ng, she silently withdrew to the shadow in the corner.
"I am lucky," Madame Roland murmured, stroking the letter as if caressing her lover''s body. "Finally, I can kiss you now without fear or shame. Finally, I can give myself completely to my love!"
Once again, she pressed the miniature to her bosom. "Promise me you will live on, my love! For if I were to die, my husband would not survive!"①
"Then, Manon, I should leave now," Edith said in a low voice, reluctant to interrupt the lady''s reverie. "You...take care of yourself."
But as she turned to leave, Edith heard Madame Roland sigh behind her.
"Don''t blame too much that Quenet of yours! In the face of the revolution''s tumultuous waves, each one of us is nothing but negligible pebble! "
The maiden paused for a moment, before walking slowly out of the dim prison.
---------------------
In these days, the fleeing Girondins were inciting federalist rebellions in various places.
Had Madame Roland not spoken those words about gender alliance to Edith, the young girl''s revolutionary fervor, like that of the newsboy outside the ventlight and of most people of this era, would have already turned her admiration for this former idol into contempt, even hatred.
But now, as a woman, Edith sympathised with her in a complex way. She knew Madame Roland''s fate was fraught with only grim possibilities. Regardless of whether Manon was guilty or not, such a punishment would undoubtedly be unjust.
"What a contradictory woman Manon is!" Edith recalled the heart-stopping scene she witnessed in the prison and said to herself, "She has such a keen insight into the essence of things, yet lets herself bound by such harsh moral chains!"
However, the scene of Manon emotively kissing the miniature of Buzot allowed the maiden to taste untimely a sort of romantic and dramatic passion. Due to the destined tragic ending of their love, such a posture of die-for-love took on even more artistic hues in Edith''s eyes.
"For a girl like me, love must be perfect and flawless!" She touched her chest with her hand and silently recited in her heart.
She again pondered Madame Roland''s final echo before her departure.
"But what w