The Angellier women, whose son and husband, Gaston, is a German prisoner of war, despair at the sight of a German regiment entering Bussy. The mother and daughter-in-law go about the house hiding the valuables that they do not want the Germans to find. In their house, the clocks are set 60 minutes behind the new German regime’s time zone.

Lucile Angellier, the daughter-in-law, is the beautiful daughter of a wealthy landowner who made poor financial decisions that diminished her dowry. As a result, her husband resents her, and she has a thorny relationship with her mother-in-law, who considers Lucile too dreamy and finds her presence painful. Madame Angellier resents the fact that Lucile is relatively unperturbed for a woman whose husband is a prisoner of war. She is convinced that Lucile never loved Gaston.

The French citizens of the village look at the occupying German army with a mixture of curiosity and aversion. The Germans feign congeniality but plaster the town with posters about activities that are forbidden on pain of death; these include breaking curfew, listening to French radio, or helping Jewish people or Englishmen. Shopkeepers delight in swindling the Germans—for example, by selling them moldy prunes at double the price.