‘The thing is, believe it or not, what I felt at the time was not anger at having been tricked like that, deceived, you know, made to look a bit of a fool. Nor did I feel ashamed at having allowed myself to be dressed and undressed, handled and touched by this man. I felt a much deeper humiliation … a female humiliation … Can you understand that?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, exactly.’

‘Listen. Just think a minute. He’d been found guilty of rape, this fellow! I was thinking about the woman he’d raped … and it was that I felt humiliated by … that’s what I mean. Do you see now?’

Madame Simone gave no response. She was looking fixedly and with the enigmatic smile women sometimes wear at the two gleaming livery buttons directly before her eyes.

IDYLL

The train had just left Genoa en route for Marseille and was following the long curves of the rocky coast. It slithered like an iron snake between the mountains and the sea, past beaches of yellow sand lapped by little silver waves, before being swallowed up into the mouth of a tunnel like an animal bolting into its lair.

In the last carriage a plump woman and a young man were sitting opposite each other in silence, stealing the odd surreptitious glance at each other. She was about twenty-five and sitting on the door side of the carriage, looking out at the passing scenery. She was a stocky, chubby-cheeked Piedmontese peasant woman with black hair and a full bosom. Having pushed several parcels under the wooden seat she was now holding a basket on her knees.

The young man was about twenty, very thin and with the deep tan of someone who works in the fields under a blazing sun. Beside him tied up in a bundle was his entire fortune: a pair of shoes, a shirt, a pair of breeches and a jacket. Under his seat he had stowed a pick and shovel tied together with rope. He was hoping to find work in France.

The sun as it rose poured a rain of fire over the coast. It was late May and delightful fragrances filled the air and wafted through the lowered carriage windows. Orange and lemon trees in blossom breathed upwards into the peaceful sky sweet, pervasive, honeyed scents which mingled with the perfume of the roses growing wild along the track, rambling over the rich gardens they passed, around the doors of tumbledown country cottages and in the open country too. This coast is their natural habitat. They fill the place with their light yet powerful fragrance and turn the air itself into something both sweeter than wine and equally intoxicating.