Down in the village the others must have lit a fire to kill the weeds – you could see the smoke from here; the mayor must have moved on from one preoccupation to another; the children were probably trying to be good by only playing in the enclosed school playground. That was life down below, where time had to be got through, with no joy or excitement, just worry and deaths to come. Whereas here, halfway up this accursed hill, in this mountain kingdom, time stood still and Joséphine had found the respite in a world which was not worried about the war or what time of day it was, nor the death of a doctor. Here everything was natural and wild, with the hot smell of lions mixed with the odour of this man. It was exotic and exciting. She could feel this world calling to her; she would come here as often as possible, and each time she would climb a little higher, until she lost herself in the harmony of the peaks, and let herself be taken by this man here as if under the influence of a wild animal …

First her head started to spin, then she lost her seat on the horse, who became agitated. The man did nothing but catch her just before she fell. She was light; he could hardly feel her. Something animal was at play here; he was no longer just a man, she was no longer just a woman; they were two beings drawn together instinctively. He had not held a woman in his arms for a very long time. His most recent experiences of an embrace were from his last circus acts, when his lions lay down on him one by one, crushing him with their weight so that he felt their heavy bodies on top of him and their warmth on his skin. Two years earlier, there had been a woman, in a circus in Koblenz, a horsewoman as well. But since then the only embraces worthy of the name were from his wild cats when he held them bodily, carried them, hugged them, lifted them, especially in that routine where he held Léa in his arms while Théo jumped over them, sometimes coming so close that he felt his big paw catch in his hair, as if the male was doing it on purpose, perhaps as a challenge.