Le 13 Juillet

On Sunday Mary wrote the following in her diary: I want to drown myself.

Although we do not know why Mary wrote this, dear reader, we can say with certainty that it is false.Mary did not like the feeling of suffocation or choking, and water in the nostrils has a burning sensation like drinking seawater.Death is perfectly capable of choosing the method (a choice, of course, not necessarily made by the person himself), and Victorval had delivered apple pie last night.

 It was July 13th, so in the morning Mary went to the swimming pool.She swam not out of interest or anything like that, but simply to accomplish a mechanical physical exercise.Physical exertion became a good medicine to numb the mind, and that's exactly what Mary did, oddly enough choosing breaststroke over freestyle- it would give her brain more time to think.

 Stirring her sides, paddling her hands, inhaling, burying her head, stirring her legs- Mary felt like a poor drowning fish with millions of tons of water pressure sinking down her spine.

Mary's fluffy brown curls were braided and tucked into her silicone swimming cap; her hair wasn't too long, slightly longer than St. Juste's in the portrait and much shorter than St. Juste's in the movie, and if she removed the cap and spread it out completely, she wouldn't be as innocent as Ophelia in the water; if she went to the guillotine, she'd be at the right length to be easily lifted up by the executioner's hand!--Mary's hair was as ordinary as her name.

Fifty meters into the swim Mary missed the turn because she remembered Charlotte Corday ① and had to slow down and slap the water so as to keep her feet on the bottom of the pool.The man who had assassinated Mara had the same Christian name as Robespierre's sister, just as if St. Joust had also carried Louis in his name.Marie's brain danced a salsa with delight, which made her body heavier and heavier, and in the water everything seemed to become blurred, she struggled, meaninglessly reciting the names of people in her head: Robespierre, St. Baptiste, Desmoulins, Danton ...... all of these people went to the guillotine!Robespierre had been shot in the jaw, St. Jost wore an earring in one ear②, and his face was calm and solemn.Desmoulins had a wife and children, and Danton had a wife- they were both guillotined together by Robespierre, with whom Desmoulins had once been a high school classmate.In whose name?In the name of the National Guild.

Swimming is just a poor excuse for the fact that there is more difference between water and land than a few whales, and that in water we learn the tricks of survival: keep breathing and stop thinking.Yet Mary just wanted to use it to escape, to escape from life and death, from the diary, and maybe fromVictoire- she had the religious name of Sister St. Joust, but always baked pies.There is a visceral sense of humanity about her that Mary cannot imitate.

 Mary floated in the water, her face smooth, as if she had grown in the water in the first place③.She jolted up out of the water and licked the puffy skin that had risen from her pink-and-white, chapped lips, as if she were a cat licking cream.She drilled through the plastic rope separating the pools and walked on the cold tile floor, and Mary thought: so this is what land is like after all!

At noon Mary hiked home, she walked around the asphalt road and into the tiny park.Mary's bare feet hit the wet dirt- she felt everything, the sun the sky the insects the wind the leaves, the rain, the rain, the rain!Mary felt as if everything was coming at her quickly and turbulently.Was this life?Mary blinked her eyes in bewilderment, as if she were Adam born in the Garden of Eden on the first day, and glassy teardrops slid rapidly down her face, their significance, however, was not one of sadness, but only one of a perplexity bordering on ignorance.What was the point of human beings having entrails, assuming this was life?

Mary approached her house far away, still surrounded by that foggy sadness-it was an inescapable, heavy dark gray, as if it were the deep end of a swimming pool or the dust that accumulated in the corners.She touched around helplessly, smelling only a burnt fruity odor, and then one thing was established in this poor man's world as if it were a nail in a fence: Victorval had come. Marie exhaled softly; she felt as if she were leaning toward Grantaire, and therefore murmured mockingly, My cuprunneth over④.

Victorval, Victorval in an eighteenth-century bodice, Victorval who is always baking fruit tarts, Victorval who has the name of a horrible archangel⑤ blood relative, Victorval who is sunny, human-sensitive, and long on entrails, Victorval, your name is Victory⑥!Mary pushed open the woodendoor, and she was heardto ask: Mary, would you like milk or tea?

The heat of this impulse confused Mary-what a clamor of human words.It almost had an oscillating effect on Mary's mind; why was it always necessary to inquire?A terrified irritation rose from Mary's stomach to her throat, but it was Victoire.So she replied dizzily, Tea, thank you.

Mary walked quietly to the table, where Victoire was cutting fruit tarts and mouthing boring things about which gentleman had married which lady again, and Mary just nodded, as if she were a dog with bared teeth and no idea what to do.She picked up the white porcelain plate and mechanically stuffed her mouth with the failed dessert, as if she were a patient suffering from bulimia and only knew how to execute biological instincts without stopping-she was consuming food as love, she breathed, and, though unknowingly, she was eating, never stopping eating, as if she were swimming, and she was executing the secret of everlasting survival.

