“Oh yes—Robespierre would die to get away from the carpenter’s daughter, I don’t doubt.”
“You are determined to be the complete cynic, General. There is nothing I can do about that. But watch us—we are going to make a new constitution. It will be different from anything the world has ever seen before. It will provide for everyone to be educated, and for everyone to have work.”
“You will never put it into practice.”
“No—but even hope is a virtue. And still, it will add to the glory of our names.”
“We have arrived at the core of you, Danton. You are an idealist.”
“I must sleep, General, I have a journey ahead.”
“You will arrive in Paris and go straight to the Convention, to denounce me. Or to one of your Committees.”
“Don’t you know me better than that? I’m not a denouncer. Though don’t delude yourself—there will be others to do it.”
“But the Convention will expect your report.”
“It can savor its expectations till I’m ready.”
The general stood up suddenly, trim and alert in the flickering light. “Good night, Citizen Danton.”
“Good night, General.”
“Change your mind?”
“Good night.”
Paris, March 23: “Shh,” Danton said.
“You’re here,” Louise said. “At last.”
“Yes. Shh. What were you doing?”
“Watching from the window.”
“Why?”
“I just had a feeling that you might come home.”
“Have your father and mother seen me?”
“No.”
Marie said, “Oh, Monsieur.” She put her hand over her mouth. “No one told us to expect you.”
“What is all this?” Louise said. She was whispering.
“It’s a secret. You like secrets, don’t you? Are the babies asleep?”
“Of course they’re asleep. It’s past nine o’clock. You mean the secret is just that you’re here?”
“Yes. You’ve got to help me hide.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing her pretty mouth, drop open.
“Are you in trouble?”
“No. But if people know I’m back I’ll have to report straight to the Convention. I want to sleep for twenty-four hours—no Riding School, no committees, no politics at all.”
“It’s what you need, I’m sure. But General Dumouriez—aren’t they expecting to hear what he said?”
“They’ll know soon enough. So you’ll help me to hide, will you?”
“I don’t see how one can hide such a large man as you.”
“Let’s try, shall we?”
“All right. Are you hungry?”
“We seem to be falling into a spurious domesticity,” he said. Abruptly he turned away from her and dropped into a chair, plaiting his fingers over his eyes. “I just can’t think, now, of any way to go on … of how to carry on my life. The only way I can honor her is by sticking to ideas she didn’t share … to say to myself, we didn’t see eye-to- eye, but she valued the truth. By pursuing that truth I move further from anything she believed or would have found acceptable … .” She saw that he was crying. “Forgive me for this,” he said.
She moved forward to stand behind his chair, a hand resting on the back of it.
“I suppose you loved her,” she said. “According to your lights.”
“I loved her,” he said. “I loved her by anyone’s lights. By anyone’s measure. Perhaps there was a time I thought I didn’t, but I know different now.”
“If you loved her, Citizen Danton, why did you spend your nights in other women’s beds?”
He looked up at her for a second. “Why? Lust. Policy. Self-aggrandizement. I suppose you think I’m blunt, insensible? I suppose you think I can tolerate this sort of inquisition?”
“I don’t say it to be cruel. I only say it because you mustn’t start regretting something that didn’t exist. You were dead to each other—”
“No.”
“Yes. You don’t understand what you are. Remember, she talked to me. She felt lonely, she felt under threat; she thought, you know, that you were planning to divorce her.”
