Julien was immersed in a deep sleep, mainly peopled with erotic dreams. Dawn was about to begin when the deep peace of the night was broken by a far buzzing that gradually increased until it transformed into an uproar of shouts, yells, and curses. A flood of countrymen, swollen by the peasants and inhabitants of the nearby village, and by not a few agitators sent expressly from Paris, brandishing pitchforks, scythes, truncheons and torches, poured into Jambville Castle.
In the old times, that castle stood up to much stronger assaults without problems. However now, the filled-up moats, the defence walls disappeared for generations, the several openings made in the building, and above all the fact that some servants, in accordance with the assaulters, made sure they found some of the doors open, resulted in the castle being invaded without even the semblance of a resistance.
The first to wake up were the Count and some servants who, as soon as they grasped the situation, tried to organize some defence, barring and barricading some internal doors.
Julien didn't sleep on the first floor of the central wing like his parents, but rather on the second floor of a backside tower. He didn't wake up soon, but only when from the castle they started to fire pistols and some from the crowd answered the fire. Julien didn't understand at once the reason for all those noises, but when he went to his window and saw the torches and the yelling flood pouring inside the castle, he remembered his brother's accounts and understood. Their castle hadn't had problems when in July 1789 the first assault to the castles had happened. Now its turn had arrived.
He, frightened, withdrew from the window and, in the dark, started to hurriedly dress while thinking what he could do. He was slipping on his trousers when the door to his room opened. Julien sprang straight up, tense, ready to face the intruder he barely could see. The sound of a hesitant voice came from the doorframe.
"Master?"
Julien didn't recognize the voice and kept silent, all his senses alert, asking himself where he had a weapon... However, the fact that the intruder didn't shout, had called him master, and had remained still at the door soothed somewhat his worry.
"I am Jaquot, sir, where are you?"
"Jaquot?" Julien whispered astounded and almost unbelieving, then added, "What are you doing here? You want to take your revenge on me?"
"My revenge? What are you saying! There is no time to lose, you have to escape."
"Escape? This is my house!"
"Shush, don't yell. Sooner or later they will come here too. Charlot, the stable chief, and Vincent, the cook, are guiding them. They all went crazy. The order is to kill you all... I brought you peasant clothes, take, hurry up!" the boy said going toward the direction of the voice of the other, and handing him the spare clothes he had gotten and he was pulling off.
"To disguise?" Julien asked going in the part of the room half lighted by the faint dawn light, and so becoming visible to Snot.
"Sure, sir, they must not recognize you. Hurry up, we have no time. And your hair... it will be better to cut it... No countryman would have hair so nice and tidy. But it is night, we can provide to that later. Pull off everything and wear these."
Julien was hesitant. Suddenly the yelling increased and welled up resoundingly from the tower's stairs.
"They already are here, I don't know if we can save ourselves. Hurry up, hurry up!"
Julien undressed and started to put on the clothes that Snot stole.
"Hurry up, sir, they are coming!"
"Done. But now?"
"Light all the candles, all!"
"But why?"
"Obey, we have no time!" Snot answered back with some hardness in his voice due to the urgency, then started to open the closets and to throw on the floor their content, to knock over chairs, to make confusion.
Meanwhile Julien lit all the candles. Then Snot opened wide the door to the room, took Julien by his arm and drew him to the stairwell landing where they hid behind a heavy curtain. Excited voices were coming up the stairs and soon a group of people were in front of the curtain. Snot felt Julien trembling and he too was scared. The people poured inside Julien's empty room.
"He fled, the bastard!"
"He can be upstairs, he cannot possibly have come downstairs!"
"Don't let him escape!"
The voices went away again, going up the stairway. Then Snot peeped out from behind the curtain and, seeing the way was clear and always keeping Julien by his arm, ran down the stairs. They were almost at the ground floor, when they heard other people coming up.
Snot slowed down his pace, but continued to go down, and as soon as he saw the first hotheads coming up, started to yell as he continued to go down and dragging Julien behind him, "They fled, they fled, we have to catch those bastards!"
Some continued to go upstairs, but some of them, instead, followed them. As soon as they were in the open, Snot turned and said with a peremptory tone to the men following them, "You go to search in there, and we will search in this part!"
It worked! The small group hurled itself in the direction pointed to them and the two boys could escape without problems. They ran, ran at breakneck speed, went out the castle enclosure, penetrated into the park and, under Snot's guidance, found an opening and reached the wood. The break of day was already dying the sky in pink when they at last stopped in the thick of the trees. The only noise they could now hear was the mad drumming of their hearts and the heavy breath of their panting.
