"Oh yes, of course. You're off!" he said.
He had escaped his military service, thanks to being slightly short-sighted, and to the fact that he could demand a good deal of interest.
He was my only intimate. We had never been parted during our school days at the lycèe at Tours. We had come up to Paris in the same year to begin our legal studies. The Bar had attracted him; he seemed to be going to succeed there; he had been accepted when still quite young as secretary to the "Conférence." We met almost every evening; we dined and then idled together; our tastes agreed. Together we had forged a philosophy, drawn from various sources, which fulfilled all our requirements. How completely our ideas harmonised in our wholesale scorn for people and things, and for ourselves, our hatred of appearances and of Sentiment! We were candid, almost to the point of brutality, in our dealings with each other. Courtesy and consideration were well enough for fools. I took a delight in the thought that our surly bearing towards each other hid a firm friendship.
"You stay here, I suppose! Your usual luck!"
He found nothing to say to me but:
"Bah! Some will come back, after all!"
"To think," I continued, "that in a fortnight I may be under fire!"
"Yes. I can see you at it!"
"How do you think I shall get on?"
"Not brilliantly!"