When I saw Francois for the very first time, the instant we looked into each other's eyes, so much happened in that moment ... it makes me feel faint to think of it. Our love, our separation, those three years he spent in Dakar, when I was someone else's wife, and . . . everything else . . . Then the war, the children ... Happy things, but sad things as well, the idea that he could die, or /might, and the desperate unhappiness of the one left behind."

"Yes," I said, "but who would bother sowing his fields if he knew in advance what the harvest would bring?"

"But everyone would, Silvio," she replied, calling me by the name she hardly ever used now. "That's what life is all about, joy and tears. Everyone wants to live life, everyone except you."

I looked at her and smiled. "You love Francois so much." "I love him very much," she said simply.

Someone knocked on the kitchen door. It was a young lad who'd borrowed a crate for some chickens the day before and was returning it to the maid. Through the half-open window I heard his loud voice: "Been an accident near the lake at Buire."

"What kind of accident?" the cook asked.

"Car got itself smashed to bits on the road and someone got hurt. They took him to Buire."

"Do you know his name?"

"No, dunno," said the boy.

"It's Francois," said Helene, who'd gone white.

"Come on, that's mad!"

"I just know it's Francois."

"He would have phoned if he'd had an accident."

"But you know what he's like, don't you? To spare me getting upset and going over to Buire in the dark, he's going to try and get himself brought back here, even if he's injured or dying."

"But he'll never find a car at this time of night, in the snow."

She walked out of the dining room and got her coat and shawl from the entrance hall.

"That's mad," was all I could say again. "You don't even know for sure it was Francois in that accident. And, anyway, how are you going to get to Buire?"

"Well ... I'll walk, if I have no other choice."

"Eleven kilometres!"

She didn't even reply. I tried to borrow a car from the neighbours. No luck: one had broken down, the other belonged to the doctor, who needed it to drive a patient to the next town for an operation. Bicycles were useless in the thick snow. We had no choice but to walk. It was extremely cold. Helene walked quickly, in silence: she was certain that Francois was at Buire. I didn't try to talk her out of it. I thought she was definitely capable of hearing her injured husband calling out to her. There is a kind of superhuman power in conjugal love. As the Church says, its a great mystery. Many other things are mysteries in love as well.