“You know I don’t speak of mundane matters—I speak of spiritual despair. Despair of salvation.”
“No, I don’t despair of it. Who knows? God’s mercy is very strange. That’s what I say to myself.”
“Monsieur, it is to your credit that you have come here today. You have set your foot upon the path.”
“And what’s at the end of it?”
“At the end of the path is the face of the crucified Christ.”
Danton shuddered. “So you will give me absolution?”
The priest inclined his head.
“I’m not much of a penitent.”
“God is willing to stretch a point.” The priest raised his hand. He inscribed a cross on the air; he murmured the formula. “It is a beginning, M. Danton,” he said. “I told you I had been in prison—I was so fortunate as to escape, last September.”
“Where have you been since?”
“Never mind that. Only know that I shall be there when you need me.”
“At the Jacobins last night—”
“Don’t tell me, Camille.”
“They said, where is Danton? Missing again!”
“I am occupied with the Committee.”
“Mm. Sometimes. Not often enough.”
“I thought you didn’t approve of the Committee.”
“I approve of you.”
“And?”
“And if you go on as you do now you’ll not be re-elected.”
“Doesn’t this remind you of anything? When you were first married, and you wanted a bit of time to yourself? And Robespierre used to come round and nag you and hector you and lecture you on your public duties? Look, I think you should be the first to know. I’m going to marry Gely’s daughter.”
“Imagine!” Camille said.
“We plan to sign the marriage contract in four days’ time. Will you glance over it for me? In my allegedly giddy and irresponsible frame of mind, I might have put the words in the wrong order. And, you know, a mistake could be expensive.”
“Why—is there something unusual about the settlement?”
“I’m turning over my property to her. The whole of it. I shall manage it during my lifetime.”
There was a long silence. Danton broke it. “You never know. I might meet with an accident. At the hands of the state. If I lose my head, there’s no reason why I should also lose my land. Now, why are you exhibiting symptoms of rage?”
“Get another lawyer,” Camille shouted at him. “I refuse to be party to your decline and fall.”
He slammed out of the room.
Louise came down from the apartment above. She looked up into his face, very solemn; put her child’s hands in his. “Where has Camille gone?”
“Oh, to see Robespierre, I expect. He always goes to Robespierre, when we have a row.”
Perhaps, Louise thought, one day he’ll not come back. She didn’t voice this; her husband-to-be was, she realized, in many ways a vulnerable man. “You know each other very well, you and Camille,” she said.
“Intolerably well. So my love, I have a thing to say to you—no, nothing to do with politics at all, just a specific word of warning. If I ever come into a room and find you alone with Camille, I’ll kill you.”
“If you ever find me alone with Camille, one of us will be dead.”
“I wish you every happiness, Danton,” Robespierre said. “Camille says you’ve gone mad but, good heavens, I suppose you know your own mind. There’s just one thing I would say—if you will pardon me— that your attitude to your public duties in the last two months has not been all that the Republic is entitled to expect.”
“What about your increasingly frequent illnesses, Robespierre?”
“I can’t help those.”
“I can’t help getting married. I must have women.”
“We see you must,” Robespierre murmured, “but need they occupy so much of your time? Can’t you satisfy yourself and then get back to work?”
“
“Really? I should have thought that, as a bachelor, I was the last person who could be expected to understand.”
“That’s up to you. I thought you valued family life—that was my impression. Anyway, whatever you understand or don’t understand—I resent this implication that everything I do is public property.”
