Don’t you fret, M’sieur Marius…

”In the darkness the trees are full of starlight

And all I see is him and me for ever and for ever…”

I did not think it would end like this.  Whatever I had planned, however carefully I had constructed this scheme, I did not think it would end like this.  Not lying in a street running with blood that no amount of rain will wash away, not with my blood soaking these borrowed boys’ clothes and staining everything I touch.  It’s insane, it was always insane, but there was nothing else I could do.

And if you don’t come soon, if I die before I see you for the last time, then…then you won’t know that I followed you here, that it was my hand in front of that musket that you won’t even remember being aimed at you, that there was no way my life could be worth anything at all without you in it, because no-one’s getting out of here alive, not even you. Nothing is a guarantee of immortality; nothing even you have is protection against a darkness such as this. 

I wonder whether you would even recognise me if you saw me.  Doubtless you will wonder how I came to be here.  But you made it all too easy for me, and I never really had a choice, did I?

There was the letter, of course, although whether or not you read it you were lost to me and all was over now.  But I had your address now, so what was there to stop me from looking for you there?  So I did, I went to the Rue de la Verrerie, but – I couldn’t help wondering, forgive me, what would happen if you didn’t receive that letter, and I realised you’d go to the house in the Rue Plumet as usual and perhaps if I saw you there, then…well…so that’s where I went and…it all seems so long ago now and oh, I’ve made such a mess of everything, and I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do, and it makes sense, really, although I don’t know whether you’ll see it that way or even whether you’ll see it at all.  I didn’t think it would end like this, either.

Stupid of me to come here, really, but a life without you is no life at all.  They don’t know, back at home, that I’ve left; they don’t know that I won’t be coming back, not now.  I crept out earlier and I’ve been looking for you ever since, because if we can’t be together then – then we may as well both die.  Nothing else matters, after all; if you’re going to die for your cause – and you are, aren’t you? – then I’ll die with you.  And I think I’ll die before you now, and that’s good, that’s how it should be.  But if I die here on this street, alone in the darkness…oh, where are you…

Oh, thank God!  “Marius!”  I can’t make my voice any louder but oh, you must be able to hear me…you must be able to see me…. “I’m…at your feet.”  At your feet, Marius, where I’ve always been.

I can see your eyes widen in the lamplight as you kneel down, but you don’t know who I am, do you, all you can see is something like a corpse and a river of blood.  And perhaps a river of tears, if you look closely.  “Don’t you recognise me?”

“No.” 

I try to drag myself a little closer to you, but it’s no use, and my voice is faint and broken as I struggle to say my name.

“C-Cosette.”

And suddenly you’re as white as I must be, Marius, and every line of your face is written in agony as you almost fall onto the rain-soaked ground to take my face in your hands.  “My God, Cosette – what…”

“You remember a musket, and a hand – it was mine and…”  I’m sorry, Marius, I didn’t mean to do this to you, never wanted to see you in so much pain, but it’s better than never seeing you again. 

Or so I’d thought, when I’d decided once and for all that I wasn’t a child any more and I wasn’t going to allow you to leave me like this.  So I slipped out, Marius, after we’d moved to the Rue de l’Homme Armé, I told them I had a headache, and Father was too preoccupied to notice, I think, and I went to the address you wrote on the wall, in the Rue de la Verrerie, and asked the concierge if she’d seen the boy I’d given my letter to, and she said he’d waited for you for over an hour then left with your friend M. Courfeyrac, so…I went back to our garden, Marius, thinking you’d gone back there, and there was the boy I’d been looking for – only she was a girl, and she told me you’d gone to the barricade in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and…I made her exchange clothes with me so I could follow you there and try to talk you out of this lunacy, Marius, but it didn’t work out quite as I’d hoped.

And here I am.  And suddenly it seems very important that I tell you all this as quickly as I can because I don’t know how much time there is left, but it’s too painful even to breathe just now, so I think I’ll just lie back against your knees, Marius, and… She wasn’t happy, the girl in the Rue Plumet, and perhaps she loved you, and perhaps she’d gladly take my place now if I hadn’t insisted and she hadn’t given in. 

It doesn’t matter.  We’ll never know.  We don’t need to.

And I’m not really aware of anything any more, only your arms around me and your voice, though it’s trembling, rather: “I’m here…”

That’s all I need to know.

(Told you I should stick to parodies – September ’02)

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