lunes, 6 de mayo de 2019

feuilly-centric stories (+ jehan prouvaire character study)

Uneasy

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After a week, Feuilly realized that he’d have to go to Joly or Combeferre.
He laughed grimly to himself as he examined the spreading rash on his forearms. Any other ailment and he wouldn’t have been able to hide it from the two medical students in the group. No cough or sneeze slipped past them, no flush or paleness to indicate a fever. But with his shirt-sleeves rolled down and his jacket on, no one had noticed.
He had to admit he was uneasy, however. The rash itched horribly, distracting him when he painted, and he could not think what could have caused it. The thought of smallpox lingered in the back of his mind, and he’d even cancelled the reading lesson he normally gave to his less fortunate neighbours on Tuesday evenings, just in case.
Monday after work, he buttoned up his jacket, picked up his cap, and headed over to Combeferre and Enjolras’ flat with a borrowed book. He wasn’t quite done with the volume, but if he couldn’t get around to his point it was a good enough reason to stop by.
Combeferre answered his knock when he arrived. “Feuilly!” he said warmly. “Come in…Enjolras is out, my classes have assigned my surprisingly little work tonight, and I had resigned myself to a rather unoccupied evening, so you come in good time. Are you finished with the book I lent you already? Which one is it—Caesar’s Gallic Wars?”
“That was last time,” Feuilly answered. “Right now I have John Locke. But no, I’ve not quite finished…”
Combeferre waited.
Feuilly took off his jacket and hung it up, then inhaled deeply. “I need to ask you a question,” he managed.
“Of course,” Combeferre said, and lead him to a chair.
Feuilly sat down. Laying his arm on the table, he pushed up his right sleeve to reveal the red, ugly rash. His skin was warm and puffy, and his white scar stood out.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level. “Do you—do you know if it’s contagious?”
Combeferre’s brow furrowed and he took Feuilly’s arm in both hands, peering at the rash. “How widespread is this?”
“Both forearms. Starting to move up above my elbows.”
“And how long since it started?”
“About a week, I believe.”
“Any other symptoms?”
“It itches and it’s warm, but no fever or anything like that, no.”
“Headache? Fatigue?”
“…well, a bit.”
Combeferre hesitated. “A week, and the rash isn’t blistering or spreading to the rest of the body, and there’s no fever. That should rule out smallpox, at least…but hmm.”
Feuilly let out a long breath of relief at that. If he’d been walking around with a developing case of smallpox, he could have spread it to countless people.
He resisted the urge to scratch and waited for Combeferre.
“Has anything in your environment changed since about the time the rash began?”
“Sorry?”
Combeferre gestured vaguely. “Er, you know. The water you wash with, your mattress, the way your clothes are laundered…”
Feuilly shrugged. “We changed paints at work. The new kind’s awful; it clumps all the time.”
Combeferre’s eyebrows rose. “That on top of the foremen’s increased pettiness and the more frequently docked pay?”
Feuilly was starting to respond (“Yes, and we’re expected to keep up the same speed of production; everyone is uneasy—”) when Combeferre said, “Wait.”
Feuilly stopped. He waited.
“Do you remember when you were working in that dye factory, back when we all first met you?” Combeferre began.
“Yes,” said Feuilly patiently. Factory work was not something to forget, especially when one’s employers were old-fashioned enough to manufacture their dyes with lead instead of more recently-discovered chemicals.
“Your hands while you were working there,” Combeferre continued, picking up speed as he got excited about explaining, “they were always red. And once you left, you seemed to feel better in other ways, too, but that’s off topic a bit; what I mean to say is, there were chemicals in the dye to which people should not have had prolonged exposure, and it may be so with the paint.”
“Oh,” said Feuilly. “—And it could even be a lead-based paint; I know house paint often is, and with how inferior this stuff is I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re giving us similar stuff for our boxes and figurines. For the pillboxes our grandparents use, and the dolls little children play with. Would it make sense that, if I was exposed to lead before, coming up against it again would make me react more than the others?”
“Yes,” said Combeferre. “Yes, that’s—that’s a perfectly legitimate explanation if the others haven’t got rashes.”
Feuilly sighed. “So I simply have to deal with it unless they decide to give us our decent paint back, then.”
Combeferre grimaced. “I’ll look into it. For now, wash your hands—and forearms—as often as you can to get rid of the residue.”
“We’re considering a strike,” Feuilly said. “I’ve got only a few of the others on my side so far, but if it gets worse they’ll join us. So that’s three ways, with you looking for something to help, the remote chance the bosses will realize on their own that either quality or speed is going down no matter how hard we work, or the possibility of a strike. One of them should work out.”
“Yes, something will,” said Combeferre. He pulled Feuilly’s sleeve down for him. “I wish I could give you something for it tonight. Maybe something to help you sleep more easily?”
“Thanks,” Feuilly said. “But I’ve managed this long; I’ll be all right. You told me what it is and that helps.”
Combeferre shook his head. “I’ll find something; I promise. Though I hope for all your coworkers’ sake as well as yours that one of the other solutions comes through as well.”
“So do I,” said Feuilly gravely. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d best go home and tell my neighbours that I can hold our reading lesson tomorrow after all.”

