The Red and the Black, by Stendhal

In which we are introduced to Julien.

Anya opens the door and it’s Julien standing on the step, holding his head in the very basket the guillotine had dropped it into. “Oh, God,” Anya reacts.

“I memorized today’s newspaper. No, that won’t do anymore. I’m through with memorizing things. I fear I don’t have much time left.”

By now, the others have come in. Emily stands awkwardly, unsure whether to take the burden from Julien’s hands. When Julien notices she’s making for the basket, he gives her a cold glare, but his eyes are barely visible from above the rim.

“I’m fine. Let me be,” the coldness in his voice startles Emily and warns everyone that he can still switch on a cold disdain, even in a death that is suspended for the duration of this party.

“Maybe we should go to the kitchen,” Emily suggests.

While Emily and Dorothea keep the food from burning, Bob turns to Julien, “I think you were the greatest of all our characters.”

“Yes, you had such adventures—dangerous ones too. And so much uncertainty; even I could see why you would feel your relationships were so uncertain,” adds David.

“And you died so young. You had only barely come to terms with who you were and how you stood in relation to other people,” Anya contributes.

“But, it do think it was a little disingenuous that the solution to your disaster was you should have stuck tight to your love of Madame de Renal and gone no further. But then Stendhal was so focused on love, playful with it, but obsessed too,” Dorothea shares as rushes to smoke coming out of the oven.

“You had everything figured out, from the start. You embodied all the uncertainty and unknowns of young adulthood. And you had good reason for it: French society was so difficult a place for true sincerity,” Maisie regrets her own upbringing with dismay.

Anya stares directly at Julien’s head in the basket, “Your tale was the most classically tragic; you had a flaw, perhaps it was your pride, that led to your death. But the society you lived in contributed to your flaw, or maybe, even gave you a flaw. Yours was a very sad story, but you got to have a rich, complex character.”

“A timeless sort of prideful youth,” Bob gives the thumbs up to Julien.

“I can’t stay long,” Julien says. “With the blood draining from my head, soon I’ll only have a few blinks of consciousness left. And I really shouldn’t eat anything. Perhaps you’d like to know whether the guillotine hurts when it strikes?”

“And Mrs. Wix is waiting for me in the car,” Maisie says as she goes to get her coat.

“It doesn’t matter, half the food has burned and the other half has stuck to the pans,” Dorothea adds. The horror shows on Emily’s face.

“I’ll take those of us of age, and those whose brains aren’t dripping blood, out to dinner, my treat, since I got that big promotion, and,” Bob looks at Dorothea, “I’ll drive.”