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Sometimes Saint-Just asks himself what he is getting into, before jumping to a cliff, for example, there are things to considerate. Something more or less like: what if the debris aren’t enough to end him?
In a not so different situation like this, however, there is no coming back. At least the mountains are your witnesses. And he thinks, it is not so different, only one mountain, in this case.
They are supposed to be discussing about the report from the north, and they did. But there was that painting — and that sketch — and hell, that miniature statue, the same lifeless eyes staring back at him, and it was just not fair. They don’t shine like the real one in front of him. The books seem more lively than the strokes of the marble bust.
“Do you permit it?” He says, picking up a paper from the ground, tracing its patterns. Robespierre’s face already appeared in his mind’s eye, brightened by its many colors, the moonlight, he realizes, the sun is turning.
“To do what?”
He gestures vaguely, suddenly losing his usual eloquence, “I used to be some kind of artiste en herbe,” he says, “used to make some sketches here and there, commissions for citizen La Cours, mostly.”
It is raining, and Saint-Just can see Robespierre’s head turn, his eyes setting on that wooden window, looking as if surprised, as if he could find paint on his nose, seeing from the reflection of the lingering droplets of deep, brown water tainted by the dirt outside the Duplay house. Some fire would be started, he muses, the French people reflect themselves better in the red blood wine than in the illusion of dread. Bread, he thinks again, wheat.
A lightening startles him, making Robespierre jolts out of whatever he was thinking. War, perhaps, death, probably. The future looms, and loosen his grip on his chair.
“Would you mind taking off your glasses?” He asks, a sketching pencil on his hand, and very much want to stab himself in the eye for even asking it. How subtle, “I— can’t see very well.”
Robespierre blinks, smiling a little, “I could lend it to you if you want.”
“No, no,” he says, clutching the pencil, “it’s just— I can’t see your eyes with them,” sometimes they are too green, and it makes me doubt, Maximilien. I never doubt. Are they the sky reflecting the sea?
As if I have seen the sea, his mind supplies, but I have.
Robespierre nods, a teasing tilt on his lips, “Okay, citoyen artiste. Draw me like one of your honorable French girls.”
Saint-Just coughs, shifts his weight.
“Don’t move,” he adds stupidly, quietly, softly, as if it might hurt him, “relax.”
Robespierre looks amused. His shoulders loses its rigidness, all sharpness in him is gone from a single word. Saint-Just admires that, the metamorphosis of a man returning to its nature state.
“Stay like this,” he says. Stay like this forever.
Robespierre blinks playfully, just once. He knows.
He begins by sketching lightly the body, humming La Marseillaise. He had heard it so many times in the army, the laughing soldiers, wind in his hair grazing his face like a bullet. He shadows the hands, he will put the details later.
He can smell the humidity that begins to swell within the house, it colors his drawing, the thin paper softly creasing at its edges. He stops at the head, the humming stops at the tip of the pencil.
“What’s wrong?” He can hear him say, in a voice of morning enchantment, almost asleep, “Is my face too much like Hephaestus, my face covered in dirt and deformities?”
“No—“ he said quickly, unconsciously knocking and making dots on the paper, what will I not give to you, dots, “Antinous, you are unbounded, freed, un Antinous libéré.”
He sees Robespierre’s face flushes lightly, just enough to show the freckles scattered on the nose and cheeks, he smiles, tilting his head, “What are you thinking, my friend?”
“Cromwell,” he says after a pause, not exactly thinking than wondering, “the English Revolution. Our revolution.”
Robespierre’s face grows redder, a frustrated sight, “I didn’t except you to be the one to be influenced by some senseless rumors, Saint-Just.”
“I’m not,” he says, returning to his sketch, shading the deep green coat, “I’m saying, I’m thinking of Cromwell and the English Revolution.”
There is a soft, fond sigh, “I believe you are well-read. Your shelves are always a delight to watch,” he says, “what are you exactly thinking about them? About us?”