Beginning

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His resolve is not to seem the bravest, but to be. –Aeschylus.
He woke up in the morning, ten minutes earlier than necessary to get to work on time, and struggled through several pages of Romanian history, translated from Latin into a scholarly dialect nearly as hard for him to comprehend. He had spent time with the same volume last night, forcing his way through exhaustion in an attempt to stretch his mind.
Deliverance, he reminded himself as the words seemed to swim on the page. Every idea you can take in is deliverance.
And Feuilly needed deliverance, perhaps now more than ever. After he had half-led his coworkers in a short strike six weeks ago, his foreman had given back his livret and made clear that most of the other employers in his line of work, the painting of small boxes and figurines, of pill-boxes and dolls' faces, had heard his name and marked him as a man not to hire. As soon as he had gone out to look for work, he had found it was no empty threat—no one would take him.
Without connections, with the savings that could have kept him afloat exhausted during the strike, he had resorted to manual day-labor for the worst pay he’d had in years. Unskilled, strong mostly through adrenaline and determination and a quiet anger that always burned, Feuilly mixed thick lime for bricklayers and fought back his hunger with thoughts of the nations. For them he would work until he fell with exhaustion, read until his candle gave out and his head split with pain, think despite (or because of) all the unthinking men around him, who daily strove to bring him back to their level.
He had nothing to eat when the lunch break was called, so he leaned against a wall and drew on his sleeve with a stub of pencil—a sketch of what he thought the Polish mountains must be like, just to give himself courage.
In the afternoon it rained and his hair got quickly soaked because he had sold his cap for a few solid meals last week when he realized that bread and coffee and the occasional apple were no longer sufficient to carry him through this kind of work, but that was not important; it was important to keep the rain from interfering with the texture of the lime so he’d not get shouted at by his superiors on the job, and to think of those who would have nowhere to go at the end of the day.
When his damp hand, stiff from stirring and carrying and hard to recognize as the artist’s tool it used to be, closed on his meager wages that evening, he clutched the coins tightly but thought, my earnings are not my deliverance. Bahorel has three thousand a year, and that does not make him free.
He went to the Corinthe as quickly as he could manage and bought bread and coffee, drying out as he listened to Enjolras talk. Courfeyrac had bought too much food and was sharing it with them all, so liberally that Feuilly would have had to be foolishly proud not to join in taking a few things. His wet jacket wasn’t quite dry by the time he realized he would have to go home in order to work again tomorrow, but he shrugged it on anyway—he was warmed enough by the company. As he was going out, he heard his name called and turned to see who it was.
“…Enjolras.”
Enjolras inclined his head as he drew close to speak to Feuilly privately. “I wanted to ask—has your situation improved at all?”
“No.” At the deep blend of concern and respect in the question, Feuilly couldn’t help sighing. “No, it hasn’t. I look for better employment when I have the time, but mostly right now I’m just trying to live.”
Enjolras held out a slip of paper. “Jehan wanted me to give this to you—the address of a fan-maker he once patronized when purchasing a gift for a young lady, I believe. They are looking for a painter.”
“A fan-maker.” Feuilly’s heart rose as it hadn’t in weeks. Fans were far enough from boxes and figurines that word of his troublemaking might not have spread there, but close enough that the style of painting would not be too hard to learn. A beginning, or at least a chance at one. “Yes, I’ll look into it. Give Prouvaire my thanks.”
“I will.” Enjolras’ hand rested gently on his shoulder. “—I appreciate that you still join us when it is not easy for you to do so. You are one of the bravest of men, Feuilly.”
He gave a quiet, cynical laugh. “For doing what I do every day? Like I said, I’m just trying to live. Thousands of men have it as hard as I do.”
Enjolras shook his head. “You may not seem the bravest, yet you are. For in all your personal struggles, you keep sight of your true and unselfish goal.”
Deliverance. The word surged through Feuilly’s heart. For himself, for France, for the nations. And perhaps this slip of paper Enjolras had handed him, with that address written in Jehan Prouvaire’s flowing script, could be his next step in that direction.
A beginning.
Courage flooded through him. He gave Enjolras a smile and headed out into the night—there would be time for a few pages of Romanian history tonight, even if he woke early to call on the fan-maker’s shop tomorrow before work.

Trapped

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Why should you spend your whole life living
Trapped where there ain’t no future, even at seventeen?
- "Santa Fe," Newsies
Reading or drawing tonight? Feuilly asked himself as he dragged himself home from the factory. It was reading or drawing, because he had neither energy nor candle to spend on both. And really, he told himself wearily, he ought not to waste the candle and his time to rest on either. He’d been reprimanded at work two days in a row, and if his performance didn’t improve, he could lose the position entirely.
Maybe that would be better.
The thought hit him with unexpected force as he started up the fourth flight of stairs on the way to his flat. Maybe it’d be better if somebody else gets the work, somebody with a family, somebody who needs it and who won’t forever be discontent. As for me, I’ll find something, or—or I won’t, and either way does it matter? If the last thing I do is give my job to someone who needs it more, perhaps that’s as good of an end as I’ll find.
He finished climbing up the stairs and unlocked his door, hands shaking with exhaustion and lips pressed tight. It’d—well, it’d be a decent enough end, he thought. If I can’t get the money and time for books, can’t make any difference to Poland or France, at least I could help a few people. Give what I have, though that’s only a badly-paid, unsafe job with long hours and unfair foremen.
Feuilly dropped onto his bed, hands falling into his lap. He stared at them. They were red and rough from work, and all their lines spelled exhaustion. They were no worse hands than those of a trained artist, but he had to force them to draw even the simplest of things after fourteen hours of labor.
He didn’t know what motivated him—hope or habit, defiance or despair—but he moved to the table, lit his candle, and took up his pencil. He began to draw his hand, the broken nails, the ripped skin and the calluses, the uneven cuticles. He shaded carefully and furiously, trying to capture the redness in graphite. And as he drew, the candle flickered, and he felt anger stopping up his throat.
His eyes closed. His pencil stopped.
He wondered why. Demanded, why?
The hand he was drawing clenched into a fist, and tears built up behind his eyelids. There had to be something more—he had to find something more. Surely somehow he could build a future, even here? Surely somehow he could deliver himself, if he had to die trying. Oh, Gosh, he was sixteen; there was a whole life ahead of him, and that life could be horrifically empty, but he wouldn’t give up on trying to make something of it. He couldn’t. If all he could do was dream and read and draw, he would do that. Even if it made him cry, because those who weep are not dead at least.
He opened his eyes and his tears spilled on the paper.
Maybe he was trapped for life, but his struggle towards deliverance would itself be freeing enough to keep him going.
Feuilly drew late into the night, drew shelves of books, drew clusters of friends enthusiastically discussing, drew tricolore flags flying free.
He drew until his candle flickered out and he was left to make his way to bed in the suffocating darkness.
If he made too many mistakes and got sacked tomorrow, he wondered, would he be more or less trapped than he was now?

