World: Paris
Scene: The title is Laura's. Does it look like one of mine? The concept was Meghan's, to begin with. I ran with it. Forgive me.
Players: Grantaire = Abby; Enjolras = Laura
Enjolras reads aloud from the pamphlet in his hand, "It is unfair that some people should have riches while others have none." He shakes his head, admonishes it, "That should be money," and, brandishing his pen, revises it accordingly. "It is unfair that men and women have different chances in the world. No, unequal rights."
"And so on, and so forth," comes a low, rough voice from the corner, "several different ways, each more excruciating than the last. Surprised you don't sprain something, trying to wrest a point out of all that."
Enjolras crosses out several words in the next sentence before answering. "I am constantly surprised at the lack of sense in everything you say. In other words, the feeling is mutual."
Grantaire slouches yet a little further down in the chair. "Well, yes. Even I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about, half the time. 's much simpler that way."
"Useless," Enjolras throws back as he strikes out another offending word. "Wasteful. Too much, instead of sufficient."
"Oh, of what? My time's my own, and words're cheap. What's your complaint?"
"Tiresome, tedious, repetitive," Enjolras mutters, mostly to himself, then, when he finishes revising a paragraph, he looks up at Grantaire, begins to say something, and interrupts himself with a sigh. "You are wasting my time at the moment. You should do what they tell me to do: find a beautiful girl, settle down, be a responsible citizen."
"That's six different words you've just used to tell me I talk too much." Grantaire holds up the requisite number of fingers to illustrate. "Maybe I should. I don't see you doing it."
"Fear not, you will not see such a thing, no matter how much time you waste in observing." Enjolras dissects the leaflet further. "Redundant, simplistic, incoherent."
"You should." It's perhaps gentler than before.
"Why?" This expostulation is elaborated upon. "Why use precious time and money for useless pursuits? And," to the paper, "why say it like that? It is not sensible."
Grantaire watches him with that guarded look. "Exactly. Say what like what?"
"Nothing," Enjolras answers airily. He finishes the page and attempts to resolve the situation before going on to the next. "You of all people must understand my objection to the pointless courtship rituals of my friends. You deal with the matter in an entirely different manner; not better, but different."
Grantaire sits up a little at that, with more energy than he's shown in months. "What's that supposed to mean?" For once he's on the defensive.
"You and your 'j'aimons les filles,' your... I do not know the right words. Groping the dishwasher, Grantaire." Enjolras shakes his head. "It is pathetic."
"You should try it sometime," with half-hearted flippancy, and then, more melancholy, "You have no idea."
"Of course you would know what ideas I do and do not have." Enjolras turns the page in the leaflet, but does not look at it. "You are the expert on my mind, are you not?"
"Oh, perish the thought. I don't know anything. I wouldn't presume."
"Wouldn't you? I believe you did but a moment ago." Enjolras looks at the paper irritably. "Again the author talks about women. Why this fixation? Must you call them 'dependent upon their breadwinners,' Monsieur?" He takes up his pen again to destroy the phrases he has been questioning.
Grantaire mutters, "There's worse things to be fixated on."
"There are far better subjects, as well, and more important, besides."
Grantaire snorts, fumbling for his glass. "Like men? Now there's a vast improvement."
Enjolras glances over, his eyebrows lifted. "Would you rather hear a discourse on helping people who are not like you?"
Dark eyes fix on him, with a strange look, and the glass goes back down on the table. "Ah, now that's a fine and noble argument."
"What is it to you if a woman had more rights than she does now? You would still be there in your stagnant corner, and what would that woman care about your opinion?" Enjolras shrugs slightly. "Go back to your wine. Your rights are as safe as mine."
"There speaks the voice of the people!" No one can put quite as much acid into that sort of remark as Grantaire. "The well-to-do adult male people only, mind you, but still! what a voice! by God, he's inspiring!"
Enjolras looks away, disgusted. "You have enough troubles in your own life without worrying about the beleaguered ladies. Learn to sit upright, learn not to drink, then talk to me as a sensible man and tell me why it matters to you."
Grantaire laughs harshly. "You wouldn't believe it if I did." And sits back abruptly, folding his arms. "I'm just damned amused," though he sounds less amused than bitter. "You aren't such a paragon after all, are you."
Enjolras turns back. "Are you accusing me of hypocrisy, Monsieur? I would not believe you? How do you know that? How dare you tell me that I do not do what I say?"
