“Do you threaten?”
“Oh, no,” said Athos sadly, “I have as little bravado as fear in my soul. The God of whom I spoke to you is now listening to me; He knows that for the safety and honour of your crown I would even yet shed every drop of blood which twenty years of civil and foreign warfare have left in my veins. I can well say, then, that I threaten the King as little as I threaten the man; but I tell you, sire, you lose two servants; for you have destroyed faith in the heart of the father, and love in the heart of the son; the one ceases to believe in the royal word, the other no longer believes in the loyalty of man, or the purity of woman; the one is dead to every feeling of respect, the other to obedience. Adieu!”
Thus saying, Athos broke his sword across his knee, slowly placed the two pieces upon the floor and, saluting the King, who was almost choking from rage and shame, he quitted the cabinet. Louis, who sat near the table, completely overwhelmed, was several minutes before he could collect himself; but he suddenly rose and rang the bell violently; “Tell M. d’Artagnan to come here,” he said to the terrified ushers.
20
After the Storm
OUR READERS WILL DOUBTLESSLY have been asking themselves how it happened that Athos, of whom not a word has been said for some time past, arrived so very opportunely at court. We will, without delay, endeavour to satisfy their curiosity.
Porthos, faithful to his duty as an arranger of affairs, had, immediately after leaving the Palais-Royal, set off to join Raoul at the Minimes in the Bois de Vincennes, and had related everything, even to the smallest details, which had passed between Saint-Aignan and himself. He finished by saying that the message which the King had sent to his favourite would not probably occasion more than a short delay, and that Saint-Aignan, as soon as he could leave the King, would not lose a moment in accepting the invitation which Raoul had sent him. But Raoul, less credulous than his old friend, had concluded from Porthos’s recital, that if Saint-Aignan was going to the King, Saint-Aignan would tell the King everything; and that the King would, therefore, forbid Saint-Aignan to obey the summons he had received to the hostile meeting. The consequence of his reflections was, that he had left Porthos to remain at the place appointed for the meeting, in the very improbable case that Saint-Aignan would come there; and had endeavoured to make Porthos promise that he would not remain there more than an hour or an hour and a half at the very longest. Porthos, however, formally refused to do anything of the kind, but, on the contrary, installed himself in the Minimes as if he were going to take root there, making Raoul promise that when he had been to see his father, he would return to his own apartments, in order that Porthos’s servant might know where to find him, in case M. de Saint-Aignan should happen to come to the rendezvous.
Bragelonne had left Vincennes, and had proceeded at once straight to the apartments of Athos, who had been in Paris during the last two days, the Comte having been already informed of what had taken place, by a letter from d’Artagnan. Raoul arrived at his father’s; Athos, after having held out his hand to him, and embraced him most affectionately, made a sign for him to sit down.
“I know you come to me as a man would go to a friend, Vicomte, whenever he is suffering; tell me, therefore, what it is that brings you now.”
The young man bowed, and began his recital; more than once in the course of it his tears almost choked his utterance, and a sob, checked in his throat, compelled him to suspend his narrative for a few minutes. However, he finished at last. Athos most probably already knew how matters stood; as we have just now said that d’Artagnan had already written to him; but, preserving until the conclusion that calm, unruffled composure of manner which constituted the almost superhuman side of his character, he replied, “Raoul, I do not believe there is a word of truth in the rumours; I do not believe in the existence of what you fear, although I do not deny that persons most entitled to the fullest credit have already conversed with me on the subject. In my heart and soul I think it utterly impossible that the King could be guilty of such an outrage upon a gentleman. I will answer for the King, therefore, and will soon bring you back the proof of what I say.”
Raoul, wavering like a drunken man between what he had seen with his own eyes and the imperturbable faith he had in a man who had never told a falsehood, bowed, and simply answered, “Go, then, Monsieur le Comte; I will await your return.” And he sat down, burying his face in his hands. Athos dressed, and then left him, in order to wait upon the King; the result of that interview is already known to our readers.
When he returned to his lodgings, Raoul, pale and dejected, had not quitted his attitude of despair. At the sound, however, of the opening doors, and of his father’s footsteps as he approached him, the young man raised his head. Athos’s face was very pale, his head uncovered, and his manner full of seriousness; he gave his cloak and hat to the lackey, dismissed him with a gesture, and sat down near Raoul.
“Well, monsieur,” inquired the young man, “are you quite convinced now?”
“I am, Raoul; the King loves Mademoiselle de la Vallière.”
“He confesses it, then?” cried Raoul.
“Yes,” replied Athos.
“And she?”
“I have not seen her.”
“No; but the King spoke to you about her. What did he say?”
“He says that she loves him.”
“Oh, you see—you see, monsieur!” said the young man with a gesture of despair.
“Raoul,” resumed the Comte, “I told the King, believe me, all that you yourself could possibly have said; and I believe I did so in becoming language, though sufficiently firm.”
“And what did you say to him, monsieur?”
“I told him, Raoul, that everything was now at an end between him and ourselves; that you would never serve him again. I told him that I, too, should remain aloof. Nothing further remains for me, then, but to be satisfied of one thing.”
“What is that, monsieur?”
“Whether you have determined to adopt any steps.”
“Any steps? Regarding what?”
“With reference to your disappointed affection, and—to your ideas of vengeance.”
“Oh, monsieur, with regard to my affection, I shall, perhaps, some day or other, succeed in tearing it from my heart; I trust I shall do so, aided by Heaven’s merciful help, and your wise exhortations. As far as vengeance is concerned, it occurred to me, only when under the influence of an evil thought, for I could not revenge myself upon the one who is actually guilty; I have, therefore, already renounced every idea of revenge.”
“And so you no longer think of seeking a quarrel with M. de Saint-Aignan?”
“No, monsieur; I sent him a challenge; if M. de Saint-Aignan accepts it, I will maintain it; if he does not take it up, I will leave it where it is.”
“And La Vallière?”
“You cannot, I know, have seriously thought that I should dream of revenging myself upon a woman?” replied Raoul, with a smile so sad that a tear started even to the eyes of his father, who had so many times in the course of his life been bowed beneath his own sorrows and those of others.
He held out his hand to Raoul, which the latter seized most eagerly.
“And so, Monsieur le Comte, you are quite satisfied that the misfortune is without a remedy?” inquired the young man.
“Poor boy!” he murmured.
“You think that I still live in hope,” said Raoul, “and you pity me. Oh, it is indeed a horrible suffering for me to despise, as I ought to do, the one I have loved so devotedly. If I only had but some real cause of complaint against her, I should be happy, and should be able to forgive her.”
Athos looked at his son with a sorrowful air, for the latter words which Raoul had just pronounced seemed to have issued out of his own heart. At this moment the servant announced M. d‘Artagnan. This name sounded very differently to the ears of Athos and of Raoul. The musketeer entered the room with a vague smile upon his lips. Raoul paused. Athos
walked towards his friend with an expression of face which did not escape Bragelonne. D’Artagnan answered Athos’s look by an imperceptible movement of the eyelid; and then, advancing towards Raoul, whom he took by the hand, he said, addressing both father and son, “Well, you are trying to console this poor boy, it seems.”
“And you, kind and good as usual, are come to help me in my difficult task.”
As he said this, Athos pressed d’Artagnan’s hand between both his own; Raoul fancied he observed in this pressure something beyond the sense his mere words conveyed.
“Yes,” replied the musketeer, smoothing his moustache with the hand that Athos had left free, “yes, I have come also.”
“You are most welcome, chevalier; not from the consolation you bring with you, but on your own account. I am already consoled,” said Raoul; and he attempted to smile, but the effect was far more sad than any tears d’Artagnan had ever seen shed.
“That is well and good then,” said d’Artagnan.
“Only,” continued Raoul, “you have arrived just as the Comte was about to give me the details of his interview with the King. You will allow the Comte to continue?” added the young man, as, with his eyes fixed on the musketeer, he seemed to read into the very depths of his heart.
“His interview with the King?” said d’Artagnan, in a tone so natural and unassumed that there was no means of suspecting that his astonishment was feigned. “You have seen the King, then, Athos?”
Athos smiled as he said, “Yes, I have seen him.”
“Ah, indeed, you were not aware, then, that the Comte had seen his Majesty?” inquired Raoul, half reassured.
“Yes, indeed, quite so.”
“In that case, I am less uneasy,” said Raoul.
“Uneasy—and about what?” inquired Athos.
“Forgive me, monsieur,” said Raoul, “but knowing so well the regard and affection you have for me, I was afraid you might possibly have expressed somewhat plainly to His Majesty my own sufferings and your indignation, and that the King had consequently—”
“And that the King had consequently?” repeated d’Artagnan; “well, go on, finish what you were going to say.”
“I have now to ask you to forgive me, Monsieur d‘Artagnan,” said Raoul. “For a moment, and I cannot help confessing it, I trembled lest you had come here, not as M. d’Artagnan, but as Captain of the Musketeers.”
“You are mad, my poor boy,” cried d’Artagnan, with a burst of laughter, in which an exact observer might perhaps have wished to have heard a little more frankness.
“So much the better,” said Raoul.
“Yes, mad; and do you know what I would advise you to do?”
“Tell me, monsieur, for the advice is sure to be good as it comes from you.”
“Very good, then; I advise you, after your long journey from England, after your visit to M. de Guiche, after your visit to Madame, after your visit to Porthos, after your journey to Vincennes, I advise you, I say, to take a few hours’ rest; go and lie down, sleep for a dozen hours, and when you wake up, go and ride one of my horses until you have tired him to death.”
And drawing Raoul towards him he embraced him as he would have done his own child. Athos did the like; only it was very visible that the kiss was more affectionate, and the pressure of his lips still warmer with the father than with the friend. The young man again looked at both his companions, endeavouring to penetrate their real meaning, or their real feelings, with the utmost strength of his intelligence; but his look was powerless upon the smiling countenance of the musketeer, or upon the calm and composed features of the Comte de la Fère. “Where are you going, Raoul?” inquired the latter, seeing that Bragelonne was preparing to go out.
