The lions and tigers were all still disdainful except for Léa, the largest female, who slowly rose and nonchalantly turned a little and stood in the centre of the cage, motionless and calm. Then suddenly, in one bound, she flung herself at the bars. The noise of the attack was incredibly loud. She opened her mouth wide before launching herself on her hind legs, her body taut and arched. Although the bars stopped her, she prolonged the attack by spraying a stream of slobber over Joséphine, her mouth twisted in a desire to bite. Then she let out ferocious growls and dropped her head, her back legs spread, as if warning Joséphine not to approach. Joséphine dared not move. She was petrified by the display of anger and could neither breathe nor retreat. The growls had pierced her like a blade, her heart was still pounding and she struggled to get her breath back. Then Léa began to stiffen again, spitting with her eyes closed, her face contorted in a hideous rage, her tail down.

Rather than an act of temper, Joséphine detected disappointment. She took three steps back in an act not just of retreat, but of vexation at the knowledge that she was excluded from all this, and the certainty that she had no place here. This whole world was pushing her away, the wild cats as well as the man. All that had seemed to her the highest ecstasy suddenly seemed as dangerous as it was forbidden, and it also seemed unbearable. In a sharp return to reality, she now perceived that sometimes gardenias smelt like sweat, that the wild cats were nothing more than ineffectual carnivores that would be dead one day, that she was a widow, that the sun was burning hot and that love caused suffering.