Well, here we are at the hospital, shall we go in out of the rain? It was almost fishing in the rain, when fish really bite. A fishing funeral: is that on tomorrow’s agenda? Yes, tomorrow she is to be buried ... Yes, a cup of coffee, Claude ... Yes, miserable weather. Yes, Jean’s returned: she’s on duty. Orville and Victor sat in the living room: Orville’s fishing rods were leaning against a wall. "So, you went fishing in the rain?" "No, Uncle Victor ... it wasn’t raining..." "Any luck? ... I used to have good luck." "I caught one." "Ah!" Flipping open a cigar box, Victor offered cigars. During seven years the man had become another man: his silky white hair was brushed over a bald spot; his moustache had become a gentle weed; there was no color in his cheeks; his chin was porcelain white: what had happened to his eyes? And his voice? Words came painfully. A long rectangular coffee table stood between them: on it lay several current magazines and paperbacks. Colonel Ronde called Bichain and asked for coffee and a fire in one of the fireplaces. "Turn on some lamps, Claude." "It’s been years, many years, since we’ve talked ... did we talk very much when you were here ... ah, these wars!" His eyelids lifted and the pupils bored into Orville. "You resemble your dad ... a man I always liked ... it seems only yesterday he was here." He tugged at a lapel of his blue serge and then screwed a finger in his ear. "Bob believed that there never would be another war, he felt that nations couldn’t afford one ... he was thinking of money, the waste of money ... he was clever with money ... he would not have been able to understand the billions poured into this crusade." Ronde cracked the band of his cigar, letting it drop onto the rug. He described his Marseilles-Paris freight services: he was the line’s supervisor (five years): he sketched in his military duties, carried out on the side: "You know I was flown here in a biplane ... to a deserted farm. Active ... ah, active duty, you see." The problems of the protracted German occupation worried him: problems that involved the desperate underground. He said that Lena had been with the Maquis ... All bravery and foolhardiness ... "I’ve tried to keep away from the Maquis for the sake of my family and business. I’m afraid of reprisals in Marseille and here in little Ermenonville, after the war. Lena was often entrusted with important documents ... I suspect that the Maquis were using her ... I think you get what I infer." "She had never opened up with me," Orville said. "I reject her kind of game. It always gets sticky. Your friends become suspect; your peace of mind is shattered ... it’s, umm, ah, bad." He smoked thoughtfully. "War is preferable to that kind of deceit. I don’t want to blackmail my brain..." For Orville the relationship was becoming meaningful; he wanted to continue talking, and as they talked he began to confide: