Pierre and Luce – Romain Rolland

Pierre entered the subway head-first. A violent, contagious throng. He stood close to the entrance, squeezed against a group of people, sharing the heavy air that was coming in and out of their lips, and he peered without noticing them at the pitch-black, rumbling vaults above which the train's bright eyes flashed. A young man, just eighteen years old and yet almost a kid, had a deep dread filling his heart. Pierre admired Philip with the same passion that younger children frequently feel for older siblings or other strangers who are sometimes only glimpsed at for an hour before they are gone again.