Emmanuel looked at Christophe, and his eyes reflected the passing vision. He was silent for some time after Christophe had finished speaking, and then he said:
"You are lucky, Christophe! You do not see the night!"
"I can see in the dark," said Christophe. "I have lived in it enough. I am an old owl."
About this time his friends noticed a change in his manner. He was often distracted and absent-minded. He hardly listened to what was said to him. He had an absorbed, smiling expression. When his absent-mindedness was commented upon he would gently excuse himself. Sometimes he would speak of himself in the third person:
"Krafft will do that for you…."
or,
"Christophe will laugh at that…."
People who did not know him said:
"What extraordinary self-infatuation!"
But it was just the opposite. He saw himself from the outside, as a stranger. He had reached the stage when a man loses interest even in the struggle for the beautiful, because, when a man has done his work, he is inclined to believe that others will do theirs, and that, when all is told, as Rodin says, "the beautiful will always triumph." The malevolence and injustice of men did not repel him.—He would laugh and tell himself that it was not natural, that life was ebbing away from him.