"Claude-Fabrice Grantaire, I don't know what you've been drinking the last few days, but stop it. Come in." Combeferre stepped back from the door.

"You're alone?" Grantaire asked, glancing nervously around the room.

"Yes. Most people don't appear at my door at all hours any more. Sit down. Do you want coffee?"

"Yours? Of course not."

Combeferre was going to need it to stay awake for this, but thought it was just as well that Grantaire declined. Usually trying to sober him up would be a good idea- if you could manage it- but there was something strange here. Grantaire, drunk, was easy and confident, often beyond his abilities, and eventually more open than he should be; alternatively, something might nudge him into depression, he would run out of words and then start brooding. What he was not was anxious, but tonight he had an odd, lost look in his eyes. He seemed strangely cautious in his movements though relatively steady on his feet; normally he was absolutely sure of what he was doing even if he was falling on his face. Grantaire never really went pale, but he was as close to it as Combeferre had ever seen him. Whatever was wrong with him, Combeferre did not think he needed to be more jittery than he already looked.

"Now, what is this about?" He sat down in a chair near the one Grantaire had settled in, although perhaps "settled" was not quite the right word.

"How long do you think it will be?" Grantaire asked.

Combeferre understood. "Days. You know that. Why are you really here?"

"When it happens… you're really going?"

"Yes."

"But why?"

He sighed. It was too late for this. "You know. You might not understand the reasons, but you know all of them already, and you have been hearing them for years. When we were younger you used to spout forms of them yourself. If Enjolras hasn't managed to make you believe them in all these years, then I am not going to manage any last-minute conversions tonight. I'm saving my speeches for Marius. We still think he might join us. I don't expect you to. As your old hero once said, if you are afraid, stand aside and pray."

"I'm not going," Grantaire insisted. "I don't know why you have to go get yourself killed. Or why you'd want Don Quixote on your side in an argument."

"Because at least you used to listen to him from time to time. I didn't get myself killed two years ago," Combeferre answered. "I'm not planning on it now. Of course it never hurts to be prepared." He stood and brought two envelopes from his desk. "If I don't come back, make sure I'm not in prison or a hospital, then take this to my mother," he instructed, giving Grantaire the first letter. "And because I doubt Enjolras is leaving any letters with anybody, if neither of us comes back, this one is for his father. I won't ask you to deliver it, but make sure it's sent when you know." He handed him the second. "If I make it and he doesn't, I'll tell him myself."

"You say you aren't planning on getting killed, but it looks like you're giving it enough thought." Grantaire looked at the envelopes a little too long before tucking them in his pocket. "Don't tell me why he says it needs to be done. Tell me why you're doing it. Aren't you the one who says the future is in the hands of the schoolmasters? How can there be any progress if the good men keep getting themselves killed before they turn thirty? Who do you expect to bring about this dawn of yours? So you didn't die two years ago. That doesn't mean you won't die tomorrow, or the next year, or however many times you do something like this before either it works or you realize it won't. This isn't smallpox, and the exposure you survived wasn't a vaccination. Repeated chances just increase the odds that sooner or later something is going to go wrong. What then? All of you heard about this noble vision of tomorrow, and you talked about it and decided it was possible because as smart as you are you're still stupid enough not to realize how stupid we are as a whole. What happens after you fail, when there isn't anybody to tell the next crop of brilliant idiots and all they have is the books that inspired you to results that they know failed? What if one day your damned daydream could come true, except that there weren't enough of you left to get them ready?"

Combeferre grinned in amazement. "You're still in there, aren't you?" he asked. "The one who used to get me into trouble when we were children and you could talk me into anything. Probably I just never realized that you're the best sophist I know, or I knew once and forgot. You accidentally came up with some truth when you were thinking of the argument that would be most likely to work, but you could actually make me ask if you believe that. You might have once, after all." He paused, but Grantaire did not comment, so more soberly he continued. "If I were as sure as you seem to be that we are all going to die and that it would be for nothing, I would stay home. I'm going because from time to time a violent spark is necessary to shock the world out of stagnation, and because I think we can do that. As for educating the future, you've said you aren't going. If you believe anything that you just said, why don't you take care of that? Get out of Paris first; it encourages your worst impulses. Go live with your sister. Write, maybe. Get somebody good to edit it, of course. Nobody would read all the way through the sort of digressions you manage left to your own devices. I'll do it, if I can." He wouldn't say "If I'm still alive." They both knew that was what he meant. "Do it even if you don't believe it," he added. "You know that you could come up with the right words. Do it for any of us who don't come back. Maybe you'll even manage to convert yourself one day."

There was a long silence. Combeferre thought Grantaire must be out of his mind with fear, more scared than any of the others. Hope gave the rest of them courage. "I won't go," he said one more time, his fingers brushing the letters in his pocket. He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself.

Combeferre sighed. There was only so much he could do. "You can pass out here or at home, but I wouldn't recommend doing it anywhere in between." Grantaire didn't move for the door as Combeferre rose to go back to bed, so he thought that he had probably acquired a guest. "I promise daybreak will come if you can wait for it. Very soon, at this rate."