A sergeant in the army is training his men, impatiently looking forward to the end of his duties for the day so that he can go home to his wife. In the barracks and the showers, the soldiers tease him and talk about their own women and their ‘conquests.’ Their lewd jokes are as familiar to the sergeant now as their raucous laughter, and he dismisses them easily enough and walks down to the streetcar. There he runs into a woman who forces conversation upon him. She has a handful of flowers in her hands that she evidently dislikes, and insists that the sergeant take it off her hands. Preoccupied by the beauty of the bouquet, he takes it happily enough, determined to give it to his wife. When he comes home, his wife is softer than he remembered, especially in contrast to the harshness of the men in the barracks and the coarse woman who so loathed flowers. She puts his bouquet in the water, and remarks delightedly that it is raining – the rain, she explains, makes them seem more separate from the world. The sergeant agrees, and is disappointed when it stops. The history book he was reading is about a battle in the area; this concept lingers in his head because the idea of war seems very abstract to him as he stands with his wife in their home. She asks him what he is thinking about; he is touched at the thought of having such a perceptive wife. The rain begins again, and he is glad for it and the respite it provides from the rest of the world.