"I'm hungry," Florence said. "Are you?"

He gestured no.

She opened the overnight case and took out some sandwiches. "You didn't have dinner. Come on. Be sensible."

"I cannot eat," he said. "I don't think I could swallow a single mouthful now. Did you see that horrible old woman beside us with her birdcage and bloodstained bandages?"

Florence took a sandwich and shared the others with the maid and driver. Gabriel covered his ears with his long hands so he couldn't hear the crunching noises the servants made as they bit into the bread.

10

The Péricands had been travelling for nearly a week and had been dogged by misfortune. They'd had to stay in Gien for two days when the car broke down. Further along, amid the confusion and unimaginable crush, the car had hit the truck carrying the servants and luggage. That was near Nevers. Fortunately for the Péricands, there was no part of the provinces where they couldn't find some friend or relative with a large house, beautiful gardens and a well-stocked larder. A cousin from the Maltête-Lyonnais side of the family put them up for two days. But panic was intensifying, spreading like wildfire from one city to another. They had the car repaired as best they could and set out once more, but by noon on Saturday it was clear the car could go no further without a thorough overhaul. The Péricands stopped in a small town just off the main highway where they hoped to find a room. But all sorts of vehicles were already blocking the streets. The sound of creaking brakes filled the air and the ground next to the river looked like a gypsy camp. Exhausted men were sleeping on the grass, others were getting dressed. A young woman had hung a mirror on a tree trunk and was putting on make-up and combing her hair. Someone else was washing nappies in the fountain.

The townspeople had come out on to their doorsteps and surveyed the scene with utter amazement. "Those poor people! But honestly, they look so awful!" they said, with pity and a secret feeling of satisfaction: these refugees came from Paris, the north, the east, areas doomed to invasion and war. But they were all right, time would pass, soldiers would fight while the ironmonger on the main street and Mlle Dubois, the hatmaker, would continue to sell saucepans and ribbons; they would eat hot soup in their kitchens and every evening close the little wooden gates that separated their gardens from the rest of the world.

The cars were waiting for morning to fill up with petrol. It was already becoming scarce. The townspeople asked the refugees for news. No one knew anything. "They're waiting for the Germans in the Morvan Mountains," someone said. Such an idea was greeted with scepticism.

"Come on, they didn't get that far in '14," said the fat chemist, shaking his head, and everyone agreed, as if the blood spilled in '14 had formed some mystical barrier to keep the enemy out for ever.

More cars arrived, and still more.

"They look so tired, so hot!" everyone kept saying, but not one of them thought to open their doors, to invite one of these wretches inside, to welcome them into the shady bits of heaven that the refugees could glimpse behind the houses, where wooden benches nestled in arbours amid red-currant bushes and roses. There were just too many of them. Too many weary, pale faces, dripping with sweat, too many wailing children, too many trembling lips asking, "Do you know where we could get a room? A bed?"… "Would you tell us where we could find a restaurant, please, Madame?" It prevented the townspeople from being charitable. There was nothing human left in this miserable mob; they were like a herd of frightened animals. Their crumpled clothes, crazed faces, hoarse voices, everything about them made them look peculiarly alike, so you couldn't tell them apart. They all made the same gestures, said the same words. Getting out of the cars, they would stumble a bit as if drunk, putting their hands to their throbbing temples. "My God, what a journey!" they sighed. "Hey, don't we look gorgeous?" they asked with a giggle. "They say things are a lot better over there," they would say, pointing over their shoulders to somewhere lost in the distance.

Madame Péricand's convoy had stopped at a little café near the railway station. They got out their basket of food and ordered some beer. At the next table, a beautiful little boy, very elegantly dressed but whose green coat was all crumpled, was calmly eating some bread and butter. On a chair next to him was a clothes basket in which a baby lay crying. With her experienced eye, Madame Péricand could tell immediately that these children came from a good family and that it would be all right to speak to them. So she talked kindly to the little boy and made conversation with the mother when she came back; she was from Reims, and looked enviously at the substantial snack the Péricand children were eating.

"Can I have some chocolate with my bread, Mummy?" said the little boy in green.

"My poor darling!" said the young woman, putting the baby on her lap to try to calm him down, "I don't have any. I didn't have time to buy some. You'll have a lovely dessert tonight at grandmother's."

"Would you allow me to offer you some biscuits?"

"Oh, Madame! You are too kind!"

"Don't mention it…"

The two women conversed cheerfully and graciously, with the same gestures and smiles they used when being offered a petit four and a cup of tea on any ordinary day. Meanwhile, the baby was screaming; one after the other, refugees with their children, their baggage, their dogs poured into the café. One of the dogs smelled Albert in his basket and, barking excitedly, rushed under the Péricands' table where the little boy in green was calmly eating his biscuits.

"Jacqueline, you have some lollipops in your bag," said Madame Péricand, with a discreet gesture and a look which meant "You know very well you should share with those who are less fortunate than you. Now is the time to put into practice what you have learned at catechism."

She got a feeling of great satisfaction from seeing herself as possessing such plenty and, at the same time, being so charitable. It was a credit to her foresight and kindness. She offered the lollipops not only to the little boy but to a Belgian family who had arrived in a truck jammed with hen-coops. She threw in some pains aux raisins for the children. Then she had some hot water brought to prepare the elder Monsieur Péricand's herbal tea.

Hubert had gone to try to find some rooms. Madame Péricand went out of the café to ask directions to the church in the middle of the town. There, families were camping out on the pavement and on the church's large stone steps.

The brand-new church was white and still smelled of fresh paint. Inside, it embraced two different worlds: the normal world of daily routine and another existence, strange and feverish. In one corner, a nun was changing the flowers at the feet of the Virgin Mary. A sweet, calm smile on her face, she slowly removed the shrivelled stems and replaced them with big bouquets of fresh roses. You could hear her scissors clicking and her gentle footsteps on the flagstones. Then she put out the candles. An elderly priest walked towards the confessional. An old woman was sleeping on a chair, holding her rosary beads. Many candles were lit in front of the statue of Joan of Arc. Little flames danced in the strong sunlight, pale and clear against the dazzling whiteness of the walls. Between two windows the golden letters of the names of people who had died in 1914 shimmered on a marble tablet.

Meanwhile, an ever-increasing crowd rushed towards the church like a wave. Women, children, all came to thank God for having arrived safely or to pray for the journey ahead. Some were crying, others were wounded, their heads or arms wrapped in bandages. Their faces were mottled with red blotches, their clothes wrinkled, torn and filthy, as if they had slept in them for several nights. Some were sweating, large drops of sweat falling like tears through the grey dust on their cheeks. The women pushed their way inside, threw themselves into the church as into some inviolable sanctuary. Their agitation, their frenzy, was so great that they seemed incapable of staying still. They moved from one altar to another, knelt down, got up, bumped into chairs with a timid, terrified look like night owls in a room full of light. But little by little they calmed down, hid their faces in their hands and, exhausted and with no tears left, finally found peace in front of the large black crucifix.