“In my newspaper, the one I have just started, twenty numbers having appeared. It is ‘The Friend of the people or the Parisian Publicist,’ an impartial political organ. To pay for the paper and the printing—look behind you—I have sold the sheets and blankets off my bed.”
Turning, Gilbert indeed saw that Sebastian lay on the mattress absolutely bare, but he had fallen asleep, overcome with pain and fatigue. He went up to him to see that it was not a swoon, but reassured by the regular breathing he, returned to this journalist, who irresistibly inspired him with the interest we feel for a hyena, tiger or other wild beast.
“Who help you in this gigantic work?” he inquired.
“My staff?” sneered Marat. “Ha, ha, ha! the geese fly in files: the eagle soars alone. My helpers are these,” and he showed his head and hands. “I write the whole paper single handed—I can show you the copy, though it runs into sixteen pages octavo sometimes, and often I use small type though I commenced with large. So, it is not merely a newspaper—but a personality—it is Marat!”
“Enormous labor—how do you manage it?” asked the other doctor.
“It is the secret of nature—a compact I have made with death. I have given ten years of my life, so that I need no rest by day and no sleep by night. My existence is summed up in writing: I do it day and night. Lafayette’s police coop me up in this cell, where they chain me body and soul to my work: they have doubled my activity. It was heavy on me at first but I am inured to it. It delights me now to see poor humanity through this airhole, by the narrow and slanting beam. From my gloomy den I judge mankind living, and science and politics without appeal. With one hand I demolish the savants, with the other the politicians. I shall upset the whole state of things, like Samson destroying the Temple, and under the ruins perhaps crushing me, I shall bury the throne!”
In spite of himself the hearer shuddered: in his rags and the poverty-stricken vault this man repeated very nearly what Cagliostro had said in his palace under his embroidered clothes.
“But when you are so popular, why do you not try for a nomination in the National Assembly?” he asked.
“Because the day has not come for that,” replied the demagogue; expressing his regret, he continued, “Oh, were I a tribune of the masses, sustained by only a few thousand of determined men, I answer for the Constitution being perfectly safe in six weeks: the political machine should move better: no villain would dare play ticks with it: the Nation should be free and happy: in less than a year, it should be flourishing and redoubtable: and thus would it remain while I was erect.”
The vain creature was transformed under Gilbert’s eyes: his eyes became bloodshot; his yellow skin shone with sweat; the monster became great in his hideousness as another is grand in his beauty.