The Cave by José Saramago

The dog Found did not like marcal. There were so many things to tell, so much news, so many highs and lows in hopes and spirits, that during the journey from the Center to the pottery, it did not even occur to Cipriano Algor to mention to his son-in-law the dog's mysterious arrival or his equally unusual behavior since. Nevertheless, a love of truth, pricked on by a narrator's natural scrupulousness, will not allow to go unmentioned one brief resurfacing of that remarkable episode in the potter's faulty memory, this, however, did not get any further because marcal, with more than justified resentment, interrupted his father-in-law's story to ask why the devil neither he nor Marta had thought to inform him of what was going on at home, the idea of the dolls, the drawings, their attempts at modeling, It's as if I don't really exist for either of you, he remarked bitterly.

Caught out, Cipriano Algor mumbled some excuse citing the intensity and concentration inevitable in all artistic creation, the extreme unfriendliness with which the person who answered the phone responded to calls from the family members of guards living outside the Center, and, finally, a few decorative, halfgarbled words to pad out his speech and bring it to a close. Fortunately, the sight of the burned-out truck helped divert attention from a dispute that could easily have evolved into a family quarrel, which, let it be said, it will not, although marcal Gacho is determined to take up the matter again when he is alone with his wife in their bedroom and behind closed doors.