hardly had even strength enough to suffer. He was crushed. The dryness
of his heart was a horror to him. He had only one desire: to be buried
with "him" and to make an end.--One day he found the garden-door open
and went out. But it hurt him so much to be in the light of day that he
returned hurriedly and shut himself up in his room with all the shutters
closed. Fine days were torture to him. He hated the sun. The brutal
serenity of Nature overwhelmed him. At meals he would eat in silence the
food that Braun laid before him, and he would sit with never a word
staring down at the table. One day Braun pointed to the piano in the
drawing-room: Christophe turned from it in terror. Noise of any sort was
detestable to him. Silence, silence, and the night!... There was
nothing in him save an aching void, and a need of emptiness. Gone was
his joy in life, gone the splendid bird of joy that once used to soar
blithely, ecstatically upwards, pouring out song. There were days when,
sitting in his room, he had no more feeling of life than the halting
tic-tac of the clock in the next room, that seemed to be beating in his
own brain. And yet, the wild bird of joy was still in him, it would
suddenly take flight, and flutter against the bars of its cage: and in
the depths of his soul there was a frightful tumult of sorrow--"the
bitter cry of one living in the wilderness...."

The world's misery lies in this, that a man hardly ever has a companion.
Women perhaps, and chance friendships. We are reckless in our use of the
lovely word, friend. In reality we hardly have a single friend all
through our lives. Rare, very rare, are those men who have real friends.
But the happiness of it is so great that it is impossible to live when
they are gone. The friend filled the life of his friend, unbeknown to
him, unmarked. The friend goes: and life is empty. Not only the beloved
is lost, but every reason for loving, every reason for having loved. Why
had he lived? Why had either lived?