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Panturle lives in the village of Aubignane, in the Provencal uplands. He is a huge "When he met a living animal, he looked at it without it was a fox, a hare, or a big snake in the rubble. He did not move; he took his time. He knew that somewhere in a bush there was a wire noose which strangled necks that passed by." Aubignane was a deserted village. That autumn Gaubert the smithy, "a little man all moustache", left; and before the winter was out the well-sinker's widow had left as well. Then only Panturle remained, a man made morose almost to the point of madness by his solitude. He gave up planting and lived off what he could catch. Then out of the blue a woman arrived, someone to live for, someone to till the soil for and plant new seed. Even a village can be raised from the dead.