‘Here, have a little more of this excellent soup so you can take your time telling us about all these poor people, because after all there’s nothing better than a handsome table bedecked with flowers and silverware to bring out socialist sentiments. Come on, get on with it, we’re all ears! Tell us, for example, about your friends from the Café du Madrid . . . Or – now what is he called again? That shameful Jew who seems to have scribbled some sort of treatise on the right to steal? – Marx, is that it? Go on, tell us a bit about your Monsieur Marx!’

Infuriated, Auguste left the table immediately, fists clenched, his mouth full of all the abominable insults he would so dearly have loved to spit in his brother’s face, but he contained himself out of respect for his father, who he felt had already put up with enough for one day.

He could still hear his brother shouting as he fled to his room.

‘—And you just sit there without saying a word. “I love the people,” he cries, the fool . . . Instead of letting him get away with everything and leaving him in the care of that lunatic Aunt Clothilde, you should be putting your foot down! Because when he gets it into his head to go and enlighten the hoi polloi about the principles of Goodness, Truth and Beauty, and he’s brought back to you in pieces from Paris on some oxcart, everybody here will be weeping – everybody except me! And anyway, I’ve had enough of eating this peasant’s food when Monsieur does us the honour of turning up!’

And with that, Ferdinand set the cutlery dancing across the cloth and left the table.

Jules observed his plate somewhat sceptically.

‘It’s true that without any bacon this soup is not very tasty!’

Hastily gathering together the few things he had brought with him, the young man hurried out of the house so as not to miss the train that would take him back to Paris. But arriving at the station and seeing the crowds gathered at the roundhouse, he realised many people had taken advantage of the sunny weather to head out to the snowy countryside. As a result, he was unlikely to find a seat in first class for his return journey, nor even one in second. That left third, even though he did not have enough layers to join the clerks and workers in the open carriage.