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In the first days of the mobilization, he had haunted her neighborhood, trying to appease his longing by this illusory proximity.

Marguerite had written to him, urging patience.

How fortunate it was that he was a foreigner and would not have to endure the hardship of war! Her brother, an officer in the artillery Reserves, was going at almost any minute.
Her mother, who made her home with this bachelor son, had kept an astonishing serenity up to the last minute, although she had wept much while the war was still but a possibility.

She herself had prepared the soldier's outfit so that the small valise might contain all that was indispensable for campaign life.