El-Baradei says Mubarak has until Friday to get on the plane and leave Egypt. But it seems he's not going to fade gently into the good night. "I wish it could be done so gently," wrote one commenter on my previous post, rightly sceptical of my optimism.

And now, the thugs. And the specter, after ten days of exhilarating hope, of heartbreak.

The thugs are in Cairo's Tahrir Square as I write, described absurdly by the New York Times and other news organizations as "Mubarak supporters." The NYT should read its own The Lede blog, which reports that they are plain-clothes police and paid provocateurs, and that ten bucks a day is the going rate.

Mubarak's speech last night gave the option of chaos without him (the old apres-moi-le-deluge) or stability with him. But the only chaos is with him.

I still hope against hope, but the memories I've been struggling against rise up threateningly: Iran's "green revolution" of 2009 brutally put down; Tianenmen Square in 1989, brutally put down; the ousting of the Shah in 1979, taken over by a theocracy and turned into yet another dictatorial regime.

As the call goes out for even larger demonstrations in Egypt on Friday, with a march on the presidential palace, it comes down, it seems, to the military. Which way will they go? If the march on the palace does take place, what will they do?

Will they fire on the marchers? Or will there be a military coup, with the army taking over? (And if so, would the generals assume power themselves, or hand over to a civilian interim government?) Or will Mubarak - I'm sorry, I can't help it, I insist on hoping - finally get on the damn plane?

I watch with tears in my eyes, battling the despair creeping up in my heart, wishing, hoping against hope...