His physical wretchedness, exhaustion, hunger, an obscure feeling of
terror which was augmented by his worn-out condition, for the time being
smothered his moral distress. His one thought was to find a refuge where
he could in safety be alone with his distress and feed on it.

He crossed the frontier. In the distance he saw a town surmounted with
towers and steeples and factory chimneys, from which the thick smoke
streamed like black rivers, monotonously, all in the same direction
across the gray sky under the rain. He was very near a collapse. Just
then he remembered that he knew a German doctor, one Erich Braun, who
lived in the town, and had written to him the year before, after one of
his successes, to remind him of their old acquaintance. Dull though
Braun might be, little though he might enter into his life, yet, like a
wounded animal, Christophe made a supreme effort before he gave in to
reach the house of some one who was not altogether a stranger.

Under the cloud of smoke and rain, he entered the gray and red city. He
walked through it, seeing nothing, asking his way, losing himself, going
back, wandering aimlessly. He was at the end of his tether. For the last
time he screwed up his will that was so near to breaking-point to climb
up the steep alleys, and the stairs which went to the top of a stiff
little hill, closely overbuilt with houses round a gloomy church. There
were sixty red stone steps in threes and sixes. Between each little
flight of steps was a narrow platform for the door of a house. On each
platform Christophe stopped swaying to take breath. Far over his head,
above the church tower, crows were whirling.

At last he came upon the name he was looking for. He knocked.--The alley
was in darkness. In utter weariness he closed his eyes. All was dark
within him.... Ages passed.