June First, 1832
"You'll do it." The voice was a rasp out of the corner, harsh as burlap. It grated on my nerves. "Won't you?"
The Café Musain was quiet, which was not unusual at three in the morning. Most of the chairs were put up on top of the tables, and only a single lamp lit the room. In point of fact it was quieter than my lodgings, which was why I'd come; since I couldn't sleep anyway, I'd thought, I might as well have some peace.
So much for that plan.
"Do what?"
"Have your émeute."
"Insurrection."
"Mince words, why don't you?"
"Precision of language," I said dryly, "is the sign of a careful mind, and is not to be despised."
"Orate at me, why don't you?"
"Grantaire!" I threw down the pen, burying my head in my hands. God, the man was always at me, every minute. I forgot in between times how incessant he was.
"You're going to do it, aren't you," he said again. It wasn't a question. I didn't answer it.
"Marcelin."
I gritted my teeth, picked up the pen again. "I've told you not to call me that."
"Your pardon, Monsieur Marc-Gilbert Enjolras, avenging angel extraordinary, godlet in training, resuscitator of revolutions, excavator of that fossil, the French Republic." He reeled this off like a quack's credentials. "I will forbear to address you familiarly."
"You'd better." I stared at the paper in front of me, trying to summon back the words I'd meant to write.
"So, monsieur, will you answer my question? Are you going to hold your insurrection this week?"
"That's not in my hands."
"Like hell, monsieur."
"It's not. What do you take me for?" Involuntarily I looked over at him.
He was watching me coolly: impassive gargoyle, with a face only a mother could love and an expression not even a mother could have read. "For a man who'll be followed, whatever he decides to do, by those I call friends."
I shut my eyes. Those I call friends. Damn him. "It's not me they follow --"
"Liar."
"How dare you?"
"Liar, I say. It's you. It's the light in your eyes. It's that catch in your voice. It's your damnable glamor, Marcelin, don't think I don't know."
"You're mad. You're drunk. You're dreaming. Shut up."
"You can make them believe anything."
"Shut up."
"Without you they'd sit around and read Rousseau, they'd say to each other wouldn't the world be lovely if? It's you who gives them the notion they can do something about it."
Damn him doubly, I thought rather desperately. He still had that way with words, both less and more than a gift for debate. I'd forgotten, or thought it lost when he gave up believing in anything; but he could still be coherent, it seemed, when he chose. Damn him.
"And who are you to say they can't?"
"Why, no one, of course." He grinned with such apparent good nature that it floored me a moment. "Or they'd all listen to my advice, which would be to leave bad enough alone, and we wouldn't be having this discussion."
"I know what your advice would be, thank you."
"And you don't want to have this discussion."
"Frankly, no."
"Afraid you might learn something?"
"By God, Grantaire--"
"Don't shout. You'll wake poor Louison."
I took a deliberately slow breath, and turned away from him. "I have work to do."
"If you're dead in a week, will it matter if you've turned in your essay?"
"Let me alone."
"You could die, Marcelin. They could."
"I'm quite well aware." As if I hadn't thought of that. As if I hadn't been losing sleep considering that.
"You're quite well aware," he echoed, and abruptly his tone was no longer taunting. "Very well. --Do you care, monsieur?"
It hit me like a shot to the heart. I shoved back my chair and stood. "Who are you to say that to me? How in hell do you have the audacity? You sit in your corner and mock at everything I believe in, that they believe in, that's worth believing in, everything that's worth dying for! You don't care about anything, and you dare ask me if I care? If it comes to a fight you'll stay safe in that corner and drink yourself stupid till it's over, and you're not the one who'll have those deaths on his soul!"
I took a breath. Even in my own ears it sounded like a sob. He was staring at me, perfectly silent, perfectly expressionless. Maybe I'd shamed him, maybe shocked him.
"Think what you please, Grantaire, but don't you dare preach at me. You don't have the right."
Maybe it just didn't matter to him at all.
I turned my back on his silent gaze, bending to pick up the papers I'd inadvertently scattered. He said nothing as I gathered them up, nothing as I collected my writing things, nothing as I headed blindly for the door.
And I could still hear him saying nothing all the way home, and all through the rest of that sleepless night.
Damn him.