Jean-Christophe by Romain Rolland — Read

They drove out of Paris. They crossed the vast plains of France shrouded in mist. It was an evening like that on which Christophe had arrived in Paris ten years before. He was a fugitive then, as now. But then his friend, the man who loved him, was alive: and Christophe was fleeing towards him.

During the first hour Christophe was still under the excitement of the fight: he talked volubly in a loud voice: in a breathless, jerky fashion he kept on telling what he had seen and heard: he was proud of his achievement and felt no remorse. Manousse and Canet talked too, by way of making him forget. Gradually his feverish excitement subsided, and Christophe stopped talking: his two companions went on making conversation alone. He was a little bewildered by the afternoon's adventures, but in no way abashed. He recollected the time when he had come to France, a fugitive then, always a fugitive. It made him laugh. No doubt he was fated to be so. It gave him no pain to be leaving Paris: the world is wide: men are the same everywhere. It mattered little to him where he might be so long as he was with his friend. He was counting on seeing him again next day. They had promised him that.