All of a sudden, with the jerky rapidity of films, one of her aunts dressed herself in white and summoned her relatives, who gathered about her with all the speed of the cinema of that period. Then they headed off at a spanking pace to the church, where the aunt appeared beside a man with a mustache and sleek, oily hair. And almost at once – as Charlotte remembered it, they did not even have time to leave the church – the young bride was robed in black and unable to raise her eyes, which were weighed down with tears. The change was so rapid it seemed as if she had already been alone as she left the church, and dressed in full mourning, hiding her reddened eyes from the sun. The two days merged into one, colored by a radiant sky and enlivened by the church bells and the summer breeze, which seemed to accelerate the coming and going of the guests even more. And what the warm breeze pressed against the face of the young woman was a white bridal veil one moment and a widow's black veil the next.

Later this eerie time resumed its regular pace and was punctuated with sleepless nights and a long procession of mutilated bodies. The passing hours now echoed with the resonance of the big classrooms in the school at Neuilly, converted into a hospital. Her first knowledge of a man's body was the sight of male flesh, torn and bloody… And the nocturnal sky of those years would be forever overhung. with the pallid monstrosity of two German zeppelins among the luminous stalagmites of the searchlights.

Finally there came a day, on July 14, 1919, when countless columns of soldiers came marching through Neuilly, heading for the capital. Spick and span, with brave looks and well-polished army boots: war was resuming the guise of a parade. Was he among them, that warrior who was to slip a little brown pebble into Charlotte 's hand, that shell splinter covered in rust? Were they lovers? Engaged? This encounter did not alter Charlotte 's decision, made several years earlier.