his hat for him--Christophe had let it fall. The icy coldness of the water
revived Christophe. He plucked up courage again. He retraced his steps, but
did not look about him: he did not even think of eating: it would have been
impossible for him to speak to anybody: it needed the merest trifle to set
him off weeping again. He was worn out. He lost his way, and wandered about
aimlessly until he found himself in front of his hotel, just when he had
made up his mind that he was lost. He had forgotten even the name of the
street in which he lodged.

He went up to his horrible room. He was empty, and his eyes were burning:
he was aching body and soul as he sank down into a chair in the corner of
the room: he stayed like that for a couple of hours and could not stir. At
last he wrenched himself out of his apathy and went to bed. He fell into
a fevered slumber, from which he awoke every few minutes, feeling that he
had been asleep for hours. The room was stifling: he was burning from head
to foot: he was horribly thirsty: he suffered from ridiculous nightmares,
which clung to him even after he had opened his eyes: sharp pains thudded
in him like the blows of a hammer. In the middle of the night he awoke,
overwhelmed by despair, so profound that he all but cried out: he stuffed
the bedclothes into his mouth so as not to be heard: he felt that he was
going mad. He sat up in bed, and struck a light. He was bathed in sweat. He
got up, opened his bag to look for a handkerchief. He laid his hand on an
old Bible, which his mother had hidden in his linen. Christophe had never
read much of the Book: but it was a comfort beyond words for him to find
it at that moment. The Bible had belonged to his grandfather and to his
grandfather's father. The heads of the family had inscribed on a blank page
at the end their names and the important dates of their lives--births,
marriages, deaths. His grandfather had written in pencil, in his large
hand, the dates when he had read and re-read each chapter: the Book was
full of tags of yellowed paper, on which the old man had jotted down his