Terra Amata

INSIDE THE DRAWING

It was all like in the drawing. The page had been torn off the writing-pad one day, and some unknown child had drawn those figures with a blue ball-point and coloured pencils. They’d appeared quite naturally, almost as if they’d always been there and only needed to be copied. It was only a vision of the world, after all, one vision among so many others. But here everything was complete, perfect, finished down to the last detail. Fate was there somewhere, perhaps in the shape of the sun or in the black specks in the middle of the eyes. Death was present too, in the teeth of the man on the left or in the scribbles of hair. War, love and ignorance were there. Age that comes too fast, and self-wasting time, and spirit slowly dwindling. It was funny, grotesque, moving, sad, magical. It was an image of life. Yes, it was that and more than that — a witness to life here on earth, the human signature, simple and mysterious. It was the epic, the strange epic, reduced to its simplest form and just set down here, by chance, on this single sheet of paper torn from the block.

Could one really try to understand what it meant? Was there anything there to understand? I mean, the drawing had just appeared, at this moment in this century, produced by the unskilful hand of a child, without any evident necessity. Try as you might you couldn’t find the clue to the enigma, you couldn’t point out the general drift or learn the secret meaning. If there was anything at all on the scribbled page it was the same thing as was in the world. The presence of life, perhaps; the evidence of life speaking for itself. In the face of the terrible void the thin paper surface resisted as if it were marble or tungsten. Nothing could tear it, nothing could break it. It was the soft rampart, the frail and tender shield that was the only reason of life. Not even a word; not even a sign; no, just the screen, the delicate screen that protects and absolves millions of lives and acts. All culture trembled in this square of paper — all cursed and impenetrable culture condensed into a few lines. What was the point in lying? Since the darkest night of time it had always been the same; no one had begun to understand. However many words and theories they heaped on top of one another it was always the same spectacle, strong and hermetic, that offered. All beauty. All ignominy. All passion, all joy, all mourning.

Perhaps, after all, it was a sort of evidence: evidence that there was nothing to understand. There was nothing else to do but take that sheet of writing-paper and draw on it with a blue ball-point and coloured pencils. Just in order to fix history for a few seconds.

Now, on the paper, two human shapes held hands and faced the void. From the middle of their faces their wide eyes looked fearfully into yours. The little boy, on the left, showed his teeth like a corpse. A rabbit looked at you too, from his overall. Above the two figures two roads like a couple of snakes, one blue one green, each joined two houses together. Between them was a tree with two enormous cherries on it, unless it was a street-lamp. Almost at the top of the page was the green and blue sun, like an insect, and above that the line of the mountains and the clouds ran right across the page like a row of teeth.

So when you’d drawn this motionless story there was nothing more to add.

At a pinch you could write something, as Chancelade did, holding the ball-point between his thumb and forefinger; and that too was a sort of human legend.

‘The sea is blue, it has waves. The lion is in the cage. The Panther is angry. The Leopard has claws. The elephant has a long trunk. The Monkey eats monkey-nuts. The wolf is very cruel. The bear can swim.’

And underneath you’d add another drawing, with little men and women, and birds, and butterflies, and flowers, and cats,