He spent a lot of time with the rabbits, in order to peep through the hole in the wall, and that day, and again the next, he showed eight fingers with an insistence that must have appeared comical.
Had she understood? Perhaps she couldn’t care less about him? Perhaps, when she went home, she would tell her mother:
‘He’s been making signs to me again. I think he’s crazy.’
And Tati, every time he climbed up to her bedroom, peered at his face, seeming to want to discover a clue there. What kind of clue could she find in his eyes?
‘I thought that on Saturday you could go to market for me, but I’d be afraid to be all alone in the house. I’ll get Clémence to come over, you know who she is, by the road, the little house with the blue fence. If her sister-in-law is better, she can take the eggs and butter for me.’
She was testing to see if he would react to that, and look disappointed or cross, because that would mean he had fixed a meeting with Félicie in town.
But the meeting happened at a time she had not predicted and in conditions that Jean had not imagined either. When he waved eight fingers from the window he had no idea what would happen if Félicie did come round at eight o’clock. He simply knew that it was the sweetest moment of the day, an almost melancholy sweetness, when the canal provided a background and the red shawl stood out richly against the blue and violet of the dusk.
Under his feet, the rabbits were stirring noisily in their hutches, and every now and then a chicken fluttered from its roost in the hen house.
He didn’t know what day of the week it was. He had eaten supper, alone, in the kitchen. He had called out to Tati from the foot of the stairs:
‘I’m just going out to check on the animals.’
He had gone into the vegetable patch, through the potatoes, when all at once he saw Félicie standing not more than a metre away.
She had been waiting. He could not see her expression, only her outline. She did not say anything. He did not speak either, and quite naturally, as if it had long been agreed in advance, he took her into his arms and pressed his mouth on to hers.
She did not offer any resistance. She showed no surprise. As soon as his arms closed round her, she had let herself go, and in the kiss her lips had docilely parted.
Jean’s first thought was that they could not stay there, standing among the potatoes, and he drew her gently towards the barn, without any fixed intention yet, and without a word. Then he kissed her again and saw that her eyes were closed and that her neck was of dazzling whiteness.
Truly, it was possible to think that they had been meant through all eternity to meet that evening, in that place, and that they would have nothing to say, would simply recognize each other and fulfil their destiny.
At the time, Jean was not even aware what he was lying on: it was the hay piled up for the rabbits. She lay inert, as he tried to make contact with her flesh. Her bare legs were cold. He found warmth only high on her thighs and immediately, without thought, with a dream-like ease, he possessed her.
She clenched her teeth. The rabbits were fidgeting a few inches from their heads. The lamp in the incubator in the corner gave out a yellowish light like the small flame of a chapel in the deep darkness of a church.
She shifted her head, to let him know that she couldn’t breathe with his lips clamped on to hers, and it was as moving as when you hold a little bird in your hands, palpitating and making weak efforts to escape. Then she stiffened and convulsed and a moment later her whole body relaxed.
And he stammered: ‘Félicie!’
He could feel that she had opened her eyes, was looking at him perhaps in some astonishment, and that she was trying to disentangle herself.
She stood up and shook her smock to dislodge the wisps of hay that she could not see in the gloom. And then as she cocked her head to listen, with him standing awkwardly in front of her, she whispered:
‘I think you’re being called.’
Those were the only words she spoke that evening. As she was leaving, he seized her hand. She let him, but did not seem as he did to feel the need for any such gesture and was even more astonished when he brushed his lips against her fingers and stammered: ‘Thank you.’
They heard a sound from the house. It was Tati, banging the floor with her stick.
‘Are you there, Jean?’
‘Coming.’
He would have liked to check himself in front of the mirror in the kitchen, but the lamp was not yet lit.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m on my way.’
He went upstairs, running his hands over his face as if to put his features back in place.
‘What were you doing? Can you light the lamp?’
‘Seeing to the rabbits.’
And he took the glass shade off the lamp, pulled up the wick and struck a match. His fingers were still shaking a little.
‘I thought I could hear someone walking about outside. Sounded like someone on tiptoe.’
He did not reply.
‘You didn’t see anyone?’
‘No.’
‘If you knew how frightened I am, Jean! Oh, I’m bothering you, aren’t I? You’ll end up hating me.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Just the thought of a woman … Especially that Félicie.’
