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The three friends remained momentarily locked in an embrace that was silent, ardent, almost jubilant. Lorin was the first to pull away from his sorrowing friends.

“So you are condemned too?” he said to Maurice.

“Yes,” Maurice replied.

“Oh! How wonderful!” murmured Geneviève. The joy of people who only have an hour to live can’t even last as long as they live.

Maurice, after contemplating Geneviève with the deep and burning love he had in his heart, after thanking her for her at once extremely egotistical and extremely loving outburst, turned to Lorin.

“Now,” he said, enfolding Geneviève’s hands in his, “let’s talk.”

“Ah, yes! Let’s talk!” replied Lorin. “I mean, if we still have any time left, it’s only right. What do you want to say to me? Let’s have it.”

“You were arrested because of me, condemned because of her, having broken no laws. As Geneviève and I are paying our debt, it isn’t right that you be asked to pay as well.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Lorin, you are free.”

“Free, me? You’re mad!” said Lorin.

“No, I’m not mad; I repeat, you are free: look, here’s a pass. They’ll ask you who you are. Tell them you’re employed in the registry office in the Carmes prison; you came to speak to the citizen registrar of the Palais. You asked him for a pass to see the condemned out of curiosity. You went, you saw, you’re satisfied, and now you’re leaving.”

“I hope you’re joking?”

“Not at all, my friend. Here’s the pass, for God’s sake use it. You’re not in love. You don’t need to die just to spend a few more minutes with the woman who is your heart’s desire and not to lose a second of eternity together.”

“Now listen, Maurice!” said Lorin. “If one can get out of here, which I swear I would never have thought, why not save Geneviève first? As for you, we’ll see what we can do.”

“No, no, impossible,” said Maurice with a dreadful clutch at the heart. “Look, you see, on the pass is written citizen, not citizeness; and anyway Geneviève wouldn’t want to leave me here, to live knowing I was to die.”

“Well then, if she wouldn’t want to, why would I? Do you think I have less courage than a woman, then?”

“No, my friend, I know, on the contrary, that you are the bravest of men. But nothing in the world could excuse your pigheadedness in the circumstances. Please, Lorin, profit from the moment and give us the supreme joy of knowing you’re free and happy!”

“Happy!” cried Lorin. “Are you kidding? Happy without you? … What on earth do you want me to do in this world, without you, in Paris, without my old habits? Without seeing you ever again, without annoying you ever again with my poetry? No, for pity’s sake, no!”

“Lorin, my friend!…”

“Exactly, it’s because I am your friend that I must insist: if I were a prisoner, as I am, I’d knock down walls if it meant seeing the two of you again. But to escape from here all alone, to drift about the streets weighed down with something like remorse moaning incessantly in my ears: ‘Maurice! Geneviève!,’ to wander past certain places and certain houses where I’ve seen you both and where I will see no more than your shades from now on, to finally wind up hating Paris, which I’ve always loved so much: no, thank you! I believe they were right to outlaw kings, if only because of Dagobert.”

“And what’s King Dagobert got to do with what’s happening to us?”

“What’s he got to do with it? Didn’t that frightful tyrant say to the great Eloi:3 ‘No one is such good company you can’t leave them’? Well, I’m a republican! And I say: You should never leave good company for anything, not even the guillotine. I like it here and I’m staying.”

“My poor friend! My poor friend!” said Maurice. Geneviève said nothing but she gazed at Lorin with eyes bathed in tears.

“You regret life, don’t you?” said Lorin. “

Yes, because of her!”

“Me, I don’t regret it because of anything. Not even because of the Goddess of Reason, who—I forgot to tell you—recently wronged me greatly, which won’t even mean she goes to the trouble of consoling herself like that other Artemisia, the