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Valentine.”
    The attorney had given a first name. That had been enough to find her but, when it came to addressing her, this ignorance on his part looked like overfamiliarity, and he flushed.
    She was a tall, thin girl. For all her simple blue cotton dress, she didn’t look like a farmer. Her long bare arms with thick veins streaming down them, her dark hair, which was most likely cut with the same shears she used for the sheep, her bony face—nothing about her suggested bucolic peacefulness but rather the torture nature can subject people to when it is their only means of eking out a subsistence. And yet the insults inflicted by winter and manual labor had not robbed the beauty and nobility from this body they’d afflicted. Embattled on all sides, these qualities had withdrawn into her eyes. Valentine’s eyes were black, but shining, direct and clear, not only in the way she looked at Lantier but the way her expression truly opened a pathway to her soul. Despite her destitute appearance, her eyes proclaimed not only that she accepted her situation but also that she was not resigned to it. It was more than pride: It was defiance.
    Hearing a man’s voice, a child had come out onto the doorstep. With a brusque wave, Valentine told him to disappear. The child took off toward the forest.
    â€œWhat do you want from me?”
    During the four years of war, a visit from a soldier had always signaled death. That had left its mark. Lantier forced a smile and tried to look friendly. He gave her his name and credentials. The words “investigating officer” made the young woman wince.
    â€œWhat have I . . . ”
    â€œDo you know Jacques Morlac?”
    She nodded, glancing over to the edge of the woods, as if to check the child was no longer there. The sun was already high in the sky and the heat had invaded the last strongholds of cool air. Lantier could feel the sweat trickling from his armpits.
    â€œIs there somewhere we could talk?”
    He wanted to say, “In the shade.”
    â€œCome,” she said, leading him toward the house.
    The door stood wide open. As he stepped in from the sunlight, Lantier took a moment to acclimatize to the darkness inside. He tripped on the irregular floor tiles and steadied himself on the corner of a large sideboard. Valentine offered him a chair, and he sat down with one elbow on the table. She brought over a pitcher of water and a bottle of cordial. The cork was crusty with sugar and Valentine waved aside the flies.
    Without being too obvious, Lantier studied the room and was surprised. It wasn’t a peasant’s home. This was the country, of course: Bunches of dried herbs hung from the ceiling; the shelves beside the chimney breast were full of glass jars, jellies and jams of every sort; cheeses and salted meats gave off their distinctive smell from behind the wire mesh of a larder. But added to these were details that clashed. Firstly, the walls were covered with reproductions. They were mostly illustrations cut from reviews. The damp had corrugated the paper and the inks had smudged. But there were recognizable masterpieces such as Michelangelo’s
David
and
The Battle of San Romano
. There were also less well-known images, faces, nudes, landscapes, and in prominent positions there were even paintings by an avant-garde cubist Lantier couldn’t abide.
    But more particularly, an entire wall was taken up with books.
    The major had a furious longing to get up and go over to look at their spines, to see what they were. From this distance he could already tell they weren’t frivolous romances. They mostly had austere dust jackets in drab colors rather than the gaudy covers of mass appeal publications.
    Valentine sat down herself and turned all her attention on him. She was smiling but the serious look in her eyes stole all the warmth from her smile. Lantier took a sip of his cordial to gather his composure.

C HAPTER IV
    I am