Living constantly in fear of death like this was only bearable if you took one day at a time, if you said to yourself each evening, "Another twenty-four hours when nothing really bad has happened, thank God! Let's see what tomorrow brings." Everyone around Jean-Marie felt this way, or at least acted as if they did. They tended the animals, the hay, made butter… No one ever mentioned tomorrow. They made provision for the years to come, planting trees that would bear fruit in five or six seasons, fattening up the pigs they could eat two years later, but they did nothing about the immediate future. If Jean-Marie asked if it would be fine the next day (the usual question a Parisian on holiday would ask), they would say, "Well, we don't know… How should we know?" If he asked, "Will there be any fruit?" they'd reply, "Maybe a little…" looking sceptically at the small, hard green pears trained up the trellis. "We can't really tell… we don't know… we'll see when the time comes…" An almost hereditary instinct about the tricks of fate-the April frosts, the hail that ravaged the fields just before harvest, the drought in July that shrivelled up the kitchen garden-inspired wisdom and caution within them, but at the same time gave them something to do every day. "They're not exactly likeable but you have to admire them," thought Jean-Marie, who had barely had any contact with the countryside: for five generations the Michauds had lived in the city.

The people of this hamlet were welcoming and amiable; the men were smooth talkers, the women coquettish. Once you got to know them, you discovered they were determined, tough, sometimes even surprisingly malicious, perhaps a result of some obscure atavistic memory of hate and fear that had been passed through the blood line from one generation to the next. Yet at the same time they were generous. The farmer's wife, who wouldn't have given an egg to a neighbour and held out for every penny she could get when selling her poultry, listened in dismal silence, together with the rest of her family, when Jean-Marie told them that he wanted to leave the farm because he had no money, that he didn't want them to have to support him and that he would try to make it to Paris on foot. "It isn't right to talk like that, Monsieur, " she declared with a strange kind of dignity. "You're upsetting us…"

"But what else can I do?" said Jean-Marie, sitting next to her with his head in his hands, still feeling very weak.

"You can't do anything. You have to wait."

"Yes, of course, the post will be working again soon," the young man murmured, "and if my parents are actually in Paris…"

"We'll see when the time comes…" said the farmer's wife.

Nowhere else would it have been as easy to forget the outside world. Without letters and newspapers, the only link with the rest of the universe was the radio, but the farmers had heard the Germans were confiscating the sets, so they hid them in lofts and old wardrobes, or buried them in the fields along with the hunting rifles they were supposed to have handed over. The village was in the Occupied Zone, very close to the demarcation line, but the German troops weren't stationed there; in fact, they had only passed through the village and never climbed the hill to the hamlet, which was two kilometres away along rough, rocky paths. Food was beginning to run out in the cities and certain other areas; here, there was even more food than usual, for there was no way of transporting their produce away from the village. Never in his life had Jean-Marie eaten so much butter, chicken, cream, or so many peaches. He recovered quickly. He even started putting on weight, the farmer's wife said, and in her kindness towards Jean-Marie there was a strange desire to make a deal with the Good Lord-to save one life for Him in exchange for the other life He held in His hands: just as she offered grain to the chickens in exchange for their eggs, so she tried to offer Jean-Marie's survival in return for her own son's life. Jean-Marie understood this very well, but it didn't change in the slightest his gratitude towards this elderly woman who had nursed him. He did his best to help out, doing odd jobs around the farm, working in the garden.

Though the women sometimes asked him questions about the war, this war, the men never did. They were all former soldiers (there weren't any young men). Their memories remained stuck in '14. They had had time to filter the past, to decant it, to get rid of the dregs, the poison, to make it bearable for their souls; but recent events remained confusing and laced with venom. Besides, deep in their hearts they blamed it all on the youngsters, who weren't as strong as they, weren't as patient and who'd been spoiled at school. And since Jean-Marie was young, they tactfully avoided judging him-him and his contemporaries.

This was how everything conspired to comfort and soothe the soldier, so he could rebuild his strength and courage. He was alone almost every day; it was the season when there was the most work to do in the fields. The men left home before dawn. The women looked after the animals and the washing. Jean-Marie had offered to help but they'd sent him packing. So he would go outside, crossing the courtyard where the turkeys were squawking, and walk down to a little meadow surrounded by a fence where two horses grazed. There was a golden brown mare and her two little coffee-coloured foals with their short, rough, dark manes. They would come and rub their muzzles against their mother's legs as she nibbled the grass and shook her tail impatiently to chase away the flies. Every now and again, one of the foals would turn towards the place near the fence where Jean-Marie was lying on the grass, look at him with his dark, moist eyes and whinny happily. Jean-Marie never grew tired of watching them. He wanted to write a story about these charming little horses, a story that would evoke this day in July, this land, this farm, these people, the war-and himself.

He wrote with a chewed-up pencil stub, in a little notebook which he hid against his heart. He felt he had to hurry: something inside him was making him anxious, was knocking on an invisible door. By writing, he opened that door, he gave life to something that wished to be born. Then suddenly, he would become discouraged, feel disheartened, weary. He was mad. What was he doing writing these stupid stories, letting himself be pampered by the farmer's wife, while his friends were in prison, his despairing parents thought he was dead, when the future was so uncertain, the past so bleak? But while he was thinking these thoughts, he saw one of the foals run joyously towards him, then roll around in the grass, kicking its hooves in the air and looking at him with mischievous and tender eyes. He tried to work out how to describe that look, all the time feeling impatiently curious and oddly anxious. He couldn't find the words but he knew what the little horse must feel, how good the crisp, cool grass must taste, how annoying the flies were, the sense of pride and freedom when he raised his muzzle and ran and kicked. He quickly wrote down a few awkward, unfinished lines. They were no good, he hadn't captured the essence, but it would come; he closed the notebook and finally sat still, hands open in his lap, eyes closed, tired and happy.

When he got back at dinnertime, he immediately saw that something important had happened while he was out. One of the farmhands had gone into the village to get some bread; now there he was with four round golden loaves on the handlebars of his bicycle and a group of women crowding round him. One of the girls saw Jean-Marie and shouted, "Hey, Monsieur Michaud! This'll make you happy, there's post again."

"Really?" said Jean-Marie to the old man. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. I saw the Post Office open and people reading letters."

"Then I'm going upstairs to write my family a letter and take it to the village. Will you lend me your bicycle?"