“I hadn't known Chancel very well, but ten days earlier I had seen him laughing with the others around the Christmas tree. Maybe Robert was right; the distance between the living and the dead really isn't very great. And yet, like myself, those future corpses who were drinking their coffee in silence appeared ashamed to be so alive.” ExistentialismSimone De BeauvoirMandarinsAnne Dubreuilh Book:The Mandarins Source: The Mandarins