They got back into the car. They were silent. After a short time Canet said to Manousse:
"Bah! the dead are dead. We must help the living."
As night fell Christophe's excitement subsided altogether. He sat huddled in a corner of the carriage, and pondered. He was sobered and icy cold. He looked down at his hands and saw blood on them that was not his own. He gave a shiver of disgust. The scene of the murder came before him once more. He remembered that he had killed a man: and now he knew not why. He began to go over the whole battle from the very beginning; but now he saw it in a very different light. He could not understand how he had got mixed up in it. He went back over every incident of the day from the moment when he had left the house with Olivier: he saw the two of them walking through Paris until the moment when he had been caught up by the whirlwind. There he lost the thread: the chain of his thoughts was snapped: how could he have shouted and struck out and moved with those men with whose beliefs he disagreed? It was not he, it was not he!… It was a total eclipse of his will!… He was dazed by it and ashamed. He was not his own master then? Who was his master?… He was being carried by the express through the night: and the inward night through which he was being carried was no less dark, nor was the unknown force less swift and dizzy…. He tried hard to shake off his unease: but one anxiety was followed by another. The nearer he came to his destination, the more he thought of Olivier; and he was oppressed by an unreasoning fear.
As he arrived he looked through the window across the platform for the familiar face of his friend…. There was no one. He got out and still went on looking about him. Once or twice he thought he saw…. No, it was not "he." He went to the appointed hotel. Olivier was not there. There was no reason for Christophe to be surprised: how could Olivier have preceded him?… But from that moment on he was in an agony of suspense.
It was morning. Christophe went up to his room. Then he came down again, had breakfast, sauntered through the streets. He pretended to be free of anxiety and looked at the lake and the shop-windows, chaffed the girl in the restaurant, and turned over the illustrated papers…. Nothing interested him. The day dragged through, slowly and heavily. About seven o'clock in the evening, Christophe having, for want of anything else to do, dined early and eaten nothing, went up to his room, and asked that as soon as the friend he was expecting arrived, he should be brought up to him. He sat down at the desk with his back turned to the door. He had nothing to busy himself with, no baggage, no books: only a paper that he had just bought: he forced himself to read it: but his mind was wandering: he was listening for footsteps in the corridor. All his nerves were on edge with the exhaustion of a day's anxious waiting and a sleepless night.
Suddenly he heard some one open the door. Some indefinable feeling made him not turn around at once. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Then he turned and saw Olivier smiling at him. He was not surprised, and said:
"Ah, here you are at last!"
The illusion vanished.
Christophe got up suddenly, knocking over chair and table. His hair stood on end. He stood still for a moment, livid, with his teeth chattering.
At the end of that moment—(in vain did he shut his eyes to it and tell himself: "I know nothing")—he knew everything: he was sure of what he was going to hear.