What the new bedroom had was charm, Delphine explained. It lay in the white-painted floorboards and the faded rose pattern of the curtains; in the casement window with bubbles in its original glass, the narrow glazing bars and the way it could be adjusted to let in just the right amount of summer air. Such things made the difference between a mouldy boarding house (the first room) and a pure enchantment. And a magnolia that wasn’t white was an abomination. Anton nodded his head, as though he understood.

After her bath each morning, Delphine spent at least an hour sitting on the bed, reading in German and French while Anton worked in the living room below. In the evening, sometimes she served dinner on a low table in front of the large chimney breast, where it was still cold enough to have a fire; if it was warmer, she called him out to the veranda. She had a horror of the freshwater fish admired by the locals and spared Anton the sight of sausages. She tried instead to make Norman dishes from what she could find in the market; butter, mushrooms and cider went into the sauces and once she ordered an ox cheek that she marinated for two days in red wine.

When Anton found it hard to work, he urged himself on by remembering Amos and his friends, and the thought of them was enough to bend him to the typewriter once more. From upstairs, Delphine heard the clack of keys, the pauses and the rattling surges, looking up for a moment from her book, taking in a patch of morning sunlight on the distempered wall.

During the silences, as he organised his thoughts, Anton leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. He tried to think about French national pride and yellow fever, but found himself picturing the curve of Delphine’s lower back, which he had massaged when she complained about the hardness of the bed. There was something touching about the softness of her skin over the firm, athletic flesh. He liked the trust she showed in him, lying naked, as though he were a doctor. She chatted about music and the shops in town while he kneaded and stroked; then she sprang from the bed and put on her clothes again, before he had finished admiring the base of her spine.

Sometimes he felt wary of Delphine. She had read everything he had, and more in her own language. He ought really to have taken his studies more seriously, he thought. Kant, for instance. He had found him wonderful, inspiring, but so difficult to read that he had given up halfway. Delphine was older, of course: she had had more time. And she seemed more worldly, too, in the way she could organise the house or sum up visiting tradesmen at a glance. ‘He’s been in prison. You can tell from his shaking hand … The other one’s reliable, but he’ll overcharge.’ Her clothes were not old-fashioned, but they were proper, with skirts and laced boots and petticoats and pins in her hair, even if they were alone with no visitors all day.