"I accuse you of nothing, Monsieur. I wouldn't dare." Grantaire regards him with an expression so mocking as to be a challenge. "You'd put me squarely in my place, I don't doubt."
"You are already in your place, are you not? Pinned to a chair in the back of a cafe, held down by the weight of drunkenness, able to affect the world only by throwing verbal darts at anyone who will listen?" Enjolras draws himself up. "I, for one, can ignore your pointless sallies, and I shall. Taken as a whole, your conversation and manner make no sense."
"Oh, of course not, I--" Grantaire breaks off mid-sarcasm, blinks, glances down a moment. Continues after a moment, but with less fire, "At least I don't waste my time trying to argue with a rag of silly paper, there." A grin twists. "I waste it honestly."
"You mean you waste it by wasting my time." Enjolras shakes his head. "I did not ask for this. If you want to debate a subject with me, name your topic. Ten paces, turn and shoot. Stop this petty semantic bickering."
Grantaire evinces a wry grin, then. "Verbal duel, is it? My God, everything's warfare with you."
"Better warfare than sloth."
Silence then, for a minute. Then Grantaire chuckles a bit, dryly. "All right. All right then, I'll take you up on it. What the hell."
Enjolras's curiosity is piqued by this, but he does not want to admit it. "Gracious of you. Choose your weapon, Monsieur."
Grantaire studies him a minute, still with that faint humorless grin, then: "Since we were on the subject-- rights of women." The quotation marks are audible.
"They are as important as those of men. However, since women will have little to no part in the revolution, when it comes, we shirk discussion of the subject." Enjolras seems to have forgotten the ten paces of his metaphor. "We will fight to secure the rights of humans."
"Words." Grantaire's gaze is surprisingly keen. "Words, and I've caught you out, monsieur. 'There are far better subjects', you said to me just now, to be thinking of, 'and more important besides.'"
"It is an unimportant subject because it is subsumed in the greater cause," Enjolras says in his own defense. "Pondering how to increase the lot of a given group of people is not worthwhile unless thought is also given to increasing others thereby. If the lot of men is improved, they will pass on that wealth of freedom to their wives, daughters, mothers, and sisters."
"How gracious of them," dryly, "if they so condescend."
Enjolras blinks. "Condescension has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic at hand."
Grantaire shifts position slightly, the better to gaze sardonically up at him. "Doesn't it? Then what was that last statement about? Let me tell you, m'sieur, you sorely overestimate the benevolence of the human race if you think any one segment of it will give up anything to any other segment unless it has to. Civilized men like yourself, of course" with paper-edge delicacy "are all very willing to, how did you put it, 'pass on the wealth of freedom' to your womenfolk, just as you give them pocket money, because they're such dear little things. But not everyone's such a gentleman."
Enjolras returns the gaze with narrowed eyes. "When I have fought my way, tooth and nail, to liberty, I will bring it home to my sisters and my mother. I have no mistress, as you know well, as everyone knows well. I would offer her my prize if I did, not as pocket money, but as a breath of the same clean air I hope to breathe. Civilized men like me -- did you mean, by that, unlike you? -- have the responsibility to help everyone they can. We haven't the strength or numbers to flood every quarter of the city and liberate every woman there by ourselves. Have some faith in your fellow man. Even those who are uneducated have hearts, and even the heartless may learn from examples. We the "gentlemen" will set examples daily."
"Why not let them liberate themselves? Hell! Why not recruit 'em and see if they don't fight as well as the boys? You're hiding behind chivalry, m'sieur, and it's unbecoming."
Enjolras throws up his hands. "Liberate themselves? Recruit women? They might die!"
Grantaire lifts a hand, lets it fall. "So might you."
"Believe me, mon ami, I am aware of that." Enjolras's voice has lost its fire. "I will not be responsible for the deaths of women."
"No; they'd be responsible for their own, like any of the poor boys you have in here every day." The peculiar note of gentleness is back. "Or don't you think the feminine mind is capable of understanding risks?"
"That would depend on the woman. Most of them are trained not to use their minds."
"Oh, to be sure! and what about those of us--" Grantaire coughs suddenly. "-- 'scuse me --those who are? For that matter, you don't balk at exhorting fools in trousers. Thinking hasn't seemed to be a requirement before now."
"What?" Enjolras asks when Grantaire falters and says something extremely confusing, but he is ignored at the time. "Thought has always been a requirement. That is why you were excluded to the degree that you allowed yourself to be excluded."
