1870 - The House in the Meadows

War breaks out. Men leave, roads empty, then fill again with rumours, soldiers, wounded men and fugitives.

In Lorraine, Gertrude von Homburg sees her estate destroyed by fire. Noble, widowed, accustomed to the usages of a world now collapsing, she is forced to flee without escort, without certainty, almost without luggage. At her side is Juta, a Swiss cook with rough speech, sure hands, and the prudence of a woman who has never had the luxury of illusion.

Everything sets them apart: birth, education, body, language, the way each woman holds herself, resists, endures the cold. Yet in an isolated farm, far from salons and battlefields alike, they have no choice but to learn how to live together.

There is wood to find, food to spare, mud, frost, contradictory news. Above all, there is the other woman, seeing what was not meant to be shown: fatigue, pride, fear, solitude. In this comfortless house, social distances shift little by little. What was meant to be only a refuge becomes a closed world of daily gestures, tensions, dependence, and unexpected attentions.

1870 — The House in the Meadows tells of war from its margins: not through uniforms and great decisions, but through two women forced to survive while the world of men tears itself apart in the distance. A story of exile, cold, wounded dignity — and of what may begin, almost in spite of oneself, when everything else has burned..

Translated from French by Ysis