Carus

As Horacio grew older and reflected on his life, he came to the conclusion that he had been blameless because he had been loved by his friends. The heart of this book is friendship, the only generous feeling, and the only verifiable one... A man is sad. This is happening today in Paris. He is a musician and is unhappy to the point of silence. It is winter. His friends - a collector of ancient books, a purist grammarian, a dealer in Chinese antiquities, a professor of philology, a musical analyst... - strive to put him back on his feet. They meet during great quarrelsome banquets, play trios and quartets, fight, then parley, insult each other, then apologize... They build a friendship to delight the disorder.