On his part, he also attempted several conciliatory moves that didn’t reach a safe harbor. At some point he tried to lure me to his side, though I haven’t yet found out what he proposed to me exactly. By the looks of it, it seems he tried to use me to appease the workers’ spirits.
I am working and someone proposes something to me. I hear my name is Jérôme. And though at the beginning I didn’t see anything, later on I saw the one who was proposing it to me was Étienne, dressed much more elegantly than I am, wearing a shirt with wide, rolled-up sleeves, always sweating due to the effort (I wipe off the sweat on my brow with my right forearm). I don’t like his proposition, and I ask him, “Why me?” I think it is because I defend my colleagues’ interests well. It is as if we constituted a guild or something like that and I always was trying to improve the economic situation. The word syndicate comes to me. But I don’t know what he proposes to me, although I have felt at some point that I could have been also part of the government or the Town Hall, before things got worse and there were a excision or something like that… before things ended up getting bloody.
(Regression November 20th, 2012).
I suppose that after this, Étienne also realized there wasn’t anything else to do… only he didn’t dare to tell me face to face. One day I saw myself inside my home, little more than a humble cabin in the outskirts, in a high area of the town. I was helping my son, who was five or six years old by then, to write on the kitchen’s table. I also saw a daughter below one year of age in her mother’s arms. Someone knocked on the door and I opened it. I was given a sealed letter. When I opened it I saw it was Étienne’s, telling me he couldn’t do anything to help me. As I was reading the letter a great rage and a great disappointment settled in my soul. That was a low blow for me. He was the only hope we had. I considered it a grave betrayal of our friendship, I trusted him… Infuriated, I went to the Town Hall and tried to walk into it to demand him an explanation, but I couldn’t reach him because someone stopped me taking me by the arm. There were guards, or bodyguards or police agents… I am not sure if I did confront him, but flashes came to me which showed that at some time I managed to get to the office and yell at him, with the crumpled letter in my hand. I think this happened another day, as in this first occasion I saw him going out of the building and sneaking away among the public workers.
Then I started to suspect there was something else, something very dark I didn’t want to believe. Perhaps he had been bribed too, perhaps he had been offered more money for turning a deaf ear to our pleas. But he was my friend and I needed clear evidence incriminating him. I had to see it with my own eyes… and I did.
I see myself again in this sort of luxurious office, I am alone rifling in some drawers. Today I have thought this is Étienne’s office. I suspect of him. I also suspect he is one of the men who enrich themselves at the expense of the workers. But I am searching for proof, something that incriminates him directly. I find a metallic box in a drawer, full of green bills. And probably some other document too… I know we end badly, but nothing clear comes to me yet.
(Regression January 1st, 2013).
I can’t even say what hurts anymore
I will leave you alone
I will deny
I will leave you to bleed
I will leave you with your life
(Afraid of sunlight, Marillion).
Mainly feelings of sadness for Étienne came to me… I see myself trying to write something, I want to send him a note telling him what is coming up, but I think I barely can read and it is very hard for me to write, so eventually I set quill and ink aside and I give up. He was a good friend, but he betrayed us, and besides he tried to bribe me. I can’t forgive him that and I know the men are very enraged. Perhaps I could stop them, but I let them do as they wish… I think that ultimately Étienne deserves it, he broke up our friendship.
(Regression June 2nd, 2014).
The idea has come to me that the men assaulted that house, maybe they set in on fire, but clearly, they did something for sure… and I didn’t stand in their way, even knowing Étienne wasn’t going to have a good time.
(Regression April 4th, 2013).
The most emotional thing is to know that at the time the real revolt begins, Étienne is not going to survive, as a member of the Town Hall that he is. I know they are going to lynch him. I don’t see it very clearly, but I think the crowd goes into his house or the office and they capture him and tie his hands with ropes on the front side… and I’d say they hang him. This causes me a deep sadness and a deep bitterness, but if I have to choose, I opt for justice. This happens before the army arrives, of course. We seize power, as we are tired of being ruled by corrupted politicians. But someone escapes, it would seem, the news reaches the capital, and then they send the army.
(Regression February 2nd, 2013).