A Place of Greater Safety: A Novel

“We would have nothing to say to each other.”

She had seen Camille Desmoulins’s wife at the Riding School, and at the public gallery of the Jacobins; she looked an accommodating sort of girl, and they said she accommodated Danton. They said Camille condoned it or did rather more … . Fabre noticed that little, flinching movement of the head, that flinching away from knowledge. And yet, what a cesspit the woman’s mind must be; even we, he thought, do not speculate in public about what our colleagues do in bed.

Manon asked herself: why do I have to put up with this man? If I must communicate with Danton, couldn’t there be some other go-between? Apparently not. Perhaps, she thought, Danton doesn’t trust as many people as his expansive manner suggests?

Fabre looked at her quizzically. “Your loss,” he said. “Really, you have the wrong impression; you’d like Camille much better than you like me. Incidentally, he believes that women should have been allowed to vote in the elections.”

She shook her head. “I disagree. Most women know nothing of politics. They do not reason—” she thinks of Danton’s women—“they have no constructive thoughts at all. They would simply be influenced by their husbands.”

“Or their lovers.”

“In your circles, perhaps.”

“I’ll tell Camille what you say.”

“Please don’t bother. I’ve no wish to carry on a debate with him, at first- or second-hand.”

“He’ll be devastated to know that your opinion of him has sunk even lower.”

“Do you take me for a fool?” she said harshly.

He raised an eyebrow: as he always did, when he had provoked her to an outburst. Day after day he watched her, reaping her moods and garnering her expressions.

Secrecy then. Yet there’s a need for honesty, and Francois-Leonard admitted it. “We are both married, and I see that it’s impossible … for you, anyway … to do anything to dishonor those vows … .”

But if feeds so right, she cried. My instinct tells me it can’t be wrong.

“Instinct?” He looked up. “Manon, this is suspect. You know, we have no absolute right to be happy … or rather, we need to think carefully about what the nature of happiness might be … . We have no right to please ourselves, at the expense of others.” Still those steady fingers rested upon his shoulder; but her face was unconvinced, her face was … greedy. “Manon?” he said. “Have you read Cicero? His essay on Duty?”

Has she read Cicero? Does she know her Duty? “Oh, yes …” she moaned. “Oh, I’m well read. And I know that obligations must be weighed, that no one can be happy at the expense of other people. Don’t you think I’ve been through all this, in my head?”

“Yes.” He looked abashed. “I’ve underestimated you.”

“Do you know, if I have a fault—” she paused minutely, waiting for the polite rejoinder—“if I have a fault, it’s that I speak to the point, I can’t bear hypocrisy, I can’t bear this politeness that detracts from honesty—I must speak to Roland.”

“Speak to him? Of what?”

Fair question. Nothing has happened between them—in the sense that Danton and his friends think of something happening. (She pictured Lucile Desmoulins’s little breasts, crushed between Danton’s fingers.) Only his precipitate declaration, her precipitate answer: but since then, he had barely touched her, barely touched her hand.

“My dear”—she dropped her head—“this goes so far beyond the realms of the physical. As you say—in that sense, nothing is possible for us. And, of course, I must support Roland—this is a time of crisis, I am his wife, I cannot abandon him. And yet—I cannot allow him to live in doubt about the true nature of things. This is part of my character, you must understand it.”

He looked up. He frowned. “But Manon, you have nothing to say to your husband. Nothing has occurred. We have simply spoken of our feelings—”

“Yes, we have spoken of them! Roland has never spoken to me of his feelings—but I respect them, I know he has feelings, he must have, everybody has them. I must say to him: here is the truth. I have met the man I was meant to love; our situation is thus, and thus; I shall not mention his name; nothing has occurred; nothing shall occur; I shall remain a faithful wife to you. He will understand me; he will know my heart has gone elsewhere.”

Buzot cast his eyes down. “You are implacable, Manon. Has there ever been a woman like you?”

I doubt it, she thought. She said, “I cannot betray Roland. I cannot leave him. My body, you may think, was meant for pleasure. But pleasure is not of the first account.” Still, she thought of Buzot’s hands; rather robust hands for so elegant, so well kept a man. Her breasts are not like the Desmoulins woman’s; they are breasts that have fed a child, they are responsible breasts.

Buzot said, “Do you think it’s a good idea to tell him? Do you think—” (God help me)—“that there’s any point?”

He had an intimation that he had gone about this the wrong way. But then, he had no experience. He was a virgin, in these matters; and his wife, whom he had married for her money, was older, and plain.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Fabre said. “There’s certainly someone! How pleasant to find that people are no better than you are.”

“Not Louvet?”

“No. Barbaroux, perhaps?”

“Oh no. Reputation bad. Attractions obvious. Rather,” Camille sighed, “rather florid and showy for Madame.”