Since the beginning of the war women had worked hard to keep things going but yields had fallen by half, mainly because the equipment was too old and heavy and because they had no fertiliser any more, no arsenic or sulphur, nothing to help things grow. The chemical industry now only serviced the war effort, so in Orcières the women had to bend double to pull out bindweed and couch grass with their bare hands. For a year they had been weeding using nothing but their own strength. Without any draught animals or fertiliser, the ground was a hundred times more difficult to work, and their hands grew calloused and their arms as hard as steel. Chemical products were used to make toxic gas that drove the men from their trenches and then killed them in the open air. All industrial efforts were geared to making more cannons and firearms; day and night the assembly lines worked to churn out brand-new aeroplanes and tanks, so there was no prospect of them starting to manufacture spades or ploughs again soon, still less fertiliser or scythes. In any case, there was no money to pay for any of that. Since the departure of the men, the land was more depleted and the nights more lonely. The spring days might have been beautiful, but there was no chance to sit down in the shade of the walnut trees or draw fresh water from the well. The only advantage of the punishing work was that it kept the women from thinking too much, or waiting for post that never came, or dreaming of leave for their menfolk in the event that they did not get killed.

Since the end of winter, Joséphine had been helping on the farms, even in the fields. She had not wanted a commemorative mass for her husband, nor even a wake. As the death had not been marked, the villagers were unsure how to behave towards Joséphine. A death without a burial seemed insubstantial and abstract, more of an absence than a death. So Joséphine spent exhausting days in the fields of others and they understood that she wanted to be something other than just a widow, From then on, as well as helping them write letters and look after the children, she donned clogs that were too big for her to go weeding, harrowing, hoeing. She wore farm clothes and took on all sorts of chores, which left her wrung out and dulled, as if she had taken wine that was too strong. Unlike the others, she welcomed the fatigue that allowed her not to think of her husband, nor of the lover who would not offer himself to her, nor of her fierce desire which remained unfulfilled. There was no need for her to commune with God to experience the bitter thought of sin.