Onwards

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“Fryderyk Chopin’s giving a salon performance,” Jehan called from his bedroom, as Feuilly sat on the couch looking over Jehan’s translation of Blake. “Dérivis, a tenor I know from the Conservatoire, is joining him.”
“Sorry,” said Feuilly absent-mindedly, “who’s Chopin again?”
Jehan emerged from the bedroom, having found his English dictionary. “Composer. Pianist. Polish émigré.”
Feuilly looked up at that. “Involved with the insurgents?”
“Not directly, but a supporter.” Jehan sat down on the couch next to Feuilly. “Anyway, Dérivis told me that they want a flutist for an arrangement of some songs that’s being tried for the salon, and dropped my name. I’ve been asked to play.”
Feuilly smiled. “That’s wonderful.”
“And I want you to come.”
“What?”
Jehan ducked his head a bit. “Er, well, they said I could invite a few guests, you see. Probably expect me to ask people who I want to impress with my playing, but I just want people who’ll enjoy it. And it’s selections from his series of Polish songs, so—I thought of you, you know?”
Feuilly blinked. “Well, that’s—I mean, it’s kind of you, Jehan, but I don’t think—”
“The songs are fantastic,” Jehan hurried on. “Such variance in mood, and the arrangements so intricately put together. I think you’d love it; it’d be a cultural experience and maybe you’d even be able to talk to him a bit…”
“Jehan,” said Feuilly, “I can’t go to a salon.”
Jehan bit his lip. “But Feuilly—”
Feuilly went on doggedly. “Salons are glittering and dignified; they’re meant for people who can dress finely and talk about the music, the sorts of people who sit in boxes at the opera and compare the performers. I’ll stand out; you’ll be the only one to want me there, and I don’t wish to make a scene.”
“No, listen,” said Jehan. “It’s at Dérivis’ parents’ summer house. They won’t be there; they’re in Montpellier for the winter. The guests will be mostly Polish émigrés. If the musical elite of Paris were being invited, the pieces chosen would be flashier ones—to dazzle, not so much to stir the heart the way these songs do. Hold on, I’ll get my flute and play one for you…”
“Jehan—” Feuilly was protesting, but Jehan was already crossing the room to find his flute and taking it from the case, connecting the head joint to the body and nimbly playing through a few scales to warm up. Once he’d done so, he darted about looking for his sheet music.
“Here,” he said, once he’d found it. “I’ll play you this one. The melody, I mean, because my part doesn’t sound right by itself. It’s called—and I’m sure I’ll murder the Polish; forgive me—‘Wojak,’ or ‘The Warrior.’”
And he launched into it. Feuilly closed his eyes, and at once the melody began to sweep him away, rolling like waves in the full lower voice of Jehan’s flute for the first verse, leaping upwards for the second to sound the tune clear and sharp like a fife on its way to battle.
And he could see himself under the bright dawn, air washed clean with last night’s rain, amid the horses and the men eager for battle, eager to liberate their country and counting the cost as joy. And the flute was beckoning, pulling him forwards, bursting with hope and defiance. Onwards, onwards—
Feuilly held his breath. The piece swelled, charged, and closed triumphantly, leaving him far from Jehan’s flat, far from Paris.
But no sooner had it ended than Jehan was back on the couch beside him, flute in hand. “Well?” he demanded, grinning. “What did you think?”
Feuilly blinked. He shook his head in amazement, drew in a breath, and determinedly sought the words. “It was—alive. And I wanted to go to it.”
Jehan’s smile softened with pleasure. “Well, the poet who provided the lyrics is, like Chopin, decidedly a Polish patriot. It is only natural that you should feel kinship with his warrior.”
Feuilly ducked his head a little at the compliment. “But it was so vivid,” he said slowly. “I could—there were no words, yet I could see the warriors, the horses, feel the camaraderie. And it…it rolled, and it was full—I don’t know. I am not describing it well.”
“You’re describing it wonderfully,” said Jehan.
Encouraged, Feuilly went on. “I very much had the feeling of being caught up, and of moving with the rise and fall of the music—perhaps that is what riding feels like; I wouldn’t know—and it was colorful, too. As if paint had been splashed across the sky with wide but skillful strokes.”
“I think it does feel like riding,” Jehan said. “I’m not sure if it’s more of a canter or a gallop…the six-eight time would seem to indicate cantering, but I’ve not ridden in years and so maybe I’m not remembering how the rhythms feel exactly. And the paint—I never would have thought of that. But I can see it.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out. “—A horse bursting with energy, a warrior eager for adventure, the painted sky above and the damp grass beneath. I really need to get a translation of those lyrics.”
“That’d be wonderful,” said Feuilly wistfully. “I wonder how similar they are to what we’re picturing.”
“Well,” Jehan said, getting up to put his flute away, “we can ask someone at the salon.”
Feuilly began to agree, began to protest, shut his mouth to think a moment, and then sighed. “All right,” he said. “All right. I’ll go.”
Jehan’s face lit up. “I’ll ask Combeferre too, so you won’t have to sit by yourself,” he said. “Oh, Feuilly, you’ll love it. The other pieces are just as wonderful. And like I said, émigrés. They’re all revolutionaries of some sort or another. They’ve no reason to dislike you, and if they do, well—they don’t deserve what they’re missing.”
Feuilly laughed. “I think you are a bit biased there, my friend. But I’ll go.”
Onwards, he told himself. “Wojak” had, after all, already taken him much further.

