We learn from those mistakes. You yourself are making a mistake of judging the revolution too soon.

Too soon? I was flabbergasted. You read what they did to me—

I didn’t say that was justified. What I’m saying is that all revolutions have excesses. It’s in their nature. People are too exuberant, too passionate. They get carried away. Feelings run high. And sometimes the wrong people are damaged. But you have to put yourself and what happened to you aside. You have to take the long view. Look at America. No one remembers now what happened to the Americans who chose to side with the British king. Should the American Revolution not have happened, or should we condemn it because all those people were exiled? Or look at the French Revolution. The Terror was unfortunate, but look where we are now. Revolutions need to be judged fifty years later, a hundred years later, when the passions have cooled and the revolution’s accomplishments have had the time to take root and flourish.

I won’t be alive by then. How convenient.