Chapter Twenty
In the school building of Le Collège D’Argonnes Varennes where the town’s military infirmary had been set up, Marie Estrange looked down on Denis’s battered face. That day, she had accompanied her younger colleague Sophie Hanon, who had only been sixteen when the war started, to the infirmary of Varennes to see how her apprentice coped with delicate situations, like men stumbling into the infirmary and awkwardly asking for “something against the clap.”
In the evening, Michel had been brought in unconscious. Marie had given him a procaine injection for the pain and had disinfected the abrasions on his face. Denis had his eyes closed but she suspected he was only pretending to be asleep.
She stood beside his bed, wondering what to do next. Looking down at him, she confronte
