As sentimentally committed as its title, this is a surprisingly innocent first novel for this age beginning when Claude, a U.S. soldier on leave, decides to visit the town which sheltered his unknown father Michel during the war. Michel disappeared without a trace after having secured, in exchange for an act of heroism, a new name and a new life with a local gift, An. toinette. Now Claude falls in love with Adrienne, their daughter, and he cannot understand the hostility all around, particularly that of her mother and a hangdog suitor, Jean-Pierre. Claude and Adrienne quarrel; he leaves; she comes after him; she leaves on a holiday; he leaves on learning of their real relationship; he comes back feeling that incest or no, this desertion would be a greater wrong than his father's, years ago. Curiously straight and blanched, and the story--one which seems sufficiently familiar to predict-is all washed down with vin ordinaire dialogue.