Theophile

Extract

When we first went to the Pyrenees we lived in a tiny village at the foot of the Pic de Ger, about half-an-hour’s walk from Lourdes.

Our village was a charming place. It was made up entirely of farmhouses, little and big, all of them colour-washed, most of them end-on to the road with their cobbled yards beside them, and all of them enclosed behind great gates as if they expected to be put into a state of siege at any minute. Even Monsieur le Cure’s house had originally been a two-roomed farmhouse. So, too, had ours till it had been converted to a villa by an enterprising son of the village. He had knocked away the lofts and the pent roofs with their little dormer windows, and the house now boasted two stories, with the traditional galérie and a series of attics.

All the floors had been renewed. From that fact hangs my tale.