Closed due to death. The day after Boborikine died the sign was hung on the gate, what am I saying, on the heavy gate - because the epithet was melted, forged, welded, coated with minium and painted green, and so were the bars, the thick bars that seal the sole entrance to the cave. Visitors are said to have banged their heads against them; perhaps they thought the death notice referred to the creators of the paintings inside, whom they had believed dead for quite some time, years and years; so you see it is best not to tread on the grave digger’s turf and leave them to bury the mortals themselves when the time comes. And the visitors will have gone back home meditating on this lesson; perhaps along the way they mentioned the analogous, not unusual case of the writer who, famous in his youth, chooses nevertheless to withdraw from the literary scene; we lose track of him but his previous work us still impressive and in print, others are inspired by him, he is quoted, annotated, no one knows how he died, or where, or precisely when. Legends abound, perhaps it was suicide, or an airplane crash in the mountains, the Mexican border, until the day the octogenarian who has calmly lived out his life catches cold on his doorstep and finally dies for the last time, in his bed.
[Prehistoric Times, Chevillard, E.]
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