Work Text:
Joly and Bossuet were alone together in the front room of the Corinthe, when the thought suddenly struck Bossuet that here, not twelve hours before, the two of them had been breakfasting in absolute contentment.
That scene now seemed impossible; the café had been utterly transformed in the space of a few hours. All the tables and benches had been removed to aid the construction of the barricade. The door that normally separated the front room from the kitchens had gone the same way, as had the majority of the kitchen furniture, from what Bossuet could see. Mere Hucheloup’s pots and pans had been requisitioned for the manufacture of bullets, and there had even been talk of taking the cast-iron door off the oven to melt it down, before it was established that even Bahorel was not strong enough to tear it from its hinges.
The Corinthe had never been the cleanest of places, but now every surface was covered with grime; the dust of the powder, splinters and chippings from broken furniture, the mud that their boots had dragged in from the street after they pulled up the paving slabs. They were all covered in it too; clothes grubby, skin streaked with sweat and dirt, boots caked in muck. It was never like this in the speeches, Bossuet thought to himself, where the revolution was a glorious blazon of light, illuminating the debased city with the splendour of change. There was no cleansing, baptismal fire here. Only dirt.
Enjolras alone seemed immune to the filth. His golden hair glowed. When he stood on the crest of the barricade, a flag in one hand and a pistol in the other, he seemed an avenging angel; the progress of the nineteenth century as painted with the pigments of the High Renaissance. Even his skin, always too pale, had gone from being merely girlish to almost luminescent. If this was the spark of revolution, it was indeed glorious. But it was glorious like the light of heaven; more awful than beautiful.
Bossuet shuddered and brought himself back to the worldly realm of the Corinthe. It was the same place as this morning, of course, but now also somewhere else entirely and Bosseut felt certain that he would not breakfast here again. The hour had been seized, and they could not return to it; they would have to seek carpes au gras somewhere else. Observing the legend on the wall, it struck Bossuet that he, Joly and Grantaire had not left payment for this final breakfast. Had I known that, Bossuet thought to himself, I would have ordered better wine.
He must have laughed aloud at this thought, because Joly turned around to look at him. Joly had, until that moment, been examining his tongue in a mirror than was, by some miracle, still hanging on the wall of the Corinth; Bossuet would not have been surprised to discover that Joly had ensured that it was saved for this express purpose.
“What’s so fuddy?” Joly said, sniffling.
“I was simply remarking to myself that this place has gone to the dogs,” Bossuet replied. Joly chuckled.
“I heard that id was once quide fashionable,” he said, continuing the joke. “Didn’t a group of dashig young med used to breagfast here?”
“Indeed. There were nine of them, as I recall. But I think they have rather thrown the place over. We shan’t see them here again.”
What had started as a joke somehow went awry with Bossuet’s last line. Joly, who had been gamely laughing at the weak pun, turned pale and fell silent. Suddenly, he was consumed by the very pressing need to blow his nose, turning away from Bossuet and burying his face in his handkerchief.
Colds, it seemed, could come in handy after all.
Bossuet stared again at the writing on the wall, and pondered again the mysteries of its message. How one thing might be transformed into another; Latin wisdom from stuffed fish. Bossuet was used to fashioning wit from tragedy, but now it seemed he had made tragedy from wit. And this rebellion – itself the metamorphosis of anger into action - what might it become in its final incarnation: a revolution or a shortcut to the grave?
“You’ve torn your jacket.” Joly’s voice, now clearer, tugged Bossuet back to the room.
“Have I?” Joly nodded towards Bossuet’s left forearm. Twisting his arm, Bossuet saw a large tear along to outside of the sleeve. “I must have caught it on a stray nail. It makes sense. Only a man with my bad fortune could be attacked by a structure that he built to defend himself.”
“Nevermind. Musichetta can mend it later.”
“Of course. It’s an old coat, anyway, as Grantaire said.” So long ago now, it seemed.
Bossuet sat down on one of the few chairs that remained. Combeferre, who knew about such things, had declared them too small and too weak to add any strength to the barricade. It was better that they be saved for firewood, or, Combeferre had added ominously, “In case we need something with which to block the door”.
And then Bossuet sneezed. Twice.
Joly laughed and sat down in the chair next to Bossuet.
“You’ve caught my cold.”
Bossuet nodded. “Lamentable but inevitable, I suppose, with my luck and your health. I am only glad that hypochondria isn’t contagious.”
“Well, I’m sorry for giving it to you.”
Bossuet pressed Joly’s hand between his own. “I think I can forgive you. After all, you’ve given me much else besides.”
The door to the street opened, and Feuilly, Bahorel and Jehan entered, learning their guns against the wall as they pulled up chairs. Bossuet did not begrudge them the intrusion. Nor did he see any particular reason to let go of Joly’s hand. If their touch was rather more fervent than their usual, filial embraces, the others did not comment upon it, even they even noticed.
Bahorel drew a hip flash from the pocket of his trousers.
“Ah.” Bossuet smiled at the welcome sight. “I ought to have known that you, above all, would come to the barricade well armed.”
Bahorel grinned, took a swig from the flask. Then, he passed it to Jehan who was sitting next to him, and who then did the same.
“I’d hate to be out of spirits on a day like this,” Bahorel said. “Did you ever see such a wet June?”
