They were walking up the hill above the town. Gottfried said kindly:
"Not for the last time, my boy. We do not do what we will to do. We will and we live: two things. You must be comforted. The great thing is, you see, never to give up willing and living. The rest does not depend on us."
Christophe repeated desperately:
"I have perjured myself."
"Do you hear?" said Gottfried.
(The cocks were crowing in all the countryside.)
"They, too, are crowing for another who is perjured. They crow for every one of us, every morning."
"A day will come," said Christophe bitterly, "when, they will no longer crow for me … A day to which there is no to-morrow. And what shall I have made of my life?"
"There is always a to-morrow," said Gottfried.
"But what can one do, if willing is no use?"