A gripping novella about a cowardly Parisian lawyer's incarceration in a WW2 prison camp, the deal he made to survive execution, and his attempts at an incognito reintroduction into the small town that housed his former estate.

Chavel's change from the frightened, introverted, bourgeois lawyer who would bribe others with everything he had to save his life (what life?) before and while in the camp, to a friendly, caring man who would risk everything in his meagre possession (which, by that point, was only his life), is believeable and satisfying. ( )