Odette spent much of her time in consoling poor Rose. Her husband's death had passed almost unnoticed. But other and very dramatic deaths had also passed unnoticed. When men were brought home in fragments it made a sensation, but once they were dead the sad equality of the earth obscured their memory. Indescribable episodes had attained such a character, and had reached such numbers, that people hardly dared speak of them. Minds were saturated and automatically closed against any new sensation. Many were unable to endure any story of the war, whether in the newspapers or in books. Odette recalled to mind the impression which the wounded had formerly made. They were already saying "formerly" when speaking of the present war! Now there were wounded everywhere. It was rather the unscathed men upon whom one looked as if to say to them: "See here, you! what are you doing with your arms, with your legs?" Certain persons, with a strong revulsion of the instinct of self-preservation, refused, like Clotilde, even to think about the war; others, on the other hand, buried themselves in it with passionate intensity. Mme. de Blauve, who had become fond of Odette and occasionally came to see her, now came to announce the marriage of her eldest daughter. She told the news almost as if saying: "At last!" as if it were the case of an old maid whom she had despaired of marrying off. Mlle. de Blauve was barely sixteen, she was attractive and endowed with much charm, had been most carefully educated, and promised to be really beautiful. She was to marry a wounded sublieutenant. "Ah!" said Odette; "does she love him?" "He is a young man of good family," said Mme. de Blauve, "and he has behaved admirably." "But he will return to the front! You will be in perpetual anxiety!" "Not that," replied Mme. de Blauve. "To be sure, my daughter would have liked to be the wife of a soldier who remained a soldier, like her father. But soldiers in active service will always find some one to marry them, and wives must be found for those less favored, who have been checked in their career----" "Has her fiancé been retired?" asked Odette. "Don't tell me that he is badly----" "Oh, this is not the time to think about things that girls used to care for; the question is to save our men by giving them wives, so that they may be in a position to found a family. This young man is from the devastated regions. He has lost all his family--some of them have been shot, others have died during the occupation of the enemy--and it is entirely impossible for him to earn a decent living. We ourselves have sacrificed more blood than money; my daughter will still have a certain amount of fortune, therefore----" "But what is the matter with him? What has he lost?" asked Odette, thinking only of that absolute union of two beings which had illuminated her own life.