HULIN [quietly]. How well you know me! You have described me perfectly. [He smiles to himself.]
HOCHE [who comes in. He wears the uniform of a corporal of the French Guards. He carries some clothes over his arm. To MARAT]. Don't believe him, citizen. He libels himself. He never refuses the outstretched hand of misfortune. Only last week, he took command of us and freed the French Guards who were imprisoned in the Abbey by the aristocrats.
HULIN [without turning his head, extends his hand over his shoulder]. Ah, it's you, Hoche? Who has asked for your advice? You're talking nonsense! I was telling you not long ago that sometimes I feel I have too much strength, and then I knock in a door, or demolish a wall. And, of course, when I see a drowning man, I offer him a helping hand. I don't reason about those things. But I don't lie in wait for people who are going to drown, nor do I throw them into the water—like these people who start revolutions—just in order to fish them out afterward.
MARAT. You are ashamed of the good you do. I hate these people who brag of their vices. [He turns his back.] What are you carrying there?
HOCHE. Some waistcoats that I embroidered; I'm trying to sell them.
MARAT. Pretty work for a soldier! Do you mend clothes?
HOCHE. It's as good a trade as tearing them.
MARAT. Don't you blush to steal women's business? So that is what you are doing? You think of your business, you hoard your gold, when Paris is about to swim in blood!
HOCHE [quietly, and with a touch of disdain]. Oh, we have time enough. Everything in due time.
MARAT. Your heart is cold, your pulse is slow. You are no patriot. [To HULIN.] And as for you, you are worse than if you really did what you brag about! You had a decent healthy character, which you are wilfully perverting.—Oh, Liberty, these are your defenders. Indifferent to the dangers that beset you, they will do nothing to combat them! I at least will not abandon you, I alone. I shall watch over the people. I will save them in spite of themselves. [He goes out.]