"
He did not know that "to be" in our time, be oneself, be free, implies
the greatest of combats. Those who are true to themselves dominate
through the levelling down of the rest.
Clerambault was not the only one to feel the benefit of of Froment's
energy, for at his bedside he was sure to find some friend who came,
perhaps without admitting it, more to get comfort than to bring it.
Two or three of these were young, about Edme's age, the others, men
over fifty, old friends of the family, or those who had known Froment
before the war.
One of these had been his professor, an old Hellenist, with a sweet
absent smile. Then there was a grey-haired sculptor, his face ploughed
by deep tragic lines; a country gentleman, clean-shaved, red-cheeked,
with the massive head of an old peasant; and finally a doctor. He had
a white beard, his face was worn and kind, and you were struck by the
strange expression of his eyes; one seemed to look sharply at you, and
the other was sad and dreamy.
There was little resemblance between these men who sometimes met at
the invalid's house. All shades of thought could be found in the
group, from the Catholic to the freethinker and the bolshevist--one of
Froment's young friends professed to be of this opinion. In them you
could find the traces of the most various intellectual ancestry; the
ironic Lucian appeared in the old professor; the Count de Coulanges
was wont to solace himself in the evenings on his estate with
cattle and fertiliser, but also revelled in the gorgeous texture of
Froissart's style, like cloth of gold, and the countrified, juicy
talk of that rascal Gondi--the count certainly had the old French
chroniclers in his veins.
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