When Your Hands Won't Move

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His hands were cramped from the long hours with a paintbrush and felt like they wouldn’t move anymore, but now he could curl them around a cup of coffee and let the warmth relieve the tension. His mind had been constrained, pressed into the mold of the obedient worker, but now it was free and he sat next to Enjolras, who was smiling as he read over Jehan’s latest pamphlet on the rights of the child, tomorrow’s citizen.
“How did it turn out?” Feuilly asked, setting down his cup after a long sip of coffee and carefully cracking his knuckles, one by one.
Enjolras looked up. “Excellent,” he said. “I’m on my second read, and it has shown no flaws whatsoever. The language, the ideals, the reasoning, all are superb.”
Feuilly smiled. “Jehan’s writing never fails to amaze me,” he said. “Oh, and I finally read that discourse against the Charter that Courfeyrac published once. It’s brilliant.”
“Courfeyrac’s writing has such spirit,” Enjolras said, glancing across the room to find Courfeyrac amid a group playing cards. “And his mind is very keen.” He looked back at Feuilly, who was still absent-mindedly rubbing his paint-stained hands. “Here, give me your hand.”
Feuilly blinked. “Sorry?”
“You are in pain, are you not?” Enjolras asked simply. “I know what to do; I help Combeferre when he comes back tense from surgery or dissection.”
Feuilly stretched out his right hand. Enjolras took it in both of his and began to massage gently but firmly, working out the stiffness and tension.
“But on the topic of Jehan’s pamphlet,” Enjolras continued, as he worked steadily, and Feuilly drew in the occasional deep breath to keep himself from wincing at pain he had not even known existed, “he lays out a very convincing—and, I think, a rather complete—framework, for the rights of the child. Safety yet choice, both guidance and independence. Economic security, education, medical care, defenders since they cannot themselves resist oppression.”
Feuilly nodded. “So it’s not a pamphlet addressed to the government, or to parents—rather, one expressing an ideal.”
“Yes.” Enjolras pressed between Feuilly’s thumb and index finger, and Feuilly’s lips tightened at the pressure. “It’s divided into two sections, however—first, the legal and social rights of children, and then the rights of children at home.”
“I’d like to see it when you’re done,” Feuilly said, smiling. “It sounds fantastic…just the sort of subject on which Jehan would be at his best. Two sides, personal and political, but both of them with a great deal of heart.”
“Yes,” said Enjolras. “It is tinged with melancholy and yet bursting with hope. A superb piece of work, as I said.”
“I like the title,” Feuilly mused. “The reference to ‘The Rights of Man and Citizen’—evoking, of course, ‘The Rights of Woman and Citizeness’—the set just seems complete when you add ‘The Rights of the Child, Tomorrow’s Citizen.’
“It does.” Enjolras let go of Feuilly’s hand to hand him the pamphlet, then took his left hand and began to rub it instead. “By the way, are you writing anything of late? Your article on the conflict in Greece was quite widely read.”
Feuilly sighed. “I haven’t been,” he said. “Too busy…but that’s really good to hear about the article; I am glad my words could have some impact.” He had tried writing several times in the past two weeks since he’d published the article on Greece, but every time he’d sat down, his hands had cramped and so had his mind, and nothing had come.
“–But actually,” he went on, “today I was thinking I might want to write on the treatment of women in the workplace. Probably half of the fan-painters in the workshop where I’m employed are women, and they deal with all the injustices the men do, but they are even less encouraged to think about it than their spear counterparts. And beyond that, they are often not treated with decency; their persons are compromised by the foremen, by fellow workers, and even on occasion by customers. Some of them are of the sort that do not appear to mind, but I am wondering if that is merely because they have learned that to express displeasure at a man’s touch is not…not acceptable. Because they are of the lower class, and treated as lower yet. The idea only crossed my mind today, so I am not sure what points, exactly, I would be making, but I think something needs to be said on the matter.”
Enjolras glowed with gentle excitement. “Then I think you are just the one to say it, my friend,” he said. “Do talk to Combeferre, too; he has thought on the oppression of women, although not so much in the workplace.”
“I will,” said Feuilly, as Enjolras squeezed his hand amiably and let go. He finished off his now-lukewarm coffee and picked up Jehan’s pamphlet. “It’s been a long day,” he said, “and I should go.”
It had been a long day, but now his heart was warm with inspiration and friendship, and his hands would move.
He said goodbye to Enjolras, waved to the others, and headed home to scratch out his first vague thoughts on the oppression of women in the workplace.

