She couldn't even remember who Lucienne was.

"Of course," she lied. "I don't know what I was thinking!"

"I don't know either," he said in a wounded voice.

But she seemed so sad and humble that he took pity on her and softened. "I keep telling you, you don't pay enough attention to the minor characters. A novel should be like a street full of strangers, where no more than two or three people are known to us in depth. Look at writers like Proust. They knew how to use minor characters to humiliate, to belittle their protagonists. In a novel, there is nothing more valuable than teaching the lesson of humility to the heroes. Remember, in War and Peace, the little peasant girls who cross the road, laughing, in front of Prince Andrei's carriage? He speaks to them, directly, and the reader's imagination is at once lifted; now there is not just one face, not just one soul. He portrays the many faces of the crowd. Wait, I'll read you that passage, it's remarkable. Put the light on," he said, for night had fallen.

"Planes," Florence replied, looking up at the sky.

"Won't they leave me the hell alone?" he thundered.

He hated the war; it threatened much more than his lifestyle or peace of mind. It continually destroyed the world of the imagination, the only world where he felt happy. It was like a shrill, brutal trumpet shattering the fragile crystal walls he'd taken such pains to build in order to shut out the rest of the world.

"God!" he sighed. "How upsetting, what a nightmare!"

Brought back down to earth, he asked to see the newspapers. She gave them to him without a word. They came in from the terrace and he leafed through the papers, a dark look on his face. "All in all," he said, "nothing new."

He didn't want to see anything new. He dismissed reality with the bored, startled gesture of a sleeping man awakened abruptly in the middle of a dream. He even shaded his eyes with his hand as if to block out a dazzling light.

Florence walked towards the radio. He stopped her. "No, no, leave it alone."

"But Gabriel…"

He went white with anger. "Listen to me! I don't want to hear anything. Tomorrow, tomorrow will be soon enough. If I hear any bad news now (and it can only be bad with these c**** in government) my momentum will be lost, my inspiration blocked. Look, you'd better call Mademoiselle Sudre. I think I'll dictate a few pages!" She hurried to summon the secretary.

As she was coming back to the drawing room, the telephone rang. "It's Monsieur Jules Blanc phoning from the Presidential Office, wishing to speak to Monsieur Corte," said the valet.

She carefully closed all the doors so that no noise could filter through to where Gabriel and his secretary were working. Meanwhile, the valet went to prepare a cold supper for his master, as he always did. Gabriel ate little during the day but was often hungry at night. There was some leftover cold partridge, a few peaches, some delicious little cheeses (which Florence herself had ordered from a shop on the Left Bank) and a bottle of Pommery. After many years of reflection and research, Corte had come to the conclusion that, given his poor digestion, only champagne would do. Florence listened to Jules Blanc's voice on the telephone, an exhausted, almost imperceptible voice, and at the same time heard all the familiar sounds of the house-the soft clinking of china and glass, Gabriel's deep, languid voice-and she felt as though she were living a confusing dream. She put down the phone and called the valet. He had been in their service for a long time and trained for what he called "the workings of the house," an inadvertent pastiche of seventeenth-century parlance that Gabriel found quite charming.

"What can we do, Marcel? Jules Blanc himself is telling us to leave…"

"Leave? To go where, Madame?"

"Anywhere. To Brittany. The Midi. It seems the Germans have crossed the Seine. What can we do?" she repeated.

"I have no idea, Madame," said Marcel frostily.

They'd waited long enough to ask his opinion. They should have left last night, he thought. Isn't it just pathetic to see rich, famous people who have no more common sense than animals! And even animals can sense danger… As for him, well, he wasn't afraid of the Germans. He'd seen them in '14. He'd be left alone; he was too old to be called up. But he was outraged: the house, the furniture, the silver-they hadn't thought about anything in time. He let out a barely audible sigh. He would have had everything wrapped up long ago, hidden away in packing cases, in a safe place. He felt a sort of affectionate scorn towards his employers, the same scorn he felt towards the white greyhounds: they were beautiful but stupid.

"Madame should warn Monsieur," he concluded.

Florence started walking towards the drawing room, but she had barely opened the door when she heard Gabriel's voice. It was the voice he assumed on his worst days, when he was most agitated: slow, hoarse, interrupted now and again by a nervous cough.

She gave orders to Marcel and the maid, then thought about their most valuable possessions, the ones to be taken when there's danger, when you have to escape. She placed a light but sturdy suitcase on her bed. First she hid the jewellery she'd had the foresight to get out of the safe. Over it she put some underwear, her washing things, two spare blouses, a little evening dress, so she'd have something to wear once they'd arrived-she knew there'd be delays on the road-a dressing gown and slippers, her make-up case (which took up a lot of space) and of course Gabriel's manuscripts. She tried in vain to close the suitcase. She moved the jewellery box, tried again. No, something definitely had to go. But what? Everything was essential. She pressed her knee against the case, pushed down, tried to lock it and failed. She was getting annoyed.

Finally, she called her maid. "Do you think you can manage to close it, Julie?"

"It's too full, Madame. It's impossible."

For a second Florence hesitated between her make-up case and the manuscripts, chose the make-up and closed the suitcase.

The manuscripts could be stuffed into the hatbox, she thought. I know him, though! His outbursts, his crises, his heart medicine. We'll see tomorrow, it's better to get everything ready tonight and not tell him anything. Then we'll see…

4

Along with their fortune, the Maltête family of Lyon had bequeathed to the Péricands a predisposition to tuberculosis. This illness had claimed two of Adrien Péricand's sisters at an early age; his son, Philippe, had suffered from it a few years earlier. Two years in the mountains, however, seemed to have cured Father Philippe, his recovery coinciding with the moment when he was finally ordained a priest. His lungs were still weak, so when war was declared he was exempt. Nevertheless, he looked strong. He had good colour in his cheeks, thick black eyebrows and a healthy, rugged appearance. His parish was a little village in the Auvergne. As soon as his vocation had become apparent, Madame Péricand had given him up to the Lord. In exchange for this sacrifice, she had hoped for a bit of worldly glory and that he might be destined for great things; instead, he was teaching the catechism to the small farmers of Puy-de-Dôme. If the Church was unable to find some greater responsibility for him, even a monastery would be better than this poor parish. "It's such a waste," she would say to him vehemently. "You are wasting the gifts the Good Lord has given you." But she consoled herself with the thought that the cold climate was good for him. He seemed to need the kind of air he'd breathed in the high altitudes of Switzerland for two years. Back on the streets of Paris, he strode along in a manner that made passers-by smile, for it seemed out of keeping with his cassock.