Monsieur Frantz is a long way from here at this moment; and then he had no beard.

That man looks like him all the same! Just look, my dear." But "my dear" does not leave her chair; she does not even stir.

With her eyes staring into vacancy, her needle in the air, arrested in its pretty, industrious movement, she has gone away to the blue country, that wonderful country whither one may go at will, without thought of any infirmity.

The name "Frantz," uttered mechanically by her mother, because of a chance resemblance, represented to her a whole lifetime of illusions, of fervent hopes, ephemeral as the flush that rose to her cheeks when, on returning home at night, he used to come and chat with her a moment.

How far away that was already! To think that he used to live in the little room near hers, that they used to hear his step on the stairs and the noise made by his table when he dragged it to the window to draw! What sorrow and what happiness she used to feel when he talked to her of Sidonie, sitting on the low chair at her knees, while she mounted her birds and her insects.
As she worked, she used to cheer and comfort him, for Sidonie had caused poor Frantz many little griefs before the last great one.