statements, he merely asked: "Do you think so? Are you quite sure?" It
was a sort of hidden appeal. He wanted Maxime to state, to redouble
his assertions. The news Maxime had brought added to the chaos, raised
it to a climax, but at the same time it began to direct the distracted
forces of his mind towards a fixed point, as the first bark of the
shepherd's dog drives the sheep together.

Clerambault had but one wish left, to rejoin the flock, rub himself
against the human animals, his brothers, feel with them, act with them....
Though exhausted by sleeplessness, he started, in spite of his
wife, to take the train for Paris with Maxime. They had to wait a
long time at the station, and also in the train, for the tracks were
blocked, and the cars crowded; but in the common agitation Clerambault
found calm. He questioned and listened, everybody fraternised, and
not being sure yet what they thought, everyone felt that they thought
alike. The same questions, the same trials menaced them, but each man
was no longer alone to stand or fall, and the warmth of this contact
was reassuring. Class distinctions were gone; no more workmen or
gentlemen, no one looked at your clothes or your hands; they only
looked at your eyes where they saw the same flame of life, wavering
before the same impending death. All these people were so visibly
strangers to the causes of the fatality, of this catastrophe, that
their innocence led them like children to look elsewhere for the
guilty. It comforted and quieted their conscience. Clerambault
breathed more easily when he got to Paris. A stoical and virile
melancholy had succeeded to the agony of the night. He was however
only at the first stage.