CHAPTER CXXXII.
THE ANGEL OF DEATH.
Athos was at this part of his marvelous vision, when the charm wassuddenly broken by a great noise rising from the outward gates of thehouse. A horse was heard galloping over the hard gravel of the greatalley, and the sound of most noisy and animated conversations ascendedto the chamber in which the comte was dreaming. Athos did not stir fromthe place he occupied; he scarcely turned his head toward the door toascertain the sooner what these noises could be. A heavy step ascendedthe stairs; the horse which had recently galloped, departed slowlytoward the stables. Great hesitation appeared in the steps which bydegrees approached the chamber of Athos. A door then was opened, andAthos, turning a little toward the part of the room the noise came from,cried in a weak voice:
"It is a courier from Africa, is it not?"
"No, Monsieur le Comte," replied a voice which made the father of Raoulstart upright in his bed.
"Grimaud!" murmured he. And the sweat began to pour down his cheeks.Grimaud appeared in the doorway. It was no longer the Grimaud we haveseen, still young with courage and devotion, when he jumped the firstinto the boat destined to convey Raoul de Bragelonne to the vessels ofthe royal fleet. He was a stern and pale old man, his clothes coveredwith dust, with a few scattered hairs whitened by old age. He trembledwhile leaning against the door-frame, and was near falling on seeing, bythe light of the lamps, the countenance of his master. These two men,who had lived so long together in a community of intelligence, and whoseeyes, accustomed to economize expressions, knew how to say so manythings silently--these two old friends, one as noble as the other inheart, if they were unequal in fortune and birth, remained interdictedwhile looking at each other. By the exchange of a single glance they hadjust read to the bottom of each other's heart. Grimaud bore upon hiscountenance the impression of a grief already old, of a dismalfamiliarity with it. He appeared to have no longer in use but one singleversion of his thoughts. As formerly he was accustomed not to speakmuch, he was now accustomed not to smile at all. Athos read at a glanceall these shades upon the visage of his faithful servant, and in thesame tone he would have employed to speak to Raoul in his dream--
"Grimaud," said he, "Raoul is dead, is he not?"
Behind Grimaud, the other servants listened breathlessly, with theireyes fixed upon the bed of their sick master. They heard the terriblequestion, and an awful silence ensued.
"Yes," replied the old man, heaving up the monosyllable from his chestwith a hoarse, broken sigh.
Then arose voices of lamentation, which groaned without measure, andfilled with regrets and prayers the chamber where the agonized fathersought with his eyes for the portrait of his son. This was for Athoslike the transition which led to his dream. Without uttering a cry,without shedding a tear, patient, mild, resigned as a martyr, he raisedhis eyes toward heaven, in order to there see again, rising above themountain of Gigelli, the beloved shade which was leaving him at themoment of Grimaud's arrival. Without doubt, while looking toward theheavens, when resuming his marvelous dream, he repassed by the same roadby which the vision, at once so terrible and so sweet, had led himbefore, for, after having gently closed his eyes, he reopened them andbegan to smile. He had just seen Raoul, who had smiled upon him. Withhis hands joined upon his breast, his face turned toward the window,bathed by the fresh air of night, which brought to his pillow the aromaof the flowers and the woods, Athos entered, never again to come out ofit, into the contemplation of that paradise which the living never see.God willed, no doubt, to open to this elect the treasures of eternalbeatitude, at the hour when other men tremble with the idea of beingseverely received by the Lord, and cling to this life they know, in thedread of the other life of which they get a glimpse by the dismal, murkytorches of death. Athos was guided by the pure and serene soul of hisson, which aspired to be like the paternal soul. Everything for thisjust man was melody and perfume in the rough road which souls take toreturn to the celestial country. After an hour of this ecstasy, Athossoftly raised his hands, as white as wax; the smile did not quit hislips, and he murmured low, so low as scarcely to be audible, these threewords addressed to God or to Raoul:
"HERE I AM!"
And his hands fell down slowly, as if he himself had laid them on thebed.
