‘But, Monsieur, evil is everywhere. It’s you who doesn’t want to see it, as clever as you are. The books you read are full of goodness but can’t you see that the world has gone wrong? Can’t you see that madness has taken over? You’d have to be a saint to believe that it’s safe to go to sleep with tigers waiting there above us. A saint or a madman …’

Couderc took over again and invited the only proper witness to speak, the only man who had been up to see for himself. ‘Tell us, Lucien, since you have spoken to him, what does he feed his animals?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Don’t be frightened, you’ve already told me he still has sheep.’

‘Yes, there are still sheep.’

‘How many?’

‘I didn’t count them. But at least a dozen …’

‘You see!’ said Jeanne angrily. ‘He still has all the sheep he bought from us, so what is he feeding to his lions and tigers?’

‘Perhaps he does with sheep what Jesus did with loaves of bread?’

At that point, all the believers crossed themselves. Yet even though they wanted to believe in miracles, they did not swallow that one. Once a sheep was eaten, it did not skip back into the meadow the next day, alas. Fernand and Couderc did not know how to reassure the women, except to say to those who were most upset that they should go up and see the German and ask him how he fed his hungry animals.

‘I’ll go … I’ll go and ask him.’

Normally, Joséphine never spoke up, never even came to meetings. Joséphine was a dreamy, poetic sort of person. But since the departure of her husband, it wasn’t just that there was no doctor in the whole area, but now everyone knew she was all alone with little to occupy her. She should have been the object of envy because she had all her time to herself and a large farmhouse just outside the village. But people felt sorry for her because she had no children. Even if she and her husband had been able to have them, they would probably have been dead by now along with their father, in that famous Battle of the Frontiers, the shadowy butchery of 22 August that had been covered up. The doctor had set off from Rodez with the 16th Army Corps so he must have been caught up in the hell of Morhange. Unlike the others, Joséphine had received five letters in August, but since the beginning of September nothing.

‘Don’t you believe me? I promise you I will go.’