The train, creaking on the joints of the rails, rolled Erich von Krieger into the depths of Germany, further and further from Grangeville, from the war, from the ghosts of the past.

He returned not the same as he left. The war had changed him. He tried to soften the horror of the occupation as much as possible. But the punitive measures, the orders for reprisals... these memories, like sharp shards of glass, dug into his soul. He remembered how after the explosion of the warehouse, the general ordered him to deal cruelly with the inhabitants, and he did not obey the order. He remembered how he fled from the mayor's house, surrounded by rebels, remembered the futility of cries for help when the telephone lines were destroyed.

In Germany, his wife was waiting for him. He imagined her face, exhausted by years of waiting, her gaze full of anxiety. He wrote her letters, fragments of phrases about the war, about his service, hiding the horror he had experienced and which he could not, did not dare to reveal to her fully.

When the train stopped, he stepped out onto the platform of his home station. The air smelled of dampness and old memories. Everything around him seemed familiar but alien, as if seen through a cloudy glass. The house, once so majestic, now seemed smaller, squatter, and the garden, once well-kept, was overgrown with wild ivy, as if nature itself was trying to hide the traces of time.