De Sade looked round for a table, and laid the saint facedown. “You unnerve me,” he said. Camille looked pleased. “I thought you might like to tell me about these regrets you are having,” the Marquis said. He took a chair.
Camille thought for a moment. “No … I don’t think I would. But you can tell me about yours, if you like.”
“The Bastille,” de Sade said. “It’s all double-edged, isn’t it? Take the fall of the Bastille. It made you famous. And I congratulate you. It shows how the wicked prosper, and how even the semi-wicked have a distinct advantage. Also it was a great step forward for humanity, whoever they may be. For my part, I was moved out before the trouble started, and in such a hurry that I left the manuscript of my new novel behind. I got out of prison on Good Friday—after eleven years, Camille—and my papers were nowhere to be found. It was a great blow to me, I can tell you.”
“What was it, your novel?”
“120 Days of Sodom.”
“Well, heavens,” Camille said, “it’s more than four years, haven’t you had time to get it together again?”
“Not any 120 days,” the Marquis said. “It was a feat of imagination which in these attenuated times it is difficult to reproduce.”
“What did you come for, Citizen? Not to talk about your novels, surely?”
The Marquis sighed. “Just to air my views. About the times, you know. I loved what happened at Brissot’s trial. To think of you recovering your senses, such as they are, in the arms of all those strong men. So what do you think now—do you think it would have been possible not to kill Brissot’s people?”
“I didn’t, but now I think—yes, we might have managed it.”
“Even after Marat’s death?”
“I suppose there is at least a chance that the girl did it by herself. She claimed she did. But no one even listened to her. Brissot’s trial went on for days. They were allowed to speak. They called witnesses. It was all reported in the newspapers. It was only pressure from Hebert that stopped it, or we could have been arguing still.”
“Just so,” de Sade said.
“But in future defendants won’t have those rights. It is regarded as not expeditious, not republican. I am afraid of the consequences of cutting the trials short. I think that people are being killed who need not be. But the killings go on.”
“And the judgements,” de Sade said. “The judgements in the courtroom. You see I approve the duel, the vendetta, the crime of passion. But this machinery of Terror operates with no passion at all.”
“Forgive me—I’m not entirely sure what you’re talking about.”
“You know, your first writings were so entirely without pity, so completely devoid of the conventional mouthings—I had hopes for you. But now you’re beginning to retrace your steps. Repent. Aren’t you? You know, I was secretary of my Section committee in September. Not last September: the one past, when we killed the prisoners. There was something pure and revolutionary and absolutely fitting about the way the blood flowed—the speed, the fear. But now we have the jury’s verdict, the hair-cutting, the carts. We have the lawyers’ arguments before death. Nature should visit death; it should not be something you argue against.”
“I am sure I do not see why you are visiting this rubbish on me.”
“I suppose that to you—at least in your present frame of mind—it is only the legal process that makes it acceptable. More acceptable, if the trial is fair, and less acceptable if the witnesses are bullied and the trial is cut short. But to me it is all unacceptable, you see. The more they argue, the worse it is. I can’t go on any longer.” There was a pause. “Are you writing anything?” the Marquis asked. “I mean, besides your theological work?” Misunderstood again; his timid pale eyes were like those of an old hare, expecting traps.
Camille hesitated. “I’m thinking of writing. I must see what support I have. It is difficult. We know there are conspiracies, our whole lives are eaten away by them. We dare not speak freely to our best friends, or trust our wives or parents or children. Does that sound melodramatic? It is like Rome in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius.”
“I don’t know,” de Sade said. “But if you say so, it probably is. I’ve been to Rome, you know? Waste of time. They’ve put up all these little chapels round the Colosseum, it ruins the place. Saw the Pope. Vulgarity incarnate. Still, I suppose Tiberius was worse.” He looked up. “What would you do with my opinions?”
“About the Pope?”
“About the Terror.”
“I think I’d keep them to myself, if I were you.”
“But I haven’t, you see. I’ve said at a meeting of my Section that the Terror must be stopped. I expect they’ll arrest me soon. Then we’ll see what we see. I tell you, dear Citizen Camille—it’s not the deaths I can’t stand. It’s the judgements, the judgements in the courtroom.”
Danton arrived back on November 20. He had in his pocket letters from Robespierre, from Fabre, from Camille. Robespierre’s had a hysterical tinge, Fabre’s sounded tearful and Camille’s was merely strange. He resisted the temptation to fold them up small and wear them as phylacteries.
They reinstalled themselves in the apartment. Louise looked up at him accusingly. “You’re thinking of going out.”
“It’s not every day,” he said, “that Citizen Robespierre requests my company at his revels.”
“All this time, you’ve been thinking about Paris. I believe you’ve been longing to get back.”
“Look at me.” He took her hands. “I know I’m a fool. When I’m here, I want to be in Arcis. When I’m in Arcis, I want to be here. But I want you to understand that the Revolution isn’t a game, that I can leave when I choose.” His voice was very serious; he put a hand to her waist, drew her to him. God, how he loved her! “In Arcis we avoided speaking of this, we spoke of simpler things. But it’s not a game, and it isn’t something, either, that I engage in just for my own profit, or gratification.” His fingers touched her mouth, very softly, stopping what she was