"We did it, at least for now..." Snot said.
"My family..." Julien murmured. It was not a question but a kind of sob coming out from his heart.
"May God save them," Snot sadly murmured in answer.
Julien glided to the ground, as if suddenly his strength abandoned him.
"Just now I'm thinking of them... after fleeing, after thinking just of myself, just of my safety. I didn't even try to help them!"
"But what could you do?" Snot said kneeling near him. "We barely escaped, by the skin of our teeth, we two."
Julien was silent. Then, suddenly raising his face toward the boy, struck by a thought, he asked, "Have they killed them?"
"Possibly not... I hope not..." Snot murmured, then stood up. "We have to go away from here, everybody knows you. But I first go back to the castle. I'll try to get news. Meanwhile, you hide here. Nobody must see you. Are you able to climb a tree?"
"I never tried..."
"I'll help you."
Pulling and pushing him, he made Julien climb up amongst the branches of an age-old tree until he was sure that from down below it was not possible to see him. He made him sit in the most comfortable way, then reassuring him he would be back soon, he nimbly went down and disappeared.
Julien feeling still dazed from the overwhelming rhythm of the terrifying events, little by little calmed down. Just then he became aware he owed his freedom, if not even his life, to Snot. In spite that he had ill-treated and chased him, Snot had come back expressly to rescue him. A warm sentiment of thankfulness, of gratitude, pervaded him.
The morning was now full and the sun was starting to warm the air. Julien moved a little and the branch fearfully swayed. He again became still. He hoped Snot would be back soon, not only because he was worried for his family and waited their news, and not even just to have near him somebody helping and protecting him, but also because he perceived the warmth and the affection of the boy toward him and hoped to be held again in his strong arms. Notwithstanding Snot was three years younger than he, Julien could feel that the boy was already a full-grown man, both in his character and in his physique.
Almost the entire morning elapsed but finally Julien heard Snot's voice calling him from under the tree, which soon started to slightly oscillate while the boy climbed it.
"Well then?" Julien asked as soon as Snot's face appeared amongst the leaves.
"Come down. Lean on my arm."
"No. First tell me."
"They are alive, but..."
"Thank Heavens! But?"
"They have been arrested."
"Arrested? Why? With what charge? And by whom?"
"I don't know. They are in the hands of that people..."
"But then not of the authorities. They have been caught, not arrested."
"I feel that they are the authority, at this point."
"Who rules is the King, and we nobles."
"Do you think so? I lived two years in Paris. Who rules is them, now, the Girondists. And soon there will be no more King..."
"That's impossible. Peasant revolts have happened before, but aristocracy and monarchy have always kept the power."
"I don't know about these things. I just know that they are powerful, and that they will arrest the King, if they already haven't."
"We will go to Paris, and I will ask an audience before the King. I will come back with the soldiers and free my family."
"As you like, sir. But I warn you, they are searching for you, to arrest you too. And not only the peasants. There were in the castle people with the tricolour cockades, come from Paris..."
"We will travel incognito, by foot."
"It's so evident you are a noble, even if so dressed. But wait. I stole scissors in the castle. First of all you have to cut your hair, short as Paris people wear, the citizens I mean, the not noble youths. And then... you must be dirty... But, it is enough once you talk to understand at once you are a fine person, and not one of the people."
"Cut my hair? Going around dirty? I will never!"
"But stop that, once and for all! Which is more important, your hair or your freedom? Is it more important being clean or alive? Try to reason, won't you? Let's go down, now."
At first Julien was offended by the boy's tone. However, thinking carefully about that while they were descending, he became aware that Snot's words were told with good sense and the desire to help him.
So, reaching the ground, he said, "Well, you cut it then."
Snot nodded and taking the scissors from his pocket, untied Julien's ponytail. His beautiful blond and slightly waved hair flew free and framed his face. Snot took a lock between his fingers, and cut it away. Then another, and still another. To touch that hair, soft like silk, provoked in Snot an unutterable emotion, and he almost felt pain having to cut it.
However, when he was finished, he looked at Julien and, troubled, murmured, "How beautiful you are, sir! You are even more beautiful than before."
Julien blushed and lowered his eyes. Then he raised them again to meet the boy's eyes and said, "You are really beautiful," and blushed again. Then looking again at the ground, with a very low voice, almost as if he was talking to himself more than to the other, he added, "I missed you..."
"Why did you chase me away?"
This was not, from Snot, an accusation, but just a sorrowful question.
