I've just re-read, The Silence of the Sea, a novella written in 1944 by the French author and illustrator Jean Bruller under the pseudonym Vercors. It consists of a monologue delivered by the fireside to an unwilling old man, the narrator, and his niece, upon whom a young German officer Werner von Ebressac, has been billeted. He's lame, handsome, francophile, and a composer in his former life. The monologues, about how wonderful France is, elicit no response from the old man and his niece. The words themselves are like an imperialist assault, akin to a bore failing to pause for breath. Eventually, after a trip to Paris where he encounters old student friends turned soldiers who have gone raving mad in their desire to destroy France's spirit, Ebressac has a sort of breakdown and requests a transfer to the 'hell' of the Russian front. The silence is a metaphor for the silence into which all decent writers slipped during the occupation- in Buller's case by becoming Vercors. All of 47 pages his book is amazingly well crafted, and tells one more about life under occupation than many longer books.