Jun 5
Happy birthday 🎂
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Happy birthday 🎂
John Lennon, George Harrison, Jimmy Nicol during recording for television programme, Hillegom (1964)
Come closer..
Barricade day! Do you permit it?
End of the Verses of Jean Prouvaire
Ten tocsin chimes had rung so far and the barricade was still quiet, while Enjolras and Combeferre conversed and Gavroche flew back with a song and ‘cocorico’. Bahorel was kneeling inside the six or seven foot barricade along with Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Bossuet and Joly. Gavroche took his place beside them in anticipation. Feuilly was commanding his own insurgents.
The silence punctuated with the sound of heavy treads was disconcerting. The insurgents gripped their rifles, Joly and Bossuet clasped each other’s hands, Prouvaire nodded to Bahorel. The sound of boots rising and falling continued for several more minutes. It became heavy and unbearable. The clouds shifted only a little, the sky was still a blend of terrible purple and scarlet. The sounds grew more stony and echoed with a deeper thud.
Bahorel had a moment of chuckle at Enjolras’ answer of “French Revolution”, before the flash of fire resounded and the flag dropped. They all watched as M. Mabeuf fell, pierced by the bullets.
Bahorel cursed inwardly at the National Guard, they had shot at an unarmed old man fixing the flag. He leapt forward and helped carry M Mabeuf to the Corinthe wine shop and laid him down. These few minutes while the revolutionaries were distracted were enough for the National Guard to continue to move in.
Bahorel glimpsed that the guards were pointing their bayonets at Gavroche, they did not spare the old man, they would not spare the child. He leapt with a growl and a wolf-like jump into the midst of the fray, and took the bayonet to the stomach.
Great pain washed over him and then he lost the voices of his dearest friends. Everything went dark and silent for what felt like several hours but could only have been a few minutes; he opened his eyes to find himself changed into a lycanthrope. He watched the pooling blood around his body and the grim and tearful faces of his friends who carried his lifeless body to Corinthe to lay it beside M. Mabeuf. Instinctively he put a hand over the spot where the bayonet had entered and instinctively winced.
He found himself unable to return to his corporeal form, which wasn’t surprising. He gave a small sorrowful laugh, “Well, that was to be expected when you have been killed.”
The moon rose from among the scarlet clouds and his keen eyes searched for Jean Prouvaire under its light- Prouvaire would like to mourn him, Bahorel’s heart sank, Prouvaire was not present among the insurgents.
He made his way out through the Rue Mondetour passage and leapt over the roof of a house to reach the other side where several National guards were milling around, deciding what to do with the insurgent they had captured. In a small corner, between the wall of a house and the rubble that residents had thrown from their second story houses at the National Guard, was the seated form of the poet, the beloved Jean Prouvaire.
He had found himself in a scuffle with a couple of National Guards, who had managed to capture him and drag him forcefully to their side.
He had stumbled and twisted his left leg and was sitting on the rubble with his hands tied behind his back while a few National Guards conversed near him, as to what they should do with the insurgent they had caught. A shroud of darkness had enveloped his captors, Bahorel could barely make out their forms, he saw the glint of the rifles pointed at Prouvaire's head and the shakos they were wearing. One National Guard was sporting injuries given by Prouvaire.
Bahorel raised his head towards the sky and howled furiously, it echoed across the barricades, he heard some of his friends asking about Prouvaire and taking a roll call. The National guard shivered and looked at the moon before returning to their conversations.
“I’m here Jehan.” Bahorel said, climbing down from the roof, “I’m here, Prouvaire, my dearest friend.”
He wiped Prouvaire’s lips, which were bloody, with his hand and was proud to learn that his friend had fought his captors to the last.
“I knew you would find me.” Prouvaire said, “Bahorel, I –” he gestured to his bound hands and tried valiantly to smile showing chipped and bloody teeth, the blood of which he tried to wipe on his sleeve, “How was it?”
The moon had again flooded the scene and bathed them in its light.
“Dying?” Bahorel asked, stroking his beard thoughtfully, and trying to find a way to release his friend of his painful bonds, “As if you've been punched really hard, it sucks all the air out of you.”
He cursed at how his hands failed at untying the rope, he tried again and they went through it, he must have lost his human form permanently. Prouvaire saw his struggles and shook his head.
“Don’t– don’t worry about those. I have accepted my fate. Several times I expected to die before now, called it soft names, and now it is upon me. I will soon rejoin you, it would not nearly have been as much fun to live without you.” He bit his lip before continuing, “I wanted to know what the experience would be like so I could prepare.” He looked at Bahorel, “I’m afraid, Bahorel.” a few tears pricked Prouvaire's eyes and he looked down, trying to wipe them off quickly but not entirely succeeding.
