Like a ghost afraid of sunlight, Rémi, exhausted, returns to his cottage. Luc heads towards the old stable, now used as a workshop. Not once does he turn towards Rémi, who lets the insult pass. He enters the cottage, not daring to look into the bedroom where Victor is still asleep. His clothes are in the living room. He puts them on, then goes back outside, taking care to make as little noise as possible. He searches in vain for Luc. He decides to sit in the rocking chair. It groans. He makes sure it is sturdy and, without rocking, gazes into the distant void of a sky gradually adorning itself with colour.
Birds, the wind, farmers already at work, the trees in counterpoint, the river muted beneath it all, and then Luc’s many words, that happiness cut too short. And Rémi forgetting, during this brief epiphany, the vast loneliness of recent years.
Luc made him promise not to try to see him again. Rémi smiles; promises are false dreams, quickly forgotten at night’s first stirrings of desire.
He glances towards Lucienne’s cottage and sees her behind her window, watching him. He waves. She does not return the courtesy, closing the curtain instead. She probably saw everything—at least their flight towards the river, then their furtive return. He cannot, will not feel guilty. One must not make more of it than what time has in store for us.
He surrenders to the dawning morning. A small insect lands on the arm of the chair. Rémi could crush it. A pointless gesture, a pointless thought. The insect flies away.