In the bathroom, the style of the music changed. For a while it had only been playing classical music, but it suddenly switched to country. A female singer with a mournful voice over a banjo melody gave a Western feel to the sun setting over the hills. Finding himself in this environment, alone in this wild landscape, Franck could easily imagine himself producing a Western, but one set in the countryside, perhaps even right here, though the stone house wouldn’t really go with it. He looked around and he wondered who had lived here. What kind of person could have decided to live so far away from everyone else, in such a remote area? They must have had a spirit of adventure and done work that didn’t involve interacting with people.

He would never get the funding for a European Western. Anyway, Westerns didn’t make money any more, not even in the US. Unless it was a minimalist Western, with just a few characters, some panoramic shots of deep, isolated countryside, and with that particular kind of light, like Days of Heaven, a whole film shot in the red glow of sunset. Just then he noticed something stirring at the very bottom of the long meadow in front of him. He could see the grass shaking with jerky little movements. Franck lifted his head for a better view, without getting up from his chair. There was a creature all the way over by the trees, a small animal about a hundred and fifty metres away that he could barely see; it must have been a rabbit hopping from place to place, or a hare – he couldn’t tell the difference. The dog was still half asleep, eyes closed, but he sensed that Franck had spotted something; he pricked up his ears and looked at Franck, again waiting for an order. Franck tried not to return his gaze, for fear of influencing him. But he couldn’t help himself, probably because of the country music, which was becoming less and less melancholy. Franck felt the hunting instinct take hold of him, and he wanted to unleash something in this peaceful setting. He wanted to set off some wild chain of events to see if he really had any power over the environment around him. He suddenly wanted action, vigorous action, and he wanted to act the cowboy, one of the tough cowboys who are in control of their surroundings and are part of the cycle of life, deciding on the fate of animals as well as humans.

‘Alpha! What’s that over there? Eh? What’s over there?’