The storehouses were besieged by women who were securing stale food at exorbitant prices in order to store it in their homes.

Future hunger was producing more terror than immediate dangers.
For young Desnoyers these were about all the transformations that war was creating around him.

People would finally become accustomed to the new existence.

Humanity has a certain reserve force of adaptation which enables it to mould itself to circumstances and continue existing.

He was hoping to continue his life as though nothing had happened.