Mission

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Feuilly collapsed fully dressed into bed in his room on the sixth floor after yet another day of no work.
It was December, the twenty-second. Nine days to the New Year. Nine days until a quarter’s rent was due.
And Feuilly had no job, no prospects, and barely enough savings to eat.
Even pawning his books wouldn’t get him enough. He’d already asked at the shop, painful though it had been. And his landlady wouldn’t give him so much as a day extra, he knew. To her, a room with a lodger behind on their rent was a room that needed someone new in it. Come the second of January, he’d be on the freezing streets.
If he could get together six francs by then, he could get a bed in a dormitory. His books could probably get him six francs, battered as they were, but he had to eat something if he was going to continue wandering through the streets, aimlessly, and searching for a job.
As he curled up under the one thin blanket he had not sold, teeth chattering and body shaking violently, he wished heaven’s fiercest damnation on the fact that after that combination revolt and strike he’d gone to prison long enough to lose his job—and at this time of year, too, when the poor froze to death out-of-doors and daywork was impossibly scarce.
What in God’s name was he going to do now?
——
“Are you sure this will work?” Jehan asked Courfeyrac, as he crammed his arm into a tight coat-sleeve.
Courfeyrac patted Jehan’s head, which was adorned with curling rags. “Don’t be so doubtful, my dear fellow! It is the best plan we could have devised, and we shall execute it admirably. Now come, let me button up your coat—yes, good, it’s tailored admirably. Amelie is a genius, is she not?”
Jehan agreed amiably about the talents of Courfeyrac’s mistress, laughing as much as he dared in the tight coat of Courfeyrac’s that had been taken down two sizes and was promised to let out again without damage to the fabric. He had never been so uncomfortable in his life, but he did not mind—the cause was good, and even he would submit to being a dandy for a good cause.
“Now,” said Courfeyrac, as he took a cravat and wound it around Jehan’s neck, “do you remember all I’ve told you about mannerisms? A haughty tilt of the chin…the voice, lazy (although of course I can do most of the talking)…be careful of the curls. Oh, no, that knot’s no good with the ensemble; let me try a different one…”
Jehan stood patiently, letting Courfeyrac work, trying his best to think as a dandy should. When his cravat was tied to perfection, Courfeyrac busied himself with Jehan’s hair, arranging the curled locks and fussing that they were a little too long to be properly fashionable. However, once Jehan’s hat was settled at an angle on his forehead, Courfeyrac announced his appearance to be quite satisfactory.
“A disguise well-suited to the mission,” he said with a grin.
——
Feuilly was treading the streets, as he had been since he found himself woken by the cold at five that morning. He tried factories, shops, the docks, the few construction sites he found, all with no success. Even the lead he had on a theatre needing someone to help paint backdrops fell through.
He stopped in a cheap café and ordered a cup of coffee, because he could go on without food but wasn’t sure he could manage any longer if he didn’t warm up, and watched the people on the streets. The waitress gave him a smile as she set the cup in front of him.
“Christmas is just two days off,” she said warmly. “You looking forward to the day off work?”
“I haven’t got work,” he said, but not unkindly. He hadn’t been seeing the other amis de l’abaissé lately and a smile was a rare thing in all these days of rejections from foremen and clerks.
“I’m sorry,” she said, with the sincerity of someone who knows the situation too well. “And the quarter coming up, too…I hope you find something soon, monsieur.”
He thanked her and sipped gratefully at his coffee, letting it startle the freezing ache from his body. As it began to snow, she discreetly refilled his cup for free.
——
It was mid-afternoon when Jehan and Courfeyrac strolled up to the dilapidated seven-story tenement in which Feuilly lived and strode in lackadaisically, funds from the amis collectively safely tucked away. “Excuse me,” called Courfeyrac in a dignified drawl, “we wish to speak to the owner.”
The landlady, white-haired and thin, came hurrying out at the sound of such a bourgeois voice. “Messieurs,” she said, dropping a curtsy, “what can I do for you?”
“Oh,” said Courfeyrac, “nothing, nothing, madame. It’s going to be Christmas, you know. We thought we’d practice a bit of Christmas charity.”
“Oh, of course!” she exclaimed. “What would you like? There’s a family on the fourth floor—or maintenance and repairs, always maintenance and repairs, you can give any sum for that…”
“No,” interrupted Jehan, “we want a sweeping gesture, you see. We want to pay a quarter’s rent. For a whole floor. Which one did the dice land on, Boulet? The sixth, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, the sixth,” Courfeyrac said. “Now, madame, if you’ll affirm the sum for us? If we have not the necessary funds with us, we shall make you out a bank draft at once.”
She quoted the figure. They had the money, Jehan having found himself with an end-of-year surplus to donate the endeavor. The transaction was made at once.
The landlady thanked them profusely. “Oh, messieurs, I don’t know how to repay you—I shall make sure everyone knows of your generosity to them—although how, I am unsure; for I am a busy woman—”
“Make us a sign at the entrance,” Courfeyrac said. “You can credit us, should you like. My name is Monsieur Arnaud Francois-Pierre Boulet.”
“And I,” said Jehan, “am the Marquis Philippe Ermenegilde d’Hubert.” Courfeyrac shot him a look, but he offered the landlady a very properly disengaged smile. “Merry Christmas, madame.”
She scribbled down their names and covered them in praises as they went off (“the sixth floor, mind,” Courfeyrac reminded her on his way out,) and then they were gone, rushing back to Courfeyrac’s apartment to get Jehan into his ordinary clothing.
——
They had a meeting that evening, and Feuilly came, his step lighter than it had been and something bright in his eyes.
“I don’t care for people who boast about their charity,” he said, after explaining what he had found at home, “but I can’t complain right now. The rent is paid, and I’ve got time to find work.”
They all smiled, though for more reasons than Feuilly could guess, and Courfeyrac clapped him on the back with a laugh as he poured wine for everyone and assured them Feuilly would find work and that Christmas would be beautiful.
Their mission was accomplished, and Feuilly was happy.

Yours in Fraternity

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“M’sieu Feuilly!” yelled his landlady. “You’ve a letter!”
He paused with his foot on the first stair. He’d heard the same call sent at other lodgers, but it had never been for him—who was there to send him letters? But when he went to pick it up and reimburse the landlady for the postage, he recognized the handwriting.
Enjolras. Enjolras, who was currently in Lyon. But what could he have to say to Feuilly specifically? He’d have expected any letters to go to Combeferre, with relevant bits to be shared at meetings.
Feuilly climbed up five flights of stairs and let himself into his flat, settling on the edge of the bed as he unfolded the paper which bore his name and address. Several newspaper clippings fell out, but he turned his attention to the letter itself first.
“Citizen Feuilly:
I doubt the newspapers in Paris are eager to spread the word, but revolt is stirring among the working class here in Lyon. The silk workers are on the verge of strike because their salaries have fallen drastically and the manufacturers refuse to guarantee them a minimum wage as they did before the Restoration. I have enclosed some newspaper articles detailing the state of affairs, but wish to supplement them by saying that I visited one of the silk workshops myself and found the conditions absolutely inhumane. A steady and sufficient wage, when achieved for these workers, will be only a fragment of justice. Men, women, seniors, and children work fourteen to eighteen hour days in airless rooms, at all temperatures, breathing the dust of the silk and the machinery. I cannot yet manage to set down on paper everything I have heard and seen, for I wish to send this quickly, but Feuilly, please raise awareness and sympathy for these men in their fight. The Parisians must stand with them, that we may send a message to those who oppress their fellow kin through industry: no more.
I would appreciate it if you were to pass this information on to the others, that they also might do what they can. Perhaps a pamphlet.
Yours in fraternity,
Citizen Enjolras.”
Feuilly sat staring at the letter for several minutes. After he had sorted through his anger at how desperately familiar the working conditions in the silk industry sounded (he had never worked an eighteen-hour day himself, but he had done fifteen or sixteen, and knew men who had done eighteen) and formulated his initial thoughts on what could be done to join the Parisians with the Lyonnais, he smiled to himself.
The letter contained group news, but Enjolras hadn’t sent it to Combeferre. He had sent it to Feuilly. Because he knew how much Feuilly would care.
Kicking off his shoes and lighting a candle so that his eyes wouldn’t have to strain so much in the gathering dusk, Feuilly began to pore over the newspaper articles.

