Jacques-Louis David
La Mort de Marat

You can't imagine how heavy the cross I bear on my shoulders is, madame. And do you see this damp turban that wraps around my head? It's my crown of thorns, madame, nothing but a crown of thorns. I can certainly consider myself lucky, at least it doesn't hurt. And as heavy as this cross might be, no one forces me to trudge uphill to the sound of whips, although between the itch and the lashings it's hard to judge which torment is less atrocious!

I'm sorry to welcome you in such conditions, dear lady, an unusual place, a cold wall made rough by humidity. It may seem strange, but this worn wall, which gives me the idea of a living entity struggling to breathe, keeps me company. While I reflect in the shadow of the brightest flashes of the revolution, I notice imperfections that seem to move, like many mollusks in a stream or skeletons of butterflies…if they have one…

What an unhealthy imagination reigns in this cold place. My prison, madame, even though I haven't been condemned by any court. A little warm water eases my pain…my brief parole…as it quickly tends to cool, so does the illness awaken, expressing itself by burning my skin. What a paradox!

Rest assured, madame, I have no urge to compromise your safety…I am re-reading your letter…short but touching…just enough to set me in motion. Come closer…don't be afraid…

And from here starts the descending border that marks the masterpiece. Let's imagine a line placed a handbreadth above the head of the revolutionary. Parallel to the ground, without peaks pointing upward like an alarmed seismograph highlighting emotions, and oddly, without downward deviations emphasizing moral pains. Even though those clearly visible of the disease exist.

This line that describes a flat, static life, as it should be for a man forced to live in a bathtub nailed by a scaling dermatitis, breaks at the height of the left shoulder, Corday's strike, and slowly, drawing a very gentle descent, brushes against the arm aiming at the hand that, by inertia, holds the paper. Life slipping away to extinguish on a green table, a cold color that in this case may remind one of death. A short journey that starts from an amorphous life to reach with relative slowness the moist soil that welcomes a corpse for interment.

Marat's body is still half-warm. The hand holding the letter transmits the last impulses of a life fleeing through the tension of the ulnar nerves. The left arm is still vibrant, in the skin color bordering yellow, a warm color interspersed with imperceptible amber shades that even the shadow's darkness doesn't diminish its vigor. Strangely, the thumb doesn't grip the paper crumpling its surface. The moment has been captured when life withdraws, no longer passing through the fingers.

Where the still erupting wound reigns, the metaphor of death enters the scene. The hand barely holding the feather resting on the last fingertip is already inert. The right arm is flaccid, in some areas livid, abandoned downward where blood can't swell the veins of the hand, finding an outlet in the gap opened by the stab. A red streak starting from the wrist releasing upwards is the last glimmer, the last twitch dispersing in the wooden color engulfing it. An ember.

The grimace on the face seems like a strangled laugh. Astonishment turning into disbelief. The woman he wants to help betrays him with a stab. Perpendicular to the right eye made longer by the face's inclined shadows, the knife that has just pierced him. The tail of the eye trembling at seeing the still fresh blood stamped on the blade.

A venial sin committed by the author: the writing engraved on the chest. It's there that the spectator's eye falls before being confused with Corday's poisoned lyrics, of which only the weapon appears. A metaphor of cowardice. There's no room for other protagonists. The assassin has reached the goal and hastily abandoned the scene, leaving behind, clearly visible, the object of dishonor. And we forgive David for it, come on.

You struck me without me being able to see you! Without me being able to react! Not even the courage to relish your infamous deed! Run! Coward…