Maurice Millet

Maurice Millet is a French soldier serving as a stretcher-bearer at a base hospital in Nancy. When he visits Eveline Hutchins and Eleanor Stoddard in Paris, he appears transformed by the war: deeply religious, devoted to accounts of faith among the wounded, and considering life in a monastery afterward. His brief appearances connect the violence of the front to the private spiritual changes it brings back into the city.

Identity and Wartime Service

Maurice had known Eveline when she was younger, and she recalls having once fallen for him. When she sees him again, late that fall in Paris, she is struck by how much older he seems. He wears a stained blue uniform and serves as a stretcher-bearer at a base hospital in Nancy. His experience has also altered his relationship to language: he has almost forgotten his English.

Asked about his painting, Maurice shrugs and does not answer. The subject that now commands him is religion. At supper he eats little and drinks only water, then speaks at length about religious conversions, the administration of last rites near the firing line, and a vision of the young Christ among wounded men during a gas attack. He says that after the war he intends to enter a monastery, perhaps a Trappist one. The account gives no confirmation that he follows through on this plan.

Visits to Eveline and Eleanor

Eveline returns one evening to find Maurice taking tea with Eleanor. She is pleased that Eleanor has made the acquaintance of a French person, but only gradually recognizes their visitor. Eleanor listens with evident admiration as Maurice speaks about sacrifice and the mystery of death; Eveline does not share her enthusiasm, though she does not argue with her afterward. The difference in their responses quietly establishes that the same encounter carries different meanings for the two women.

Maurice makes one further visit before his leave expires, bringing Raoul Lemonnier, a young French writer working at the Quai d’Orsay. The visit places Maurice alongside a very different account of wartime experience: Raoul describes front-line service and his subsequent release from military duty, but is more interested in sport and social life than in spiritual matters. While Raoul and Eveline talk by the window, Maurice and Eleanor sit together in the darkened salon discussing Saint Francis of Assisi. Maurice’s presence thus helps sustain Eleanor’s interest in religious devotion even as the evening moves between contrasting temperaments and subjects.

Religious Influence and Uncertain Future

The morning after Maurice’s first visit, Eleanor tells Eveline that she thinks she may become Catholic. On their way to the office, she persuades Eveline to stop at Notre-Dame de Paris to hear Mass. They light candles for Maurice’s safety at the front. Eveline hopes he will not be killed, but the narrative does not report his later fate.

Maurice’s role in these episodes is brief but consequential. His stories of faith formed amid the wounded, and his stated intention to enter a monastery, make religious conversion tangible to Eleanor. Eveline, by contrast, remains a concerned but less persuaded observer. Maurice leaves Paris’s social world still bound to the danger of the front, with both his survival and his proposed religious future unresolved.