Nature is my joy; trouble brings me understanding.

In the early hours of morning, with the few

stray fragments of sunrise peeking over the rooftops and chimneys and church spires, the walk to
the factory does not feel laborious. The day has yet to be spoiled by the relentless heat of the sun,
the endless hours spent hunched in discomfort, the undeniable sense that I am but one meaningless
soul in a collection of hundreds, without value and without purpose. The invisible birds tucked
away in distant trees sing of the day’s promise, of hope and opportunity. I keep these things locked
in my heart where I can nurture them and evade the truth that they will never be more than
imaginings of a wistful mind.
My return journey provides no respite from my toils and agony. It provides no comfort or hope
or sense of possibility. It provides nothing but the final shrinking light of the day that has passed in
routine and hopelessness. In the city, the sun’s rays flee from my sight. They hide behind the
rooftops and chimneys and church spires that appeared so mysterious and fascinating in the
morning. They do not rest on me in a last sigh of effort as they did on the farm. They do not caress
my face and entice my tired limbs into rest at the conclusion of another day. They do not cast a glow
on the crops I have spent the day toiling on, guiding into life and an income for my family. Alas, no
longer will the sun do such things as I remember. I recall its gentle fingers caressing a failed crop to
the ground as it took itself to rest for the night, and the desolation of the morning that followed. I
can see the dark, dead, deplorable scene of a wasted harvest and the end of security. It is the very
reason for this walk, for the hours I must spend confined to my own thoughts every early morning
and late evening.
The knowledge that I am not the only man to have felt this anguish does naught to console me. I
have heard of the upheaval in rural villages quite like my own, the disruption to society that the
recent crop failures have caused. The interminable heat of high summer has made tempers short and
patience shorter. Those without an income have flocked to the city, a flight of discomfited birds
migrating to the promise of a better life. But the promise has not been kept and unrest has spread.
The uneasiness churning unabated in my stomach has not been isolated; rather, I seem to be just one
of many feeling displaced and disenfranchised. The word that follows me on the cobbled streets is
that protest is proliferating from Paris to Grenoble, Dijon, even Toulouse. I cannot help but find
myself contemplating strange ideas, challenging ideas that I am afraid to ponder even to myself.
The leadership of France is failing in its duty. It is an indisputable fact based on the evidence
surrounding me, but if that is true, then what of God and his judgement to personally ordain our
king? How can heaven be so corrupt as to let such a country as this fall into such a state of disarray?
I worry, for myself and for my nation. I cannot deceive myself, but I can try to deceive Alice, my
beautiful, spirited Alice.
I quicken my pace in anticipation of seeing her sweet, kind face. I imagine her huddled over her
writing table, quill grasped in ink-covered hand scribbling in a frenzy across the page. Her deep
brown hair has escaped the clutches of the bun at the nape of her neck and now surrounds her face
in a knotted mess of curls and perspiration. She glances up at my arrival, a delicate smudge of ink
decorating her cheek. She smiles and turns back to the page and I am free to take in more of my
imagined scene. Her books surround her, balanced precariously in piles too high. I see Rousseau,
Voltaire, Mary Wollstonecraft, Montesquieu. Fragments of parchment peek out from between the
pages where she has quoted them in her innumerable pamphlets. Such enthusiasm and zest can be
cultivated only by those of the same mind, and in her literary counterparts she finds this solace. My
Alice is a poet, a pamphleteer, a writer of original and controversial ideas. The freedom of the press
was a gift to her from heaven, and she has not failed to take full advantage of its opportunities.
The light has almost disappeared, but on the distant horizon is the silhouette of an asymmetrical
dwelling, its roof sagging and its surrounding fields void of agricultural pursuits. It fills me with a
profound sense of comfort to see my home so near. It is a home of simple living and meagre
expenses, but it is also a home of love and family and the assurance that there is something in this
world that has not collapsed under the weight of life, but has remained resolute in its purity.
I reach the door in a state of near exhaustion, but it is unlatched and swings gently open at my
touch. It silently welcomes a familiar face to a familiar room, and within I can hear the cries of an
infant desperate for rest or food or motherly affection.
“Alice,” I call into the house. I direct my steps into Alice’s writing room, small and confined but
adequate for its purpose, but it is empty. Her quill lays across the table, having left a thick smear of
ink in its wake. The tall but ordered piles of books I have grown so accustomed to furbishing the
room have either vanished from sight or been knocked to the ground in haste. I can hear the familiar
rustling of pages being collected and tossed aside, but the source of the noise is obscured from my
vision. I leave the room hesitantly and pass through the short hallway, usually empty but now
strewn with the few spare items of clothing we own and a small collection of books. They lay
splayed open on their spines, pages falling gently as gravity tugs on them.
“Alice,” I call again, worry discolouring my tone. “My darling, what on earth has happened?”
“George? Is that you?” Alice materialises in the doorway ahead of me, her face flushed with
excitement and her eyes bright. Her words are interrupted by several shallow breaths of heavy
summer air. On her hip she balances our infant child, Lachlan, his cheeks red as his mother’s and
his eyes equally as wide. Alice’s eyes flick up to mine and her countenance bears resemblance to a
rabbit stunned by the apparition of a hunter with a gun. I reach out to her but she has turned away
before she can notice my gesture.
There is an air of urgency that tugs me into the room behind her, pervading my previous sense of
calm and heightening my pulse. I feel the undeniable urge to do something, to throw all that I can
into a trunk and flee. Something in our peaceful home has been disturbed and I feel the fear in my
heart like a sword in my side.
