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

He stepped down into the shadows and was lost in the press of bodies.
Another took his place in the light and said the same word, but with a
greater confidence. Now there could be only one judgement.

But each of the seven hundred and twenty-one deputies must have his
say. The charade would drag on until the small hours of the morning.
People were fidgeting, restless for the end. This was merely ritual
now. The candles on the rostrum were burning low. The drag and
shuffling of feet up the steps and down again seemed endless.

Then suddenly there was a different sound, the sharp click of high
heels. Celie's attention snapped back. The man who stood in the
candlelight was immaculately dressed in shades of green: a nankeen
jacket with perfectly cut lapels, a high waistcoat and neatly tied
cravat. His hair was curled and powdered in the old style of the
ancien regime. His small face was neat-nosed, feline, his skin an
unhealthy white. He peered myopically into the gloom of the chamber.

"Everyone here knows how I dislike making long speeches," he began. He
was renowned for making interminable speeches, his sibilant, pedantic
tones so low that listeners had to lean forward to catch what he said.
Every so often he would hesitate, so people thought he was finished.
Then he would start again.

But no one laughed. No one ever laughed at Maximilien Marie Isidore de
Robespierre. He would have considered it blasphemy.

As always he spoke at length about purity, the evils of the
aristocracy, the necessity of justice and a new way, of a rebirth of
virtue, but mostly he spoke about himself. In the end if all amounted
to the same thing: another vote to send the King to the guillotine.

There was no need for Celie to remain. Nothing could turn the tide
now. She had learned all she had come for. She turned and began to
push her way through the crowd behind her. The people were nervous and
excited, thronging together in the passages and half blocking the doors
out into the street, but they took little notice of her. With her
strong features and slim body, her straight, flaxen hair half hidden
under her cap, in the half-dark she could have been taken for a boy.

"Excuse me," she muttered, elbowing her way. "Pardon, Citizen!"

Outside at last the cold air hit her from the January night, and she
pulled her jacket tighter across her chest, holding the collar high up
to her chin. She went down the steps, bending her head against the
wind.

A thin man with straggling hair was standing just within the pool of
the lights. His shoulders were hunched, his hands knotted against the
chill.