Wounded in the trenches somewhere in Argonne in the early autumn of 1915, Simon and some of his companions are sent to a field hospital behind the lines, far from the front, a place out of this world. A rocky, sandy peninsula, washed up between sea and sky. An almost unreal haven of peace for these soldiers come back from the abyss where they thought to perish. Here, wounds heal, and men are reborn to life, to desire, to dream. A convalescence of several weeks, several months, before most of them would return to the war. A respite, a parenthesis of time wherein all is amplified, lived to the absolute, in flight from the dizziness of death. Simon meets Marthe and loves her beyond all things. He is alive.