But Palafox has his defenders, among whom is Madame Swanscombe, a bit intimidated though she may be to grab the reins of the narrative so late in our journey, but whose voice grows stronger with each word she now speaks, aren’t you afraid of committing a sacrilegious act by executing Palafox? I have skimmed the preceding pages, and it occurs to me that you haven’t bothered to consider for one moment the significance of his presence among us. Do you have any idea what you are on the brink of destroying? You believe you are dealing with crude and chaotic stuff, and yet you aren’t the least surprised to hear the beast whimper in his sleep. This living room’s upheaval is a devastated corner of the world, you would see the cyclone responsible punished, you refuse to admit that he belongs here, that we in fact are the undesirables, the vandals, the troublemakers, with our flower arrangements, our peach preserves, our mahogany end tables, our walnut drawers, our screens, our umbrellas, our parasols, all our artifices of shadow and light, can’t you see that Palafox is only here to treat wood as wood, glass like sand, the only one in this wax-polished room to think about the bees that burnished it. Madame Swanscombe grows bolder. She strides the length of the room descanting her text and punctuating her words with one unwavering gesture: the dagger she draws from her belt transforms into a silk fan above her head, then the arm falls and tightens, the hand opening and shaking it off. All this apostolic rhetoric is only suggestive of course, but little by little we are swayed by our friend’s conviction, threat and charm work their magic, the old accomplices that serve our idols and their makers, recruiting hearts and minds, that root the idea of God in a pebble and bring to power an athletic tyrant, blonde and bright-eyed whose political program would be contained in this inadmissible proposition, eliminate from the surface of the Earth all men neither short nor weak, dark, with slanting forelocks and straight mustaches. But our charming and threatening friend is only trying to save Palafox. She mentions people of high culture who keep pandas, cows or crocodiles as sacred and woe betide the malefactor who spills their blood. Haven’t you already seen Palafox or any old ladybug rebel against their fate and dispute the universe? They behave like creatures, they have no pretensions of changing the earth beneath their feet, to conquer outer space, nor that of measuring time, they scrape together seconds, they are the true owners of this world, the legitimate tenants, God’s true champions.
But then, dear Madame — this crude reply emanating from the general, unsurprising in its crudity even if his kepi stung with stars gives him, from afar, the appearance of a poet lost in his astral dream — do tell us why Palafox only kneels to drink, only joins his hands to break open nuts, and doesn’t pretend to follow any sort of religious practice? Why, among the animals who secrete their lairs into being, those who, more than all their counterparts, should give thanks to their creator, not one of them ever thought it useful to burden themselves with a steeple?
The following reply, from out of the mouth of Baruglio, is just as upsetting — Unless, dear Madame, Palafox is not himself descended from Olympus in the shape of an animal to seduce and carry off Maureen, so great is the beauty of this young mortal, in which case I would wager on Zeus whose tricks we can see in Palafox, this new metamorphosis would betray him as surely as his emblematic lightening-bolt, were he to wield it in our presence, one more metamorphosis in a long line of others, the swan that Leda loved, the eagle that ravished Ganymede, the white bull with gold horns that carried off Europa, the cuckoo that perched on Hera’s lap, the serpent that married Persephone, the jig is up, I have unmasked the God of gods.
More seriously, professor Pierpont will say a few words on the subject of metempsychosis — he clears his throat, that done, he thanks us for putting our pencil sharpeners away, yes, we’re listening — so the fallen souls will be sent to do penitence on the Earth, prisoners of the crude animal envelope in which they are sealed, dominated by basic instincts, condemned to ruminate hay. Think about that before destroying Palafox. Perhaps he shelters the humiliated soul of a sinner that we will expose, in cutting his punishment short, to God knows what worse torments, eternal damnation, trial by fire, eternal wandering in a misty, ruined land. You will doubtless think that this believed assassin, this barbarian, this debauched monk, this bag-thief, after all, merits no pity, but — and there Pierpont slips, just as the hippo inevitably occurs in the mind of he who thinks of the rhino, as we have already noticed, and then storms the lips, in the same way the professor raises the initial subject of metempsychosis, and soon mentions an entirely different hypothesis, reincarnation, as if his knowledge of zoology made him an expert there too — he could also be a righteous man, one of our valiant ancestors, Fontechevade, or your dear wife, Buffoon, in a transitional situation, awaiting his next human incarnation: to destroy Palafox would then be a crime that we would ourselves pay for, in our lives to come.
Madame Fontechevade blushes three times over, out of shame, anger and urticaria, three very nearly imperceptible reactions on this naturally crimson face, opens her mouth to speak next, and a terrible racket of broken dishes reaches our ears, at the same moment, from the neighboring room, priority given over to events, the general’s wife understands. Out of respect for all those who delighted to hear her, were there one such person, comfortably settled in the salon, feet up near the hearth, here, in quick order, is what Madame Fontechevade should have said: by sacrificing Palafox to the gods, we will obtain their mercy for our faults and their support in battle. And now, please join us next door. Taking advantage of our inattention, but of course metaphysics owes everything to scatterbrains, Palafox slipped into the blue salon where Algernon displays his earthenware, his unique artifacts, Hannongs, Clérissys, Fontanas, Masséot Abaquenes. Each day, our friend dusts them, he washes his hands in milk before picking them up, elbows held tightly to sides, he keeps a lid on his gestures, handles the items carefully, like delicate little girls, they are the apple of his eye. The rare visitors admitted in the blue salon are given a thousand instructions on the threshold, roll up your sleeves, make sure your laces are tied, step prudently forward, move like a fox but with your tail tucked in, please, sneeze into your pocket and don’t even breathe. Even a butterfly could do damage in here, even a mosquito, and so here’s Palafox. The pachyderm has broken everything, tureens, tea-pots, mustard bowls, compote cozies, sugar bowls, hanaps, ewers, Delft plates, treasures of Urbino, wig-holders, shaving bowls, tobacco-holders. Sugar-sprinklers and saltshakers pulverized, the animal upsets all the tables, rattles the walls, shelves collapse, two decorative polychrome pharmacy jars, with stickers on their bellies reading Onc. of Mercury and Elec. of Theriac, break at Olympia’s feet. Algernon is livid, the veins in his temples seem drawn with manganese violet, like the arabesques and leaves of eighteenth century Strasburg ornamentalists, while three hairs stuck to his forehead imitate the cracks in the enamel — it must be that his heart has stopped beating, or that Algernon will fall in pieces as well, among the white shards of his pottery. Swanscombe pieces together the two halves of a bidet bowl, then adjusts them so as to reconstitute the group of musical angels which decorate the background, it’s reparable. We can also save an oil-vessel and its cruets, not, though, a handle and the two tops, a cup and saucer, and two painted plates, the first representing a circle of Chinese children beneath a sky full of birds, lightly nicked, and the other, intact, Mirabeau’s tomb beneath an unreadable revolutionary phrase, all around it three kinds of alternating emblems, a sword, a cross, a bouquet, a sword, a cross, a bouquet, a sword, a cross.