But it was impossible for him to be brief. After endless explanations he
tiptoed from the room with his huge slippers creaking on the floor.
Christophe was left alone once more, and sank back into his mortal
weariness. His thoughts were veiled by the mist of suffering. He wore
himself out in trying to understand.... "Why had he known him? Why had
he loved him? What good had Antoinette's devotion been? What was the
meaning of all the lives and generations,--so much experience and
hope--ending in that life, dragged down with it into the void?"... Life
was meaningless. Death was meaningless. A man was blotted out, shuffled
out of existence, a whole family disappeared from the face of the earth,
leaving no trace. Impossible to tell whether it is more odious or more
grotesque. He burst into a fit of angry laughter, laughter of hatred and
despair. His impotence in the face of such sorrow, his sorrow in the
face of such impotence, were dragging him down to death. His heart was
broken....

There was not a sound in the house, save the doctor's footsteps as he
went out on his rounds. Christophe had lost all idea of the time, when
Anna appeared. She brought him some dinner on a tray. He watched her
without stirring, without even moving his lips to thank her: but in his
staring eyes, which seemed to see nothing, the image of the young woman
was graven with photographic clarity. Long afterwards, when he knew her
better, it was always thus that he saw her: later impressions were never
able to efface that first memory of her. She had thick hair done up in a
heavy knob, a bulging forehead, wide cheeks, a short, straight nose,
eyes perpetually cast down, and when they met the eyes of another, they
would turn away with an expression in which there was little frankness
and small kindness: her lips were a trifle thick, and closely pressed
together, and she had a stubborn, rather hard expression. She was tall,