Joséphine did not reply. His voice was not the same as when she had seen him in the middle of the ring, barking orders at his fierce animals as drum rolls built the atmosphere of fear. That day she had quivered, as you do when you see a man dice with death, even when you don’t care about him.

‘If you’re going to give the shepherd his provisions, you’ve come the wrong way; you’ll have to go back down a bit and then take the path on the left.’

‘No, it’s you I’ve come to see.’

She didn’t know what else to say and he didn’t ask her anything. There was a long silence. He still stroked the horse. Joséphine felt the breeze caress her ankles, knowing that even the small amount of her body that was on show was enough to enflame a man. She was annoyed at being there, having that effect on the man beside her. He stayed standing downhill from her, at the same level as the horse. He seemed at one with the horse that she could feel warm between her legs, swaying in appreciation of the touch of the man. She felt the slow frisson that passed from the hand of the man to the horse, and from the horse to her back. She was distracted by the thought of her husband. She tried to repress the thought but could not help seeing his long, emaciated doctor’s body, an educated body but lacking definition, a body that knew about other bodies, touching them with his science rather than his hands, a body that could cure other bodies, but a body lacking generosity, a body without any real force, a body without body. Her husband’s body had left nothing behind, not even a child, nothing except the arid sensation of having slept beside him for years.

She heard the lion tamer without listening to him. He was giving her two or three recommendations about the horse, because it was obvious that he had been rubbed too hard there, on his neck. There was irritation in his sensitive areas. When she washed him she shouldn’t use too much soap and especially not round his penis. She must have blushed when she heard that. It was true that she was always washing him. She was embarrassed to think of all the time she spent cleaning and brushing her horse, especially now that no one visited because the doctor wasn’t there any more. She now served no purpose in the world, she was useless and worthless …