The Bessemer Converter (Nicolás Martínez Ortiz de Zárate, 1952)
Texto by Amaia Barrena García
Their naked muscles almost look like geometrical figures, as if their effort gestures were almost an inexact mathematical calculus. Sweat bathes some men’s bodies as if it were a dirty shower, friends now due to the scarcity of the job. Some of them have left their shirts aside, in some corner, and are showing their naked skin, defenceless, facing wounds. There is no need for uniforms when the heat of ten saunas presses hard. The foundry plays chess with the pawns, exhausted due to the daily sacrifice to raise the progress. Industrialisation is the triumph of the impossible, the domination of men over nature and machinery. If there is any humanity in the way in which they lose their breath and strength, loading the company’s weight. This is not a metaphoric weight when they have to hold iron chains, or move mineral stones with spades as big as themselves, or pull wagons that would make oxen cry if they had to pull them. Fire is both the instrument and the danger, smoke, as normal as oxygen itself. Lungs pay the higher bills than their owners’ salary, and they do not ask for a receipt from justice. It is a time when harshness is as natural as yawning.
The operators of the incandescent metal volcanos do not open their mouths regardless of their sleepiness. Dreams.
