Every so often, Manuel goes to hover over the incubator, which stands with others in a glass-panelled room not far from Céline’s. He watches the tiny head he could crush with just one hand – strange, but he can’t stop thinking about it: I could crush it with just one hand. This extreme fragility drives him insane, it’s as if he’s drunk even though he’s only had two beers, he’s thinking a thousand things at once and not knowing how he feels. He came straight from the building site as soon as he heard. His face, hair and clothes are studded with a thin layer of white paint. He can’t stay still, paces up and down the corridor, returns to the room where Céline is slumbering, criss-crosses it, changing wall with each trip; he varies his trajectory but the room is too small for his movements. He looks like a madman or an animal in a cage. He suddenly sits down at the foot of the bed.

Séverine is here, too, she’d have liked to come sooner but she didn’t know; she apologizes but not too profusely: if she feels guilty for switching off her phone she doesn’t let on. She watches her daughter after seeing the tiny child in the transparent box. Sometimes, she glances at the TV at the tip of a steel arm above their heads, switched on but with the sound off. It’s an animal documentary, first felines then large apes – a reassuring, banal kind of savagery. Séverine sits next to her daughter, on the only chair in the room. She scratches the seam of her jeans with the tip of her long, pink fingernails. She fiercely attacks the fabric. Céline would like to know what she’s thinking.

But it’s her father who speaks, all of a sudden, without looking at anyone. “You were pretty when you were born. So pretty. We knew it was too soon, we knew it would be difficult, but I was happy, you know, Céline. I was happy.”

Céline is taken aback by her father’s declaration. She wishes he’d keep quiet, it’s too much, she’s not used to it. He paces around the room, bewildered by the event. He’s overwhelmed, and didn’t expect to be to this extent. He’s quiet now, and doesn’t seem to want to say any more, and Céline is relieved. She hopes Jo will come back; she’s gone down to buy Cokes from the vending machine in the lobby.