Fortunately, by cutting across a corner of ploughed field he was able to come round in front of the cow and ran towards her so fast that, bemused and scared, she came to a sudden halt. Quickly he undid the rope and made the girl sit up in the grass.

‘No bones broken?’

She had not even fainted. She got to her feet, felt herself all over, calmly pulling her skirt up over her thighs to look at her knees, which were smarting; she was still too breathless to speak.

‘That's where it caught me, see? Anyway, I'm all in one piece, it's not too bad. My goodness, what a scare. If I'd been on the path I'd have been cut to ribbons.’

And examining the wrist which had been caught in the rope and had a red weal all round it, she moistened it with spittle and sucked it, adding with a sigh of relief and already on her way to recovery:

‘Coliche isn't really bad, only she's been giving us trouble all this morning because she's on heat. I'm taking her to the bull at La Borderie.’

‘At La Borderie?’ Jean repeated. ‘That's lucky, I'm going back there myself, I'll come along with you.’ He continued to speak to her familiarly, treating her like a little child, since for all her fourteen years she was very slight in build. Meanwhile, with her chin in the air, she was looking up at this sturdy young man with his regular, rounded features and close-cropped brown hair; at twenty-nine, he was already an old man to her.

‘Oh, I know who you are, you're the Corporal, the carpenter who's taken a job at Monsieur Hourdequin's.’

Hearing this nickname which the locals had given him, the young man gave a smile; and he in turn looked at her more closely, intrigued by the signs which showed that she was already almost a young woman. Her firm little breasts were starting to fill out; and her deep dark eyes were set in a long face with pink fleshy lips like fresh ripening fruit. She was wearing a skirt and black woollen bodice, and had a round cap on her head; her skin was a dark golden brown, tanned by the sun.

‘You must be old Mouche's youngest daughter!’ he exclaimed. ‘I didn't recognize you. Wasn't your sister going around with Buteau last spring when he was working with me at La Borderie?’

She replied simply:

‘Yes, that's right, I'm Françoise. My sister Lise did go out with cousin Buteau and now she's six months pregnant. He cleared off to Orgères, to the Chamade farm.’

‘Yes, that's right,’ Jean agreed. ‘I saw them together.’

And they stood facing each other for a moment in silence, he laughing because he'd caught the two love-birds together one evening behind a haystack, she still moistening her bruised wrist as if her wet lips would relieve the soreness. Meanwhile the cow was calmly tearing up tufts of lucerne in a neighbouring field. The driver had gone off with his harrow, taking a roundabout way to the road. You could hear two rooks cawing as they wheeled monotonously round the steeple. In the dead still air, the angelus bell tolled three times.

‘Good Lord! Twelve o'clock already,’ exclaimed Jean. ‘Let's get a move on.’

Then, catching sight of Coliche in the field:

‘I say, your cow's trespassing. Suppose someone saw her. You wait, you stupid cow, I'll show you what's what.’

‘No, leave her alone,’ said Françoise, stopping him. ‘That piece of land belongs to us. She made me fall over on a bit of our own land, the silly cow! All that side belongs to the family as far as Rognes. We go from here over to there, then next to that comes Uncle Fouan's and after that it's my aunt's, La Grande!’

While she was pointing out the various fields, she led the cow back onto the path. It was not until she was holding her by the rope again that she thought of thanking the young man.

‘Anyway, I'm terribly grateful to you. Thanks ever so.’

They had started to go along the narrow path which ran beside the valley before branching off into the fields. The last peal of the angelus bell had just died away in the distance and only the rooks were left cawing. And as they followed behind the cow, who was tugging at her rope, neither of them could find anything more to say; they had fallen silent in the way of country people who can walk side by side for hours without exchanging a word. They glanced towards a mechanical seeder as its horses swung round beside them on their right, the driver called out ‘Good morning’ and they replied ‘Good morning’, in the same serious tone.