Once the mayor had left, Joséphine was overcome with grief, for there was no hope now. But she was relieved to finally know the truth. Not knowing had added to the cruelty of his absence and she was comforted by the knowledge that right to the end her husband had sacrificed his life to save others. When he had still been with her, Anthelme had lived for his work as if it were a calling. Even when the world was still at peace he had given so much of himself that after he had made his evening visits he returned home exhausted. A country doctor lives all the time in the pain of others; listening, sympathising and travelling all over the place on bad roads whatever the weather. The roads around Orcières were terrible and every day Anthelme spent hours in the saddle, devoting himself to his work to such an extent that, once home, all he wanted to do was rest in silence. A country doctor gives so much of himself during the day that in the evening there is nothing left to give. And the wife of a country doctor must deal with the waiting patients, encourage them to talk, listen to their troubles and hear about their recoveries, and finds herself dreaming of bodies that are not sick, of bodies that are not exhausted by the troubles of others. The wife of a doctor, when she knows her husband has been dead for weeks, finds herself all alone in a house deserted by all bodies, healthy as well as sick, a house that had been for some a place of hope and healing and for others a place of distress, but now from one day to the next, a house that nobody came to. It was only La Bûche who visited her, always finding a pretext to check the roof, or shoe a horse. She felt dirtied by his constant presence and started to fear him.

From now on she would be nothing but a wife in mourning, a soul in pain, a woman with neither flesh nor blood. Yet at the height of transgression or of sin, in the tunnel of war, with winter coming, she felt like a body that was waiting, a body seeking revenge, a body more full of desire than ever before.

August 2017

August 2017