He’s patriotic. Mama is too, but women are weak. The most important thing is to talk like a man. This is what I’ll say: “Papa, I love and respect you. I have always obeyed you. But now, someone stronger than you is in command: our country, Papa, it is the call of France!” ’

He was charging up the stairs when the concierge stopped him: his parents were at their neighbours, the Bruns, and were waiting for him.

‘So much the better,’ Bernard thought, quivering with pleasure. ‘I’ll tell them in front of the Bruns … That will impress them all …’

He felt particularly pleased to be impressing Thérèse. She had hardly paid any attention to him for some time now; she was engaged …‘Engaged,’ he murmured, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Everyone thinks it’s natural for a girl of my age to get married, to lead the life of a wife … But if I were to say I want to get engaged, they’d cry their eyes out. But actually, he’s going to leave, her fiancé! Their marriage will be postponed indefinitely. Anyway, what do I care! Really … really … Women …!’

Still running, he got to the Bruns’ house; the key was under the mat. He went inside. He saw his parents and Martial in the dining room. His mother looked at him and whispered: ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, sounding frightened. ‘You’re covered in sweat.’

‘Nothing,’ he replied, but thought proudly:

‘There must be something remarkable in my eyes. I am a man, a warrior.’

He said a quick, patronising hello to this group of women and old men (Martial’s thirty years seemed close to decrepitude to him).

He looked at him curiously. Martial was seated at the table; the tablecloth had been pushed back and he was sorting out letters from a small old suitcase open in front of him. Ever since finishing the lycée, Martial no longer lived with the Bruns, but he left a trunk and some other things of his at their house because he didn’t have room for them in his small student lodgings. With extreme care, he separated the papers, tearing up some of them and putting the others in different coloured folders:

‘These are photographs of the family, Uncle Adolphe. And these are the ones I took of Thérèse at Tréport when she was four years old. My diplomas. The bill from the engraver of the brass plaque you know about …’

He fell silent and sighed, deep in thought:

‘Doctor Brun. Ear, Nose and Throat.’

‘I’m putting the money in an envelope, Uncle Adolphe; please take it to him for me and apologise that I’m late in paying it: I really haven’t had a minute to myself. And this is something of my mother’s, a watch with her initials on it that I would like Thérèse to have.’

‘You can give it to me after our wedding, darling,’ Thérèse said softly.

It was the first time she had mentioned their forthcoming marriage in public. She blushed and handed back the watch he held out to her; it was gold, old-fashioned with a long chain.

‘I suppose you’ll get married when the war is over,’ said Bernard, his voice as husky as a young cockerel, with a hint of unconscious cruelty.

‘We’re not waiting until then,’ said Martial. ‘I’m not leaving right away, at least not going over there immediately …’

He gestured to indicate some unknown far-off place.

‘My teacher, Professor Faure, has arranged to keep me with him. They’re setting up new hospital trains in the provinces. As soon as they’re ready – it will take three or four weeks – they’ll leave for … over there …,’ he said again, ‘and me with them. But that will give us time to celebrate our wedding.’

‘Three or four weeks!’ cried Bernard. ‘But it will be over by then!’

Martial shook his head:

‘No, it will be a long war, a very long war.’

The elderly Madame Pain had said nothing up until then.