PIERRE
Is she concealing something?
EMIL GRELIEU
No, she is not concealing anything, but she has gone into the depths of her own self, where all is silence and mystery. She is living through her motherhood again, from the very beginning—do you understand? when you and Maurice were not yet born—but in this she is crafty, like François. Sometimes I see clearly that she is suffering unbearably, that she is terrified by the war—. But she smiles in answer and then I see something else—I see how there has suddenly awakened in her the prehistoric woman—the woman who handed her husband the fighting club—. Wait, the soldiers are coming again!
Military music is heard in the distance, nearing.
PIERRE
Yes, according to the assignment, it is the Ninth Regiment.
EMIL GRELIEU
Let us hear it, Pierre. I hear this music several times a day. There it starts on the right, and there it dies down. Always there.
They listen.