He was aghast. “It hadn’t entered my head! Why should I divorce her?”
“Yes, why should you? You had all the convenience of marriage, and none of its obligations.”
“I would never have divorced her. If I’d known she was thinking that … I could have reassured her.”
“You couldn’t even see that she was afraid?”
“How could I? She never told me.”
“You were never here.”
“Anyway, I have never understood women.”
“Damn you,” she said. “You make that a point of pride, don’t you? Listen, I am familiar with you great men, in all your manifestations, and I’m sure I don’t know the words for how you disgust me. I have sometimes sat with your wife while you were saving the country.”
“We have to discharge our public duties.”
“Most of you discharge your public duties by beginning to drink at nine o’clock in the morning and spend your day plotting how you can stab each other in the back and make off with each other’s wives.”
“There is an exception to that.” He smiled. “His name’s Robespierre. You wouldn’t like him. Of course, it never struck me before how we must appear to you—a set of drunken, middle-aged lechers. Well, Louise—what do you think I should do?”
“If you want to save yourself as a human being, you should get out of politics.”
“As a human being?” he queried gently. “What are the other possibilities?”
“I think you know what I mean. You haven’t lived like a proper human being these last few years. You have to get back to the man you were before—” She gestured.
“Yes, I know. Before the folly. Before the blasphemy.”
“Don’t. Just don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing. But your judgements are very harsh, aren’t they? I’m not sure there is much hope for me. If I wanted to abandon my career, I don’t know how I’d begin to do it.”
“We could find a way, if you made up your mind.”
“We could? You think so?”
He is laughing, she thought. “If I had only heard of you, from the newspapers, I should think you were a devil. I should be afraid to breathe the same air as you. But I know you.”
“I see that you have set yourself a task. You mean to save me from myself, don’t you?”
“I was told to. I promised.”
When she thinks about it now she cannot be sure what the terms of the promise were. Gabrielle had bequeathed her children, but had she also bequeathed her husband?
The next morning she instructed the servants strictly. They were to mention to no one that Monsieur was home. She had come down early, before seven. He was already up and dressed, reading his letters. “So you are going out after all, Citizen Danton?”
He glanced up, and saw that she was disappointed. “No, I’m staying. But I couldn’t sleep … too much on my mind.”
“What if people come, and ask if you are back yet?”
“Tell lies.”
“You mean it?”
“Yes. I need time to think.”
“I suppose it would not be any great sin.”
“You are grown very liberal, since last night.”
“Don’t keep laughing at me. If anyone comes, I shall not let them in, and if I meet anyone when I go to do the shopping—”
“Send Marie.”
“I’m keeping her in. She might give you away. I shall say, I haven’t seen you, and you’re not expected.”
“That’s the spirit.” He turned back to his letters. He spoke kindly enough, but there was, too, a hint of weariness and boredom. I have no idea how to talk to him, she thought. I wish I were Lucile Desmoulins.
At nine o’clock, she was back, out of breath. He was sitting with a blank sheet of paper before him, his eyes closed. “Can’t write,” he said, opening them. “Oh, words go down, but they’re hardly soul-searing stuff. Good thing I own a journalist.”
“When are you planning to emerge?”
“Tomorrow, I think. Why?”
“I don’t think you can hide any longer. I saw your journalist. He knows you’re here.”
“How?”
“Well, he doesn’t know, but he thinks you are. I denied it, of course. I’m lucky to be in one piece, I can tell you. He didn’t believe a word I said.”
