Free The Secret Letters of the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma

empty apartment for a while. The thought of her dark curls made me smile.
    I could have sat there until the sun set, but my phone beeped at me, reminding me that I had to be at the catacombs soon. I paid the bill and reluctantly headed out to the metro.
    After a short ride, I exited at the Denfert-Rochereau metro stop and climbed the stairs. I stumbled around the parkette at Place Denfert-Rochereau, looking for signs, and soon made my way to a stone building that I had read was part of the former Barrière d’Enfer city gate. The short dark structure attached to it appeared to be the ticket office of the catacombs. But the small door was firmly shut, and there was no one around. I knocked and waited, but no answer. I knocked again, this time drumming hard on the dark wood. I thought I heard footsteps on the other side, and then the door slowly opened inward. A pimply young man of about eighteen was standing in front of me.
    “Antoine?” I asked doubtfully.
    “ Non ,” said the fellow, rolling his eyes. “ Il travaille. Suivez-moi. ” He turned and walked into the building, and I had no choice but to follow. He was walking quickly, so I had to hurry behind him.
    “ Où est … ” I began in my limited French. My guide waved his hand dismissively and repeated, “ Suivez-moi. ” After a few steps, he disappeared through a stone doorway. When I reached the threshold, I saw with horror that it opened onto a set of steep stone stairs—spiraling down. The catacombs. We were heading into the tunnels. My heart leaped in my chest, my shirt collar felt tight, air seemed to be blocked from my lungs. But despite the rising panic, my feet were pounding down the narrow stone stairs, the sound only slightly louder than my thumping heart. Down, down, down we went. Myhead was spinning, the constant turning around the stairs was making me feel nauseated. I had no idea how far down we were going, but by the time the stairs ended, it felt as if we were several stories underground.
    My wordless guide was moving quickly ahead of me, as if he too disliked being down here. The tunnel was damp, and dimly lit. The bones of six million Parisians were entombed in this place. But I hadn’t seen any skeletons yet, and it wasn’t the dead that were haunting me. It was the tunnel, the low ceilings, the tight walls. As I hurried behind my escort, I felt my breath become increasingly shallow and rapid. Beads of perspiration were forming on my brow, although I was shivering. Waves of dizziness were washing over me, and it was an effort to put one foot ahead of the other. I didn’t know if I could go on, but the thought of losing sight of the young man kept me going. I knew I needed to distract myself.
    Just then, we passed a small recess that was walled off with Plexiglas. Behind the barrier were a worn wooden chair and a small table with a candle on it. A plaque on the wall said something about the Second World War. I remembered another thing I had read about the catacombs. During the war, resistance fighters had hidden in these winding networks of tunnels. Spent years down here, in fact.
    What would it have been like to have worked against the Nazi stranglehold? Did French resistance fighters live in a constant state of fear and foreboding? Or did their commitment to their cause, to justice, to freedom, imbue them with courage? It was probably both sets of feelings, I realized. True bravery can happen only in the face of fear—if you aren’t afraid, then how can your actions be brave?
    But what irony. Living in these small, cramped spaces, surrounded by relics of the dead, testaments to inevitable mortality, did the fighters ever look upon the bones and think that, whatever the resistance did, everyone they were trying to save would end up here? Did it matter if they slowed human suffering and needless death? Did it make any of them doubt their struggle, wonder if it was all worth it? The bones in these tunnels belonged to people whose lives