To a pataphysician all things are equal, there is no improvement or progress in the human condition, and a "message" is an invention of the benighted reader, certainly not the author or his perplexing creations-the sweet, fennel-drinking Cidrolin and the rampaging Duke d'Auge. History is mostly what the duke rampages through-700 years of it at 175-year clips. He refuses to crusade, clobbers his king with the "in" toy of 1439-the cannon-dabbles in alchemy, and decides that those musty caves down at Altamira need a bit of sprucing up. Meanwhile Cidrolin in the 1960s lolls on his barge moored along the Seine, sips essence of fennel, and ineffectually tries to catch the graffitist who nightly defiles his fence. But mostly he naps. Is it just a coincidence that the duke appears only when Cidrolin is dozing? And vice versa?