"Ah! that depends on how you take it. Keep an eye on the ridiculous: foster it, play for it, and you have farce. Take things lightly, with a turn of wit and a playful way, and it is comedy. Tragedy demands less effort, I ’ll admit, but for me—Vive la Comédie. We are discussing the ethics of the drama," he explained to Defarge, who poked his head in at this juncture. "Will that mend his head?" inquired the gaoler with a scowl. "Ah, my dear Defarge, that, I fear, is past praying for; but I have better hopes of my other patient." "Who ’s that?" asked the man, staring. "A lady, my friend, in whom Citizen Dangeau is interested. A surgical case—but I have great hopes, great hopes of curing her," and with that he went out, smiling and talking all the way down the corridor. Dangeau grew to look for his coming. Sometimes he merely got through his work as quickly as possible, but occasionally he would drop some hint of a plot,—of plans to overthrow Robespierre. "The patient’s friends are willing now," he said one day. "It is a matter of seizing the favourable moment. Meanwhile one must have patience." Dangeau smiled a trifle grimly. Patience, when one’s head is under the axe, may be a desirable, but it is not an easily cultivated, virtue. Life had begun to look sweet to him once more. The mood in which he had suddenly flung defiance at Robespierre was past, and if the old, vivid dreams came back no more, yet the dark horizon began to show a sober gleam of hope. Every sign proclaimed the approaching fall of Robespierre, and Dangeau looked past the Nation’s temporary delirium to a time of convalescence, when the State, restored to sanity, might be built up, if not towards perfection, at least in the direction of sober statesmanship and peaceful government. CHAPTER XXIX THROUGH DARKNESS TO LIGHT So dawned the morning of the twenty-seventh of July, the 9th Thermidor in the new Calendar of the Revolution. A very hot, still day, with a veiled sky dreaming of thunder. Dangeau had passed a very disturbed night, for his fellow-prisoner was worse. The long unconsciousness yielded at last, and slid through vague mutterings into a high delirium, which tasked his utmost strength to control. Goyot was to come early, since this development was not entirely unexpected; but the morning passed, and still he did not appear. By two o’clock the patient was in a stupour again, and visibly within an hour or two of the end. No skill could avail him now. Suddenly the door was thrown open, and Dangeau heard himself summoned. "Your time at last," said Defarge, and he followed the man without a word. In the corridor they met Goyot, his hair much rumpled, his eyes bright and restless with excitement. "You? Where are you going?" he panted. "Where does one go nowadays?" returned Dangeau, with a slight shrug.