Book: A Place of Greater Safety
Quotes of Book: A Place of Greater Safety
He stepped back, looked up. Cut into the stone above his head were the words RUE MARAT.
For a moment he had the urge to turn back around the corner, climb the stairs, shout to the servants not to bother unpacking, they'd be returning to Arcis in the morning. He looked up to the lighted windows above his head. If I go up there, he thought, I'll never be free again. If I go up there I commit myself to Max, to joining with him to finish Hébert, and perhaps to governing with him. I commit myself to fishing Fabre out of trouble-though God alone knows how that's to be managed. I put myself once more under the threat of assassination; I recommence the blood feuds, the denunciations. His face hardened. You can't stand in the street calling into question the last five years of your life, just because they've changed the street name; you can't let it alter the future. No, he thought-and he saw it clearly, for the first time-it's an illusion, about quitting, about going back to Arcis to farm. I've been lying to Louise: once in, never out. book-quotepoliticsicsHérault, Fabre thinks: and his mind drifts back-as it tends to, these days- to the Café du Foy. He'd been giving readings from his latest-Augusta was dying the death at the Italiens-and in came this huge, rough-looking boy, shoe-horned into a lawyer's black suit, whom he'd made a sketch of in the street, ten years before. The boy had developed this upper-class drawl, and he'd talked about Hérault-"his looks are impeccable, he's well traveled, he's pursued by all the ladies at Court"-and beside Danton had been this fey wide-eyed egotist who had turned out to be half the city's extramarital
interest. The years pass … plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose … book-quotereminiscenceI think back to those days after the Bastille fell, the Mercure Nationale run from the back of the shop, that little Louise sticking her well-bred nose in the air and flouncing off to bawl out their printer-and you know, he was a good lad, François. I'd say, 'Go and do this, this, this, go and tie some bricks to your boots and jump in the Seine,' and he'd"- Danton touched an imaginary forelock-'right away, Georges-Jacques, and do you need any shopping while I'm out?' Jesus, what a way to end up. When you see him, tell him I'd be obliged if he forgets he knows me. book-quotehumour