“Alice, my love, please tell me what has happened.” I step around the table filling the centre of
the room, where we once ate meals in contentment and high spirits, but she moves away from me in
a flurry of anxiety and restlessness.
“There is no time,” she cries, scouring a mess of abandoned cooking implements in the far
corner of the room with one hand while barely clutching Lachlan in the other. The infant cries out in
distress at his mother’s actions and beats his tiny fists against the air. “We have to leave at once!”
My body flushes with the heat of panic and fear. Evidently I have not been skilful in my loving
deception of my wife. She too has felt the uneasiness that has plagued my thoughts for many
months, but she also perceives a different threat, a very tangible danger that has settled in the air
around us like smog.
Alice has become a whirlwind of activity, flitting from one end of the room to the other in an
uncontrollable surge of agitation. Lachlan cries out in confusion and discomfort, but she remains
oblivious. My arms desire to wrap themselves around her, to hold her for a moment and return her
to the moderately frazzled but rational woman I am acquainted with. I am apprehensive of this
sudden outburst but I am unaware of any way in which I can pacify her.
“Alice.” My voice is firm but too soft to reach Alice’s ears. She readjusts her grip on our son,
who beats his fists against her arm in fright. “Alice,” I call again, injecting as much strength and
authority as I am capable of into my tone. Her head turns infinitesimally as if she is a dog attuned to
the far-off sounds of twittering birds, but she does nothing to acknowledge she has heard me. In
desperation, I reach out to her across the table and clutch her shoulder. Her entire body starts as
though she has driven a knife through her hand.
“Alice. Please tell me what on earth is going on.”
The breath flees her lungs in a hurried exhale and she finally rests her magnificent blue eyes on
my countenance contorted with concern. “People are arming themselves,” she whispers, as though
Lachlan is not a mere infant incapable of understanding the frightened mutterings of his parents.
“All over the countryside. They have risen up in protest against the abominable conditions they are
being forced to live in. They have attacked manor houses and set fire to buildings.” Alice’s eyes
find her son and tears swim into being. “We cannot become entangled in the fray, George. For
Lachlan’s sake, we must leave. We have no choice.” Her words choke in her throat as a tear finds its
way to her cheek. “But where can we go? We have nowhere, no-one…”
“My love…” Any words of consolation flit, unuttered, from my mind. There is nothing to do but
pack what few possessions we own and leave for the life of our son. “We must leave at once. We
cannot change the past but we can forever hope for a better future.”
Alice gently rests her eyelids shut for a moment, gathering herself in this moment of panic and
uncertainty. In the next instant, she is gone from the room, and the tricolour cockade she has
attached to her collar glints briefly in the dying light. I can hear her progress as she gathers our
possessions from my position in the room and slowly, ever so slowly, I bring myself back to activity
and join her. We exchange no more words or fears or wishes for the future. We simply pack our
things, climb hastily on our old farm cart and ride away into the thickening night, away from our
home and the cursed factory, away from stability and security and all that we have known. In an
instant, we have vanished, leaving nothing but a house with a sagging roof.
By my side, I hear Alice murmur rehearsed words from the mind of Voltaire, her favourite of the
intellectuals and the man whose death she was most grieved to learn of. “Life is thickly sown with
thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them.” She curls into my side,
resting her head on my shoulder. Her skin is warm and her pulse is quick, mirroring my own
restless heartbeat. “The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”
We trudge on for countless hours that stretch beyond us like the endless fields surrounding us
that we cannot see in the dim of the night. We know not where we are going until we arrive. We
have no food, no water, no knowledge of our future but the naivety to remain hopeful. It is as the
sun rises and the darkness lifts that the horizon reveals an asymmetrical dwelling, its roof sagging
and it surrounding fields void of agricultural pursuits. A woman stands in the doorway of this house
that reminds me so forcefully of my own, leaning on a pitchfork as she surveys the work she must
complete today. There are dead crops to clear and seeds to sow in a vain attempt to try again. She is
nearing middle age, her hair pulled back and streaked intermittently with grey. She raises a hand in
welcome as we draw nearer and advises us to pull to a halt. We comply and she approaches, a
tender smile coloured with the experience of years of life gently pulling at her mouth. My eyes
catch for a moment the familiar red, white and blue of her cockade fastened to the front of her dress.
“Travellers,” she observes. “I have a bed and food if you would like to stay the night.”
Her forthright manner of speaking surprises me and I can do naught but stare in shock. For an
instant, I can see the hopeful future I have clung to unfolding before me. I can see Alice, an
accomplished writer and literary personality, smiling at me from her desk, her hair dyed lighter by
the sun’s caresses and her smile wider with the success of her life. I can see Lachlan, a boy now
with hair like his mother’s and the wit to match it, commanding the doorway as the morning rays
peer down to greet him as he contemplates his work. I can see a home, safe from the instability of
the city, safe from the violence and the fear and the horror we have escaped. There is a tree behind
the house, and it grows as Lachlan does, strong and brave and protective of our home. I can see the
possibility of a life, liberty for my son and for my wife, for me and for our family.
“I have a bed and food if you would like to stay the night,” the woman repeats in a flat tone,
apparently confused by my inability to speak. I look down at her and my family’s future is bright in
my mind. We may have fled uncertainty, and it may have followed close behind, but I feel secure
here, in the home of this stranger who has shown us nothing but her tricolour cockade and a smile.
I feel Alice grip my hand tightly as Lachlan releases his first cries of the day. “We would like to
stay the night,” I reply, as the sun climbs and casts our shadows on the grass.