"Beautiful fat pigeons cooed; swallows wheeled; sparrows hopped peacefully in the deserted streets. Along the Seine each poplar tree held a cluster of little brown birds who sang as loudly as they could. From deep beneath the ground came the muffled noise everyone had been waiting for, a sort of three-tone fanfare. The air raid was over," p. 20.

"The Pericands were a cultivated family: their traditions, their way of thinking, their middle-class, Catholic background, their ties with the Church (their eldest son, Philippe Pericand, was a priest), all of these things made them mistrustful of the government of France. On the other hand, Monsieur Pericand's position as a curator of one of the country's national museums bound them to an administration that showered its faithful with honors and financial rewards.
A cat held a little piece of bony fish tentatively between its sharp teeth. He was afraid to...