He's outnumbered, twenty to one; one way or another, he'll die here. But they hang back. There's no mercy in this slaughterhouse; it's not mercy that keeps the soldiers encircling him at a distance, the billiard table between them, their muskets aimed at his heart. They're angry -- savagely wounded, bloody, relentless, barbarous.

Of course they're angry. He killed their brothers. They were his brothers too, all of them children of France, but never mind; he killed his share of them and more; and he was a leader of the barricade, and he is one of the last alive. Enjolras waits for the bullet, the bayonet, the soldier to come near enough for him to strike another blow.

"This is the leader!" cries one, and then there's a tumult of words, clamoring above the yells and groans and bootstamps. "He's the one who killed the artilleryman." "Here's the leader." "Let him stay. Let's shoot him on the spot."

Well then.

Enjolras's stump of a carbine is useless. He throws it away.

"Shoot me," he says, and crosses his arms. He stands facing the soldiers' muskets, his chest a clear target.

The soldiers fall silent. One man's weapon drops. The others do not budge. All is hushed.

He feels only calm. Afternoon sunlight streams through the window behind him, golden and pure; it seems he can see the dawn of a brighter future, far ahead, beckoning, the glorious light of a free world. His death is a step towards that dawn. He has lived for nothing else. All his life, it seems to him now, has pointed towards this moment.