Move

yet_intrepid

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It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living. –Rousseau.
“I need to know, Dussart,” Feuilly said. “I’ve given you as much time as I can, but if we wait any longer to make our move, it will be too late.”
Dussart sighed, clutching the cup of cheap wine Feuilly had bought him. “I—you’re certain about committing to this, then.”
“I’ve been certain since you all started to join me in thinking about it.” Feuilly had a sip from his own cup—he could hardly justify spending the money, really, but one had to purchase the right to sit and talk in a café, and Dussart had looked like he’d needed a drink. “Has a day gone by these past three weeks that somebody hasn’t gotten docked for a mistake they fixed with a mere stroke of a brush, for a moment’s hesitance returning from noon break, or for a look that the foreman thought was out of line? Add that to the fact that they’re giving us such awful paint to work with now and faulting us when either quality or speed gets sacrificed because of it…”
“Yeah.” Dussart’s eyes drifted closed. “I know what you’ve been saying—we’ve practically taken an informal, unannounced cut in wages. And it’s true; the paint they’ve started giving us just can’t be used the same as the better stuff they used to buy. There’s no way not to get your wages slashed when they’re expecting the same pace and the same good work. But that doesn’t mean I can make it without those wages, cut or not.”
Feuilly inclined his head, his voice tired. “I know—but most of us are barely making it now, Dussart. Can you join us on strike for just three days? We’ve put together a small fund to support those who need it.” (He had sold one of his few books to contribute to that fund, he reflected with a tinge of sorrow...if the strike was unsuccessful, he might not replace it for months or even a year.) “We’re all in the same boat here, and we’re just trying to get some justice for everybody. The more united we are, the more chance we have of making ourselves heard.”
“All in the same boat?” Shaking his head, Dussart sighed. “Look, I don’t mean to be making excuses, because what you’re doing is brave and all—noble, even; I know how much more you gave to that strike fund than any of us others did. But you haven’t got a family. I’ve a wife and four kids, one just born two months ago, and my old mother who’ll probably be dead within the month. And…”
“And?” Feuilly prompted, eyebrows contracted in concern.
“…and we’re being evicted. No rent money. Gotta move.” He shrugged helplessly. “Yeah, we’re at less than full wages for the same work, and yeah, it’s not fair, but I can’t just refuse to earn right now and chase some dream of getting the best possible work conditions.”
“No.” He ran a hand over his face. “No, you can’t. –D’you have a place to go?” He could hardly imagine fitting eight people in his flat, but there were few limits on what one could do if one had to.
“We’re going to my wife’s brother’s for now. It’s not close to work and not a part of town I like to have the kids in, but what can you do? It’s either that or the streets.”
Feuilly nodded. “You do what you have to.”
“And you leave the grand thoughts to those who can afford them.” Dussart finished his drink and let out a deep, frustrated sigh. “You’ve got enough of the men striking with you that they’ll probably close down shop anyway—but at least I know that if they win out, I don’t risk losing my position.”
“They can’t sack all of us!” Feuilly argued.
“No, but they can still sack anybody they like,” Dussart countered wearily. “How do you know it won’t be you?”
“It would be me, if anyone.” Feuilly ran a hand through his hair. “Because that letter about why we’re striking and the terms we want—I’m the one writing it. Everyone’s signing, but they’ll be able to match my signature with the handwriting.”
Dussart lifted his eyebrows. “I thought Plouvier was going to write it? After all you’ve done to organize this—”
“He didn’t want to, in the end. And I know I can do it, and I don’t much mind—” He felt Dussart’s gaze on him. “What?”
He shook his head, standing up to go. “You really aren’t content to leave the grand thoughts alone, are you? Feuilly, you’ll come to no good that way—it’s too difficult when you’re trying to earn a living.”
“Rousseau said something similar.”
“Rousseau?”
“The philosopher. ‘It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.’” He quoted quietly, not without bitterness. “‘To be able, to dare to speak great truths, one must not depend on their success.’ And…sometimes I do wonder if it’s better left up to others, to bourgeois students who risk nothing by trying to stand up for us—after all, why should you have to choose between a chance of fairness at work, and whether or not your family eats, and sleeps indoors? And yet I cannot leave it.” Feuilly shook his head. “Now that a strike has been chosen, I depend on its success to keep my position, but how can I let that keep me from speaking great truths, from thinking of the best possible world and acting towards it?”
Dussart stared at him a moment. “…I have to go. Get back to the family.”
Feuilly got up. “Of course. –We’ll do what we can for you from the strike fund if they don’t let you work while most of us are gone.”
His eyes widened. “But that’s for—”
“It’s for us. The workers. The ones who need it, whether they strike or not.” He put a hand on Dussart’s shoulder as they left the café together. “Because we all understand: sometimes it is too difficult to think nobly, when one must think of earning a living.”

