A large cloud covered half the sky; all the fresh, bright colours in the garden turned grey. The lady was picking some little purple flowers and tearing them up.

"It's not possible," she said, on the verge of tears.

What's not possible? the little girl wondered.

"Of course I've also thought about it… I admit it, I'm not talking about… love… but I would have liked to have a friend like you… I've never had any friends. I have no one. But it's not possible."

"Because of other people?" said the officer scornfully.

She just looked at him proudly. "Other people? If I myself felt innocent then… No! There can be nothing between us."

"There are many things you will never be able to erase: the day we spent together when it rained, the piano, this morning, our walks in the woods…"

"Oh, but I shouldn't have…"

"But you did! It's too late… there's nothing you can do about it. All that was…"

The little girl rested her face on her folded arms and heard nothing more than a distant murmur, like the humming of a bumblebee. That big cloud bordered with burning rays of sunlight meant it would rain. What if it suddenly started raining, what would the lady and the officer do? Wouldn't it be funny to see them running in the rain, her with her straw hat and him with his beautiful green cape? But they could hide in the garden. If they followed her, she could show them a bower where no one would be able to see them. It's twelve o'clock now, she thought when she heard the church bells ringing the Angelus. Are they going to go home for lunch? What do rich people eat? Fromage blanc like us? Bread? Potatoes? Sweets? What if I asked them for some sweets? She went up to them and was going to tug at their hands to ask for some sweets-she was a bold little girl, this Rose-when she saw them suddenly jump up and stand there, shaking. Yes, the gentleman and the lady were shaking, just like when she was up in the cherry tree at school, her mouth stuffed full of cherries, and she heard the teacher shouting, "Rose, you little thief, come down from there at once!" But they hadn't seen the teacher: it was a soldier standing to attention, who was talking very quickly in an incomprehensible language; the words coming out of his mouth sounded like water rushing over a bed of rocks.

The officer moved away from the lady, who looked pale and dishevelled.

"What is it?" she murmured. "What is he saying?"

The officer seemed as upset as she was; he was listening without hearing. Finally, his pale face lit up with a smile.

"He says they've found everything… but the old gentleman's false teeth are broken because the children have been playing with them: they tried to cram them in the mouth of the stuffed bulldog."

Both of them-the officer and the lady-gradually seemed to come out of their stupor and return to earth. They looked down at the little girl and saw her this time. The officer tugged at her ear. "What have you little devils been up to?"

But his voice quivered and in the lady's laugh you could hear the echo of stifled sobs. She laughed like someone who had been very frightened and couldn't forget, while laughing, that she'd had a narrow escape. Little Rose was bothered and tried in vain to run off. She wanted to say, "The false teeth… yes… well… we wanted to see if the bulldog would look vicious with some brand-new teeth…" But she was afraid the officer would get angry (seen close up, he seemed very big and scary) so she just whined, "We didn't do anything, we didn't… we didn't even see any false teeth."

Meanwhile, children were coming over from all directions. They were all talking at once with their young shrill voices.

"Stop! Stop! Be quiet!" the lady begged. "Never mind. We're just happy to have found everything else."

An hour later a gang of kids in dirty clothes came out of the Perrins' garden, followed by two German soldiers pushing a wheelbarrow containing a basket of china cups, a sofa with its four legs in the air (one was broken), a plush photograph album, a birdcage that the Germans mistook for the salad dryer and many other items. Bringing up the rear were Lucile and the officer. Curious women stared at them as they walked through the village. They didn't speak to each other, the women noticed; they didn't even look at each other and they were deathly pale-the officer's expression cold and impenetrable.

"She must have given him a piece of her mind," the women whispered. "Said it was shameful to get a house into that state. He's furious. Goodness gracious, they're not used to people standing up for themselves. She's right. We're not dogs! She's brave, that young Angellier lady, she's not afraid." One of them, who was tending a goat (the little old woman with white hair and blue eyes who'd run into the Angellier ladies on their way back from Vespers that Easter Sunday and had said to them, "These Germans, I've heard they're bad and evil"), even came up to Lucile and whispered to her as she passed, "Good for you, Madame! Show them we're not afraid. Your prisoner of war would be proud of you," she added and she began to cry, not that she had a prisoner herself to cry over-she was long past the age of having a husband or a son at war-she cried because prejudice outlives passion and because she was sentimentally patriotic.

15

Whenever the elder Madame Angellier and the German met each other, they both instinctively stepped back. On the officer's part this could have been interpreted as a sign of exaggerated courtesy, the desire not to impose his presence on the mistress of the house. He had almost the air of a thoroughbred horse leaping away from a snake it sees at its feet. Madame Angellier, on the other hand, didn't even bother to disguise the shudder that ran through her, leaving her looking stiff and terrified, as if she'd come into contact with some disgusting, dangerous animal. But the moment lasted for only an instant: a good education is precisely designed to correct the instincts of human nature. The officer would draw himself up, put on the rigid, serious expression of an automaton, then bow and click his heels together ("Oh, that Prussian salute!" Madame Angellier would groan, without thinking that this greeting was, in fact, exactly what she should have expected from a man born in western Germany, since it was unlikely to be an Arab kiss of the hand, or an English handshake). As for Madame Angellier, she would clasp her hands in front of her like a nun who has been sitting at someone's deathbed and gets up to greet a member of his family suspected of anticlericalism. During these encounters, various expressions would cross Madame Angellier's face: false respect ("You're in charge here!"), disapproval ("Everyone knows who you are, you heathen!"), submission ("Let us offer up our hatred to the Lord") and finally a flash of fierce joy ("Just you wait, my friend, you'll be burning in hell while I'm finding peace in Jesus"), although this final thought was replaced in Madame Angellier's mind by the desire she felt every time she saw a member of the occupying forces: "I hope he'll soon be at the bottom of the English Channel," for everyone was expecting an attempt to invade England, if not imminently, then very soon. Taking her desires for reality, Madame Angellier even came to believe the German looked like a drowned man: pallid, swollen, thrown about by the waves. It was this thought alone that allowed her to look human again, allowed the shadow of a smile to pass over her lips (like the final rays of a dying star) and allowed her to reply to the German when he asked after her health, "Thank you for asking. I'm as well as can be expected," mournfully stressing these final words to imply, "as well as I can be, given the disastrous situation France is in."

Lucile walked behind Madame Angellier. She had become colder, more distracted, more rebellious than usual. She would nod silently as she walked away from the German. He too was silent. But, thinking no one could see, he would watch her for a long time as she walked away. Madame Angellier seemed to have eyes in the back of her head to catch him. Without even turning round she would mutter angrily to Lucile, "Pay no attention to him. He's still there." She could only breathe freely after the door had been shut behind them; then she would give her daughter-in-law a withering look and say, "You've done something different to your hair today," or "You're wearing your new dress, aren't you?" concluding sarcastically, "It's not very flattering."