The words "Pallaksch, Pallaksch" are reportedly those spoken by the mad Hoderlin to mean both yes and no. No one could interpret those words precisely; one could not know whether he meant yes I'd like soup or no, I wouldn't until he took the soup or threw it in one's face. The very indeterminacy of this phrase is appropriate to these haunting tales about the lives of the poor and the oppressed. In "The Artist" a man describes his life in a cannery as accountant and his private, artistic life of embalming the workers in the factory. In "The Border" a man escapes to the country, delaying his return to his lover and city, until he gradually retreats, hermit-like, so far into nature that he literally becomes part of it. Giraudon's dark world is that of the outcast, of abused children, and hapless lovers. But her stories are not those of pity but of magic and dark mysteriousness, revealing her fascination with the fabric of each individual's life.