And there we go, I should never have put the words ‘share’ and ‘treasure’ in the same sentence. Papé talks to me again like an old, white-bearded sage, as if he wants to take the secret notebook in which I keep my words and turn it into a book of spells.

‘You see, my dear, there are only three possible attitudes you can have towards a treasure, this has always been true, whether that treasure is a woman, a diamond, a piece of land, or a magic spell: you can covet it, own it or protect it. Just as there are only three types of men: the jealous, the selfish and the conservative. No one shares a treasure, Clotilde, no one …’

At first I liked Papé’s speeches, but now I’m starting to get annoyed. And I don’t want to annoy him, but I don’t really see the difference between the selfish ones who possess and the conservative ones who protect without sharing. I don’t say anything. I have another, more cunning way to make him react.

‘If you like, Papé, if you say so. But most of all I think that basically the real reason is that, like all Corsicans, you don’t love the sea. You don’t like dolphins. You don’t like the Mediterranean. You don’t like turning in that direction, towards the horizon. If the Corsicans really loved the sea they wouldn’t leave it to the Italians in their yachts.’

He laughs.

That last phrase was too much, now he’s going to make fun of me rather than getting angry.

‘I like your image of the Italians, but you’re wrong, Clotilde. About the Corsicans and the Mediterranean. You know, I haven’t always been a shepherd. I spent five years in the merchant navy, I’ve been around the world three times.’

You are amazing, my Clo, it worked!

Two hundred and fifty degrees. I have a sense, following the coast towards the south, that I can see all the way to the nature reserve at Scandola and Girolata, where the rocks turn red and the buzzards build crazy nests that look like watchtowers on top of the volcanic peaks.