Up there in the trenches the men were no doubt shouting, but for different reasons and much too far away to be heard in Orcières. The villagers imagined the front like a giant inferno, a furnace that could never be satisfied, a ceaseless volcano of flame and lava. Sometimes, when reading the news or listening to the mayor telling them about things that were not in the newspapers, the women wanted to believe that things were going to settle down, that the war was like a great fire that would soon run out of fuel, and that suddenly all the hate that had grown up between nations would collapse in on itself. Sometimes the papers would announce that the army was going to demobilise soldiers over the age of forty-six, and those who had more than four children. At least those men would be coming home, although here that would only amount to a few men, no more than three. But that relaxation of the rules never took place. Each time the inferno just kept going, the furnace kept roaring and demanding more and more men, always more soldiers. It was now the summer of 1915 and none of the soldiers here had had any leave. Without the noise of the men, only birdsong and cicadas could be heard in the fields, other than the roaring of the lions which went in waves, but always reminded everyone that fear was never far away.

The women prayed that their husbands and sons would return. And yet they were worried about what they would say when they did return. How would they react when they realised that the farms and mills had continued to function without them? Perhaps they would take it badly, perhaps they would find thousands of things to criticise. They might say that the Taillis plot had been sown too sparsely, or that the hay was piled too high, or that the fencing round the cows was not high enough, or that the riverbanks had been destroyed by coypus. If they came back they would only see what was wrong. Because, after all, the land had always been theirs and they had their own way of doing things. Perhaps it would be difficult when they returned. Some women began to worry about it. They feared that when the men came back, nothing would be the same as before, that they wouldn’t recognise their husbands. And the men might be annoyed that life had continued to roll on without them, and be for ever offended. In the countryside women had just extracted from the earth a terrible confession – that the harvest could be done without men. In farms and factories, mills and fields, everywhere, life had gone on without them.