The secretary added in a quieter tone: ‘The flower and the fragrance are customized. The gas, which is odourless, gives death the perfume of the person’s favourite flower. We volatize it with various essences to produce this effect. Would you like a taster?’

‘No thanks!’ I said hurriedly. ‘Not yet.’

He started laughing: ‘Oh dear me, Monsieur, there’s absolutely no danger involved. I’ve tried it out myself, many times!’

Not wishing to look like a coward, I said: ‘Oh all right, then …’

‘Just stretch out on the Lull-a-Bye.’

None too confidently, I first sat, then stretched out on the crêpe-de-chine-covered chair. Almost immediately, a delicious haze of mignonette wafted all around me. I opened my mouth, the deeper to breathe it in. I was now so relaxed that I could feel myself drifting into the most exquisite oblivion, the first stage of asphyxiation by a powerful and irresistible opiate.

Then I felt my arm being shaken.

‘Monsieur! Monsieur!’ the secretary was calling gleefully. ‘I think you were really getting into it there!’

Another voice, real this time, with nothing remotely hazy about it, was calling in less refined tones: ‘Monsieur? You all right, Monsieur?’

My dream vanished into thin air. I saw the Seine shimmering before me in the sun, as up the path came stomping the local garde-champêtre,12 his right hand now touching the silver-braided peak of his black uniform cap.

‘Good morning to you, Marinel. And where are you off to then?’ I replied.

‘Got to register a drowning fetched up near Morillons. Another one just chucked himself in the drink, Monsieur. Even taken off his trousers, this one had, to tie round his legs, I don’t know, indeed …’

MOTHER OF INVENTION

I

An elegant victoria1 to which were harnessed two superb black horses was waiting in front of the steps leading up to the town house. It was about half-past five on a late June evening and between the roofs which enclosed the main courtyard the sky looked bright, clear and inviting.

The Comtesse de Mascaret appeared at the top of the steps just as her husband, returning home, passed under the carriage entrance. He stopped and grew pale at the sight of his wife. She looked extremely beautiful, svelte and distinguished with her long, oval face, her honey-and-ivory complexion, grey eyes and dark hair. Without acknowledging or even seeming to notice him, she got into the carriage with such grace and style that he felt a deep pang of the old jealousy which had consumed him for so long. Approaching, he greeted her: ‘Going for a ride?’ he asked.

Contemptuously she spat out a mere five words: ‘What does it look like?’

‘To the Bois?’

‘More than likely.’

‘And might I be allowed to accompany you?’

‘It’s your carriage.’

Unsurprised by her tone he got in, sat down next to his wife and called out: ‘To the Bois!’