"Why? Because I have been a fool, an idiot. But you are here, now."
"Sure, for you."
"Jaquot?"
"Yes sir?"
"What did you do, in these two years?"
"I just thought about you."
"I too... I missed you. A little before you came to the tower, do you know, I was dreaming of you."
"Me? And how? What was I doing?"
"You were undressing me and then... we made love. And it was so beautiful..." Julien said somewhat ashamed, but in his eyes clearly shone desire.
Snot smiled, then, suddenly darkening, asked, "But then, you again ill-treated me?"
"No, not this time."
>From the dream both shifted to talk about that moment, about reality, about the desire both were feeling.
"I would like it so much, do you know? I did nothing but think of you in all these months. I too missed you so much!"
"But now I am here. Why are you waiting?"
"For you to be sure about what you really want."
"I want you."
"Now?"
"Yes, straightaway."
"Here?"
"Certainly, here."
"Good," Snot whispered and, stretching his arms, pulled Julian against himself.
The youth pressed against his chest, trembling, and started to caress his body. Snot, always keeping him tight, kissed him and their mouths united, thirsty, and their tongues searched each other. A shudder made them vibrate at the union.
They slide on the ground, on the forest's grass, sweetly bound together. Their limbs intertwined incessantly. From afar one could think that their bodies were clinging in a silent fight, but it was a struggle to feel the other, to search him, to caress him, to free him from the clothes, without losing that sweet and warm contact.
Forgetting everything and everybody, they abandoned themselves to the found again intimacy that both had for so long a time dreamed. Their clothes half open, Snot brushed the beautiful bare chest of his companion, still almost hairless, with skilled caresses full of desire. He looked at him, meanwhile, into his eyes. They smiled at each other.
"You are so beautiful, lord!"
"And you are the splendour made flesh."
"I like caressing, touching you, master, I like it very much, do you know?"
"Don't call me master, call me Julien, please."
"As you wish, Julien, sir."
"And no sir..."
"I cannot, you are a noble."
"No, don't you see? I am just a boy, like you."
"But you are the master, and..."
"All right. Therefore... I order you!"
"I... I desire you, Julien."
"Me too..."
Their caresses became more intimate and their passion flared up, and they felt in them a wild joy that pushed them to give themselves to the other with transport, and to take each other with gratitude.
In the height of their intercourse, while he felt Snot slipping into him and moving inside him with gentle vigour, Julien sighed, "If this is a sin, Jaquot, it is too beautiful to be a sinner!"
"This is paradise, Julien, and there cannot be sinners in Paradise."
They kissed and adhered to each other, their movements spontaneously harmonizing, as when in a melody, when in a counterpoint, when in a syncopated rhythm. And at last they shouted their joy to the wind, in an outburst of victory and of surrender at the same time. When all was completed, while still panting and while they were relaxing, gently caressing each other, Snot looked worriedly at Julien.
"What happens? I see you so serious now... What's up now, Jaquot?"
"Wouldn't you become angry with me, now? Chase me? Wouldn't you be in a huff with me? Ill treat me?"
"No. I needed so much time to understand it. But now I am happy to be yours and you to be mine. I don't know, I don't want to seem absurd, but possibly... what I feel for you... is love."
"I don't laugh, no. I... I don't know what love is. But I know that it must be something beautiful, not to laugh at, hearing as they talk about it. And I know I want to live for you, with you, of you... if you want me."
"And do you want me?"
"But you are the master."
"Between two lovers there cannot be a master and a servant, but just two peers."
"But you are a noble, and I am nothing."
"For the others. To you, I am I, period. I am your boy, your lover."
"Those in Paris say that all men are equals."
"This is not true. There are always the stronger and the weaker, there will always be the rich and the poor, the clever and the stupid. Just two lovers can be really peers, because they partake of each other's strength and each other's weakness. Only love makes equals."
"And we two, now, are lovers, isn't it so?"
"Sure, Jaquot. Forever."
"And therefore, we are equal?"
"And therefore we are equal."
They dressed again and went toward Paris, but still without walking on the road. While they were going, they talked. They talked about many things. About the past, their thoughts, their dreams and desires, about the future... Since they both were wanted, Snot because he didn't go back to Roland's place, and Julien because he was not found at the castle, it was convenient for them not to be seen too much. And it was convenient to change their names. After some thinking, they decided to say they were brothers, the brothers Marc and Luc Teissier, and they decided to learn to call themselves with these names, even if they were alone, to get used to it.
