He was uninjured, not in need of support, yet the two gendarmes roughly forced him up the steps, almost lifting him. Until the very last moment, he never turned his head to look at her.
Every time the guillotine blade fell, the dense crowd below erupted into thunderous cheers. Just last year, they had celebrated the king''s death in the same place with the same jubilation. For most people, there was no distinction between the two events.
When it was Quenet''s turn, the executioner also lifted his head out of the basket by a strand of his golden hair, as he did with some big shots, and held it aloft as he paraded it along the edge of the platform, displaying it to the ecstatic audience.
Edith stood amidst the crowded masses below the platform, wailing, yet unable to hear her own voice at all. Was her throat hoarse, or was it drowned out by the deafening cheers of the crowd? Why were they constantly jostling her, tossing cheerful children high in the air, and showering her head with ribbons and flowers from the baskets above?
She felt a wet stickiness beneath her feet and looked down to see a crimson-black stream of blood weaving its way through the layers of people, slowly spreading beneath her, branching out to the sides, and continuing its flow towards a lower ground in the distance.①
"Everything is all over! Everything I have ever loved, ever believed!" the girl silently cried out in her heart, as her overwhelming despair brought her a strange calmness.
After what felt like an eternity, Edith slowly emerged from her numbness and found the crowd dispersing. She followed the cart as it departed from the guillotine, walking unsteadily towards the direction of the cemetery.
A few militiamen were removing the bodies from the cart, sprinkling quicklime over the heads, covering and scorching their faces.
"What are you doing lingering around here, Mademoiselle?" one of them asked, alertly eyeing Edith.
"What have you done to him?" she asked dazedly.
The militiaman shrugged impatiently. "We''re just following the committee''s orders."
Edith lowered her gaze to the corpses strewn about in disarray. Her mind was foggy, and it took a while for her to realise their intention - to obliterate the appearance of these executed, preventing their advocates from recognising their remains.
"There''s nothing left! Even his head was not left for me!" she murmured expressionlessly to