as bad, repairable with a little green thread, as much rose, and some brown copper buttons tanned for our jackets.
The pack of hounds has muddied the faint trail in the humus that Palafox leaves when he soars off or lands, prints left by his wings. On the leaves and the dark mosses, on the other hand, his trail of saliva is still very clear, very white, very fine, with several variations of the scallop stitch at the end of which a basset hound is lying as if asleep, but his head is between his back paws, a spaniel’s head, he is not really asleep. In a nearby bush, Algernon finds the body of the spaniel cleaved longitudinally in two. The blood had not dribbled onto the fur, the longitudinal cut was made with care. Essentially, as we see, the biology of dog and man is not so different. There’s the heart, the intestines and the brain, less of a jumble, sure, but still complex. And the lungs, the liver, the stomach, the kidneys are all there, where they should be, we could make do. A few of the dogs, once springy and soft, henceforth stiff and stout, tongue and chops now blue, pink noses pale, eyes yellow, and yet seem not to have been touched. Some, disemboweled, disgorged and carved alive, bear marks from blows and seem truly dead, those over there, without any reservation beyond the ticks leaping and the breeze ruffling their fur. All in all, a huge sample, in fact the gamut of shrewd methods of disposing of a dog without having to resort to drowning or shooting, nothing more than the application of tentacles, fangs, horns, venom and your ten fingers. Under such conditions, following Palafox’s trail is child’s play, a real pleasure, the dog-pack does its job well. After three hours’ march, nevertheless, the traces diminish. The ear of a beagle, here. A bit farther, the other half of the animal. Night falls. We take turns by the fire. Of the single hound found alive, four paws are missing. He moans, asleep on one side, he no longer leaps up when we near. We finish him off more than once during the night, with the same seizing of our hearts each time, with a mortal blow to his neck.
Our strategy, designed for the carnage of rock partridges, a crowning success well beyond our expectations (haven’t we all pheasant feathers in our caps?) shows its limitations. With certain game, it is awkward to use the same strategy, as with killing one’s grandmother. This is the first major lesson the learning of which we owe to Palafox. And we’ll reiterate: there are many things to learn from him, certainly in the wooded domain of the hunt but not only there, not only, he knows the grasses that cure and, by instinct, before everyone, before the clouds, what the weather will be the next day. And better than anyone, adds Sadarnac - the coral massifs of the Sargasso. But do not listen to him.
I have an idea, Swanscombe shouts and, interrupting himself - draws on his pipe, allows his stare to stray, wins all the prizes for best male lead, becoming a teenage heartthrob - at last continues: the success of my plan depends upon choosing the proper decoy. That steel whistle does nothing for the linnet or the skylark (you have to use one made of silver or copper) which works wonders on warblers and wagtails. With a split cherry branch, a bit of silver birch bark, a cherry pit and quill from a feather, beech leaves, ivy, scrub brush and two serrated teeth, I would be able to reproduce the cry, the song, the groan or the gallop of every animal in the forest - tipi-ti, tipi-ti, fioiu-fiou-frou, krr-ek, chchch-st, tuituitui, kyac, tirlitt, gah-onk-aa-onk, ou-rou-rou, piap, di-del-di-o, zizibeh-zizi-beh, et cetera. Because the onomatopoeias that we commonly use to beastify among men, that we teach to young children before the alphabet and the colors, belong to the lexicon of a dead language, extant perhaps on Noah’s Ark, but that is hardly used today or even understood by the mules of today, the cows and cocks. Cock-a-doodle-do may as well
The pack of hounds has muddied the faint trail in the humus that Palafox leaves when he soars off or lands, prints left by his wings. On the leaves and the dark mosses, on the other hand, his trail of saliva is still very clear, very white, very fine, with several variations of the scallop stitch at the end of which a basset hound is lying as if asleep, but his head is between his back paws, a spaniel’s head, he is not really asleep. In a nearby bush, Algernon finds the body of the spaniel cleaved longitudinally in two. The blood had not dribbled onto the fur, the longitudinal cut was made with care. Essentially, as we see, the biology of dog and man is not so different. There’s the heart, the intestines and the brain, less of a jumble, sure, but still complex. And the lungs, the liver, the stomach, the kidneys are all there, where they should be, we could make do. A few of the dogs, once springy and soft, henceforth stiff and stout, tongue and chops now blue, pink noses pale, eyes yellow, and yet seem not to have been touched. Some, disemboweled, disgorged and carved alive, bear marks from blows and seem truly dead, those over there, without any reservation beyond the ticks leaping and the breeze ruffling their fur. All in all, a huge sample, in fact the gamut of shrewd methods of disposing of a dog without having to resort to drowning or shooting, nothing more than the application of tentacles, fangs, horns, venom and your ten fingers. Under such conditions, following Palafox’s trail is child’s play, a real pleasure, the dog-pack does its job well. After three hours’ march, nevertheless, the traces diminish. The ear of a beagle, here. A bit farther, the other half of the animal. Night falls. We take turns by the fire. Of the single hound found alive, four paws are missing. He moans, asleep on one side, he no longer leaps up when we near. We finish him off more than once during the night, with the same seizing of our hearts each time, with a mortal blow to his neck.
Our strategy, designed for the carnage of rock partridges, a crowning success well beyond our expectations (haven’t we all pheasant feathers in our caps?) shows its limitations. With certain game, it is awkward to use the same strategy, as with killing one’s grandmother. This is the first major lesson the learning of which we owe to Palafox. And we’ll reiterate: there are many things to learn from him, certainly in the wooded domain of the hunt but not only there, not only, he knows the grasses that cure and, by instinct, before everyone, before the clouds, what the weather will be the next day. And better than anyone, adds Sadarnac - the coral massifs of the Sargasso. But do not listen to him.
I have an idea, Swanscombe shouts and, interrupting himself - draws on his pipe, allows his stare to stray, wins all the prizes for best male lead, becoming a teenage heartthrob - at last continues: the success of my plan depends upon choosing the proper decoy. That steel whistle does nothing for the linnet or the skylark (you have to use one made of silver or copper) which works wonders on warblers and wagtails. With a split cherry branch, a bit of silver birch bark, a cherry pit and quill from a feather, beech leaves, ivy, scrub brush and two serrated teeth, I would be able to reproduce the cry, the song, the groan or the gallop of every animal in the forest - tipi-ti, tipi-ti, fioiu-fiou-frou, krr-ek, chchch-st, tuituitui, kyac, tirlitt, gah-onk-aa-onk, ou-rou-rou, piap, di-del-di-o, zizibeh-zizi-beh, et cetera. Because the onomatopoeias that we commonly use to beastify among men, that we teach to young children before the alphabet and the colors, belong to the lexicon of a dead language, extant perhaps on Noah’s Ark, but that is hardly used today or even understood by the mules of today, the cows and cocks. Cock-a-doodle-do may as well
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