Death had been kind and mild to this noble creature. It had spared himthe tortures of the agony, the convulsions of the last departure; it hadopened with an indulgent finger the gates of eternity to that noble soulworthy of every respect. God had no doubt ordered it thus that the piousremembrance of this death should remain in the hearts of those present,and in the memory of other men--a death which caused to be loved thepassage from this life to the other by those whose existence upon thisearth leads them not to dread the last judgment. Athos, preserved, evenin the eternal sleep, that placid and sincere smile--an ornament whichwas to accompany him to the tomb. The quietude of his features, the calmof his nothingness, made his servants for a long time doubt whether hehad really quitted life. The comte's people wished to remove Grimaud,who from a distance devoured the face growing so pale, and did notapproach, from the pious fear of bringing to him the breath of death.But Grimaud, fatigued as he was, refused to leave the room. He sathimself down upon the threshold, watching his master with the vigilanceof a sentinel, and jealous to receive either his first waking look orhis last dying sigh. The noises were all quieted in the house, and everyone respected the slumber of their lord. But Grimaud, by anxiouslylistening, perceived that the comte no longer breathed. He raisedhimself, with his hands leaning on the ground, looked to see if theredid not appear some motion in the body of his master. Nothing! Fearseized him; he rose completely up, and, at the very moment, heard someone coming up the stairs. A noise of spurs knocking against a sword--awarlike sound, familiar to his ears--stopped him as he was going towardthe bed of Athos. A voice still more sonorous than brass or steelresounded within three paces of him.
"Athos! Athos! my friend!" cried this voice, agitated even to tears.
"Monsieur le Chevalier d'Artagnan!" faltered out Grimaud.
"Where is he? Where is he?" continued the musketeer.
Grimaud seized his arm in his bony fingers, and pointed to the bed, uponthe sheets of which the livid tints of the dead already showed.
A choked respiration, the opposite to a sharp cry, swelled the throat ofD'Artagnan. He advanced on tiptoe, trembling, frightened at the noisehis feet made upon the floor, and his heart rent by a nameless agony. Heplaced his ear to the breast of Athos, his face to the comte's mouth.Neither noise nor breath! D'Artagnan drew back. Grimaud, who hadfollowed him with his eyes, and for whom each of his movements had beena revelation, came timidly, and seated himself at the foot of the bed,and glued his lips to the sheet which was raised by the stiffened feetof his master. Then large drops began to flow from his red eyes. Thisold man in despair, who wept, bent double without uttering a word,presented the most moving spectacle that D'Artagnan, in a life so filledwith emotion, had ever met with.
The captain remained standing in contemplation before that smiling deadman, who seemed to have kept his last thought, to make to his bestfriend, to the man he had loved next to Raoul, a gracious welcome evenbeyond life; and as if to reply to that exalted flattery of hospitality,D'Artagnan went and kissed Athos fervently on the brow, and with histrembling fingers closed his eyes. Then he seated himself by the pillowwithout dread of that dead man, who had been so kind and affectionate tohim for thirty-five years; he fed himself greedily with the remembranceswhich the noble visage of the comte brought to his mind in crowds--someblooming and charming as that smile--some dark, dismal, and icy, as thatface with its eyes closed for eternity.
All at once, the bitter flood which mounted from minute to minuteinvaded his heart, and swelled his breast almost to bursting. Incapableof mastering his emotion, he arose, and tearing himself violently fromthe chamber where he had just found dead him to whom he came to reportthe news of the death of Porthos, he uttered sobs so heart-rending, t
hatthe servants, who seemed only to wait for an explosion of grief,answered to it by their lugubrious clamors, and the dogs of the latecomte by their lamentable howlings. Grimaud was the only one who did notlift up his voice. Even in the paroxysm of his grief he would not havedared to profane the dead, or for the first time disturb the slumber ofhis master. Athos had accustomed him never to speak.
At daybreak, D'Artagnan, who had wandered about the lower hall bitinghis fingers to stifle his sighs--D'Artagnan went up once more; andwatching the moment when Grimaud turned his head toward him, he made hima sign to come to him, which the faithful servant obeyed without makingmore noise than a shadow. D'Artagnan went down again followed byGrimaud; and when he had gained the vestibule, taking the old man'shands, "Grimaud," said he, "I have seen how the father died; now let meknow how the son died."
Grimaud drew from his breast a large letter, upon the envelope of whichwas traced the address of Athos. He recognized the writing of M. deBeaufort, broke the seal, and began to read, walking about in the firstblue rays of day, in the dark alley of old limes, marked by the stillvisible footsteps of the comte who had just died.
The Vicomte de Bragelonne Page 133
