Suite Francaise

The French citizens of the village look at the occupying German army with a mixture of curiosity and aversion. The Germans feign congeniality but plaster the town with posters about activities that are forbidden on pain of death; these include breaking curfew, listening to French radio, or helping Jewish people or Englishmen. Shopkeepers delight in swindling the Germans—for example, by selling them moldy prunes at double the price. The young women are scornful of the Germans as occupiers but cannot help noticing their attractiveness as young men.

The Angellier women are going to vespers when Lieutenant Bruno von Falk, the German officer who is staying with them, arrives. Lucile looks at his delicate hands and imagines them handling a gun and killing Frenchmen. She thinks about him while she is kneeling beside her mother-in-law. Although she does not love her husband, Gaston, she says a rosary for him and prays that he can return to the comforts of the life he likes. These include a mistress in Dijon with whom he has a child. While Lucile forgave Gaston this infidelity, he remains bitter about her dowry being less than was promised.

Outside of the church, the Germans exercise their horses, and there is the rumor that they will be there for at least three months.

Lucile has been alone in the house with her mother-in-law for a year since Gaston’s departure and is extremely lethargic. She cannot imagine Bruno having human feelings like her own and imagines him bragging to his family about the fall of France. Bruno asks for access to the piano and library, and the elder Madame Angellier acquiesces, saying that he is master in this house. Lucile listens to his piano-playing and the silence that follows with sadness.

Although Madeleine Sabarie has been married to Benoît and has a baby with him, she makes the bed that Jean-Marie slept in, as though he is still there. She still thinks about him but tells herself she will eventually get used to her husband. A very young German officer named Kurt Bonnet arrives and insists that he has been billeted on the farm. She realizes that his gentlemanly presence will pain her Benoît, who is averse to everything that arouses Madeleine’s curiosity about the upper classes. Bonnet makes it obvious that he likes Madeleine, whom he considers beautiful in the picturesque manner that most interests him.

The villagers refer to the Germans by the derogatory name “Boche” (222), even if they cannot help being obsessed with their manly physicality, especially on horseback (222). While the older women pray that some curse will strike the Germans, the younger women “just looked at them” (224).

The Viscountess de Montmort, the local aristocrat, involves middle- and working-class women in various good causes. She gathers school girls to write to soldiers. When the local women complain about lacking basic food and provisions, the viscountess tells them they are vulgar to think of food at this time and ought to be more high-minded. Still, every house in the village is involved in cooking with produce from the black market, behind closed doors.

Benoît, who observes Madeleine with Bonnet and in the ladylike pursuit of arranging flowers, considers that her status as a foster child in her family means that she has always had affinity for strangers, especially the gentlemanly kind. He fears that she looks down on him. Later, when he makes a sexual advance, she rejects him, saying the baby has worn her out. She advises him that he should hide his shotgun in case the Germans discover it. However, he insists on keeping it as a defense weapon. He threatens to harm Bonnet if he keeps eyeing Madeleine. Madeleine lies in the dark next to Benoît and knows that she has loved Jean-Marie from the moment she met him.

Lucile is in the garden with her book and some embroidery when Bruno turns up with an Alsatian called Bubi. He asks Lucile for permission to give the dog some strawberries. As they talk, she learns that Bruno is 24 and married and that like her, he, too, grew up near the woods. She finds that she likes him and that she envies her mother-in-law, who “can love and hate openly” and simply despises the German for being in Gaston’s place (241).

Later, Madame Angellier confronts Lucile and charges her with never having loved Gaston at all, given her ability to be polite to the German. She says that she must have married him for his money. Lucile then explains about Gaston’s mistress, but Madame Angellier knows that she is a woman who loves him. Just then, the viscountess comes to make conversation about the sad fate of France with the Angellier women, but this is really a the pretext of getting grain for her chickens. In exchange, Madame Angellier asks for a bag of coal.

Benoît Sabarie comes to see Lucile, carrying a pike fish that he has stolen from the Montmorts’ lake. He explains to Lucile his distress at Bonnet’s chasing after Madeleine and wants her to ask Bruno to discipline him and find him somewhere else to live. Lucile claims that she never speaks to Bruno, but Benoît knows that Lucile was laughing with Bruno in the garden. When Bruno comes in, Benoît shares his predicament. Bruno replies that he will not interfere as it would not be doing Benoît any favors.

When the cook serves Bruno coffee, he begs Lucile to join him, saying that he does not want to think that she hates him and affirming that there is talk of sending his regiment to Africa the day after tomorrow. They go outside together, and feel connected, so that Lucile returns to the house “light-hearted and happy” (257).

Lucile goes to visit the local dressmaker, who is sleeping with a German soldier. When Lucile inquires how she can consort with a German, the dressmaker replies that he is a nice, well-groomed man and she is a woman and that this is enough in the current circumstances. Lucile asks whether the dressmaker thinks about how the Germans have killed Frenchmen and of whether she will be punished when the latter come home. The dressmaker insists that she is in love with her German and that he will send for her after the war.