"Perry, Anne - The One Thing More" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Anne)

been born to poverty, but since her father's collapse she had certainly
become acquainted with it. She had worked to survive, like any of the
labourers and artisans who had suffered generations of oppression, out
of which finally had been brought forth this night.

The next deputy who stood in the pool of light had the bloodless face
of an albino id his eyes were pink-tinged, his lashes and brows
invisible: Joseph Fouche, the deputy from Nantes in Brittany. Yesterday
he had promised to fight for the King's life. Now he said the single,
dry word" Death

Celie shivered. They had been voting for hours. Hardly anyone had
spoken for life, or even incarceration of all the royal family until
the last of them should die of old age.

Maybe she did not really need to stay any longer. The outcome was
already certain. One violence had followed another since the storming
of the Bastille three and a half years ago in 1789. Now they almost
expected it. The streets were full of frightened people, most of them
cold and hungry. The fury of centuries had exploded, destroying
everything in its path. Wasn't that what Marat had said "I am the rage
of the people'?

The thought of him was cold inside her. Celie had only seen him once
but, like everyone else, she knew his power. He ruled the Commune, and
more importantly, the copper-faced, hollow-eyed mobs from the tanneries
and slaughterhouses of the Faubourg St-Antoine, and out into the
suburbs beyond and on every side.

There was a buzz of excitement around her, a shifting of position, a
craning forward as the giant figure of Georges-Jacques Danton climbed
the rostrum to cast his vote. He had returned from the war in Belgium
only yesterday. There were rumours that he would plead mercy for the
King. Could that be true?

Celie watched as he moved into the light. His head and shoulders were
bull-like, his face scarred by pox. His vitality filled the room. She
could feel it like the charge of electricity before a storm. The
surreptitious coughing and shuffling stopped. Everyone's eyes were on
Danton.

The candles flickered, yellow light making a gargoyle of his head.

"Death," he said simply.

A sigh of relief rippled through the room. Someone let out a little
cry. Several people shifted as if a tension had been broken at last.
They had passed some invisible point of no return. If Danton said
"Death', it must be right.