Palafox signed his death sentence, the sentence that satisfied everyone, including Madame Swanscombe, including Maureen and Olympia now disillusioned, let us now presently decide the means of execution. Just try and quarter an eel, we renounce the pike as well since it wouldn’t impress an armadillo, the axe which brushes against the turtle, and the noose, of course, the giraffe is everything but gallows-food. He deserves to die a rat’s death, but we don’t want to use poison, we aren’t assassins, instead let’s give these two boxes to Franc-Nohain, his wife’s a pain, the young woman he’s provided for for the past three years has just blown in his hair, the day before yesterday, for the first time, and he’s pretty confident about what will come next. Rifle, garrote, cleaver, Sadarnac only has eyes for the trident. Perhaps the pyre, why not, since the salamander, (if we have enough time and room left to tear down one more silly belief), and without claiming to compare logs and coal, grills as well as anything else over a fire. But Ziegler’s suggestion, to disembowel Palafox, is the most seductive of all, the examination of his entrails will offer us so much new knowledge and far more than what may be gained by watching his behavior, and from which investigation we will be able to choose a strategy to repel the enemy that has occupied two thirds of our territory already, at last word, sewing death and despair, and its exotic grain in our furrowed earth, which spreads in a forced march in the direction of our coasts. The gods gave us Palafox for this purpose, so that we could know their wishes, all their future plans for the world, he shares with a fist of stars the secret of our destiny, open him up, let us discover it all, lean over him quickly, explore the fateful viscera, the heart, the stomach, the liver, the kidneys, pull them all into the light. The Roman priests, the haruspicants, who practiced this form of divination best of all recommended the veal, the colt, the lamb: grab Palafox.
But we will learn nothing. Fontechevade struck too hard. The green blood, or whatever, this juice on the wall, a bitter scent of moisture and cold wax, Palafox squashed will harm no one again. We want to see, Algernon steps in, note the death throes, aggression follows resentment. Cadavers fresh from existence do not lose their fighting reflexes immediately, their organs are bathed in venom, draw back, these posthumous nervous crises offer a unique sort of violence, entirely excusable, but dangerous for those nearby, don’t get eaten now that it’s finally over and done. And yet the animal has resigned himself to death. He is dead, Maureen says (and this final parenthesis will have to be pretty airtight to contain the tears, pure pearls that roll down her cheeks, shining still while falling with a crystal brilliance, but which form on this notebook without stains or deletions little lakes of black ink, courage, my child). Fontechevade can put his shoe back on. There really isn’t anything to fear now. Not even that of having nothing else to do. Excellent idea, Olympia: we’ll stuff Palafox.