So Be It

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“Jehan,” Courfeyrac says, in a rare moment of solemnity. “I would be lucky to see the world as you do.”
Jehan does not know what to say.
What does one possibly say to a statement like that?
So he stays quiet, as is often his wont, and smiles and looks at the ground.
Courfeyrac laughs and teases him about the way he is blushing, and the moment passes.
*          *          *
When Jehan Prouvaire was a little child, his mother had worried for him.
“My only child, and there is something odd about him,” she had said.
“You speak so little,” she had said.
“You frighten me, always sitting there looking at me, never saying a word. Go play, my child,” she had said.
Jehan had never possessed the need that some children seemed to have, to speak to hear their own voices, to garner attention.
He had been a quiet child, with few friends and no siblings, and none of the rambunctious energy many boys possess.
He had been too busy learning and watching life go by.
Even as a child, Jehan had been filled with wonder at the world around him. (See the way those finches hop along the branches and the way the sun looks through a cloud and the vibrant colors of the flowers in his mother’s garden.)
Even as a child, Jehan fell in love easily and often.
*          *          *
Quiet boys do not always grow into quiet men.
Jehan does exactly that, however, and adulthood finds him mild-mannered, mostly-pleasant, sometimes-melancholy, still fond of songbirds and the way the sun looks through a cloud and flowers, and possessing a peculiar air of timidity that occasionally disappeared entirely when he was worked up about something.
Jehan had been a quiet child, with few friends.
He is, for most purposes, a grown man now, still quiet, and it cannot be said that he has many friends, precisely, but the friends he has are larger than life.
*          *          *
Sometimes, Jehan thinks that it is odd that so many people seem to lack the ability to see what is in front of their eyes.
Years of watching has translated into seeing, and it has served him well.
(He falls in love with the way the moon seems to watch him at night. The slightly curved lips of the girl who works in the bookshop across from the café. The sound of rain hitting thousands of rooftops across the arrondissement.)
Or not so well, as it were.
(There are so many people starving in the streets and there are not enough jobs to go around and there are mothers with dead babies in their arms and hungry children clinging to their skirts.)
It makes things difficult, occasionally, because by nature, he is both highly empathetic and highly observant.
He sees, and so he feels.
He sees the suffering all around him.
He knows he is fortunate, and he feels guilty for it.
He sees, and so he is struck with a burning desire to change things.
Quiet men are not always passive men.
*          *          *
The main part of the Café Musain is, at most times, a lively place, buzzing with a warm energy.
The backroom that Les Amis de l’Abaissé frequent is chaotic and calm by turns, and never seems to reach a happy medium.
Jehan loves the room, for its slightly crooked walls and creaky floorboards and cobwebbed corners, for the way that it seems a little too small to hold all of them at once but always manages to accommodate everybody that finds their way in, for the way the warmth spreads from the fireplace on cold nights.
He also, he supposes, loves the room for the people it contains.
He never loves the room more than when Enjolras speaks in a low, tense voice, eyes flashing, with everyone’s attention on him. When Courfeyrac stirs up a lively debate between his friends, which nearly always culminates in a shouting match. When he and Combeferre sit and discuss some lecture or essay as the others drink themselves into oblivion. When he watches Feuilly absent-mindedly doodle on a stray piece of paper as they talk. When Joly tries to convince them that he is, as a matter of fact, seriously ill.
He loves the room because he belongs. 
He can sit and watch, and speak when he has a mind to, and not fear that he has no place with these men.
They are all different, from varying families and social classes and interests, each of them that gather here.
It is of no consequence, Jehan thinks, because they are all the same in the only way that matters.
They yearn for change.
*          *          *
Jehan has his role in this peculiar group of young men.
He is the dreamer, the one who can be found sitting and staring out a window with a blank look on his face.
He is the poet, the one who scribbles on napkins and collects words and strings them together into thoughts and especially feelings.
He is the one who can be counted on to be kind, the one who can be counted on to pass no judgment. The one who can be counted on to tell no lies.
(Jehan may speak less than the others, but when he speaks, only the truth passes his lips.)
He is also the youngest, and as a result, the others seem to take particular care to make sure he does not come to harm.
He thinks that this is what it means to have brothers.
*          *          *
The others keep an eye out for him.
He does the same.
He does so surreptitiously, because no one likes another to notice his struggles.
Jehan notices them all the same.
He is an only child, and his family is well off. He has never wanted for anything, has always been able to fund his studies, has always had clothes on his back and a roof over his head and food on the table.
This makes him, if anything, more acutely aware of the fact that some of his fellows are not so fortunate.
He doesn’t meddle.
He knows, instinctively, that sometimes, when pride is all one has left, they cling to it all the more fiercely.
*          *          *
Jehan does not meddle.
On the other hand, he does not stand by and watch a friend wither away in body and spirit.
Feuilly has been out of proper work for weeks now, and the wages he earns are not enough. He is quieter and perhaps more determined than ever and there is a tired look in his eyes that never seems to leave.
Jehan watches, and he sees, and his heart breaks a little.
He cannot think what he can do to help without seeming condescending, however, and he settles for doing the only thing he possibly can-- he pulls Feuilly into deep discussions about whatever he’s noticed Feuilly studying, and if he has to read an extra book here and there to keep up with the other man-- well. It’s the least he can do. And if he, more often than not, steers the group to the Corinthe instead of the Café Musain because Courfeyrac always drinks more than is good for him and orders enough food to feed all of them and then some-- well.
He does what he can.
It does not stop him from feeling useless, though, when he’s walking to dinner with a girl he’s been seeing, holding an umbrella over them both to protect them from the sudden downpour, and he catches sight of Feuilly ducking under an awning to gain respite from the rain.
Feuilly leans against the wall wearily, shoulders slightly slumped, and closes his eyes for a second. 
Jehan aches for him.
“Jehan,” Élodie says. “What is the matter?”
“Everything,” Jehan says softly, because a world in which Feuilly and his clever fingers and sharp eyes and intelligence cannot find work better than hard manual day-to-day labour because he dared to stand up for his rights cannot possibly be right.
