After the third week she was allowed out, and would take short walks along the river or in the surrounding woods. It was August, and the weather was exceptionally beautiful: day after day, each one identically radiant, without so much as the murmur of a storm or anything that might signal an ending. Michel held her hand; often they would sit together on the bench beside the Grand Morin. The grass on the riverbank was scorched, almost white; in the shadow of the beech trees, the river wound on forever in dark green ripples. The world outside had its own rules, and those rules were not human.
