THE WORKINGMEN [outside, singing]:
"We forge and saw with all our might
Making muskets for the fight.
Soldier boys, you'll have enough
If we have to work all day and night,
For we forge and saw with all our might."
MADAME DUPLAY [smiling]. They've just filled an order for the Northern Army; they're starving to death, but they're happy.
ROBESPIERRE. Sublime people! How good it is to be one of them! Who could forgive those who try to corrupt that source of abnegation and sacrifice? [WESTERMANN is heard muttering outside.]
MADAME DUPLAY. There's the General. He's getting impatient.
ROBESPIERRE. Send him in. [MADAME DUPLAY goes out. ROBESPIERRE looks into his mirror. In an instant, his face is transformed; becoming hard, immobile, and cold. WESTERMANN enters.]
WESTERMANN. Good God, not a moment too soon! I've been walking up and down outside for the last two hours. It's harder to enter your house than a Vendée city. [ROBESPIERRE, his hands behind his back, motionless, face stolid, lips contracted, looks WESTERMANN in the eye. WESTERMANN stops for a moment, then continues.] I thought you didn't want to receive me. Desmoulins told me you wouldn't. I swore you would, if I had to send a cannon-shot through the front-door. [He laughs.] Pardon my military frankness. [ROBESPIERRE stands as before. WESTERMANN, ill at ease, tries to appear natural.] Lord, you're well guarded. There's a very pretty girl on guard at the door. She's mending socks. She's hard to deal with—incorruptible, like you! I'd have had to enter over her dead body—! If I were in the enemy's country, that wouldn't have been so bad-[He gives a forced laugh. ROBESPIERRE maintains silence, and twists his hands impatiently. WESTERMANN sits down, trying to appear at his ease, while ROBESPIERRE stands. WESTERMANN then rises.] There are some idiots who say that I'm your enemy. I don't give a damn what they say. How can I be the enemy of virtue? Nonsense! Aristides the enemy of Leonidas? The bastion of the Republic and the rampart of the Patrie! Why, they're meant to help each other! Good fellows like us always put the glory of the nation above everything, don't we? We understand, don't we? [He offers his hand. ROBESPIERRE does not move a muscle.] He won't give me his hand, eh? Won't you, really? Are you my enemy, then? You're planning to ruin me? By God, if I thought that—! Am I a good-for-nothing blackguard to be kept waiting for two hours in the street, and then when you finally let me in, you don't even offer me a chair? You let me stand up, and don't even answer me? By God! [He stamps on the floor.]
ROBESPIERRE [glacially]. General, you are on the wrong track. There is a great difference between Leonidas and Père Duchesne. You take your models from a dangerous quarter.
WESTERMANN [surprised]. What quarter?
ROBESPIERRE. The Revolution.