and slept peacefully until the morrow. When he opened his eyes again it was
day. More acutely than ever he was conscious of the horror of his room: he
felt his loneliness and wretchedness: but he faced them. He was no longer
disheartened: he was left only with a sturdy melancholy. He read over now
the words of Job:

_Even though God slay me yet would I trust in Him._

He got up. He was ready calmly to face the fight.

He made up his mind there and then to set to work. He knew only two people
in Paris: two young fellow-countrymen: his old friend Otto Diener, who was
in the office of his uncle, a cloth merchant in the _Mail_ quarter: and a
young Jew from Mainz, Sylvain Kohn, who had a post in a great publishing
house, the address of which Christophe did not know.

He had been very intimate with Diener when he was fourteen or fifteen.
He had had for him one of those childish friendships which precede love,
and are themselves a sort of love. [Footnote: See _Jean-Christophe_--I:
"The Morning."] Diener had loved him too. The shy, reserved boy had been
attracted by Christophe's gusty independence: he had tried hard to imitate
him, quite ridiculously: that had both irritated and flattered Christophe.
Then they had made plans for the overturning of the world. In the end
Diener had gone abroad for his education in business, and they did not see
each other again: but Christophe had news of him from time to time from the
people in the town with whom Diener remained on friendly terms.

As for Sylvain Kohn, his relation with Christophe had been of another kind
altogether. They had been at school together, where the young monkey had
played many pranks on Christophe, who thrashed him for it when he saw