Claude had left the room. They were silent. The logs were crackling. "Lena turned her back on Christ," she added. "There was no god to help her through bad times. She felt that there is no eternal life. The war was her life." "Youth ... the hunger of youth," said Victor, as though talking to himself. "Her country, the struggle for world freedom ... wasn’t it something like that?" "Perhaps so ... but I know that each of us is poorer for losing faith ... and losing her ... our Lena." She rocked in her rocker, hands clenched on the arms of the chair. Next morning they sat together in the village church, skinny blue glass windows on each side of the room, the altar small and primitively carved, its gold leaf badly scaled. An 18th century reliquary of gilt wood--a miniature of gem-like quality--adorned a side table. Its scarf was tattered, many of the metallic threads tarnished and broken, their story the story of the crucifixion. Orville sat between his aunt and uncle, Jeannette beside Victor: he noticed Annette, Claude, Celeste, Thomassont, neighbors, strangers: was one of them Charles Chabrun, her lover from Paris? Had Claude informed him of Lena’s death? As everyone knelt on the kneeling pads Orville looked at Jeannette, considering things she had said indicative of her faith: it seemed to be a nurse’s faith, if there was such a faith. Candles burned on the altar and alongside Lena’s coffin; somebody was playing a Bach chorale on the organ: the room was cold: icy cold: chill seeped from the tiled floor and from behind the organ where there seemed to be a smashed window or open door. How kind to fuss over the dead like this; it meant so much more than death on the battlefield. As Orville knelt, he started a letter to his mother in the back of his mind, writing it in French, the language she loved most: Dear Mom: When I arrived in E I found that Lena was dead of pneumonia. I know you will be saddened by this news. You two got along so well together. It is rough these days, but you already know this. I am glad that you are not in Europe. Your Europe exists no longer. I know I have not written to you for a long time. I simply can not write. There is nothing new to tell you. Our Corps is engaged in battle after battle; you would not want me to recount that kind of stuff. The war, as I see it, seems far from ending: resistance is bitter and strong. I am told that the war may end shortly. I don’t believe it ... Orville glanced about the church, at the windows, at the ceiling, at the grains in the pew in front of him, syrup-colored grains. Mom ... our enemy is collective insanity. It is everyone’s enemy. I feel it, here in Ermenonville (even in church) ... I feel impelled to revolt against all things. I hate myself for I am to blame for many of the things that have happened to me, tragic things.