Who knows what it might lead to if anyone at all was allowed, with no fear of punishment, to come across great, new things? Do you see what I mean? But as to this meat, there’s still something missing — — I’ve got it!” he shouted joyfully. “Roast mutton should be salted and rubbed with garlic! That’s the way to do it! Now that, son, is a real discovery! You know, a fellow like Prometheus would never have come across that!”

June 5, 1932

Times Aren’t What They Used To Be

It was quiet in front of the cave. The men, brandishing their spears, had gone off into the hills early that morning, intent on tracking a herd of elk; the women, meanwhile, were picking berries in the forest, and only now and then could their shrill yelling and chatter be heard; the children were mostly splashing in the stream below — not that anyone could keep an eye on those brats, that wild, rascally pack of little savages. And so old primogenitor Janecek was drowsing in the rare quiet under the soft October sun; truth to tell, he was snoring, and his breath whistled through his nose. He was pretending, however, not to be asleep but rather watching over his tribe’s cave and ruling it, as befits an old chieftain.

Old Mrs. Janecek spread out the freshly skinned hide of a bear and set about scraping it with a sharp flint. It had to be done thoroughly, one small section at a time — and not the way that girl did it, thought the old woman; that scatterbrain only gave it a lick and a promise, and before you knew it she was scurrying off again to kiss and cuddle the children — the way that girl treats hides, they won’t last any time at all, oh no, they’ll either rot or burn. But I’m not going to meddle, not when my son won’t tell her himself — Only it’s true, that girl has no idea how to take proper care of things. And here’s a hole in the skin, right in the middle of the back! Dear me, the old woman was shocked, what clumsy fool speared that bear in the back? Why, it ruins the whole skin! Never in his life would my old man have done a thing like that, she thought, thoroughly vexed. He always aimed at the neck and hit it —

“Ah yah,” old Janecek grunted just then, rubbing his eyes. “Aren’t the men back yet?”

“Of course not,” grumbled the old woman. “You’ll just have to wait.”

“Tcha,” the old man sighed, and he blinked sleepily. “So much for them. Oh, well. And where are the women?”

“Am I supposed to be standing guard over them?” snapped the old woman. “You know they’re lolling around somewhere — ”

“Ah yah yah,” grandfather Janecek gave a lengthy yawn. “Lolling around somewhere. Instead of — instead of, well, doing this or that or — Well, there you have it. That’s the way it goes!”

There was silence, except for old Mrs. Janecek scraping swiftly and irritably at the fresh hide.

“I can tell you this,” Janecek broke the silence, scratching his back thoughtfully. “You’ll see, they won’t bring anything back this time, either. Stands to reason, with those good-for-nothing bone spearheads of theirs. I’ve told our son time and time again: ‘Look, no bone’s hard and strong enough to make spearheads out of!’ Why, even a woman like you’s got to know that no bone, and no antler either, has the — well, the striking force, see? Hit a bone with it, and it shatters: you can’t cut through bone with bone, right? Stands to reason. A stone spearhead, now — sure it’s more work; however, on the other hand, you’ve got one fine tool on your hands. But you think our son listens to reason?”

“Don’t I know it,” Mrs. Janecek said resentfully. “Nobody takes orders from anybody these days.”

“I’m not ordering anybody to do anything,” the old man flared up angrily, “but they won’t even take advice! Yesterday I found this nice flat piece of flint under that rock over there. All it needed was a bit of trimming along the edges to make it sharper, and you’d have one fine spearhead, a beauty. So I brought it in and showed it to our son: ‘Look, isn’t this a great stone?’ ‘It is,’ says he, ‘but what can you do with it, Dad?’ ‘Well, think about it,’ says I: ‘you could work it up into a spearhead.’ ‘Come on, Dad,’ he says, ‘who’d bother chipping and fussing with that? Why, we’ve got a whole pile of that old junk in the cave, and it’s no good for anything! It won’t stay on a spear shaft no matter how you try to fasten it, so what can you do with it?’ What a lazy bunch they are!” the old man shouted fiercely. “Nobody wants to work a piece of flint properly these days, that’s what it is! They just want things easy! Sure, you can make a bone spearhead in less than no time — but it breaks in no time, too.