(I do not honestly believe Enjolras has a death wish. The following is solely the product of adolescent speculation, greasy Chinese food, and a healthy dose of Edith Hamilton.)
She was a silly girl. Pretty, but silly, like so many others: a milky-skinned nymph with vapid eyes and a lovely expanse of perfumed air wafting about in her head beneath its pomaded curls. Probably she spent her days weaving garlands and batting a ball around before gleefully dropping it all in order to explore her newfound pet, not for an instant considering flight, not minding a whit when the pet made a pet of her, and never thinking more than approximately four seconds ahead of the present.
Europa left more than her name to this pitted landmass; the generous damsel also gave her brains. God knows, it explains the multitude of mental resemblances. Every second, thousands of them leap onto that enchanting animal for a ride and all's glorious until they find themselves in the middle of the sea with no divine lecherous hand waiting to pluck them out. No, we find our own rescuers these days. The entire process is nothing but an almighty waste of time; the fact that one is more likely to die trying than succeed is almost enough to make a person wonder why he should bother trying at all. But a drowning man takes whatever comes his way. Stranded in the sea, grasp what you will. Which justifies the restaurant, a broken bit of coral in this gray ocean of a city.
It was a tiny place, crammed into a corner between a milliner's shop and an abandoned tenement. The wine was too awful to merit anyone ever hailing the establishment as a café, but it cost next to nothing and did what it was supposed to. More often than not Grantaire was the only one there, though on one monumental occasion there were half a dozen others; most people were either unaware of the place or simply had the sense to avoid it. But the fact remained that it proved an ideal haunt. He never expected to encounter any acquaintances there, especially not the Amis, but one murky evening while lightning put the streetlights to shame and Niobe literally cried a storm for another lost brat, two of them arrived. Grantaire was well into a third bottle at the time and for a second wondered if the foul liquid was stronger than he'd realized, but there was no mistaking the men who made their way inside.
The restaurant was roughly the size of a comfortable prison cell. It was impossible for the two men not to notice the other, though one of them did an admirable job of pretending otherwise. The other newcomer, to the contrary, cast a nod in Grantaire's direction and seemed about to wave him over, a gesture that his companion quickly aborted by seating himself at the farthest table and opening a book. Across the room, Grantaire quirked an eyebrow. Leave it to Enjolras to use a restaurant as a study hall. And leave it to Combeferre to go along with him.
Not surprisingly, the place was empty save the three of them; inevitably, the hushed conversation held at one end of the restaurant made its way to the other side. Grantaire could remain no more oblivious to their words than he could to the actions of the waitress, who made a point of casting sweet looks in Enjolras's direction and then, when he neither reciprocated nor ordered, dirty ones. He was unable to smother a lopsided grin when, in order to placate the girl and assuage his friend's redness, Combeferre ended the entertainment by requesting a plate of roast beef.
It wasn't until after it arrived that the situation took its toll. Grantaire, having exhausted the contents of his pockets along with that of several bottles, had begun to make his way towards the door when Enjolras happened to conclude an intricate sentence with the fervently uttered words, "Should we achieve these aspirations, we cannot help but succeed," to which Combeferre replied with a quiet, "God willing."
The amusement that had been rising in Grantaire reached its peak and exploded into a grating bark of a laugh, accompanied by, "You'd be better off looking to Janus than God if it's aspirations you're about, the double-edged things. Bear in mind that Aesculapius was swatted down like an irritating fly when his goals became too lofty, and that his own faultless father was punished for the acts he committed afterward," bowing slightly towards Enjolras, "though I imagine you of all people would know about such things. All the same, it's undeniable that the two of them failed egregiously to realize their own presumptuousness until they were suffering for it."
Enjolras's eyelids flickered dismissively. "Presumption differs widely from aspiration."
"I'm certain it does," sanctimoniously.
Sensing an imminent conflict, Combeferre attempted to restore peace with a prim, "Capital R, be nice," evidently unaware of the reprimand's pedantic quality.
"Certainly," Grantaire continued in the same tone of voice, moving away from the door. "I would never presume," laying slight emphasis on the word, "to strain the voice of the people. He doesn't deserve such strain as it is. It's unjust; there's nothing in his heart but faith and love, though every scrap of each is directed towards Liberty. Never mind that she does nothing but cast it all aside; if you succeed in raising enough, perhaps someday she'll have you for her own. She accepts nothing save a heart in its entirety, so it's said, and I suppose that could prove a formidable obstacle. Is this true?"
In spite of his expressionless face, Enjolras started. Combeferre laid a hand on his arm before another retort took flight. "Grantaire, leave us in peace."
"By all means, keep on with your planning." As he reached for the door, Grantaire looked down at the open volume of the tabletop. Rousseau. Of course. His hand abandoned the door handle in order to clasp his sallow forehead, and he gave another rough laugh before crying those words in a voice Stentor himself would have envied. "This, then, is why you'll never be the one Liberty takes into her confidence."
