And someone has to stay with Désirée.’

Octave opened his mouth but then looked at his sister and shut it again. He remained there, whistling softly, looking up at the trees full of chattering sparrows going home to roost in the garden of the sub-prefecture. He gazed for a long time at Monsieur Rastoil’s pear trees with the sun setting behind them. Serge had taken a book out of his pocket and was immersed in his reading. There was an absorbed silence, warm with an unspoken tenderness in the pleasant golden glow of the sun that, little by little, was fading from the terrace. Marthe cast a loving look over all of her three children* in the calm of the evening, and plied her needle with long, regular strokes.

‘So everyone is late today then,’ she said after a little while. ‘It’s nearly ten and your father’s not home… I think he’s gone over to Les Tulettes.’*

‘Oh well,’ said Octave, ‘then I’m not surprised… The farmers at Les Tulettes don’t let him go once they’ve got him… Has he gone to buy wine?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Marthe. ‘You know he doesn’t care to discuss his business affairs.’

There was silence once more. In the dining room, its window wide open on to the terrace, old Rose had been laying the table for some little while, with an ill-tempered clatter of plates and silver. She seemed to be in a very bad mood, banging the furniture about, her words disjointed and grumbling. Then she went and stood at the door on to the street, craning her neck to look at the distant Place de la Préfecture. After standing there for a few minutes she came out on to the steps and shouted:

‘So is Monsieur Mouret coming home for supper or not?’

‘Yes, Rose, he is, just be patient,’ Marthe replied equably.

‘It’s all burnt. It’s not right. When Monsieur goes off like that he ought to let me know beforehand… Not that it’s any business of mine, when all’s said and done. But the supper won’t be edible.’

‘Is that so, Rose?’ said a quiet voice behind her. ‘All the same, we shall eat your supper.’

Mouret was home. Rose turned her head and looked straight at her master, as though ready to explode with rage. But faced with his level expression, which displayed just a hint of bourgeois mockery, she could think of nothing to say, and withdrew. Mouret went down on to the terrace, where, instead of sitting down, he walked back and forth. He did no more than lightly touch Désirée’s cheek with his fingertips, and she smiled up at him. Marthe raised her eyes. Then, after a glance at her husband, she started to put her work away in her table.

‘Aren’t you tired?’ Octave asked, looking at his father’s shoes, which were white with dust.

‘A little,’ Mouret replied, saying no more about the long walk he had just had.

But then in the middle of the garden he spied a rake and a spade that had no doubt been left out by the children.

‘Why have the tools not been put away?’ he shouted. ‘I’ve said it a hundred times. If it were to rain they would all rust.’

Without another word he went down and tidied the tools away at the back of the small greenhouse. As he came back up the terrace he scanned every corner of the paths to check that everything was in the right place.

‘You doing your homework?’ he asked, as he passed Serge who was still reading his book.

‘No, father,’ his son answered. ‘It’s a book Abbé Bourrette* lent me, The Missions to China.’*

Mouret stopped abruptly in front of his wife.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘has anybody called?’

‘No, nobody, my dear,’ said Marthe, surprised.

He was about to say more, but appeared to think better of it. He walked around for another moment or two without saying anything, then, going towards the steps:

‘Well, Rose, where’s this supper that was burnt?’

From the end of the passage came the furious voice of the cook shouting:

‘My sakes, nothing’s ready any more now, it’s all gone cold. You’ll have to wait, Sir.’

Mouret laughed silently; with his left eye he winked at his wife and children. Rose’s anger seemed to amuse him a great deal. Then he became absorbed in his neighbour’s fruit trees.

‘It’s astonishing,’ he remarked softly, ‘Monsieur Rastoil has some magnificent pears this year.’

Marthe, who had suddenly become a little anxious, seemed about to ask him something.