Summary

Mathilde attempts to contact the loved ones of the five unfortunate soldiers in October of 1919. She visits Therese Gaignard, Six-Soux’s wife who works as a laundress and raises their two daughters. Therese is going to remarry, and she thinks Six-Soux would approve. Therese tells Mathilde that Six-Soux had been a good man who loved bicycles as much as he had trade unions and that he had been a mechanic for Garrigour, the 1911 Tour de France winner. She knows he had shot himself in the hand, but she has chosen not to find out anything more.

Mathilde writes a letter to Marriette Notre Dame, That Man’s wife. When the letter is returned, she contacts the mayor in the town where the farm is. The letter is answered instead by the local priest, who had married the couple and baptized their son. Marriette...