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Lorin turned to the audience to ask Maurice with a look what he should do. Maurice did not signal to Lorin to speak, and Lorin remained silent. Which was the same as condemning himself.

What followed next happened very fast. Fouquier summed up his accusation; the president summed up the debates; the jurors took a vote and brought back a verdict of guilty against Lorin and Geneviève. The president condemned them both to death.

Two o’clock rang out from the great clock of the Palais. The president only took as long to pronounce the death sentence as it took the clock to sound the hour. Maurice heard the two sounds jumbled together. When the double vibration of the voice and the clock’s timbre died away, his strength was gone.

The gendarmes led away Geneviève and Lorin, who had offered her his arm. They both saluted Maurice, though in their very different ways: Lorin with a smile, Geneviève, pale and faltering, with one last kiss, blown from fingers wet with tears.

She had kept alive the hope of living until the very last moment and was weeping now not for her life but for her love, which would be extinguished with that life. Maurice was half-demented and did not respond to his friends’ adieus; he rose, weak and dazed, from the seat he’d collapsed onto. His friends had disappeared.

He felt that only one thing was still alive in him: it was hate that bit into his heart like acid. Gazing around one last time he spotted Dixmer, who was shuffling out with the other spectators and had just ducked his head to pass through the low arched door into the corridor.

With the speed of a coiled spring, Maurice bounded from seat to seat to reach the door. Dixmer was already through and was disappearing down the dark corridor. Maurice followed behind him. The moment Dixmer stepped onto the flagstones of the great hall, Maurice tapped him on the shoulder.

53

THE DUEL

In those days, being tapped on the shoulder was never a laughing matter. Dixmer swung around and recognized Maurice.

“Ah, hello, citizen republican,” Dixmer said, without giving away any emotion other than by an imperceptible jolt that he immediately got under control.

“Hello, citizen coward,” replied Maurice. “You were expecting me, weren’t you?”

“Let’s say that, on the contrary, I was no longer expecting you,” said Dixmer.

“Why is that?”

“Because I was expecting you sooner.”

“I’m still here too soon for you, you murderer!” Maurice added in a voice, or rather a low rumble, that was frightening because it was the growling of the storm that had built up in his heart, and his eyes blazed lightning.

“If only looks could kill, citizen!” Dixmer scoffed. “You realize we’ll be recognized and followed.”

“Yes, and you’re terrified of being arrested, aren’t you? You’re terrified of being carted off to the scaffold where you send others? Let them arrest us, so much the better, for it seems to me a certain guilty party is missing from the nation’s jail quota today.”

“Just as one person is missing from the honor roll, isn’t that right? Since your name was struck off, I mean.”

“Right! We’ll get back to that later, I hope. Meanwhile you’ve got your revenge, miserable cur that you are—in the worst possible way, on a woman! Since you were apparently expecting to see me, I wonder why you didn’t wait for me at my place the day you stole Geneviève away from me?”

“I felt the original thief was you.”

“Please, no wit, monsieur, I’ve never known you to show any; no speeches, I know you’re bigger on action than on words. Witness the day you tried to assassinate me: that day, you showed your true colors.”

“And I’ve kicked myself more than once for not paying heed,” Dixmer replied calmly.

“Well then,” said Maurice, smacking his sword, “I’m offering you a chance to avenge yourself.”

“Tomorrow, if you like, not today.”

“Why tomorrow?”

“Or tonight.”

“Why not straightaway?”

“Because I’ll be busy until five o’clock.”

“Some other hideous scheme?” said Maurice. “Some other ambush?”

“I’d leave that alone, if I were you!” said Dixmer.