When she finished wiping her mouth, Victoire was gently sipping her coffee, which made Marie want to laugh, so the muscles of her face twitched nervously, as if it were Robespierre described by Hugo in Ninety-Three Years.Victoire glanced at her with a hint of reprimand, but her thin lips remained tightly closed, only opening a crack when the piping hot coffee was about to flow in.

For Marie, Victoire represented love, which was the exact opposite of her own.No, that's not accurate- Marie could be some kind of ghost from the eighteenth century, who heard a knock on the door when she was still in her mother's womb: knock, knock, who's there?Marie replied: Marie Dupré (7), followed by an annoying laugh, and she was born into the world.Mary stands in the middle of Victoire and death as if she were a newborn baby, performing only the instincts of eating and groping.What was Mary to the world?Just a canine pup trying to understand everything, and Maryhasn't even figured out what love is yet!

Now that we're on the subject, a discussion is necessary- it's basic courtesy.Mary found love to be a very difficult thing, and falling in love from an ordinary life was like jumping from a frying pan into a fire.So do I love Victoire?Mary thought, her face taking on a look akin to melancholy, her hair smelling faintly of salt water.In the moment of her thoughts, everything about Victorval swished through her brain like a movie.Having never seen Victorval's torso, Mary took the liberty of visualizing it as a broken red pomegranate fruit.So it was.She nodded.If that's the case, and Victoire is only a human with internal organs, then what makes me love her a little more than other humans?

All humans have flaws, and ever since God broke one of Adam's ribs, it's been a given.Robespierre, who refused to give his name on the eighth day of the hot moon, the impulsive Hamilton, the self-contradictory Jefferson, St. Joust, who went to the guillotine with Robespierre for what he believed to be the truth-love is more painful and difficult than enduring death by a thousand cuts. With that, Mary decided that love turned out to be nothing more than a piece of scented candle that had been cobbled together and starved, and that human beings consumed it only to scent their selves, not caring whether the knife and fork of love would slice up their own stomachs or not. Love is such a thing, but what about life?Humans claimed they knew life as they knew God through miracles⑧. Unwilling to waste any more of her mind thinking about the matter, Mary then raised her head abruptly and asked Victoire: Do you think I deserve to die?

No.Victoire shook her head, her face as stiff as a pulped collar, her voice shaking carelessly.What makes youthink that?

Nothing.Mary said, unconsciously pouring down a mouthful of hot tea.A wordless quiet was then maintained between them, like soaking water.Mary only loved Victorval at such times, the stoic, preoccupied, statue-like Victorval the Crystal Man who didn't grow entrails or bake fruit tarts-just the slightest movement of her lips, and Mary's love for her would snap and crumble like a dampenedsugar chip. It's tomorrow, July fourteenth.Victorval said. Well, the fourteenth of July.Mary replied with a nod.

Victorval asked, Have you forgotten?Mary said, What?

Tomorrow is Bastille Day.Victoire's voice was soft, like a piece of cotton torn into strips of alcohol, beautiful and pungent.Mary thought it was funny and laughed.

Yeah, Bastille Day, Mary's teeth jabbed out sharply.She thought of the litany of names she'd recited in the pool- in a few years they'd be going to the guillotine in batches, as if it were some kind of poorly rated sitcom: haircut, ride in the torture van, and then die.Poor Papa Duchet⑨, he thought he was going to bethe next Mara!

Then live to see tomorrow!Marie thought.Live until Bastille Day, so that means you can't die today- youmust live until tomorrow.Marie said to Victoire: You should go.

Victorval walked out of the wooden door, and glanced at Mary before he left, which made Mary close the door hastily-the sight of a man was to her what sunlight is to a vampire, and the sight of Victorval was like a shining silver dagger.Mary jumped up at once, and was out of the door on her stale leather shoes; where was she going?Mary didn't know herself, she just snapped her leather shoes on like slippers all the way out the door like this.

Tomorrow is so nice!Mary smiled sunnily, as if tomorrow were a warm fireplace.Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.Could one hold out against the laws of nature and live to see tomorrow?Would tomorrow be the day to learn what life was all about?Probably.Mary looked upward at the tile-blue sky-if the earth were a blue orange, the sky would probably be a more viscous kind of ocean!At least living to-morrow was such a chilly, mold-free feeling, as if one had two hearts inside one. Mary walked across the tarmac, her cheeks a rose-like pink.

Bang!

A truck ran over her bones, so Mary's body lay on that road, her face and side sprinkled with red nail polish.Her smile seemed to be frozen in wax and the truck evaporated like a ghost all at once well!Now we know how short and terrible is the breath of man!(10)

Notes: ①The assassin who assassinated Mara

②Most likely a rumor

③From the description of Ophelia's death in Hamlet

④from Les Misérables

⑤refers to St. Juste

⑥Victor Valis French for Victory.

⑦Dupré is the surname of the landlord of Robespierre (an 18th century politician)

(8) from a letter from St. Just to Robespierre

(9) A reference to Ebert, who was arrested and beheaded by the National Salvation Committee.

(10) Excerpts from "Ninety-Three Years"