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| Silent Yearning |
Chapter 14: Worries
Rosalie startled when her right arm gave in to the weight of her resting head and dropped. While she pulled some strands of hair out of her tea cup and wrung them out, she blinked away her drowsiness. She was overtired and exhausted, but going to bed in order to find the longed-for sleep, was not an option. Repeatedly she snapped at Bernard whose fingertips incessantly hammered on the table board.
The bad mood came along with the tiredness sometime during the first hours after midnight. Now it breathed down her neck like an uninvited guest. Persistent and pushy. Bernard exercised himself in patience and consideration. He softly asked his wife to go to bed.
�I can�t go to bed.� Rosalie jumped up and walked around the table boisterously. �I know that Lady Oscar keeps her feelings to herself, but to not tell us anything at all�.She just stormed past me to change her clothes and then went out without saying a word. I�m worried, Bernard.� Bernard�s eyes followed the anxious motion of his wife without interrupting her flood of words. �Last night she came back, pale and soaked. We know that she met Andr�, but she doesn�t say a word. What is with Andr�? Is he alive? Where is he?�
Bernard got sick. He quickly he grabbed hold of Rosalie�s skirt.
�Then she disappears again, the entire afternoon, and she comes back even more pale and she still doesn�t say a word. If she doesn�t rest, I fear that the tuberculosis will break out again. Now it�s storming and thundering, morning is approaching and we don�t know where she is.� Rosalie tried to squirm her way out of his grip so she could continue her walk.
�Oscar is a grown woman, Rosalie.�
�You be quiet!� his wife snarled at him. �You as well refuse to give me answers I long for. You probably already know where Andr� is. Robespierre has always trusted you. Why would he not let you in on this time?�
�You�re right.� Bernard became contemplative and his grasp loosened. Crossly Rosalie freed her dress from his hand.
�Why does Robespierre hide what he is up to? He�s planning something.� His hand started drumming again. To Rosalie�s overwrought nerve cords, the sound started to knock unpleasantly. It thudded dully when her hand moved and pressed Bernard�s nervous fingers to the wooden plate.
Bernard grimaced with pain. �If Robespierre operates secretly, who knows about it?� he asked himself as he pulled out the splinters of wood from his middle finger. �Who does he induct?� He unknowingly knocked his foot at the floor. Rosalie stepped on it. He groaned.
�Saint-Just. I�m sure Saint-Just knows something. As much as the idea appalls me, it�s for the best I seek him out immediately.� He carefully moved his toes.
�At this very hour?� Rosalie asked.
�Saint-Just is not one of those people who use the night for sleep.�
Silence filled the room while both were thinking. The bells of the nearby church rang at the fourth morning hour.
Bernard�s nose started whistling. Squeaky, into the nightly tranquility, with every breath. His eyes caught Rosalie�s gaze. He pulled his head between the shoulders and made sure to leave right away. The shapeless darkness of the night seemed safer to him than his wife.
With a turned up coat collar he rushed through the darkness in the pouring rain.
He stopped at Rue Saint Sulpice. The storm had ceased. The weather-beaten inn sign �Grand Vachenoir� swayed over him, lonely in the rain. The dreary jitter of the lamp hardly offered enough light to read the peeled of lettering.
The massive oak door creaked remonstratively when Bernard entered the dry interior of the tavern. To his feet the mud and rainwater accumulated. The host grouchily looked at the puddle of dirt first, then at his guest.
�My friend it�s too late for today. Go home to your wife. No one is here at this hour and I want to go to bed, too!�
Bernard came into the light and pulled the coat collar back. Louis Pasquier exposed his fragmentary denture to a smile. His huge jerkin quivered from pleasure.
�Bernard, good to see you. You haven�t graced my tavern with your presence for a long time. Come in, come in! These are hard times, but genuine people like are always good to see.�
�I�m sorry, Louis, for not being here for quite some time. There was a lot to do.� Bernard justified himself smilingly, while he shook out his mantle.
�I see, I see. I suppose your wife does not like it when you come here too often.�
�Yes, that too.� Bernard admitted.
�Would you like a beaker of beer?�
�I�d love to, but actually I�m here because I�m looking for Saint-Just. Have you seen him?�
�Yes,� the host confirmed while he filled a jar with lukewarm beer.
�He�s sitting in my back room and he�s discussing feverishly. The boy wants to see the kind dead sooner rather than later.� Bernard nodded. Louis Antoine Saint Just�s radical attitude were not unknown to him. They were at the verge of blasphemy.
The >Anci�n R�gime<, the totalitarian regime in France which ruled until now, he so abhorred it, that the very word made him spew.
He gripped his jar and strolled to the back room. After a short knock he entered. The smooth face with his fine features looked at him. His beautiful facial features and his cruelty would later make him go down in history under the name �Angel of Death of the Revolution�. He nodded towards Bernard as a greeting, but did not interrupt his conversation. He was talking to two other men. Bernard did not know them personally. But their reputation preceded them, dusky and direful. Paul-Francois Barras, sitting to Saint-Just�s left, had fueled several uproars in the provinces and instigated the rural population against the first class, until bloody uprisings and pillages occurred.
Next to him sat Jean-Paul Marat, a doctor and radical Jacobin, editor of the �Ami du Peuble�. His painful skin disease caused an unpleasant appearance which was even more pointed out by his grotty clothes. Already he was screaming for blood. Bernard listened for a while. He listened to a conversation that made his hair stand on end.
Saint-Just�s vision, his Utopia was based on absolute equality and an almost Spartan republic, and he was willing to accomplish that at all costs.
Finally he sent his friends away. After he had dismissed them with an inattentive movement of the hand, he leaned back, put his feet on the table and gave him a smug smile. �Bernard, what brings you to me? Have you freed yourself from Robespierre�s chains? Turned your back to the demigod?� The smile did not reach his eyes.
�You should be more careful with your speeches, Saint-Just. How do you know I won�t tell Robespierre all about you?� Bernard answered as calm as possible.
He felt disgust towards this half child who with his 22 years was one of the most thorough Jacobin.
�Go tell him, Bernard. It would be of no use. Robespierre fuels the jealousy of his followers. He wouldn�t believe you. Robespierre knows that you don�t like me and it is exactly that knowledge that he uses for himself. If we slashed each other, he could lean back comfortably and strive for his goals. You know all that as well as I do.�
Bernard had to agree reluctantly.
�Then help me, Saint-Just! Robespierre is planning something. He lets followers, about whose existence no one officially knows about, work for him. Who are those men? How does he make them commit to him? What are his intentions? Which tasks do they fulfill?� The facial features of his dialog partner hardened Contemplative, Saint-Just narrowed his eyes.
�I don�t know anything about secret spies. Although I have been suspecting something like that for a long time. It�s interesting what you have to tell Bernard. Don�t look at me with such distrust. I�m not lying to you, that would not be of any use for me. Are you sure?�
Bernard nodded. �I also know that not all of them complete Robespierre�s missions voluntarily. What�s important to me: what does he hold over their heads so that they follow him? Unfortunately I don�t have any idea how to get this information.� Bernard admitted reluctantly.
�Now that I know that those men indeed exist, I will be able to ask around completely differently. If I help you, will you help me, Bernard? Even if there are direct confrontations with Robespierre? You have many friends and admirers Bernard. That could come in handy for me.�
�It�s all about one man. Help me to free him and I�ll help you! Provided that I can square all of it with my conscience.�
With a distanced nod they sealed their promise. When Bernard stepped out into the darkness again, he did not know whether the talk was worthwhile.
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