Before she started helping in the fields, everyone had thought that Joséphine was a delicate woman accustomed to fine lace, with cotton flounces that suited the flourishes of her hands. She was the only one who ever thought of wearing perfume or had time to think about what she wore, and always smelt disconcertingly of jasmine. For years she had been regarded as a happy person entirely devoted to helping her husband, someone who was comfortably off and just happened to be beautiful, a creature of the drawing room absolutely not concerned with the toils of the land and the animals. And she wasn’t from here, but from Bergerac, from upper Périgord. However, since they had seen her working the plough with all her might, they had recognised her qualities. Standing on her bench, Joséphine commanded all their attention. Her head brushed against the lowest leaves of the plane tree, so that from time to time she tossed a twig from her, as you would a stray lock of hair, in a gesture both elegant and casual, that no one else from here would have known how to make. A narrow band of light fell on her chest, the luminosity rendering her blouse see-through, and you could just about make out her breasts, caressed by the July heat, unaware of their impact, as the rest of her body was covered up in faded cotton.

They listened to her but they were not convinced that she was right that the lion tamer was innocent. They knew she would never speak badly of anyone; she never pointed the finger at people, and had always been respectful and defended anyone who was blamed for anything. The villagers revered Joséphine, all the more so because she was, to this day, the only one to have lost her husband in the war. The doctor was still the only official death in the village and Joséphine was respected in the same way as a house that has been struck by lightning. They were grateful to her for taking the blow so that they did not have to, because lightning only ever strikes once, and they hoped that next time death struck it would be elsewhere, far from here, not in Orcières, because Joséphine had already paid their dues. Although Joséphine was the only one of them to have suffered tragedy, she did not show the slightest sign of weakness or despair. Since she had known of her husband’s death her dedication had continued undiminished and she had sacrificed herself as nobly as he had done. And so, eventually, they decided to believe her. If she said the lion tamer had nothing to do with the thefts, they must accept that.