The Stone Raft (Harvest Book) Read Online Free PDF Page B

so that people could see how a simple man can be more sensitive than, all the seismologists in the world put together. As luck would have it, a journalist listened to what he had to say, either out of heartfelt sympathy or because he was intrigued by the unusual occurrence, and this latest scoop was summed up in four lines, and, although there were no pictures, the news was given on television that night, with a cautious smile. Next day, Portuguese television, lacking any material of its own, took up the man's story and developed it further by interviewing a specialist in psychic phenomena who, to judge from his one important statement, could add nothing to what was already known on the subject, As in all situations of this kind, everything depends on one's sensibility.
    Much has been said here about causes and effects, taking great care to weigh the facts, proceed logically, be guided by common sense, and reserve any judgment, for it must be clear to all that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It is only natural and right, therefore, that we should doubt that the line drawn on the ground by Joana Carda with an elm branch was the direct cause of the Pyrenees' cracking open, which is what has been insinuated from the beginning. But one cannot deny this other fact, which is entirely true, that Joaquim Sassa went off in search of Pedro Orce after having heard his name mentioned in the evening news bulletin, and having listened to what he had to say.

 
     
     
     
     
    A loving mother, Europe was saddened by the misfortune of her westernmost lands. Along the entire Pyrenean cordillera, the granite split open, the cracks multiplied, other roads appeared to have been severed, other streams and torrents sank into the depths until they disappeared. Seen from the air, a continuous black line suddenly opened up on the snowcapped peaks like a trail of dust, where the snow was sliding and disappearing with the white sound of a tiny avalanche. The helicopters came and went incessantly, observing the summits and valleys aswarm with experts and specialists of every kind who might prove to be useful, geologists, these present of their own accord, although their habitual domain was currently obstructed, seismologists, perplexed, because the earth insisted on remaining firm, without so much as a tremor, not even a vibration, and also volcanologists, secretly hopeful, despite the clear sky, free of any signs of smoke or fire, the perfect, blue glaze of an August sky. The trail of smoke was merely a comparison, and we should never take comparisons literally, this or any other, unless we learn to treat them with caution. Human strength could do nothing on behalf of a cordillera that was opening up like a pomegranate, with no apparent suffering, and simply, who are we to know, because it had matured and its time had come. Only forty-eight hours after Pedro Orce had said what he said on television, it was no longer possible to cross the frontier at any point from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, either on foot or by surface transport. And in the low-lying coastlands, the seas, each
from its own side, began to find their way into new channels, mysterious unknown gorges, increasingly deeper, with those sheer walls, dropping vertically all the way, the clean cut exposing the arrangement of ancient and modern strata, the synclines, the intercalations of clay, the conglomerates, the extensive concretions of soft limestone and sandstone, the beds of shale, the black, siliceous rocks, the granites, and all the rest, which cannot be listed here because of the narrator's lack of knowledge and time. Now we know what reply should have been given to the Galician who asked, Where does this water go. It ends up in the sea, we should tell him, transformed into the finest rain, into dust, into a waterfall, depending on the height from which it drops and on the amount of water, no, no we are not talking about the Irati, that is some distance away,