The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER XXXII 153
CHAPTER XXXII
The Derrick
The yellowish individual had kept his word, for it was no simple derrick that he had erected above the open
trench to let the heavy block of granite down into its place. It was not the simple tripod that Ñor Juan had
wanted for suspending a pulley from its top, but was much more, being at once a machine and an ornament, a
grand and imposing ornament. Over eight meters in height rose the confused and complicated scaffolding.
Four thick posts sunk in the ground served as a frame, fastened to each other by huge timbers crossing
diagonally and joined by large nails driven in only half-way, perhaps for the reason that the apparatus was
simply for temporary use and thus might easily be taken down again. Huge cables stretched from all sides
gave an appearance of solidity and grandeur to the whole. At the top it was crowned with many-colored
banners, streaming pennants, and enormous garlands of flowers and leaves artistically interwoven.
There at the top in the shadow made by the posts, the garlands, and the banners, hung fastened with cords and
iron hooks an unusually large three-wheeled pulley over the polished sides of which passed in a crotch three
cables even larger than the others. These held suspended the smooth, massive stone hollowed out in the center
to form with a similar hole in the lower stone, already in place, the little space intended to contain the records
of contemporaneous history, such as newspapers, manuscripts, money, medals, and the like, and perhaps to
transmit them to very remote generations. The cables extended downward and connected with another equally
large pulley at the bottom of the apparatus, whence they passed to the drum of a windlass held in place by
means of heavy timbers. This windlass, which could be turned with two cranks, increased the strength of a
man a hundredfold by the movement of notched wheels, although it is true that what was gained in force was
lost in velocity.
"Look," said the yellowish individual, turning the crank, "look, Ñor Juan, how with merely my own strength I
can raise and lower the great stone. It's so well arranged that at will I can regulate the rise or fall inch by inch,
so that a man in the trench can easily fit the stones together while I manage it from here."
Ñor Juan could not but gaze in admiration at the speaker, who was smiling in his peculiar way. Curious
bystanders made remarks praising the yellowish individual.
"Who taught you mechanics?" asked Ñor Juan.
"My father, my dead father," was the answer, accompanied by his peculiar smile.
"Who taught your father?"
"Don Saturnino, the grandfather of Don Crisostomo."
"I didn't know that Don Saturnino--"
"Oh, he knew a lot of things! He not only beat his laborers well and exposed them out in the sun, but he also
knew how to wake the sleepers and put the waking to sleep. You'll see in time what my father taught me,
you'll see!"
Here the yellowish individual smiled again, but in a strange way.
On a tame covered with a piece of Persian tapestry rested a leaden cylinder containing the objects that were to
be kept in the tomb-like receptacle and a glass case with thick sides, which would hold that mummy of an
epoch and preserve for the future the records of a past.