He had begun reading the novel a few days earlier. He had put it aside because urgent matters had intervened, and had picked it up again on the train on his way back to his estate; little by little, he allowed himself to be drawn in by the story, the plot, and the descriptions of the characters. That same evening, after writing a letter to his attorney and discussing the lease of a field with the steward, he resumed his reading in the quiet of the study, whose windows looked out over the park of oaks.

Settled in his favorite armchair, with his back to the door so as to avoid the tiresome possibility of interruptions, he occasionally ran his left hand over the green velvet and began reading the final chapters. His memory had effortlessly retained the names and characteristics of the principal characters; almost at once he was swept into the illusion of the novel. He took an almost perverse pleasure in gradually withdrawing from everything around him, in feeling from time to time his head resting comfortably against the velvet of the high back, in knowing that his cigarettes were still within reach, and that beyond the great windows the evening breeze stirred beneath the oak trees.

Word by word, absorbed in the sordid final decision of the characters, while allowing himself to be carried away by the images that were taking shape and acquiring color and movement, he became a witness to the final meeting in the forest hut. The woman entered first, frightened; then the lover arrived, his face scratched by the lash of a branch. She kissed his scratches tenderly in an attempt to stop the bleeding, while he drew back from her caresses. He had not come to repeat the ritual of a secret passion, hidden beneath a tangle of fallen leaves and concealed paths.

The dagger grew warm against his chest, and beneath it his taut, trembling freedom seemed to beat. A breathless dialogue unfolded through the pages like a river of serpents, and he had the feeling that everything had been decided from the beginning. Even the caresses that encircled the lover's body, as though trying to hold him back and persuade him, traced with terrible precision the outline of another body that had to be destroyed.

They had left nothing to chance: alibis, coincidences, possible mistakes. From that moment on, every minute had its purpose, calculated down to the smallest detail. The savage, ruthless scene unfolded before her, interrupted only now and then by a hand reaching out to caress a cheek. Night was beginning to fall.

Without looking at each other, bound tightly to the task they had to accomplish, they parted at the door of the hut. She was to follow the path that led north. He took the opposite path, turning for a moment to watch her disappear, her hair loose. Then he too began to run, taking refuge among the trees and hedges, until, through the violet mist of dusk, he could make out the avenue leading to the house.

The dogs were not supposed to bark, and they did not. The steward was not supposed to be there at that hour, and he was not. He climbed the three steps to the front door and entered.

Through the blood pounding in his ears, the woman's words still echoed in his mind: first a blue room, then a corridor, then a carpeted staircase. Upstairs, two doors. No one in the first room, no one in the second. The door to the small study, and then, with the dagger in his hand, the light from the great windows, the high back of a green velvet armchair, the head of the man sitting in the armchair, reading a novel.