THE WHOLE WORLD RUMBLES beneath my feet, or so it seems. In truth I know it is the motion of the tumbril, the turning of the wheels —sluggish, with thick spokes clearly visible to all the eyes that line the road. It is a short distance, I’m told, but the throng gathered on either side makes the going slow. Their shouts surround us like a newly built wall, each word a brick.

“Liberté!”

“Fraternité!”

“Égalité!”

Within the proclamations, gleeful taunts of death. A cry for blood and damnation for the tyrants.

There is a jolt, and I stumble forward, my fall stopped by the stranger beside me.

“Merci, Seigneur.” I assume he is worthy of the title.

He responds only with a smile, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen anything so gentle and beautiful. Though I am steady on my feet, he keeps hold of my hand.

With a boldness that comes from waning time, I ask, “Will you hold my hand, sir? Will you hold it until —”

“My child, it will be an honor.”

Child. I suppose it is natural that he sees me as such. I am small, my brow not quite reaching the breadth of his shoulder, and no doubt the dirt on my face obscures my features. At any other time, I might have taken umbrage, telling him that I am no child. That I’m to turn twenty-one in the coming year. But we both know I will see no such milestone, and I merely thank him again.

We roll to a stop, and the wagon’s tailgate is open. The others who ride with me —the ones whose features I’ve taken no pains to notice —are unceremoniously handed down. There is a shout when it is my stranger’s turn.

“Evrémonde!”

I don’t recognize the name, but I’ve been sheltered from much of the nobility. For his part, my stranger shows no eagerness to claim it, as he does not so much as turn his head in their direction. Instead, he keeps a firm grip on my hand, and it is he who lifts me down, leaving the filthy, bloodstained guard to stand listlessly by. My stranger spins me aloft, and for a moment we could be at a dance, my feet waltzing on air. I get only a glimpse of the terrible machine, its blade hoisted high above. When my feet touch the ground, I see only the fine wool of his coat. I tilt my head back to look at his face, all kindness and strength, with the gray blanket of sky behind it.

“Be strong,” he says.

“But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed. I am —” Still, here, with the worst of all fates within reach, I am afraid to tell him who I am. What I know and have witnessed. “I am naturally a poor little thing. Faint of heart.” None of this is true, but I secretly hope for one last bit of mercy, for one of these gory monsters to pull me from the line and restore me to my innocence. “I suppose I should raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here today. I think you were sent to me by heaven.”

“Or you to me,” says my stranger. “Keep your eyes on me, dear child, and mind no other object.”

As he speaks, the rushing sound of the blade in quick descent ends in a sickening silence, and the crowd erupts in cheers. I hear this faintly, as if on the edge of a disappearing dream.

“I mind nothing while I hold your hand, dear sir. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid.”

“They will be rapid. Fear not!”

We speak as if this is a quality to be admired, this seamlessness of justice, and not a system that has now given me a life to be measured in minutes. I want to close my eyes and indulge in the luxury of memory, but I can recall only my most recent hours, my own mind protecting itself from those days before I took my first step on the path that brought me to this place.

“Brave and generous friend,” I say, tugging him closer, “will you let me ask you one last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me —just a little.”

“Tell me what it is.” He sounds indulgent, welcoming, and details that I’ve guarded with silence until this moment pour forth.

“I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She lives in a farmer’s house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate —for I cannot write.” This, too, like my claim of frailty, is a lie. For all I know I can read and write as well as he can, though his eyes hold an intelligence beyond challenge. I try to recover an explanation. “Even if I could, how should I tell her? It is better as it is.”

“Yes, yes: better as it is.”

I fear his attention is growing as short as our time together —our time on earth —and I pose to him the question that has plagued me since I first heard the pounding on the door.

“What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am thinking now —as I look into your kind, strong face, which gives me so much support —is this: If the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time, my cousin.” I think about my elusive birthday. “She may even live to be old.”

“What then, my gentle sister?”

My eyes fill with tears, the first since I fell to the filthy bricks on my cell floor. “Do you think that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land?”

“It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there.”

My mind flies back to such a life. Long, listless days. Sweet grass and laughter. Hard work and deep sleep and no thought of yesterday or the next day or the next. What troubles had I known, other than a little hunger? It has now been days since I have had any taste of food, and in light of what awaits, an empty stomach seems something easily endured.

I tell my stranger that his words bring comfort, and as I do, I sense an emptiness at my back, and I know my time has come.

“Am I to kiss you now?” I ask, for it seems a fitting way to end a life.

He responds, “Yes,” creating a long-held promise from a notion newly born.

He bends to me, and suddenly his lips are soft on mine. His kiss erases the terror of the days behind me and strengthens me for the steps ahead.

I turn, forced by a viselike grip on my elbow, yanked as if I’d threatened to flee. The shouts of the crowd are softened, briefly, as my crimes are read above the din. I don’t recognize my life in the account, but it must be true, for here I am, my face upturned to capture the autumn breeze. Each ascending step brings me closer to the giant machine, but also to some promise of freedom.

“‘I am the Resurrection, and the Life!’” The voice of my stranger carries, but I don’t look back. I can’t. Instead, I scan the crowd, a blur of sunburnt faces, and I think I see —

“A la mort!”

The sea calls for my death. My blood. In the midst of all those open mouths, those fists raised in the air, there is one familiar face. He is motionless, his expression set with uncomprehending compassion. There’s no time to wonder how he came to be here. I can only hold his gaze, pleading.

Tell her.

Tell Laurette.

My throat is cradled in the blood-soaked wood, my eyes forced down to see nothing but the gore below. I close them, entreating God to show me some beauty, something within this darkness to usher me to the Light.

Show her to me, Sovereign Lord. Before I embrace her in Your Presence, give me a glimpse of these intervening years.

And at the first touch of the blade on my flesh, my final prayer is answered. Her life. My life. I see it all.