As Arnau stared at the stones, he could feel his stomach wrench. A bastaix bent over, and two laborers lifted a block of stone onto his back. Arnau could see him flinch under the weight. His knees were knocking! The man stood still for a few moments, straightened up, then walked past Arnau on his way down to Santa Maria. My God, he was three times as strong as Arnau, and yet his legs had almost given way! How was he going to...?

“Arnau,” called out the guild aldermen.

There were still a few bastaixos waiting. Ramon pushed him forward.

“You can do it,” he said.

The three aldermen were talking to one of the stonecutters. He kept shaking his head. The four of them were surveying the pile of stones, pointing here and there, and then shaking their heads again. Standing by the pile, Arnau tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. He was shaking: he had to stop! He moved his hands, then extended his arms backward and forward. He could not allow them to see him trembling!

Josep, one of the aldermen, pointed to a stone. The stonecutter shrugged, glanced at Arnau, shook his head once more, and then waved to the masons to pick it up. “They’re all the same,” he had told the bastaixos over and over.

Seeing the two masons approaching with the stone, Arnau went up to them. He bent over and tensed all the muscles in his body. Everyone fell silent. The masons slowly let go of the block and helped him grasp it with his hands. As the weight pressed down on him, he bent still farther over, and his legs started to buckle. He clenched his teeth and shut his eyes. “You can do it!” he thought he heard. In fact, nobody had said a word, but everyone had said it to themselves when they saw the boy’s legs wobble. “You can do it!” Arnau straightened under the load. A lot of the others gave a sigh of relief. But could he walk? Arnau stood there, his eyes still closed. Could he walk?

He put one foot forward. The weight of the block of stone forced him to push out the other foot, then the first one again ... and the other one a second time. If he stopped ... if he stopped, the stone would crush him.

Ramon took a deep breath and covered his face with his hands.

“You can do it, lad!” one of the waiting muleteers shouted.

“Go on, brave heart.”

“You can do it!”

“For Santa Maria!”

The shouting echoed off the walls of the quarry and accompanied Arnau as he set off on his own down the path to the city.

But he was not alone. All the bastaixos who set off after him soon caught up and made sure that they fell in with him for a few minutes, encouraging him and helping him on his way. As soon as another one reached them, the first would continue at his own pace.

Arnau could hardly hear what they said. He could scarcely even think. All his attention was on the foot that had to come from behind, and once he saw it moving forward and touching the ground under him, he concentrated on the other one; one foot after the other, overcoming the pain.

As he crossed the gardens of San Bertran, his feet seemed to take an eternity to appear. By now, all the other bastaixos had overtaken him. He remembered how when Joan and he used to give them water they would rest the block on the edge of a boat while they drank. Now he looked for something similar, and soon came across an olive tree. He rested the stone on one of its lower branches; he knew that if he left it on the ground, he would never be able to raise it again. His legs were stiff as boards.

“If you stop,” Ramon had advised him, “make sure your legs don’t go completely stiff. If they do, you won’t be able to carry on.”

So Arnau, freed from at least part of the weight, continued to move his legs. He took deep breaths. Once, twice, many times. “The Virgin will take part of the weight,” Ramon had told him. My God! If that was true, how much did his stone really weigh? He did not dare move his back. It hurt terribly. He rested for a good while. Would he be able to set off again? Arnau looked all around him. He was completely alone. Not even the mule drivers took this path, because they had to go down to the Trentaclaus gate.