Separation, mustering out pay, back-pay, travel allowances: they could go to Wisconsin, New York, California. But when would mankind return to nature? Rousseau had said ... let nature repair mind and body ... who remembers? We’re lucky to survive these days! Lucky ... lucky to have Jean ... to be in E ... lucky to be on leave ... to walk in the park ... As he kissed Jean good-bye at the hospital gate, he tried to summon an optimistic word. Something, during the last half hour or so, had come between them, as if they both admitted they were pawns, as if the miles across the Atlantic already separated them. Her hair’s exquisite copper gleamed in the light: fog was behind her hair: fog was flowing across the countryside, puffing, swirling, smoking in from the Nonette river, fog that smelled of newly mown clover. "I’ll see you tomorrow ... about two. If there’s gasoline I’ll come in the car ... if I can borrow the car." He smiled. "Good night, darling." Then a long pause. "Sleep well." "See you." To reach home, Orville followed a short-cut that bypassed the Petit Lac and its island; the path was weed choked: burdock, thistle, artichoke, and mustard. All were rain wet, fog wet. From a rock wall fence he took in the spires of the Ronde place, fog crawling over them, the fog in the pines and chestnut and elm toward the château, now fogged out. Crossing a bridge over the Nonette he found the fog thicker, smokier, on the bridge itself it seemed stuffed into the cracks of the 13th century masonry. In the cemetery he paused by his dad’s grave, weedy and foggy. Lighting a cigarette he felt the fog nip at his lighter flame. You’re buried there ... if I’m killed in the war what then? If all of us die ... not a bad idea. Not a bad idea! He shrugged his shoulders and the shrug brought back painful memories of tank fatigue. He blew smoke into the fog. Lights in the windows of the Ronde place--vague in shape and size--recalled his Ithaca home: his dad’s insurance policy had made it a reality. Orville picked up a stone, considered it, dropped it. I can arrange my papers ... Jeannette will be the beneficiary ... she can purchase a house in Wisconsin, for Mr. William J. Bruce, geometry teacher, football star ... three bedrooms ... split level ... nice ... or nice Ithacan place, by the wine dark sea! What was that in the fog? Was it fear? Fear gleaming out there? Jean has faith, faith in man, faith in us. Lena has faith in the Maquis. Therèse has faith in the past. Maybe we ask too much of life. Freedom? What sort of freedom? Rousseau’s? He flipped his cigarette into the fog and heard it spit derisively. He walked until late and Lena was sitting in the living room, when he returned.