The blow of Olivier's death was the more terrible to Christophe in that
it fell just at a time when his whole nature was in a state of upheaval.
There are in life certain ages when there takes place a silently working
organic change in a man: then body and soul are more susceptible to
attack from without; the mind is weakened, its power is sapped by a
vague sadness, a feeling of satiety, a sort of detachment from what it
is doing, an incapacity for seeing any other course of action. At such
periods of their lives when these crises occur, the majority of men are
bound by domestic ties, forming a safeguard for them, which, it is true,
deprives them of the freedom of mind necessary for self-judgment, for
discovering where they stand, and for beginning to build up a healthy
new life. For them so many sorrows, so much bitterness and disgust
remain concealed!... Onward! Onward! A man must ever be pressing on....
The common round, anxiety and care for the family for which he is
responsible, keep a man like a jaded horse, sleeping between the shafts,
and trotting on and on.--But a free man has nothing to support him in
his hours of negation, nothing to force him to go on. He goes on as a
matter of habit: he knows not whither he is going. His powers are
scattered, his consciousness is obscured. It is an awful thing for him
if, just at the moment when he is most asleep, there comes a thunderclap
to break in upon his somnambulism! Then he comes very nigh to
destruction.

A few letters from Paris, which at last reached him, plucked Christophe
for a moment out of his despairing apathy. They were from Cecile and
Madame Arnaud. They brought him messages of comfort. Cold comfort.
Futile condolence. Those who talk about suffering know it not. The
letters only brought him an echo of the voice that was gone.... He had
not the heart to reply: and the letters ceased. In his despondency he