This book first appeared in Paris in 1939 and has not previously been translated into English. It is generally considered to contain, in Rose Revolou, the best of all Mauriac's portraits of young girls, while in the trio of young men - Robert Costadot, Rose's fiance, Pierre his younger brother and Denis, Rose's own brother - the novelist shows, once again, his 'compassionate realism' in handling the conflicting strains in adolescent friendships, in the brother-sister relationship, and in youthful love.
Rose Revolou is a creature of pure goodness, a destined victim in the selfish intrigues of those around her. She is able to accept her fall in fortune with simplicity, but she is not hard enough to exploit her assets to make terms for herself with the world. She is of those who 'even in childhood realise that they are moving towards an unknown sea...and are amazed by the bitter violence of the wind.'
Like most of Mauriac's novels, this one is set in the 'high bourgeois milieu set of Bordeaux.' "No other scene in contemporary fiction," said the Times Literary Supplement, "impresses itself so vividly upon the mind...It is not an attractive world, with its alternations of lust and greed," and these alternations make up the story of the present novel, which in spite of the human baseness it displays, contains many scenes of lyrical beauty.