Chapter 2. The Course of History.

March 2, 1794

Auguste Bastien smiled, looking at the cheap candle's dim flicker. "It's amazing!" he thought. "This kind of flicker, made from this kind of material, has completely opposite meanings at certain moments in our lives: at one moment, it is produced for the repose of a human soul; at other moments, for the health of a human body! The same phenomenon, but different meanings! The same fire, but different interpretations! But… will our descendants speak of the revolution in the same way? What will it be for them? A lightning flash that illuminated the darkness of human error? Or a lightning flash that illuminated and, accordingly, revealed to this world the true power of human vices for a few moments? What will we, the children of the revolution, leave to its grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Will we be called heroes or criminals? What will they call us when nothing is left of us but a few notes on a perishable piece of paper? We have changed the course of history, created a new world order, and presented a precedent to this world—we have defined the course of our country's political life! We lived, we fought, we died! In 50 years, history textbooks will write about us only in quantitative, not qualitative, terms! So many people died during the revolution… but what kind of people?! The life of each such person is equivalent to the lives of hundreds of those whose… no, not their lot!… but their choice!… is patience and submission! These thoughts sting me in the heart, thereby giving birth to truly exceptional sharp feelings in its depths!…"

"Alexandre de Beauharnais has been arrested! Citizen Beauharnais will be tried!" These words suddenly reached Auguste Bastien's ears through the slightly open window, which, it should be noted, most swiftly curbed the lightning-fast, worm-like reasoning of the aforementioned offspring of the French Revolution.

"The revolution, like all monarchs, does not tolerate disobedience—it hates loyalty and devotion even more!," Auguste Bastien whispered sadly, sighing heavily, and continued to fill out the very document in which one human death, having the appearance of a name once given to a person by a person, followed another with the same regularity with which day replaces night and minute replaces minute: he was filling out one of those very lists, the contents of which subsequently deprived certain families of fathers, husbands, mothers, wives, children, and grandchildren.

The charcoal-colored and intentional ink, with the help of a human hand, inexorably filled the snow-white spaces of the parchment—at the same hour, scarlet blood filled the truly dark spaces of Paris with no less swiftness: this was the result of Auguste Bastien's literary creations, where all his heroes were doomed to death. Every line created by Auguste Bastien in the aforementioned minute was soaked in blood, even if it was created with ink.

"Revolution! How ethereal your ideals are—they live no longer than a mayfly: like Bengal lights, they shine too brightly but burn out too quickly! Revolution! I have learned your fruits too well—they can only be truly known by tasting them: they are tart, like wine or blood—they intoxicate some and bring others to a state of fear and horror! And yet it is amazing… all revolutions begin with the oppression of the people's rights and always end with the oppression of the rights of one person: the formal pretext for revolutions, as a rule, a kind of casus belli, is a violation of the rights of an individual, a specific citizen… Life is a whirlpool of events! It seems like only yesterday Thibaud Dupont and I took part in the storming of the Bastille, and today I am putting his name on the list of suspects! In his time, he did more for the revolution than perhaps any Parisian: he fed the revolution like a hungry dog, and in response to these good deeds, this sharp-toothed dog gave him, Thibaud Dupont, mortal bites! Who knows, maybe tomorrow I will ride to the scaffold in this cart too… The revolution is a carousel: if you don't get off it in time, it will throw you off its body itself!

"François-Xavier Denis… a clergyman… sentenced to death! He, a truly believing person, perhaps only now realized that the time of the revolution is a truly mystical and sacred time, for it reveals to the people genuine and, most importantly, manifest miracles in an instant: at the present time, tangible things arose out of nothing—sentences arose out of nothing! Looking at François-Xavier's fate, I openly declare to society that I am an atheist: I consider the cross on my chest only a chaotic in its harmony combination of metal atoms—but in my soul, I understand that faith is more than the material personification of its attributes!

"Vincent Julien… what did he do wrong? There is no more zealous supporter and defender of the current order! Oh, yes… it is very likely that Monsieur Robespierre did not forgive this adept of the now-flourishing bacchanalia for a childish joke! Well, so be it… Gilbert Melanson… a writer… condemned for writing a satirical pamphlet… And he, with his own lips, lit the bonfire of the revolution on one of the Parisian streets—now, because of the creation of a literary work that radiated the rays of free thought too brightly, he is sentenced to death: ah, Auguste Bastien, as you can see, in this world a person does not create something, he only chooses one of an infinite number of options—a series of choices led him to death…

"Marc-Antoine Dubois… condemned because of anti-government statements—today, all those who previously discussed the fate of France and the king with exceptional loudness and exceptional frankness should, in order to avoid death, speak and think in a whisper!... Sébastien Fortin… my school teacher… at the very hour when my every thought and every argument was subjected to public censure, he allowed me to identify and, accordingly, determine in the depths of my being the exceptional abilities hidden from myself—all my strength was contained in them: he will no longer teach anyone anything!... Jean-Philippe Fleury… a young nobleman who first opposed the revolution, a little later—against the nobility, doing the latter more for the sake of fashion and fun than for the sake of the public good: now, having tasted the green and ripe fruits of the revolution, he chose the path of neutrality—the revolution despises extremes, but most of all it hates neutrality!... Stéphane Chénier… condemned because he was the son of Antoine Chénier: as if with Antoine's blood, young Stéphane inherited his father's views…