“Yes, I know,” he said awkwardly. “It’s right for you to marry, even though your life may be in danger. But not for me. It’s not right for me.”
“Priests now marry. You campaigned in the Assembly for their right to do so. You run contrary to the spirit of the times.”
“What the priests do and what I do are two separate questions. Most of them couldn’t remain celibate, we ended an abuse.”
“Do you find celibacy so easy?”
“The easiness of it isn’t the question.”
“What about the girl in Arras—Anais, wasn’t it? Would you have married her, if things had gone differently?”
“No.”
“Then it’s not Adele?”
“No.”
“You just don’t want to be married?”
“That’s right.”
“But not for the reasons you give me.”
“Don’t browbeat me, you haven’t got me in court.” He got up, in great distress. “Oh, you think I’m callous, but I’m not. I want everything that people do want—but it just doesn’t work out, for me. I can’t commit myself, knowing—I mean, fearing—what the future may hold.”
“Are you afraid of women?”
“No.”
“Give the question your honest consideration.”
“I try always to be honest.”
“As a practical matter,” Camille said scathingly, “life will be difficult for you now. You may not like the fact, but it seems that you’re attractive to women. In company they pin you against walls and heave their bosoms at you. There is a positive rustle of carnality from the public galleries when you make an intervention. The belief that you had an attachment has held them back so far, but what now? They’ll be pursuing you in public places and ripping your clothes off. Think of that.”
Robespierre had sat down again, his face frozen by consternation and distaste.
“Go on. Tell me your real reason.”
“You have it already. I can’t explain anymore.” At the back of his mind, something moved, full of dread. A woman, her pinched mouth, her hair scraped back into a band; the crackle of firewood, the drone of flies. He looked up, helpless. “Either you understand or you don’t. I think there was something I wanted to say … but you shouldn’t have flown into a rage because now I can’t remember what it was. But I need your help.”
Camille dropped into a chair. He looked at the ceiling for a while, his arms hanging loose over the chair’s arms. “It’s all right,” he said softly. “I’ll sort it out. Don’t think about it anymore. Your fear is, that if you marry Adele, you will love her. If you have children, you will love them more than anything else in the world, more than patriotism, more than democracy. If your children grow up, and prove traitors to the people, will you be able to demand their deaths, as the Romans did? Perhaps you will, but perhaps you will not be able to do it. You’re afraid that if you love people you may be deflected from your duty, but it’s because of another kind of love, isn’t it, that the duty is laid upon you? It is really my fault, this business, mine and Annette’s. We liked the idea, so we set it up. You were too polite to upset our arrangements. You’ve never so much as kissed her. Of course, you wouldn’t. I know, there is your work. No one else is going to do what you are going to do, and you come to the point of renouncing, as much as you can, human needs and human weaknesses. I wish—I wish I could help you more.”
Robespierre searched his face for some evidence of malice or levity; saw none. “When we were children,” he said, “life wasn’t particularly easy for either of us, was it? But we kept each other going, didn’t we? The years in Arras were the worst, the years in between. I’m not so lonely, now.”
“Mm.” Camille was looking for a formula, a formula to contain what his instinct rejected. “The Revolution is your bride,” he said. “As the Church is the Bride of Christ.”
“Oh well,” Adele said. “Now I shall have Jerome Petion looking down the front of my dress and breathing sentimental slogans in my ear. Look, Camille, I’ve understood the situation for weeks. Let this be a lesson to you not to scheme.”
He was amazed, that she was taking it so well. “Will you go away and cry?”
“No, I’ll just—do a bit of rethinking.”
“There are lots of men, Adele.”
“Don’t I just know it?” she said.
“Will you not feel able to see him now?”
“Of course I’ll feel able to see him. People can be friends, can’t they? I presume that’s what he wants?”
“Ye, of course. I’m so glad. Because it would be difficult for me, otherwise.”
She looked at him fondly. “You’re a self-centered little bastard, aren’t you, Camille?”
Danton began to laugh. “Eunuch,” he said. “The girl should be glad he didn’t carry the farce any further. Oh, I should have guessed.”
“No need for such unholy jubilation.” Camille was gloomy. “Try to understand.”
“Understand? I understand perfectly. It’s easy.”