She looks at him, eyebrows raised.
“Everything, and nothing,” he amends. “Come, let us hurry. There is a chill in the air.”
“Yes,” she says, “And a pity, for I was so hoping to show off that lovely painted fan you had made for me.”
And Jehan freezes.
“That fan,” he says, slowly. “The painted fan I commissioned for you.”
“It is beautiful,” Élodie says, and she offers him the smile that he had fallen in love with the first time he saw it.
“Élodie,” he says, “Here, take the umbrella and go on. I will be just a moment. Please.”
“All right,” she says, “That is fine, I will wait for you inside. Are you feeling quite all right?”
“Yes,” he says, handing her the umbrella, “Yes, I think I am. Thank you, and I am sorry, but I won’t be long.”
He finds his way back to the little shop of painted fans, and bursts in, soaking wet and hopeful.
“Monsieur, please,” the owner says, sounding not a little alarmed.
“Monsieur,” Jehan says, “I apologize for my appearance. I came here and bought a fan from you several weeks ago, and I was just coming in to inquire whether you are taking on painters at this time?”
The man looks him over, and his expression clears. “Ah, yes. Prouvaire. The fan you purchased was one of my best.”
“Yes,” Jehan says, “My Élodie was enchanted. Now, monsieur, are you perhaps looking for a painter?”
The man looks puzzled, but he nods. “I am always on the lookout for anyone well-versed in the craft,” he says. 
“May I give your information to a painter I know?” Jehan asks.
“Yes,” the man says. 
“Thank you, monsieur,” Jehan says, and his heart feels lighter. “I thank you.”
And he ducks out of the shop and back into the street, and the rain seeps into his clothes and his hair and his skin and he tilts his face upwards to welcome the cool water and it feels like the beginnings of a victory of some sort.
And when he passes the man’s information to Enjolras, with a swiftly whispered explanation, Enjolras offers him a smile and a clap on the back.
And when Enjolras comes to him the next week with Feuilly’s thanks, and Feuilly comes into the back room of the Café Musain one day with a laugh and a lighter step--
Well.
Jehan does not meddle, but he does not miss opportunities to help a friend in need. 
*          *          *
Everyone is discontented.
Jehan sees it in the eyes of the people.
Maybe they are ready, he thinks to himself.
Maybe it is time for change.
*          *          *
“You are all going to die, and for what cause?” Grantaire’s voice rings out, and he is drunk as usual.
The others barely notice by now, although Combeferre casts him a disapproving look.
Jehan says, “For France, and her people. For the world, and her people. If we must die, so be it.”
“So it shall be,” Courfeyrac says, smiling impishly. He, too, has perhaps had one drink too many. “We shall all perish in our mission to save the world from injustice, and we shall be remembered for years to come. Vive la République!”
“So be it,” Jehan repeats, firmly.
He says it, and he believes it. 
He does.
But conviction does not completely drown out fear.
*          *          *
He keeps a pot of miniature pompom roses in his bedroom, by the window.
He’s had the roses for years, now-- he had brought them from home when he first moved to Paris for school.
It’s funny, he thinks, that these roses have been watching him for so long. They have seen girls come and go, have seen his friends play cards in his room, have seen him deep in his studies and deep in a bottle of wine, have seen him in moods ranging from ecstatic to morose.
Jehan thinks that maybe his roses know him better than anyone.
If roses could mourn, he thinks that they would mourn for him.
The unrest is growing by the day, and Enjolras’ intensity with it.
Les Amis de l’Abaissé plan and plot and prepare.
Jehan has thrown in his lot with the greatest group of men in Paris, the ones with the clearest eyes and bravest hearts. The ones who dare to dream of a future so much better than the times they live in now.
He thinks that great men don’t often live long lives.
He doesn’t know if he is a great man.
Sometimes, he thinks that he wants to be.
Other times, he thinks that all he wants is to finish his studies and tend his roses and live quietly to the end of his days.
He is too restless for that, though. When there is change to be had and progress to be made, he wants to be there, contributing.
Perhaps that makes him a great man.
Perhaps, in the times they live in, that makes him a doomed man.
Perhaps his roses will outlive him, he thinks, as he clips the dead leaves from the little bush.
*          *          *
It is summer.
It is hot and there is an odd tension permeating the streets and Jehan is uncomfortable.
He loves the summertime, normally, because it seems like the world is basking in the warmth of the sun and things seem a little happier.
This summer, the temperature is stifling and oppressive and heavy.
If it were possible to drown in the heat of the sun, Jehan thinks they would all be dead.
He wishes autumn would come sooner.
*          *          *
It is loud and everything is blood-red and there are guns flashing on either side of him.
He is terrified, and honest enough to admit to himself that he is.
They are going to die.
They are all going to die here, and he’s sorry for it, because they might have had so much to live for.
There are things worth living for, he thinks, and there are things worth dying for.
France and her people-- they are worth dying for.
If he is going to die, he will die proudly for his cause.
There is a moment in which he locks gazes with Enjolras. Enjolras’ blue eyes are blazing, and his mouth is stern, unapologetic. There is something in those blue eyes that accepts their fate, and welcomes it. There is not a touch of regret in his expression, although perhaps there is sadness.
Jehan draws strength from his leader and his friend.
He is going to die here, at the barricade.
He finds that he is not sorry.
*          *          *
“You are going to die,” the soldier says. 
Jehan closes his eyes briefly.
He is not sorry he is going to die.
He has always suspected that this would happen.
He has always known that it could only end like this.
He hopes that he is not in view of the others.
He hopes that they will not see him die. It would break their hearts, he thinks, because they have spent such a long time trying to keep him safe. It would break their hearts and Courfeyrac would do something rash.
He hopes that they know that he does not regret meeting them. He does not regret being one of Les Amis de l’Abaissé.
(He has known respect and friendship and brotherhood. He has seen courage and self-sacrifice and passion and faith in them. He has loved each of them, and he would not trade what he has for anything.)
The soldiers shove him to his feet. “Last words?”
Jehan takes a breath. There is so much he would like to say. So many words, on the tip of his tongue. So many words, and the poet in him savors the taste of them.
In the end, there is only one thing he can say. 
“Vive la France!” he says, letting his voice carry. “Vive l'avenir!”
He sees the flash from the guns, then hears the crack.
He has spent all his days learning to see his life.
He only has this chance to see his death.
Jehan does not close his eyes.


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