Enjolras walks into the Cafe Musain and sits down at a table to study.
Javert comes into the cafe, silently, unobtrusively, and watches Mark.
Enjolras stands up, curses, and throws a textbook across the room where it narrowly misses someone's head. "To hell with mathematics."
Javert does not turn to watch the book as it whizzes past, but he allows a short twitch of a smile as he watches the frustrated young boy.
Enjolras breaks his pencil in aggravation. "Why do I care how fast the ball is falling after five seconds? It's none of my business!"
Enjolras glares at the book he threw, which landed next to Grantaire's collection of empty bottles.
Javert casually removes a common looking book, and opens it to a marked page, scrawling in the margins, something to the point of, "immature." then he flips back a few pages, appearing as if he's simply reading.
the other people there. "This," he declares, pausing dramatically, "is an utter waste of time!" Then, he thumps it hard again and sits down with a more relaxing text.
Enjolras pores over the collected works of Aeschylus. He absentmindedly orders a glass of water.
Enjolras asks anyone who will answer, "If you had a prophetic vision of your own death, wouldn't you try to get away from it?"
Javert observes Enjolras, indirectly, then, as nothing further is occurring, he turns his steely gaze about the room, to the others gathered at /certain/ tables. At the question he looks up towards the young man who had thrown the book, not disguising the glance, now, as he has reason to be watching him. "I would not." he replies, voice softer and perhaps a degree warmer than normal, as he is not in uniform. "If it is ordained to occur, there is no feasible cause for you to try to deny that."
Enjolras turns in his chair to face Javert. "You would just accept your fate? If you were sentenced to execution and didn't know why, would you fight, or go willingly?"
Javert says, "There would be a reason. Or else it would not be reasonable, and it would not be made to come to pass. And if you were indeed fated to it, fighting would do you no good, it would occur anyway."
Enjolras considers that. "If everyone accepts their fates, then no progress can be made. People who believe that they have no free will are stuck in their lives."
Javert says, "That is why we do not know our fate... we do what we consider to be free will, when, if you believe such, what they freely choose to do is already fated. And the presence of fate does not counteract the presence of progress, as, as we can see historically, some are fated to aid progress."
Enjolras replies, "So you think that fate exists, and free will exists, but they do not exclude each other? If we are fated to do something, then aren't all the choices we perceive false?
Javert says, "No. It would be so if we were to know our fate ahead of time, but since we don't, we have complete will over everything we do, yet fate, shall we say, in a personification of sorts, will know in advance what we will decide."
Enjolras smiles slightly. "Therefore, the only way we can have real free will is by finding out what Fate has in mind for us and doing something else."
Javert says, "That would be an act of free will, as is everything else you do. However you would be fated to find out what you are fated to, and to do something else."
Enjolras shakes his head. "But then there's no such thing as free will. If it is known what you will do no matter what you choose, then you never really had a choice at all, and it's all ineffable."
Javert says, "But the point is that you are free to do whatever it is you want to do."
Enjolras objects, "No, you only think so because Fate doesn't talk to you."
Javert says, "And that is why fate does not talk to people."
Enjolras adds, "And that's probably for the best."
Javert nods in vague agreement, and then, considering the discussion, on that note, closed, looks back down to the book, where he scrawls into the margins, "Argumentative".
Enjolras turns back to his reading. After a while, he closes his textbooks and puts them away, sighing gratefully. Then, he takes out a sheet of paper and a writing implement and starts to write.
Javert finally shuts his book once more, tucking it away in a convenient pocket, and he stands up, placing a few coins on the table, and catching the help's eye, to let them know, without much intrusion, that he had left it there. Then, stepping away towards the door, he nods vaguely at a man entering, just before he exits.