Page:Rolland - Two Plays of the French Revolution.djvu/93

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THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY
87

parties in the world: the healthy and the sick. What is healthy goes with life. Life is with us. Come!

La Contat. With you—willingly.

Hoche. So you won't decide! Very well, we'll see later on, if we have time to think.

La Contat. There is always time for love.

Hoche. You've been made to think that too often. Do you think our revolution is going to be merely some gallant little story? Ah, you little women! During the fifty years you have been governing France, and had everything brought you, done for you, did it never enter your heads that there might be something more important than your dainty selves? Play is over and done with, Madame. This is a serious game, in which the stake is the world itself. Make way for the men! If you dare, follow us to battle, help us, share our faith, but, by God, don't dare try to shake it. You count for very little beside it. I'm not angry, Contat! I have no time for a flirtation, and as for my heart, it already belongs to some one else.

La Contat. To whom?

Hoche. To Liberty.

La Contat. I'd like to know what she looks like.

Hoche. She is a little like you, I imagine. Very healthy, well-built, blonde, passionate, audacious, but rouged like yourself, with beauty-spots—ironic, too; but she does, instead of making fun of those who do; and instead of making double-meaning phrases, she breathes words of devotion and fraternity. I am her lover. When you are like her, I will love you. That is all I have to say.