The bedroom window had not been shut in spite of the heat. It was not noon yet, but the sun was already unbearable and the grasshoppers' song was so loud that it covered any other sound in the garden.

The girl passed outside, in front of the open window. She was young, not over twenty. She was pretty and fresh. She did not seem to suffer from the heat. She wore a short, black, light summer dress, that left her tanned arms naked, and she had tied up behind her neck her long dark curly hair that the sun and the sea water had lightened a little.

She was walking slowly, with a kind of nonchalance and a little of boredom. She stopped when passing in front of the open window. Quickly, she looked around her to check if anybody was in the garden and then, taking care not to step on the flowers along the wall, she bent over and and looked inside.

The sun was on the other side of the house and the room was still dark. A man lay on the large bed, on the white sheets. He wore a black suit, white shirt and tie. After a very brief hesitation, the girl jumped up onto the window and entered the room in this unusual way. She did not make noise and her bare feet seemed only to brush against the flooring when she landed in the room, so close to the bed.

The man had not moved. His arms straight along his body, he lay immobile, in the silence. The bedroom door was wide open and from far in the house came the sound of a piano that someone was trying to make sing with more or less success: careful and applied notes banged on the keyboard rather than played with harmony. The whole effort was repetitive, insensitive and could hardly build a melody.

The girl moved forward in silence, her feet sliding on the creaking flooring. She noticed that the man still wore his black shoes. She came near the head of the bed and pushed over a lock of hair falling into her eyes. All in her features was beauty and harmony, with a touch of wildness and arrogance.

She bent over a little and looked at him. He must have been thirty, with brown short hair. His closed eyes made his face look calm and peaceful. He was beautiful as a cold marble statue can be, with the exception that his face was tanned.

In the house, the piano was still playing the same boring melody with the same boring rhythm. The girl slowly held her hand out to the motionless face and her long and delicate fingers followed from above, almost touching, the curves to his forehead, his straight nose, the dryness of his pale lips. She stared at him, quietly, and after a long silent moment, she smiled with a tender irony.

"Oh, here you are," said a close voice in the room. "I've been looking all over for you."

The girl's fingers stopped above the young man's face. She removed her hand and raised her head to look at the newcomer. There was a woman standing on the doorstep. She was older than the girl, about thirty, or maybe thirty-five years old. She was not as beautiful, but her short and straight dark hair framed an elegant and intelligent face.

Her hand on the door knob, she was staring at the girl with dark, cold eyes. She was wearing a black dress too, but it did not carry the same summer indifference and perhaps negligence that the girl's did.

"Mother needs you in the kitchen," said the young woman on the doorstep, in a very cool tone of voice.

The girl smiled. "I didn't hear," she answered, whispering. Then she immediately looked back at the young man lying immobile on the bed.

That was when he opened his mouth, his eyes still closed, looking for fresh air to breath. He slightly moved on the white sheets. He slowly raised his right arm and hand to his face and finally opened his eyes. They were blue and betrayed his tiredness.

The girl, still standing close to the bed, put her hand behind her neck and smiled again. "He was sleeping like a baby," she whispered.

The other woman removed her hand from the door knob and stepped into the room. "He's sick," she said, coldly. She did not add a word, but the younger girl smiled once more and, after a last look at the man on the bed, left the room. Her dress was opened low in the back and showed her naked and tanned shoulders.

The other woman watched her leaving and checked she was actually gone, gone to the other part of the house where the piano's torture had not ceased. Then, she turned back again and walked to the bed. She sat on the edge, close to the young man's body and gently put her hand on his forehead.

"Is that you, Beatrice?" he asked with a weak and slow voice.

"How do you feel?" she asked very softly, reassuring him immediately by the familiar tone of her voice.

On the bed, he sighed and raised his hand again but dropped it immediately with fatigue on the sheets. "I'm hot," he said. He remained silent a short moment and then asked, closing his eyes: "Who was here?"

Beatrice's face turned cold and hard again, as well as her voice. "Angelina," she replied without any other comment. Then she got up and went to the window. She bent over and partially closed the two large and heavy blue wood shutters. The obscurity came immediately in the room and with it, the illusion of freshness. "It's so hot outside," sighed Beatrice. "And it's not even noon."

"Didn't hear her," he said, still lying on the bed.

"Who?"

"Angelina."

Beatrice did not answer. She came back to him. "You should have taken off your jacket," she said instead, sitting back on the edge of the bed.

"I only lay for a moment," he replied. "Didn't think I was going to fall asleep. Why don't you like her?" he then asked abruptly, staring at her.

"Who?"

He smiled. "Angelina."

She remained quiet a long moment and then answered, with a voluntary indifference in her voice that could not hide her anger: "She's a slut."

He could not help laughing. "Gosh," he said, "And I thought I was in a bad mood."

"It's the fever," she replied, avoiding his look. She pretended to take off some dust from her dress, on her thigh. Then she raised her head again, prepared to face his mockery, but she saw he was now sitting on the bed.

"Clement," she asked very calmly, "what do you think you're doing?"

Concluded in Part 2.