"Damned right, I allowed. If I wanted to play soldiers, I could talk just as prettily about liberty as you all do. I'm not bloody well interested." A trifle defensive, perhaps?
"What on earth are you doing here, then? Wasting your time and mine."
Grantaire recovers his flippancy. "I like the company. Besides which, I'm the depressing exception to everything, as you ought to know by now. I asked you, what about the women who do use their heads?"
"The company!" This draws a reluctant laugh from Enjolras. He shakes his head and focuses again. "Women who use their heads are in short supply. If they have no family who would be hurt by their participation in a dangerous act of treason, they are welcome to join us."
Grantaire points a finger. "What about your own family, fearless leader? What do they think? Would it matter to 'em more if your sister took to playing republican?"
Enjolras contemplates this. "Since I have been allowed to leave home, and they have not, save for special occasions, I do not imagine that they would be at all encouraged to take up revolutionary ideals. More upset? I do not know. My father is upset with me sometimes because I am his only son. I have never asked my mother whether she would be less irritable with one of my sisters because there are three of them."
Grantaire sighs with labored patience. "The point, m'sieur. And here you were telling me I babble. Come to the point, if you will. Are you or are you not in this crusade of yours on behalf of men and women both?"
"Yes. I have said as much, several times in this farcical conversation." Enjolras shakes his head. "I have been assuming that you were listening. Foolish of me."
"On the contrary. I have been listening attentively." Grantaire rakes his unruly hair back from his eyes. "And do you or do you not believe that women deserve the same rights as men, on the same terms?"
"They do. But men and women are not the same, as you well know. Each has their talents and inborn gifts, and should be recognized for them."
Another twisted grin. "Prettily put." Grantaire sits forward, picks up the glass, drains it. "I stand by my statements. You've a flaw or two in your marble."
The comment about marble is completely lost on Enjolras, but the sense of the rest gets through. "Pardon me, Monsieur. I do not believe I ever asked you to judge me and tell me whether I was a misogynist or whether I truly held to the concept of egalité. Thank you for your verdict, but no thank you."
Grantaire raises dark eyes, leaning on the table. "I never asked you to judge me, either, tell me if my life's worthwhile or whether I've rights under your everlasting bloody bedamned Republic."
"Grantaire!" The infrequently used name is all Enjolras can muster; no epithet for this person who is nearly defeating him in a battle of wits. "Of course you will have rights under the Republic, same as every other man. Why wouldn't you?"
Grantaire seems to recoil slightly, not in defeat but like a creature about to strike. "Here you just got done telling me--" And then blinks, with a look of consternation, before glancing away. "Hell with it," gruffly, to cover a tremor.
"You are incredibly aggravating," Enjolras says in an irritable voice. "Not only are you perpetually confused, but it is contagious."
Grantaire flicks a finger at the empty glass, still not looking at him. "I'm not the one who's confused, my boy."
"Do not address me in that manner." Enjolras glares at Grantaire. The effect is less because it is not seen.
"Oh, have I forgotten my place again?" with a queer little sing-song twist. "Do forgive me, m'sieur."
"Once again, I have forgotten why I allow you to engage me in conversation." Enjolras turns back to the pamphlet he was editing.
Grantaire buries his face in his hands, trembling slightly.
Enjolras does not notice. If he did notice, his concern would be negligible.
Left effectively alone, Grantaire scrubs away a few useless tears; tucks back the persistent strands of dark hair with the careful, delicate gesture previously avoided. Huskily, with no real expectation of an answer: "Have it your way, then."
"I am attempting to do just that, thank you," Enjolras answers, marking the text with quick, angry strokes.
"You're blind," Grantaire says with unwonted vehemence, his voice threatening to crack, and pushes unsteadily to his feet.
Enjolras looks up. "What? Explain or be silent."
"You're blind, I say. To any number of things." He sounds peculiar; uneven, somehow. "I can't believe this. --Look at me." And suddenly fierce: "Look at me!"
Enjolras obeys, studying Grantaire for a few moments. "You look awful."
"Blind." Grantaire laughs a little, one hand braced steadyingly on the table, and something like terror in the dark eyes. "You don't see, do you? You don't know," softly.
"I have no idea what you are referring to in the first place." Enjolras frowns. "If you want me to understand, you will have to give me some kind of context."
Grantaire's hand tightens on the edge of the table. "You don't know." Again the laughter, strangely soft, though bitter. "I've done something right, then."
