He was overly modest, but a thimbleful of wine made him suddenly eager to talk, to impress others. As he was bragging, he ran his index finger along the back of his collar – it was a bit tight and irritating him – and he puffed his chest out like a rooster, until the doorbell rang and interrupted him. Thérèse started to get up to answer it, but little Bernard got there first and soon came back accompanied by a plumpish, bearded young man, a friend of Martial, a law student named Raymond Détang. Because of his liveliness, his eloquence, his beautiful baritone voice and his effortless success with women, Raymond Détang inspired feelings of envy and gloomy admiration in Martial. He stopped talking the moment he saw him and nervously began brushing up all the breadcrumbs scattered around his plate.

‘We were just talking about you young men and your studies,’ said Adolphe Brun. ‘You see what’s in store for you,’ he added, turning towards Bernard.

Bernard did not reply because at the age of fifteen, the company of adults still intimidated him. He was still in short trousers. (‘But this is the last year … Soon he will be too big,’ his mother said, sounding regretful but proud.) After this hearty meal, his cheeks were fiery red and his tie kept slipping. He gave it a hard tug and pushed his blond curls off his forehead.

‘He must graduate from the Polytechnique, the most prestigious Engineering School, among the top of his class,’ his father said in a booming voice. ‘I would do anything in the world to give him a good education: the best tutors, anything; but he knows what I expect of him: he must graduate from the Polytechnique among the top of his class. He’s a hard worker though. He’s first in his class.’

Everyone looked at Bernard; a wave of pride rushed through his heart. It was a feeling of almost unbearable sweetness. He blushed even more and finally spoke in a voice that was breaking, sometimes shrill and almost heart-rending, sometimes soft and deep:

‘Oh, that, it’s nothing really …’

He raised his chin in a gesture of defiance and pulled at the knot in his tie so hard it nearly ripped, as if to say:

‘We’ll see about that!’

He was excited by the dream of one day seeing himself become an important engineer, a mathematician, an inventor, or perhaps an explorer or a soldier, having encounters with a string of beautiful women along the way, surrounded by devoted friends and disciples. But at the same time, he glanced furtively at the bit of cake sitting on his plate and wondered how he could manage to eat it with all those eyes staring at him; fortunately his father spoke to Martial and diverted everyone’s attention, leaving him in obscurity once more. He took advantage of the moment by wolfing down a quarter of his cake in one mouthful.

‘What branch of medicine are you planning to specialise in?’ Monsieur Jacquelain asked Martial. Monsieur Jacquelain suffered from terrible stomach problems. He had a blond moustache, as pale as hay, and a face like grey sand; he was covered in wrinkles like dunes furrowed by the sea breeze. He looked at Martial with a sad, eager expression, as if the very fact of speaking to a future doctor might be enough to discover some secret cure, but one that wouldn’t work on him. He instinctively placed his hand on the spot where the illness made him suffer, just below his sunken chest, and repeated several times:

‘It’s a shame you haven’t got your qualifications yet, my dear boy. A shame. I would have come to you for a consultation. A shame …’

Then he sat there, deep in anguished thought.

‘In two years,’ Martial said shyly.

Urged on by their questions, he admitted he had his eye on an apartment, on the Rue Monge. A doctor he knew wanted to retire so would pass it on to him. As he spoke, he could picture all the pleasant days ahead …

‘You should get married, Martial,’ said the elderly Madame Pain with a mischievous smile.

Martial nervously rolled the soft part of the bread into a ball, pulled at it so it took the shape of a man, stabbed at it with his dessert fork and raised his doe eyes to look at Thérèse.

‘I’m thinking about it,’ he said, his voice full of emotion. ‘Believe me, I’m thinking about it.’

For a fleeting moment, Thérèse thought his remarks were directed at her; she wanted to laugh but at the same time felt embarrassed, as if she’d been left standing naked in public. So it was true then, what her father, her grandmother and her friends at school were saying: ever since she had started putting up her hair, she looked like a woman? But to marry this kind Martial … She lowered her eyes and watched him with curiosity. She’d known him since she was a child; she liked him very much; she could live with him as her mother and father had lived until the day the young woman died. ‘The poor boy,’ she suddenly thought. ‘He’s an orphan.’ She already felt a kind of affection and concern that was almost maternal.