Free Palafox by Eric Chevillard

in the woods does one good, on foot or horseback. Peace begged on bended knee before wine and wiseman alike, peace that had been refused us, here she reigns, reestablished, in this church where wafts the scent of a cellar. Coincidence, adds Baruglio, simple coincidence.
    The study of reptiles (the researching of the aviary origins of the blindworm in particular) have led Professor Baruglio to take a closer interest in paleontology-a small demonstration of his general competence in this field: to reconstruct hour by hour the schedule of a tyrannosaurus, all he has to do is take a look at its fossilized footprint, preserved by some miracle, since that muddy morning of the secondary era when the monster, rudely awakened, did not himself know what he would do with his day. But in the absence of even the barest hint of a trail, the most meagre trace, Baruglio’s enquiry is stuck, is at the mercy of the winds. Palafox left no prehistoric traces, or he erased them, or bad weather did, glacial erosion perhaps accountable, or why not Aeolian, or fluvial, or we could inadvertently attribute them to some animal already on file, present at the same times at the same places or somewhat earlier or long after, or long before or a little after. It would have been too terrific to find his fossilized shell in the rock like those of numerous other cephalopods. (In the interest of those who have seen an ammonite, take rapid note that they would be wrong to bother seeing a second. Save for variations of weight and diameter, nothing differentiates one from the next. Their discovery dates back to an ancient era and once the initial surprise was past, man’s interest in the whole kit and caboodle diminished exponentially, daily were dug up more examples, leading us to little more than a lot of clutter. It’s with the invention of paper, then the loose sheet that one saw a movement in their favor take shape, initially almost imperceptible, it was born in literary milieus before settling though the lower strata of society. The ammonite became indispensable to man the day he understood its raison d’être and made corresponding use of it. He had lost interest in it before, as he would have if clothespins had existed in nature, in the rough, until the invention of fabric, at which point the clothespin would have been a runaway success, thus the ammonite remains today, despite the competition of Plexiglas cubes and varnished pebbles, the paperweights most prized by people of taste-a position of trust already ostensibly coveted by young mollusks that barely find use as rubber bands, but time is on their side, time passes.)
    As you have already noted, a great many of the rock paintings (blood and ash, brown ochre) dated to the middle-Magdalenian era, represent a humped quadruped, with back-curving horns, of which the curved neckline of wooly fur recalls that belonging to Palafox. Let us not rush to conclude the image is in fact of him. Drawn in the shadowy discomfort of a rocky wall, these approximate figures, clumsy, frequently unfinished, suggest a great many other animals, such as the bison. Above all, what do we know of the artistic conceptions of the troglodytic painters? Why, for example, wouldn’t they have left their imaginations run free and invent this ruminant from scratch? Let us not expect an answer from Baruglio. These men and their rituals have become foreign to us. The generation gap - widened and flooded in zoos to keep monkeys or Lemuroid from sneaking into the company of visitors - this famous trench seems deeper still, and more unbridgeable, which keeps us from the carcasses and other fine remains of our direct ancestors. All one need do is show their gently prognathous skulls to a contemporary to judge, and listen as their laughter overflows.
    Now immobilized, head held low, masticating hay, Palafox seems indifferent to everything said around him. He makes no move to exculpate himself. In fact, he conducts himself as if he were