["Judith Madrier"] is set against the background of the early months of the war and was written during [Troyat's] own service as an officer with the French Army; but it is not a reflection of experiences in fighting. It is a study, both explicit and subtle, of the evil which is inherent in idleness, petty smugness, restless unacknowledged greed, unworthy self-content and self-protection against whatever dangers and discomforts may be the lot of man. As a story which is told with a clear, hard brilliance in a foreign setting and with a foreign idiom of society—a story not lacking in compassion but quite unvarnished and unveiled, and generally of the species which is descended from "Madame Bovary"—it may or may not interest a sizable public here. But as an investigation of cause and effect in human conduct, as shown in the lives of two ordinary individuals...