“It’s the mud that I hate,” Feuilly said, taking his turn with the flask. “I’m sure there wasn’t this much dirt two years ago.”
“There wasn’t this much rain two years ago,” Joly added, receiving the brandy gratefully. “It was summer then.”
“It is summer now,” Bossuet pointed out, taking his own gulp and returning the flask to its owner
“I, for once, refuse to acknowledge this reign of Summer,” Bahorel said, replacing the lid of the flask and slipping it back into his pocket. “This Summer – he provides us with no blue skies to dome our barricade, no heat with which to stoke the fires of popular revolt. He proves an unjust ruler. Let us rise against him too, and call for a return to Winter. Winter is a harsh governor, but he, at least, does not make false promises.”
“You’re wrong, Bahorel,” Prouvaire said. “I believe that Summer is joining us in rebellion. He is on strike; he refuses to show his face in support of our cause. There can be no warmth or heat or light whilst the people suffer.” Prouvaire looked towards the fire, still glowing in the grate and added darkly, “These are the dark days of the revolutionary apocalypse.”
Silence fell, and they listened to the drumming of rain on the street outside.
“You’d think all this rain would wash the dirt away,” Feuilly said. “Instead, it just makes more muck.”
“On that subject,” Bahorel said. “Has anyone seen Grantaire?”
“He’s asleep somewhere – upstairs, I think,” Bossuet said. “Ought we to wake him? He might be sore if he misses all the fun.”
“He’ll only be sore that he missed the brandy,” Bahorel replied.
“Enjolras was rather severe on him.” Joly rubbed his nose pensively. Perhaps, Bossuet thought, Joly was meditating on his own part in Grantaire’s condition. Not that Grantaire needed any assistance to get himself drunk, of course. But the two of them had not exactly prevented him from doing so.
“Severe, but fair.” Prouvaire drew out a box of cigarettes and offered them around. “The revolution must be pure.” He was almost quoting Enjolras, who himself had been paraphrasing Combeferre, who in turn might have been citing someone else. They were all so close now; they spoke each other’s words as their own.
“Let Grantaire sleep a little longer,” Feuilly said, taking one and fishing a box of matches from his coat. “Then, his head will have cleared and Enjolras’s anger will be directed elsewhere. At some point, we will need every man that we have. I wonder why more haven’t arrived already.”
The door opened once more, but, instead of Feuilly’s desired reinforcements, in came Courfeyrac and Combeferre. Courfeyrac’s arm was slung over Combeferre’s shoulder, and both were hatless with the sleeves of their jackets pushed up to the elbows; their heads leant towards each other, deep in conversation. They might have been stepping in from the street on any day at all - two young men weighed down by no greater worry than passing their next exam, or making the remains of their allowance last the quarter, or attracting the eye of the pretty girl they would see at a ball that evening - had it not been for the desolation visible behind them,
And the sword that Courfeyrac carried and the two pistols lodged in Combeferre’s belt.
“So here you all are!” Courfeyrac exclaimed, releasing Combeferre from his embrace and opening his arms wide to greet all of his friends. “Have we anything left to drink?”
Bahorel drew the flask from his pocket and tossed it to Courfeyrac, who caught it in his free hand with a graceful, fluid motion. He pulled off the lid and took a swing.
“That’s the stuff,” he said, handing it to Combeferre.
“Is Enjolras not with you?” Feuilly asked.
“He did not want to leave the barricade,” Combeferre replied. “He said that someone ought to keep an eye on the sentinels. I offered to do so myself, so that he might rest, but he declined.”
“Enjolras oughd dot to risk his health by exhausting hibself,” Joly argued. His nose had become stuffed once more and he sniffed in frustration, before adding, “Dis part of Paris is dotoriously bad for biasbas.”
“There are more dangers here tonight than bad air, Jolllly,” Courfeyrac said fondly. “But you may pass your recommendations to Enjolras if you wish.”
“I think it gives him strength to look upon the barricade,” Combeferre said. “There is something fortifying in ideas made manifest.”
Ideas made manifest, Bossuet thought. It might have been an apt description for Enjolras himself.
“Is there anything left to be done?” Bahorel asked. He was bouncing his left leg, clearly itching for activity.
Combeferre smiled, tracing a finger idly along the barrel of one of his guns. “Only waiting,” he said.
Bahorel returned the smile. “Ah, yes. That which is hardest of all.”
“Waiting cannot be learnt because waiting has no history,” Bossuet said. “They do not write them down; the times which the great actors of past epochs spent waiting. Waiting is confined to silence.”
“What do they write down?” Courfeyrac asked, leaning forward with a playful lilt in his voice.
“The hours that are seized,” Bossuet said, gesturing back to the inscription on the wall.
“They also leave out the dirt,” Prouvaire said. “In epic poems, the warriors do not have muddy feet and dusty clothes.”
“Your epic can be different,” Feuilly told him, pressing Prouvaire’s arm.
“Do you have an epic for us now, Jehan?” Courfeyrac said. “A little poetry might soothe my unquiet soul.”
“Not an epic,” Prouvaire said slowly, carefully. “But something else – if you’d like to hear it.”
The friends all nodded.
“Go on, please,” Courfeyrac said.
A little colour rose into Prouvaire’s cheeks. He uncrossed his legs and sat up a little straighter in his chair. When he spoke, his voice was soft and low, but it did not falter.
"Do you remember our sweet life,
When we were both so young…"