He buries his head in his very serious work, his friend’s face is round and very much adorable, “Would you mind taking off your perruque? Some of the shades for my self-acclaimed portrait.”
Robespierre startles, then returns to his papers, “I want to know what you are thinking. You would like to finish your drawing, yes?”
This is a threat, he thinks, bemused, a threat that is as impossible and ridiculous as building cathedrals in the paris commune, a threat empty of danger, and he will take it as the fallen pieces of a reminder of humanity, of matter.
He crosses his legs, settles himself further in the chair. There is coffee on Robespierre’s table, probably cold, “My thoughts are waiting for an opening.”
For a moment, he thought that he took it a step too far, and was about to take everything back and just run away until Robespierre had stand up, gently pushed the chair away and carefully takes his wig and puts it on its respectful place. The brown wavy hair, mixed with slimmers of gold settle behind his shoulder. Some of it is tangled in the front, locks of sea weed, silk-like.
It is so long. I could spin him around in my arms, and his hair be a length to his waist, something of a marvel, would soon be a wonder if I can’t draw it from its many different roofs, the glimmers of golden fire, look you, look you here, good sire.
Regarde-moi.
“I should cut it someday,” Robespierre says, dropping his gaze from him, “it is way too long.”
He couldn’t think of something else to say than I think it is lovely, but something can be made too much of this, so he keeps his peace. He curls the drawn hair at its edges, coloring them black.
“Are you going to tell me? A dishonest man is not in any way a good citizen,” Robespierre whispers, as if scared to break the silence. Saint-Just doesn’t look up from his paper, only smiles.
“Come here,” he says.
And so he came closer, small steps, calm ones. How their friendship has managed to be bereft of any real aggression or loss, he doesn’t know. Maybe it should be, just be.
“Come here,” he says again, “please.”
Robespierre was looking down at him from standing at his feet, his green gaze losing its sharpness. Saint-Just finishes the eyes, looking away from the owner of the pair. He examines the subject of his work with great attention, almost unconsciously. Something about Robespierre makes him more like an antique roman, temperament, perhaps, perhaps in the sea, he reasons, everything can be found in his wine-sea.
“Something should end, like this,” he says, finishing the final touches and folding the paper in four, “minutes, hours, years, germinal.” He tentatively puts his hands on his shoulder when he stood up. Robespierre doesn’t flinch. He knows he hears, go away with me if things get out of hand. The republic needs purging, and she doesn’t understand the bonnets rouges are not blood of the fraternity we so whisper to our children before sleep, but the anger of enemies and our triumphs over them. Walk, run with me. He knows he hears, he has heard it so many times in his sleep.
“I would die for liberty,” Robespierre replies, almost diplomatically, “so would you. I don’t judge you for no less than a lover of rights and reason than I do. You are at fault, sometimes, Antoine.”
Saint-Just feels his cheeks on fire, he hands him the folded paper. He hears: The liberty of death, Antoine. Guillotine is just a matter of time. I would die with you. I would die with you. I would die with you, for I would sacrifice my life, take away my life, liberty, property, but I would die with you.
You, you, you.
And it seems plausible, for a moment there, that everything he heard was exchanged, in this open and humid and confined space, and he imagines the scene, replaying it in his mind, and he thinks, this is how a five-cents pamphleteer begins his tragedy. Tragedies always starts like this, with some humorous lines and cheap dialogues.
Robespierre puts on his glasses, carefully opens the paper, and laughs. A hearty laugh, Saint-Just has heard them when he was with Desmoulins, once.
“I look like a fish,” he says, a little breathlessly, “among all the portraits I have commissioned, this one is... special. Thank you.”
Saint-Just takes it from his hand, indignant, “I think it is shaped rather nicely,” he huffs, “sure I have left off some small details, but it goes unnoticed once you step in the big picture.”
“My eyes here,” Robespierre points, “you closed them.”
“I did,” he says, “what is wrong about that?”
“You made me take off my glasses to draw what? My lids?”
