Yesterday, I left my house early to go to Coudray. Old Declos has purchased one of my fields and owes me eight thousand francs. I got held up in the village, and when I got to Coudray it was dusk. I crossed a small wood. The trees were already casting shadows on the ground, making it night in there. I love our silent woods. You never meet a soul ordinarily. So I was surprised to hear, all of a sudden, a woman’s voice calling out, quite close to me. A high-pitched call, on two notes. Someone whistling in reply. The voice fell silent. I was near the small lake by then. The woods in these parts have many little lakes; you can’t see them because they’re surrounded by trees and hidden by rows of rushes. But I know them all.

I moved softly. The water shimmered, giving off a pale light, like a mirror in a dark room. I saw a man and a woman walk towards each other along a path between the rushes. I couldn’t see their faces, only the shapes of their bodies (they were both tall and well built); the woman was wearing a red jacket. I continued on my way; they didn’t see me; they were kissing.

When I arrived at Declos’s house, he was alone. He was dozing in a large armchair beside the open window. He opened his eyes, let out a deep, furious sigh and stared at me for a long time without recognising me.

I asked him if he was ill. But he’s a true farmer: illness is shameful and must be hidden until the last possible moment, until death is seeping from your pores. He replied he was in excellent health, but the yellowish colour of his skin, the purple circles round his eyes, the folds in his clothing that hung loose from his body, his shortness of breath, his weakness, all betrayed him. I’ve heard people say he’s got a “bad tumour”. It must be true. Brigitte will soon find herself a widow.

“Where’s your wife?” I asked. “My wife, you say?” He had the old habit of a horse trader (he’d been one when he was younger) of pretending to be deaf.

He ended up mumbling something about his wife being at Colette Dorin’s place. “She’s got nothing to do, that one, except stroll about and go to see people all day long,” he concluded bitterly. He gestured to me to have a seat. He’s so stingy that it pains him to have to offer anyone something to drink, and I took malicious pleasure in asking him for a glass of wine so I could drink to his health. “Can’t hear you,” he muttered. “I have a terrible buzzing in my ear: it’s from the wind.”

I mentioned the money he owes me. He sighed, pulled a big key out of his pocket and pushed his chair over to the cupboard. But the drawer he wanted to open was much too high; he made several vain attempts to reach it, refused to give me the key and finally said that his wife would surely be home soon and would pay me.

“You have a beautiful young wife, Declos.” “Too young for my old carcass, is that what you think, Monsieur Sylvestre? Well, if she finds the nights long, at least the days pass quickly.”

At that moment, Brigitte came in. She was wearing a black skirt and a red jacket, and there was a young man with her. In my mind I finished the old man’s sentence: “Quicker than you might think.” But he didn’t seem like a fool. He looked at his wife, and his half-dead face suddenly lit up with passion and anger. “Well, finally! I’ve been waiting for you since midday.”

She shook my hand and introduced the young man. He’s called Marc Ohnet; he lives on his father’s land. He has a reputation for getting into fights and for being a womaniser. He’s very handsome. I had never realised that Brigitte and Ohnet “stepped out together”, as they say in these parts. But around here, malicious gossip stops at the edge of town, and in these isolated houses separated by fields and deep woods, many things happen that nobody knows about. As for me, well, even if I hadn’t seen that red jacket near the lake, I still would have guessed these young people were in love: their calm, arrogant demeanour, and a kind of stifled passion concealed in their movements, in their smiles, gave them away. Especially her. She was burning. “She finds the nights long,” old Declos had said. I could picture those nights, nights in her old husband’s bed, dreaming of her lover, counting her husband’s sighs, wondering, “When will he finally stop breathing?”

She opened the cupboard that I imagined to be stuffed full of money beneath piles of sheets; this isn’t the kind of place where we make bankers even richer; everyone keeps his possessions close, like a cherished child. I glanced at Ohnet to see if I could catch a glimmer of envy on his face, for nobody’s rich in his family: his father was the eldest of 14 and his share of the property is small. But no. As soon as he saw the money, he turned away quickly. He went over to the window and stared out of it for a long time.

Extracted from Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky. Published by Chatto & Windus on 27th September at £12.99. Copyright © Editions Denoël, 2007. Translation copyright © Sandra Smith, 2007.

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