He started making his way down, cursing as he went – his knees, God, his knees hurt! It wasn’t even just a slope any more, it was a steep rock face that he kept slipping down, and it looked like a long way to the bottom. He had to cling on to branches and let himself fall, thinking how difficult it would be to climb back up later. As he got closer to the bottom, the flora became thicker, cooler and more humid. It was indeed an igue, and he was about to disappear into a kind of enormous pit covered in vegetation. The plants were as dense as a mangrove forest; there was moss all along the branches, a beautiful, thick, topaz-green moss, and a whole network of creepers and climbing plants, lush plants that looked almost tropical. He let himself be carried down into the cool atmosphere, stumbling, then sliding on his backside. Lise was still talking at the bottom, but Franck couldn’t see her through the thick vegetation. She must have found a spring, or a lake. Every now and then he saw a glimmer of light or a flash from below; he could make out the sky up above and a rock face opposite like a Pyrenean cirque. Franck completely tumbled down the last twenty metres, grazing his thighs and forearms on the ground. He found Lise at the bottom in the middle of an enormous pergola with golden bars flecked with rust, a great cage made up of arches more than four metres high that resembled a large rotunda or giant birdcage. How strange that the only sign of civilisation round about was this cage, a circus cage at the bottom of a jungly igue.

‘Lise, you’re crazy coming all the way down here! D’you know how hard it’ll be to get back up?’

‘But look at this – I’m sure no one’s been here for centuries!’

At that moment, the bushes right at the bottom began to stir. Something was moving in there and coming towards them. A human would never have been strong enough to get through the thickets, and it sounded more like an animal. They could see the tops of the box trees moving as the animal got closer. They looked at each other without saying a word. Franck thought about the noises he had heard on the first evening. He instinctively grabbed Lise by the arm and stepped back into the cage, protected by the bars. When an animal charges, it rushes straight ahead, and it doesn’t care if you know it’s coming. Once it’s started, it’s already too late.

May 1915

May 1915