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S E V E N 114. As he grew older, Niko felt less and less like playing, and his daydreams were no longer an entertaining escape but rather the disconcerting echo of his loneliness. Being alone is one thing, but being aware of it is a problem, and being alone and aware of it is torture, he concluded. Niko had gone unnoticed for years since everyone was always too busy looking elsewhere. He only found company within himself. 115. The sole gaze under which Niko didn’t feel he was transparent was Gaspard’s. Without it ever being a conscious decision, Niko had become his son, his assistant, and his apprentice at the pottery-forge. He’d even been given tongs and a hammer so that he could replace his uncle should it be needed, a situation that occurred more and more frequently as the months went by, until the day when Niko realized he’d dropped out of school. Implicitly, it was understood that Gaspard would soon leave the forge in his hands to await death in a place that would suit his weakened body. 116. Everyone in the village took a stand for or against Niko as Gaspard’s successor in the workshop. The rare ones who accepted it did so primarily out of loyalty to Gaspard, whose appreciation demanded their own. Besides, they’d add as an excuse, it would be better for Niko to inherit a responsibility that was at one and the same time by far the most taxing and harmless, too. Deep inside his workshop by day, and exhausted in his bed the rest of the time, Niko would no longer bother anyone. But far more numerous were those who were offended that Niko should occupy 60 GILBERT GATORE such an important function. They found him much too eccentric and too much of a dilettante to be a reliable blacksmith and potter . But above all, how were they going to buy new tools and utensils from someone who couldn’t talk and thus couldn’t give them any of the recommendations that Gaspard offered? Wasn’t it outlandish to use hoes, sickles, pots, or machetes engraved with the idiotic designs or phrases with which Niko had begun to embellish every piece that passed through his hands? 117. Unaware of any of this, Gaspard was proud of Niko, and the latter applied himself to his work in the forge, happy to be able to display his imagination elsewhere. He didn’t just create functional objects. He wanted them to be as beautiful and interesting as possible. A pot that came from his workshop should be functional and beautiful, as well as interesting. To this end, and in addition to an impeccable finish, he engraved the objects with phrases. For example, on the blade of a machete: “The owner of this machete is the one who holds its handle.” He’d place the phrase in such a way that it was impossible to read it while holding the hilt. On hoes he liked to state that the master of the method is inferior to the master of the thing. He inscribed sickles with the saying that the blade isn’t fragile because it is thin. And on the pots he’d draw goats roasting men. He came up with many other ideas, and all of them ended up on one of the tools or utensils he produced. 118. Furious, people no longer bought anything from Niko, except for those on whom Gaspard still had enough influence that he could force them to come to his former workshop. Regardless of all this, Niko continued to churn out his articles, coating them with a product that prevented rusting and then storing them. 119. If an explorer were to get lost and reach the village, the first thing that would strike him would be the recurrent use of the name Niko in every conversation. Anywhere you’d go, people were constantly asking for news about him, asserting they’d run into him, insisting he was sick, and commenting on the phrases and designs he engraved on the objects he made. Undoubtedly, he would have noticed that, intermittently, it wasn’t just the name Niko they brought up, but Niko the Monkey. In an attempt to understand, the traveler would head for the pottery-forge. Beneath a wide roof supported by several pillars, he would find a furnace and in front of it [18.118.0.240] Project MUSE (2024...

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