He made no response; he was scarcely aware of it.

He was in a kind of dream.

In an even, conversational tone, in French at once idiomatic and very simple, he began: "My dear friends, this is a world where men get tired.

If they work they get tired, and if they play they get tired.

If they look straight ahead of them they walk straight, but then they get blind by-and-by; if they look round them and get open-eyed, their feet stumble and they fall.