I could not guess her meaning. Looking at the photograph, I saw it was of a young girl in evening dress with her hair coiled in an artistic way and a little curl on each cheek. Madame’s daughter, I thought, looking up at the woman standing in front of me in a grubby bodice and tousled hair. She looked a woman of about forty, with a wan face and beaten eyes.

“A charming young lady,” I said, glancing again at the portrait.

The woman repeated her last sentence, word for word.

“Yes⁠ ⁠… that is what the war has done to me.”

I looked up at her again and saw that she had the face of the young girl in the photograph, but coarsened, aged, raddled, by the passing years and perhaps by tragedy.

“It is you?” I asked.