She mounted her horse, which she had tied up a little way off, and left, annoyed, bitter and hurt as we are when we become aware that the world cares nothing for our feelings. She was dismayed to realise that her life awaited her elsewhere, down below, where there was no passion and no one to desire; there was only fear and work, and the anguish of a country engaged in an endless war. She was cross with herself for having believed there could be something for her here, for believing in passion, in the mad embrace that would blot out the world, and even that she might find love. When in fact all that awaited her was an existence that did not even try to promise anything, an existence that did not even offer her real pain. Nothing is harder to swallow than the realisation that one will never be loved again. To be rejected by the lions and not even to have seen the man was worse than coming back to reality. Here everything despised her. She almost went back down the path, almost forgot that she needed to continue east, almost forgot about the shepherd.

Behind the closed shutter, his body hurting from having stayed still so long, sickened by the smell of the gardenias, he saw her leaving and turning to the east and understood that she was going to visit the sheep. He saw her fine head and blonde chignon shining through the trees before she disappeared. He had been aware of that woman since the very first day, in the village. From the very first, he had sensed that she was offering him her eyes, her skin, her body, but he was afraid of having an affair, after the last one. He was afraid of adding desire to the complications of the existence he was now trapped in; he was too afraid that the lions themselves, the lions more than the tigers, would be offended if he had an affair. The lions would smell her on him straight away. They would pick up the fragrance of the woman’s milky skin mixed with his own sweat, and jealousy would drive them wild.

He sighed as he got up carefully, his joints painful from being bent double for so long. He opened the shutters to get some fresh air, although it was even hotter outside than in. He felt distress at having to live alone. A house on top of a hill expresses more eloquently than anything else the shape of solitude. Solitude is a mistake, but he knew the perils of getting close to anyone in the village, especially a woman, and more especially that woman. That woman, he would have to be mad to want her, to take the risk of loving her. Wolfgang swore never to think of her again.