Saint-Just looks at the drawing again, he looks at the twisted lips he drew, the closed eyes. He puts his lips on the grainy paper, on the shades of Robespierre’s cheekbones, and he thinks he tasted iron when he moves them to the drawn lips. He has colored it too much, he muses.
“What are you doing?” He looks up, and Robespierre’s pink lips parted ever so slightly. He sounds weak.
“It tastes heavy,” he says, gently putting the drawing on a chair nearby, “do you permit it?”
“What?”
“Take off your glasses,” he says again,“do you permit it?”
Robespierre’s hand trembles when he does it, “I do, Antoine,” he says, looking at him with big, candid eyes, “I do.”
And when he takes his hand, Saint-Just sighs into the touch and kisses him soundly. He kisses him on the eyelids, feeling the lashes caressing his lips, and his whole world moving along side the line that separates him from the sea and the ground. He tangles his hands in his long hair and let them slide along the rivers of silk, and pull him closer.
“The world will think,” Robespierre says when they separated, “the world will think, Antoine.”
“Oh,” he says, slipping the words in his lips, “but the world is here, Maximilien.”
Robespierre puts his head on the crook of his neck, sending him shivers, because the world is nipping his neck right now, “The world turns around.”
“And it comes back,” he says, trying not to gasp, “Maxime, please.”
“Please what?” Robespierre looks up with flushed cheeks and hazy eyes, “tell me, Antoine, what do you need?”
“I don’t need, I don’t need anything. I get what I want with my means,” he says, circling his arms around his waist, “but god, I wish that the world is you.”
I’m afraid, he says and doesn’t say, I’m scared of this world, and I’m not scared of you.
Robespierre takes his hand, and led him to his bed. They sit, hearing the soft creaking of the mattress, and stay still for a moment, their hands on each other’s, waiting for something, nothing to be happen.
“You have dusts in your eyes, my friend,” Robespierre says, touching his cheeks with the tip of his fingers, feeling the wetness of his cheeks. Saint-Just closes them, not willing to see pity or really, anything else.
“I am made of dusts,” he says, “sometimes they get in my eyes.”
Robespierre smiles, puts his forehead on his, “I admire you,” he says, “you are a great man, Saint-Just.”
There’s a revolution in your lips, and I would kill for the liberty of kissing you again and again and again. And I love you, and I love you. I love you.
He kisses the tears away and Saint-Just wonders, just for a little while, if the salt will hurt his tongue. He embraces him, putting his head on his shoulder, because melting wings are easier to heal than a burnt tongue.
“I’m back,” he says, choked by something that’s not his to have, ran away with me, “I’m back from the army, and you should take a step back, Maxime.”
“In the Convention or the Committee?” He couldn’t see his face, but he can feel him frowning, “I have plans, Antoine, caution is not the way of revolutionary thoughts.”
“I know,” he says, and proceeds to hold him closer. His hair smells of powder and vanilla and clementines. Did he eat anything lately?
“You’ll have to tell me, Antoine,” he asks after a moment, “what were you thinking?”
“I lied,” he says, smiling a little,“I was thinking of nothing at all.”
“Nothing at all?”
“That,” he says, taking a thread of hair in his hand, examining it with great care, “that and how the Spartans take their lovers.”
Robespierre made an embarrassed sound, and is about to pull away when Saint-Just stops him by putting his hand on his arms, “Forgive me, I believe I have inflammatory rhetorics.”
“You do,” he says, caressing his hair, “but you don’t have to cry for this.”
“Shed a few tears for patria to clean off the blood, what’s wrong with that? The salt will dust off the blade of the enemies.”
“I have written a speech,” he says, “would you like to hear it?”
And he thinks, I love you, the words that form you. And so he stands up, and the world returns to its pace. The world is his to own, his words trap them in the rain, and reflect, he assume, the reason why they stayed.
The drawing is left alone on the chair, just another copy of what is left of them. And it is enough, he says, after Robespierre finishes reciting his speech, it is enough for both of us.