Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [151]
I pick up a chicken leg off a long table covered with food, then stand in a corner to gnaw it. There are bosoms popping out of dresses everywhere I look. Miniature portraits of loved ones who were guillotined are pinned to clothing, fastened to crazy-tall wigs, or propped up on tables. Near me, a woman bites into a strawberry. The juice drips down her chin. A man slurps it off. A smelly terrier dozes on a satin chair. Girls hide, smiling, behind pretty fans. A man takes a whiz in a corner. A parrot flies across the room and drops a load on someone’s shoulder. The host hobbles after it, a cane in his hand, yelling, “Malvolio! You scoundrel!”
From where I was sitting, with the other musicians at the far end of this enormous ballroom, the whole thing looked glittering and decadent, but now, as people pass by close to me, I can see the pockmarks under their paint and the lice crawling in their wigs and the loss in their glassy, haunted eyes.
“It’s beautiful, no?” a man next to me says dreamily.
But it’s not. As the night wears on, the people seem to me like dolls dancing, like clockwork figures. Lost in time.
The party breaks up just after one. The music stops. The ribbons come off. There are sighs and kisses and promises to meet again soon. Everyone leaves quietly and disperses quickly once they hit the street.
“Let’s go to the Foy,” Amadé says to me and a few musicians who are walking with us.
I hang back. I met with Fauvel earlier, gave him a snuffbox, a ring, and six gold coins, and I now have a new bundle hidden under Amadé’s bed. I’m going to go back to his apartment to get it, then make my way to a rooftop near the prison.
“Are you coming?” he says to me.
“No, you go. I’ll catch you back at the ranch.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll see you later.”
He frowns at me. “Where are you going?”
“To meet someone.”
“Who?”
I’m about to tell him some big fat lie when Stéphane, one of the musicians, talks over me.
“Do you think we’ll have fireworks again tonight, Deo?” he says. There’s a woman hanging on his arm. He introduces her as Mademoiselle d’Arden.
“They’re beautiful, the fireworks, no?” she says, giggling.
“It’s whispered that they are for the little prince,” Stéphane says.
“A tribute to the little captive. How tragic. How beautiful,” the woman says. She’s drunk and stupid.
“No, it’s not beautiful,” I say angrily. “He’s sick. He’s dying. Horribly.”
“Nonsense! I have heard the boy is treated well and will be released soon,” Mademoiselle d’Arden says.
“Yeah? Where did you hear it?” I ask
She waves her hand. “I cannot remember. The papers. My neighbors. Somewhere.”
“Friends, friends!” Stéphane says. “What matters is that things are getting better. The Terror is over. It’s finished. It will not trouble us anymore.”
“But it will,” I say. “Over and over again.”
“That’s right, of course,” someone else says. “Do you imagine that simply because one madman is gone, there are no more? Yes, Robespierre is dead. And Marat. Saint-Just. Hébert. But there are always more, waiting in the wings. History always throws off these power-hungry monsters. It’s because of people like them that this little boy suffers.”
I think about another Max. And another little boy. I remember the future. “Maximilien R. Peters! Incorruptible, ineluctable, and indestructible! It’s time to start the revolution, baby!” he shouted. I remember the other people who lived with him in the Charles. Poor people, damaged people. I think of how I walked past them every day, not seeing them, not caring. Until it was too late.
And then I think of how these people, Amadé’s friends, amuse themselves all night long with mannered dances and witty conversation, shutting themselves off from the