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trembling with indignation. “My entire youth sacrificed to a . . .”
    “For goodness sake! Stop making a scene. I’ll phone you tonight, I’ll see what can be done . . .”
    “No, no. I see very well that all I can do now is go and die in a ditch at the side of the road . . .”
    “Oh, do shut up, you’re making me furious . . .”
    They finally realised that the secretary was listening to them. They lowered their voices and Corbin, taking his mistress by the arm, walked her to the door.
    He came back and glanced at Madame Michaud who, finding herself in his path, was the first target of his fury. “Get the section heads together in the meeting room. Right now, if you don’t mind!”
    Madame Michaud went out to pass on his orders. A few moments later the employees filed into a large room containing a marble bust of the bank’s founder and a full-length portrait of the current president, Monsieur Auguste-Jean, who had been ailing for some time with a softening of the brain caused by his great age.
    Monsieur Corbin received them standing behind the oval table where nine sheets of blotting paper marked the Board of Directors’ places. “Gentlemen, we are leaving tomorrow morning at eight o’clock to go to our branch in Tours. I will take the Board’s files in my car. Madame Michaud, you and your husband will accompany me. As for those who have a car, be in front of the bank at six o’clock to pick up other staff members, that is, the ones I have selected. I will see what I can do for the others but, if necessary, they will have to take the train. Thank you, gentlemen.”
    He disappeared and immediately the murmur of anxious voices buzzed around the room. Only two days before, Corbin had declared he could foresee no reason to leave, that the hysterical rumours were the work of traitors, that the bank,
the bank,
would remain where it was, would fulfil
its
obligations even if others did not. Given that the “withdrawal,” as it was discreetly called, had been decided so suddenly, all—without doubt—was lost! The women wiped the tears from their eyes. Through the crowd the Michauds found each other. Both of them were thinking about their son, Jean-Marie. His last letter was dated 2 June. Only a week ago. My God, anything could have happened since then! In their anguish, their only comfort was being together.
    “How lucky we are not to have to be apart,” he whispered to her.
    6
    Night was falling but the Péricands’ car was still waiting outside their door. Tied to the roof was the soft deep mattress that had adorned their marital bed for twenty-eight years. Fixed to the boot were a pram and a bicycle. They were trying in vain to cram in all the family’s bags, suitcases and overnight cases, as well as the baskets containing the sandwiches, the thermos flask, bottles of milk for the children, cold chicken, ham, bread and the boxes of baby cereal for the elder Monsieur Péricand. There was also the cat’s basket. At first they had been delayed because their clean linen hadn’t been delivered and the laundry couldn’t be reached by telephone. Their large white embroidered sheets were part of the Péricand-Maltête inheritance, along with the jewellery, the silver and the library: it was impossible to leave them behind. The whole morning had been wasted looking for things. The launderer himself was leaving. He had ended up giving Madame Péricand her sheets in damp, crumpled bundles. She had gone without lunch in order to supervise personally the packing of the linen. It had been agreed that the servants, along with Hubert and Bernard, would get the train. But at all the train stations the gates were already closed and guarded by soldiers. The crowds were hanging on to them, shaking them, then swarming chaotically back down the neighbouring streets. Women in tears were running with their children in their arms. The last taxis were stopped: they were offered two thousand, three thousand francs to leave