In the Molineu house, death had its old way of unbuttoning the truth and loosening tongues.
-- Narrator (Part I, Chapter 6)

Importance: Midhat lived in the Molineu house in Montpellier during the First World War. It was a war of mass destruction, the likes of which the world had never seen before. However, the fighting on the European Western front was quite far from the south of France. The personification of death here is a means of drawing the war closer to the plot of the novel, of asserting its hegemony in the lives of the characters and their everyday routines. It was not just news on a radio of mileage gains or retreats; rather, it was brought home in the deaths of friends and loved ones, like Marian’s husband or Laurent. In the Molineu house specifically, this manifested itself in the increased interaction between Jeannette and Midhat, as she became more open to speaking...