"Marc, but you speak too nicely. If they stop us, they will realize at once you are a noble."
"I will learn from you, Luc."
"Yes, possibly. But you are too well mannered and fine. Even how you move... About talking, at least at the beginning, I can say you are dumb, so it's just I that will talk, but all the rest? Even if you don't wash and are badly clothed, everybody can see you are an aristocrat."
"You will help me to act like a peasant."
"I can try. Perhaps it will be enough if you try to imitate me. I am rough, isn't it so?"
"You are so sweet, and meek, and good hearted, and..."
"But anyway I don't know the good manners."
"And I will try to forget them."
They walked for good part of the day. By evening they were in sight of a village and both were hungry.
"You wait for me there, hidden. I will go to the village and see if I can scrape up something."
"I have not even one coin..."
"It doesn't matter, Marc. I too, in the hurry to disguise myself, forgot my coin purse in the other clothes. I will manage to find something."
At the village Snot succeeded in receiving in gift a few crusts of stale bread and some fruit. They asked him if he was going to Paris to enlist in the National Guard, and he said yes. Also the people of that village had attacked the castle of the local lord, and had killed him three days before. The entire region, it seemed, had risen against the aristocrats who were in flight, or arrested, or killed. Snot went back to Julien and, while they were nibbling their food, told him what he had heard.
They walked for several days, because Snot insisted on not using the road but rather to walk through fields, woods and forests, and this slowed them down and made their going difficult. Slow, but safe. They often stopped to rest, and almost always they ended making love, as if to make up for the lost two years. Snot was at his complete ease in the woods, but Julien's physique was subject to a hard trial. For the first time he slept on the bare ground, and for the first time walked barefoot so that he often got scars from the uneven and rough ground. So they proceeded even more slowly, and now Snot had to hold up his friend more and more often, and for a longer and longer time. However, Julien never complained. Also the little food Snot could scrape here and there, or which he also pilfered, was barely sufficient to give them more than a little strength.
However, finally they were in sight of the Capital. Now they had to circle it, to reach the Bois de Boulogne, to reach the little house Snot had bought there, to rest and to recover their strength.
"Luc, are you sure it is a safe place? They will not look for you there also?"
"Sure. I didn't give my real name when I bought it. And they don't know I have that house."
"But... wasn't it your colleague in Paris who advised you to buy it?"
"Yes, Etienne. But he doesn't know if I bought it, or where, or the name I gave when I bought it."
"What name did you give?"
"To the man who sold it to me? I said I was Julien Snotin."
Julien smiled: "My name and your old nickname..."
"Yes. And I did not even hope to have you here."
"How many names have you changed!"
"I hope this one is the last. I like us having the same name. It is somewhat like being married, this way, isn't it?"
Julien smiled, amused at the idea. "But who between us is the husband and who the wife?"
Snot at first looked at him with an astounded expression, then, with a cunning smile, said, "You have to know that, don't you? We are two husbands, we both are real males, and there is no place for females, between us!"
"Yes, you are right... I feel a man even when you enter me."
"Me too. But you have to say 'fuck', not 'enter'... it is too elegant."
So, laughing and joking, after another day of walking, they finally reached the outer limits of the Bois de Boulogne. Crossing it partially, they reached the road bordering its East edge. Snot pointed his house out to him.
"You see? It's not a mansion, but it is all mine. All ours, now."
Coming nearer, Julien saw it was very small, a two-story building, with just one room on each floor and an external stairway. Near it there were a well and a small canopy. All was surrounded by a low hedge and by a wooden fence, rather disjointed. Entering the property, Snot moved a stone at the base of the well and pulled out two big keys. He opened the ground floor room. Julien noticed that the door and the windows were made of good, massive and strong wood.
"This is the kitchen, upstairs is the bedroom. And both here in this kitchen and upstairs I hid all my savings. I did three hiding places in each room so, if thieves came, I hoped they would not be able to find all of them. Now I will show you where they are, so, if you need money, you too can take it."
"But it is your money."
"Ours, if it is true we are lovers. At least until you are free to go back to your castle..."
"Also afterwards, we will stay together."
"Yes, if your family would again have me as a servant."
"But I will take you there as my friend. Even if the others don't know we are lovers, there remains the fact that you rescued me."
"We will see. Now let's go upstairs. Up there is a good wide bed, even if not soft like yours was. There we can rest. We need it."
"Did you ever make love with somebody, on that bed?"
"No, never. You are the first to set foot in here, besides me."
"Therefore, it is time to inaugurate it, don't you think?"