Bahorel had said often that death was messy, death happened in the middle of the story, it complicated many things. And yet, Prouvaire had been right as well, death came unexpectedly but it had to be lived with, to be treated as a friend, nay an almost lover. All his jaunts as a Romantic and a Revolutionary had made him comfortable being in the presence of death, yet his heart still faltered a little, now that the meeting was so imminent. The mortification of an fleshy abode that felt pain and was afraid despite Prouvaire's resolve.
Bahorel hugged his friend, “Oh Jehan, you’re one of the bravest revolutionaries I know. I find that it is not the fact that you’re afraid, God knows I’ve been afraid several times, it is what you do regardless of that. You have shown courage in so many ways, friend.”
The National Guard seemed to have made up their minds. They roughly grabbed Prouvaire, “Get up, you traitor,” and blindfolded him roughly despite his protests ("Don't blindfold me") causing him to call out in pain, while they loaded their rifles and exchanged jokes. They were laughing at his discomfort, and telling him that it was no more than violent insurgents like him deserved.
“I will be there beside you the entire time. It should be quick at least, since it is an execution, and not a messy bayonet wound.” Bahorel said, his face full of worry at how Prouvaire would handle it.
He hugged his friend, the last time he would.
Prouvaire nodded, wobbling a little, his leg still pained him a little when he put weight on it, but doing his best to stand straight and upright, it would not do for newspapers or anyone else to reproach that the ones who watered this barricade with their blood in the hopes of bringing a different future, were not brave enough. He pictured the red of the flag stained with M. Mabeuf’s blood, he thought of the sacrifice of all those who had come before him, valiant friends who had been brave till the last. He thought of the conventionist who had died to raise the flag.
He heard the clash of guns and the voices in the distance. Voices of his dearest friends, he would no longer hear in a few moments. He wanted to send a message, a last goodbye to all of them. He opened his mouth and then closed it waiting for his head to clear enough.
He felt Bahorel beside him, clasping his hand and he wriggled it in its bonds to become more comfortable, it felt like his head had become much clearer and focused on what he needed to do. In his mind he could see the birds swirling in the sky, the tree branches swaying and writing in the wind, the water gurgling and flowing in the river; he could always see them, through metal bars of a cell, through the flashes of guns, through especially dark nights, he held onto these images. He saw them at this moment. And he saw the red spilled in the streets, the red of the flag framed in the light from the fight, and imagined flowers and beauty growing from all this pain, all this sacrifice, all this hurt. He thought of the children yet to come who would breathe an easier air. He saw them all bathed in light and smiled.
“Eternally grateful that you are here beside me, dear friend. I’m ready to join you,” he whispered to Bahorel who squeezed his hands and shoulder warmly. Bahorel could not help crying which set off some wolf howls echoing around Saint Denis and Saint Merri. Prouvaire looked at him and shook his head, “We will meet each other again, I’m sure of that.” he said. “I will haunt every nook in Paris. Shall we depart this world, O dear friend?”
Bahorel laughed and nodded.
Prouvaire faced the front and heard the sounds of several guns being cocked and though he could not see, felt that they were being aimed at him while a silence grew in between. He felt at once a longing for death’s arms and a sudden thrill at the thought that this was not the end after all of his story, not if you were a Romantic.
“Vive la France! Long live France! Long live the future!” he shouted in a deep voice, hoping it was loud enough to echo and resonate across several streets and reach his friends. His eyes were fixed on the future yet to arrive.
This sudden burst of emotion angered the guards. The order was given, the flash of the guns occurred for an instance blinding the view, and then everything went still, it was an eerie stillness- the air seemed to bleed as well.
Jean Prouvaire’s body crumpled in a heap beside Bahorel, pierced by several bullets and blood gathered in a pool around his long dark blonde hair. Bahorel let out an ear splitting howl of pain and tears flying lunged at the National Guard who scattered for a moment amidst the blinding light of the moon.
He would find Prouvaire, but right now his heart hurt enough to burst. It felt as a great collision between sun and moon, a dimming of all the lights of the universe. He had told Prouvaire that he moved from one tragedy to another, but it ached him all over to lose such a dear friend, to lose many friends across many years, he willed himself to continue moving.
He hoped the howl against misery would not stop reverberating across the horizons.
Sad note!
Some years old, unfinished drawing of that-one-scene from the movie ‘cause it’s Barricade Day! (not so) Yay!