Enjolras looks away again as he loses patience. "What have you done that was right?"
Laughter. It might almost be a giggle. "You don't know everything, after all." A thin hand comes to rest on his shoulder. "Look at me?"
"Are you ill?" Enjolras inquires. He looks again and tries to correlate the almost-giggle with the familiar face of Grantaire.
"No, no... No more than usual. But you don't see... God, I--" A marked hesitation. "I-- my name is Zephyrine." And she looks down and away swiftly as though this confession is going to get her hit.
Enjolras's jaw drops. "Your name is... mon Dieu." He looks at her more closely now, and sees what his eyes refused to note before. Paradigm shifts are like that. "Zephyrine." He almost laughs. "It does not suit you, mam'selle. Tell me, why do you seek the company of madmen like me? What is it about us that drives you to renounce your feminine estate? You know what I would have said if I had thought you were a woman, that first day. I am sure you would not be here tonight."
Zephyrine pushes violently away from him, shaking, and drops back into her chair. "No, I'm damn sure I wouldn't. You'd have told me run along and stop the nonsense, wouldn't you, God damn you, Apollo. I know it doesn't suit me." She gestures at herself, awkwardly. "This does. As much as anything. Oh, hell, what have I done."
"Believe me when I tell you I have no idea," Enjolras says quietly. In a reversal of his earlier behavior, he continues studying her. He keeps expecting to realize that he should have known long before, but instead, he understands how complete her disguise was. "What possessed you to tell me? I would never have guessed."
"Because, I--" Oh, God, no, don't say that. She swallows something, says gruffly instead, "The way you were going on earlier, I don't know, I thought, by damn, I'll show him inborn gifts, whatever the hell you said... I... I don't know. I got tired of it. Tired of lying to you. I don't know."
"Tired of lying to me. That is very interesting. Have you become tired of lying to my friends yet? Do they know? Mam'selle, you are not that much older than I am. What do your parents think of your masquerade? Do they even know?"
Zephyrine draws back a little. "You aren't your friends. I-- God, you really don't know anything at all, do you? Parents're dead. I... oh, it doesn't matter." She tucks back her hair again, then scowls. "And don't call me mam'selle. God."
"I am sorry for your loss." That comes out sincere and meaningful, unlike everything else Enjolras says. He seems to be bemused beyond sense. "You expect me to know so much, Grantaire, mam'selle, Zephyrine, whomever you are. I am not an oracle, not a god, though you persist in labelling me one. I obviously know less than nothing about you and the way you see my friends. I am not them; that is self-evident. I do not understand why that should matter. I do not know if I truly want to find out."
"No, I expect you don't." She scrubs both hands over her face, and leans on the table, entirely unladylike. "Grantaire's fine. Or Zephyr, if you like. My brother called me that... it's less God-awfully inappropriate, anyway." A wry grin. "Lead you to expect some delicate little thing. I... oh, God. God, this is terrible. I'm sorry."
"I expect I shall survive." Enjolras blinks at her again. "You must go to such a lot of trouble for all of this."
"What, trouble? Forge a few letters, learn how to flirt with the waitresses...." Zephyrine laughs wryly. "If you saw me in a dress, you'd know. I was a perfectly dreadful girl."
Enjolras blushes and looks away from her. He sees the leaflet, forgotten on the table. "I should be going."
She looks up, frowning. "You needn't. I'm sorry. I'll let you be, I... I know I talk too much. You've told me often enough, God knows." The latter half of this is distinctly gruffer than the former, nearly as usual.
"You are scaring me," he admits. "Pick a person to be, please. Who are you?"
Zephyrine starts to speak, and breaks off. Her hand closes reflexively around the forgotten glass. "Myself. This is me. Always has been, really. It's yours to decide, not mine. If you still can't stand the sight of me, or... or not." She shrugs.
"Please do not expect me to know that today." Enjolras almost sounds as if he's pleading. "I do not understand any of this."
She looks at her hands. Then, "I'll let you be." And climbs to her feet once more, ungracefully, and snags her coat from the back of the chair. Hesitating: "You won't... tell them...?"
A pause. "It is your secret. I would not."
"Merci," in a husky whisper. She shrugs the coat on, and heads for the door. "Good night, Marcelin." And is gone.
Enjolras stares after her, then shakes his head. "I knew I did not understand Grantaire." He goes back to editing the leaflet.