events differs from those already reported? In this version, Palafox was caught by the light rod and reel method - he opposed a protracted resistance, twice broke the line, unwound up to a hundred and twenty meters of line, and bit the hook and bait with such force that I had to shove my hand inside his mouth to unhook him, you can imagine the hazard, knowing that a pike’s jaw sports no fewer than seven hundred teeth. But Sadarnac tells tall tales, you know him, what really was at risk given he had a gutting knife? A child of five years, his little brother of four would have been able to withdraw the spoonbait.
6.
So your life unfolds without other concerns but the search for a little food and a shade, without other activities than the seasonal harvest of berries and mushrooms, the hunt for butterflies, the fishing of crayfish, without worse predator to fear than a female post-coitum. And then they arrive with their dogs, their weapons, their traps. They hunt you. They capture you. Put yourself in the place of Palafox. They rip you by the roots from your sylvan existence. Palafox paws the ground, you’d paw too in this narrow box. He snorts, relax. Calm down. Maureen appeases him, her fingers play along his nape, creep up between his ears and, lower, her hand rests flat on the nearly perfect white star near his nose. Be a good little Palafox, behave now. He doesn’t reject a fist full of grass. His teeth are yellow and uneven, his tongue is rough. Blinders keep him from seeing the professors Cambrelin and Baruglio to his right, Zeiger and Pierpont to his left. This new consultation was obviously necessary. We cannot pretend to be unaware of the savage acts he has committed, or so it would seem, while he has been on the run. Before starting to train him again, Algernon wants to know if he is or isn’t salvageable, whether he can or can’t be broken. In addition to the misdemeanors about which we know, or think we know, innumerable tragedies past are bubbling up to the surface again, those that preceded Palafox’s first appearance amongst us and for which the true culprit was never identified: whenever the field mouse was implicated in a case, the wolf came out pure and white, and vice versa, the wolf being implicated, white became the mouse. In brief, Palafox is suspected of having slit the throats of many thousands of our fellow creatures. And of having horned many thousands of others. Suffocated still more. Strangled others. Crushed others still. Poisoned countless. Through the centuries. For motives that remain uncertain. Of having mutilated, well yes, millions and millions more, ripping a finger or two from the hand extended only to pet him or bully him, never to give. If that were all it had been, but tearing the arm with it, and with the arm the shoulder, with the shoulder the breast, with the breast the infant, rending a foot here and there, tearing away leaden limbs of swimmers weak at the knees - those, pitiful in the water, diminished on the banks, unfortunate wherever they fall, sinking into despair in a balloon or along a line. To this list of crimes please add the decimated herds, the pillaged granaries, the emptied ponds, the poultry yards, the sheep barns, the sacked pigsties and vines, the devastated orchards, because pig doesn’t make for good dessert (hors d’œuvres variés, asst. cold meats, plate upon plate, nutritious, filling, but nothing sugary to bring it all to a close, no chocolate, no sweetness). Let us then list, in the hosts of houses where Palafox, doubtless, by turns, served as pet, or companion animal, the soiled carpets, the confettied curtains, splattered ceilings, debased baseboards, compromised couches, marked mirrors, furniture befouled, sweaters unraveled, knickknacks paddywacked, spools tangled, books unbound, cooling pies pinched from sills, plants phylloxerized, stolen diamonds, nights ruined, sons stripped bare, trashcans upended, endlessly....
It would be endless were
6.
So your life unfolds without other concerns but the search for a little food and a shade, without other activities than the seasonal harvest of berries and mushrooms, the hunt for butterflies, the fishing of crayfish, without worse predator to fear than a female post-coitum. And then they arrive with their dogs, their weapons, their traps. They hunt you. They capture you. Put yourself in the place of Palafox. They rip you by the roots from your sylvan existence. Palafox paws the ground, you’d paw too in this narrow box. He snorts, relax. Calm down. Maureen appeases him, her fingers play along his nape, creep up between his ears and, lower, her hand rests flat on the nearly perfect white star near his nose. Be a good little Palafox, behave now. He doesn’t reject a fist full of grass. His teeth are yellow and uneven, his tongue is rough. Blinders keep him from seeing the professors Cambrelin and Baruglio to his right, Zeiger and Pierpont to his left. This new consultation was obviously necessary. We cannot pretend to be unaware of the savage acts he has committed, or so it would seem, while he has been on the run. Before starting to train him again, Algernon wants to know if he is or isn’t salvageable, whether he can or can’t be broken. In addition to the misdemeanors about which we know, or think we know, innumerable tragedies past are bubbling up to the surface again, those that preceded Palafox’s first appearance amongst us and for which the true culprit was never identified: whenever the field mouse was implicated in a case, the wolf came out pure and white, and vice versa, the wolf being implicated, white became the mouse. In brief, Palafox is suspected of having slit the throats of many thousands of our fellow creatures. And of having horned many thousands of others. Suffocated still more. Strangled others. Crushed others still. Poisoned countless. Through the centuries. For motives that remain uncertain. Of having mutilated, well yes, millions and millions more, ripping a finger or two from the hand extended only to pet him or bully him, never to give. If that were all it had been, but tearing the arm with it, and with the arm the shoulder, with the shoulder the breast, with the breast the infant, rending a foot here and there, tearing away leaden limbs of swimmers weak at the knees - those, pitiful in the water, diminished on the banks, unfortunate wherever they fall, sinking into despair in a balloon or along a line. To this list of crimes please add the decimated herds, the pillaged granaries, the emptied ponds, the poultry yards, the sheep barns, the sacked pigsties and vines, the devastated orchards, because pig doesn’t make for good dessert (hors d’œuvres variés, asst. cold meats, plate upon plate, nutritious, filling, but nothing sugary to bring it all to a close, no chocolate, no sweetness). Let us then list, in the hosts of houses where Palafox, doubtless, by turns, served as pet, or companion animal, the soiled carpets, the confettied curtains, splattered ceilings, debased baseboards, compromised couches, marked mirrors, furniture befouled, sweaters unraveled, knickknacks paddywacked, spools tangled, books unbound, cooling pies pinched from sills, plants phylloxerized, stolen diamonds, nights ruined, sons stripped bare, trashcans upended, endlessly....
It would be endless were
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