Les adieux

the long version

A Swedish prince and a Russian emigre, a former general, conspirator, crook, and pathological liar, meet in Paris, combine their loneliness, friendship,and suffering. Together they pass through the events that shook France: the war of 1939-1940, occupation, liberation. Ultimately, their repeated attempts to gain admittance to the French community, their struggles within the Catholicism of the French bourgeoisie, and the French political misfortunes are narrated to us. Refugees, pitted against each other and buried in the "pit of Paris," they meet one day Choralita Brichs, and these strangers show that their heartbreak is revealed in a life of voluntary abandonment, renunciation, and farewells ... "Farewell, is the least evil, no one looks at you when you go." --www.gallimard.fr [trans. from French].