Enjolras's lips twitched in badly restrained annoyance. "Not for the first time, you go too far. Leave." Tersely, "Please."
"So. You don't deny it." The drunkard's grin widened, his eyes gleaming darkly behind a fall of tangled hair. "Everyone knows how you admire the tales of revolutionaries who came before the ABC; you admire them because of their attempts, because they embraced the rights of the people so absolutely that they died on account. None of them ever truly succeeded, not for an extended period of time. Let me ask you, do you have any plans for after you succeed? What happens then? Or have you not looked past making it that far, past the thrill and excitement of striving for something, of flying in the faces of the last generation's red-capped regicides and turning the world upside down in order to restructure it? No, don't burn me through with the force of your eyes; you're not a Gorgon, you know. I'm not callous; I know of your love for freedom and justice as well as anyone, as well as I know that Combeferre has mountains of excellent ideas for the next world and absolutely no idea how to implement them. Deucalion might have been able to bring about another world by flinging a handful of stones to the ground, but any attempts to mimic him end either at Troy or Asculum, depending on how much favor Lady Fortune deigns to bestow on you. Mind, she's more fickle even than Liberty."
Combeferre dropped his eyes, but Grantaire was looking only at Enjolras who had been staring fixedly at the same page for some time and, appropriately, gone pale as marble.
"That is how it is," he informed the statue. "You can say very easily what should be done, and that once you've built a few barricades the country and everyone in it will fall at your feet and beg for guidance. But you don't know what to do from there. Why? Even the lowliest simpleton might think you either don't truly want to win or you simply don't believe you will at all. You'll perish like your heroes and live on in the minds of the next batch of revolutionaries that decides to change things, and so on, Ares wounded in the wars and running home for Papa's bandages and a mouthful of ambrosia before trotting back out to do battle. It does sound promising, though Ares has a major advantage over the people of France: he happens to be immortal. No sign of ambrosia here, my friends, just wave upon wave of Martian idealists. And so it will be, until someday someone actually succeeds in accomplishing more than an ephemeral reign of paranoia and social bloodletting. Cling to the hope it might actually happen all you like, but in my opinion, things will always be in the same mess they are, or to allow for error, possibly amplified a bit. There will always be those rosy-cheeked cherubim of progress who scramble, bright-eyed and curly-headed, to the top of their own little cosmos, believing they'll be the ones to set in motion the wheels to drag us all out of this and into utopia, only to be cut down by those who know the status quo is safer. Adaptations are never pleasant. Not one of your heroes has ruled half as well as they seized power. You'd be like that, I think, except you'd rather live on as inspiration for someone else. You know what you're capable and incapable of. You can easily tear up a few buildings and scream, "Vive la République," but what comes after? You keep tearing and yelling until everyone else is scared into submission? And even then, some new Apollo will rise on Delphi's behalf in the hope of making a better world, and everything will start over, another revolution, around again. It makes perfect sense. And it's so much simpler to live as a romanticized blur of ink on the pages of history, much easier than following through. Admit it, you haven't a clue what your plans are; you're counting on being cut down, another example of the unjustly persecuted, in the hope that someone will see that injustice and rise to avenge you and all the other abased, and eventually succeed. Forgive me, you aren't a thing like Aesculapius. He never expected his ideas would be the death of him, whereas you thrive on the hope of being crushed for the sake of your aspirations. You welcome the idea. You want—"
He rose swiftly and seemed about to slam his book on the table, but instead he closed it with a peculiar gentleness. If he had struck me, I would have been less than surprised.
Icy-faced, flushed and fiery-eyed as a vengeful Harpy, he stared at me as though there were a million words running through his head and he was struggling to speak them all at once. But when he finally spoke he uttered only a dozen, in a stiff voice, as strangled as Orestes fighting the influence of the Erinyes, and still colder than Hela's cave.
"Do not dare tell me what I believe or what I want."
I won't, is what I should say. I never meant to. I didn't mean it, Enjolras. It was the wine talking. I didn't mean it at all, not a word of it. But I know I did, and that is what sickens me. For all his ideals, his hopes and plans for the future, I still see more than he does. He won't live much longer; come to that, I doubt I will either. But of course I could say none of this and merely laughed.
He stormed out of the restaurant with Rousseau carefully tucked under his arm. Combeferre gave me a long, unreadable look, opened his mouth as if to speak, and then went out after him.
So, then. Ride the bull for all you're worth. Enjoy the ride, it won't last long, but you aren't like most riders and you know this already; you plan on using it to your advantage, on falling off before you're left to drown. Go on, then. I've found my sanctuary in the depths of the sea; what do I care whether you find yours? Because I don't care, you know, and never will. Never. No matter what happens.
Where the devil did that damned waitress go?
FIN