meant—“they’ll look at you and say, see how hard he pushed Dillon’s career. And you did—you have.”
“Convicted?” Camille was on his feet now. “There will be no conviction because there won’t be a trial. I’ll break my cousin’s fucking neck.”
“No, you won’t,” Annette said. “Moderate your language, sit down again, have a nice soothing think.”
No hope of that. Camille was outraged—and it’s not the cold simulated outrage of the politician, it’s the real thing, the kind of outrage that says
The cook let him in. Why does Marat employ a cook? It’s not as if he gives dinner parties. Probably this title, “cook,” conceals some more energetic, revolutionary pastime. “Don’t trip over the newspapers,” the woman said. They lay in great bales, in a dingy half-lit passage. Having issued her warning, she rejoined her employers, who were sitting in a semi-circle like people preparing for a seance. Why don’t they clean the place up, he wondered irritably. But Marat’s women are unacquainted with the domestic arts. Simone Evrard was there, and her sister Catherine; Marat’s sister Albertine had gone on a trip to Switzerland, they said, to visit the family. Marat has a family? I mean a mother and a father and the usual things? The ordinary arrangement, the cook said. Odd really, I never thought of Marat having a beginning, I thought he was thousands and thousands of years old, like Cagliostro. Can I see him?
“He’s not well,” Catherine said. “He’s taking one of his special baths.”
“I really need to see him urgently.”
Doe-eyed Simone: “Dillon?” She got up. “Yes, come with me. He was laughing about it.”
Marat was encased in a slipper bath in a hot little room, a towel around his shoulders and a cloth wrapped around his head. There was a heavy, medicinal smell. His face had bloated; beneath its ordinary yellow tinge there was something worse, something blue. There was a board balanced across the bath to act as a desk.
Simone indicated a straw-bottomed chair, giving it a gracious kick.
Marat looked up from the proofs he was correcting. “The chair is for sitting on, Camille. Do not stand on it and make a speech.”
Camille sat. He tried to avoid looking at Marat. “Yes, aesthetic, aren’t I?” Marat said. “A work of art. I ought to be in an exhibition. The number of people who come tramping through, I feel like an exhibit anyway.”
“I’m glad you’ve found something to make you laugh. In your condition I should not be cheerful.”
“Oh, Dillon. I can spare you five minutes on that topic. Inasmuch as Dillon is an aristocrat by birth, he should be guillotined—”
“He can’t help his birth.”
“There are certain defects in you that you can’t help, but we can’t go on making allowances forever. Inasmuch as Dillon is your wife’s lover, you only demonstrate your perverse temperament if you try to do anything for him. Inasmuch as committees have done this—go for them, and bless you my child.” Marat bounced his clenched fist on his writing board. “Do some damage,” he said.
“I am afraid that if Dillon goes before the Tribunal on these ludicrous charges—if he goes before the Tribunal, totally innocent, as he is—he may still be condemned. Is it possible, do you think?”
“Yes. He has enemies, very powerful ones. So what do you expect? The Tribunal is a political instrument.”
“The Tribunal was set up to replace mob law.”
“So Danton claimed. But it will go beyond that. There are some rare fights coming up, you know.” Marat looked up. “As for you, if you make the welfare of these
“And you?” Camille said dispassionately. “Are you worse? Are you going to die?”
Marat tapped the side of the bath. “No … like this … drag on, and on.”
Scenes in the National Convention. Danton’s friend Desmoulins and Danton’s friend Lacroix shouted at each other across the benches, as if it were a street meeting. Danton’s friend Desmoulins attacked the Danton Committee. Standing at the tribune, he was bawled out from both sides of the House. From the Mountain, Deputy Billaud-Varennes screamed, “It is a scandal, he must be stopped, he is disgracing his own name.”
Another walkout. It was becoming familiar. Fabre followed him. “Write it down,” he said.
“I will.” Already the letter that Dillon had sent to him from prison was made public, he had read it out to the deputies. I have done nothing, Dillon said, that is not for my country’s good. “A pamphlet,” Camille said. “What shall I call it?”
“Just call it ‘A Letter to Arthur Dillon.’ People like reading other people’s letters.” Fabre nodded in the direction of the Convention’s hall. “Settle a few scores, while you’re about it. Launch a few campaigns.”
Fabre thought, what am I doing, what am I doing? The last thing he needed was to get dragged into the Dillon business.
“What did Billaud mean, I am disgracing my own name? Am I some sort of institution?”
He knew the answer: yes. He is the Revolution. Now, apparently, they thought the Revolution had to be protected from itself.
An elderly, grave deputy approached him, defied his murderous expression, drew him aside and suggested they have a cup of coffee somewhere. Do you know Dillon well? the man asked him. Yes, very well. And do you know, the man said—look, I don’t want to upset you, but you ought to know—about Dillon and your wife? Camille nodded. He was writing a paragraph in his head. You don’t deserve this, the deputy said. You deserve better, Camille. It is the old story, I suppose—you are occupied with public affairs, the girl is bored, she is fickle, and you don’t have Dillon’s looks.
So there is kindness in the world—this strained, patient man, stumbling into a situation he didn’t understand, catching the tail-end of the lurid gossip, wanting to put a young man’s life right; betrayed himself twenty years ago, who knows? Camille was touched. Thank you, he said politely. As he left the cafe and headed home to his desk, he felt that singular fluid running in his veins; it was like the old days on the
