[...] didn’t know what he’d been doing exactly all the summer, but I assumed the worst: gaming, drinking, and what I vaguely called debauchery. There must be a good explanation for such behaviour: but I found it disillusioning to have to excuse him. I recalled the great fantasy of love and admiration that I had built round him when I was fifteen and I compared it sadly with the present state of my affection for Jacques: no, I did not admire him any more. Perhaps all admiration was self-deception; perhaps in the depths of every human heart one found only the same unreliable pretence; perhaps the one link possible between two souls was compassion. This pessimistic view did nothing to console me.