“To my own apartments,” replied the latter in his soft and sad voice.
“We shall be sure to find you there, then, if we should have anything to say to you?”
“Yes, monsieur; but do you suppose it likely you will have something to say to me?”
“How can I tell?” said Athos.
“Yes, something fresh to console you with,” said d’Artagnan, pushing him towards the door.
Raoul, observing the perfect composure which marked every gesture of his two friends, quitted the Comte’s room, carrying away with him nothing but the individual feeling of his own particular distress.
“Thank Heaven,” he said, “since that is the case, I need only think of myself.”
And wrapping himself in his cloak, in order to conceal from the passers-by in the streets his gloomy and sorrowful face, he quitted them, for the purpose of returning to his own rooms, as he had promised Porthos. The two friends watched the young man as he walked away with a feeling akin to pity, only each expressed it in a very different way.
“Poor Raoul!” said Athos sighing deeply.
“Poor Raoul!” said d’Artagnan shrugging his shoulders.
21
Heu! Miser!v
“POOR RAOUL!” HAD SAID Athos. “Poor Raoul!” had said d’Artagnan; and, in point of fact, to be pitied by both these men, Raoul indeed must have been most unhappy. And therefore when he found himself alone, face to face, as it were, with his own troubles, leaving behind him the intrepid friend and the indulgent father; when he recalled the avowal of the King’s affection, which had robbed him of Louise de la Vallière, whom he loved so deeply, he felt his heart almost breaking, as indeed we all have at least once in our lives, at the first illusion destroyed, at our first affection betrayed. “Oh!” he murmured, “all is over, then. Nothing is now left me in this world. Nothing to look for, nothing to hope for. Guiche has told me so, my father has told me so, and M. d’Artagnan likewise. Everything is a mere idle dream in this life. That future, which I have been hopelessly pursuing for the last ten years, a dream! that union of our hearts, a dream! that life formed of love and happiness, a dream! Poor fool that I am,” he continued after a pause, “to dream away my existence aloud, publicly, and in the face of others, my friends and my enemies—and for what purpose, too? in order that my friends may be saddened by my troubles, and that my enemies may laugh at my sorrows. And so my unhappiness will soon become a notorious disgrace, a public scandal; and who knows but that to-morrow I may not even be ignominiously pointed at.”
And, despite the composure which he had promised his father and d‘Artagnan to observe, Raoul could not resist uttering a few words of dark menace. “And yet,” he continued, “if my name were de Wardes, and if I had the pliant character and strength of will of M. d’Artagnan, I should laugh, with my lips at least; I should convince other women that this perfidious girl, honoured by the affection I have wasted on her, leaves me only one regret, that of having been abused and deceived by her resemblance of a modest and irreproachable conduct; a few men might perhaps fawn upon the King by laughing at my expense; I should put myself on the track of some of those jesters; I should chastise a few of them, perhaps; the men would fear me, and by the time I had laid three dying or dead at my feet, I should be adored by the women. Yes, yes, that indeed would be the proper course to adopt, and the Comte de la Fère himself would not object to it. Has not he also been tried, in his earlier days, in the same manner as I have just been tried myself? Did he not replace affection by intoxication? He has often told me so. Why should not I replace love by pleasure? He must have suffered as much as I suffer, even more so perhaps. The history of one man is the history of all men, a lengthened trial, more or less so at least, more or less bitter and sorrowful. The voice of human nature is nothing but one prolonged cry. But what are the sufferings of others compared to those from which I am now suffering? Does the open wound in another’s breast soften the pain of the gaping wound in our own? Or does the blood which is welling from another man’s side staunch that which is pouring from our own? Does the general anguish of our fellow creatures lessen our own private and particular anguish? No, no, each suffers on his own account, each struggles with his own grief, each sheds his own tears. And besides,” he went o
n, “what has my life been up to the present moment? A cold, barren, sterile arena, in which I have always fought for others, never for myself. Sometimes for a king, sometimes for a woman. The King has betrayed me, the woman disdained me. Miserable, unhappy wretch that I am! Woman! Can I not make all expiate the crime of one of their sex? What does that need? To have a heart no longer, or to forget that I ever had one; to be strong, even against weakness itself; to lean always, even when one feels that the support is giving way. What is needed to attain, or succeed in all that? To be young, handsome, valiant, rich, I am, or shall be, all that. But honour?” he still continued, “and what is honour after all? A theory which every man understands in his own way. My father tells me, ‘Honour is the respect of that which is due to others, and particularly of what is due to oneself.’ But Guiche, and Manicamp, and Saint-Aignan particularly, would say to me: ‘What’s honour? Honour consists in studying and yielding to the passions and pleasures of one’s king.’ Honour such as that, indeed, is easy and productive enough. With honour like that, I can keep my post at the court, become a gentleman of the chamber, and accept the command of a regiment, which may have been presented to me. With honour such as that, I can be both duke and peer.
“The stain which that woman has just stamped upon me, the grief with which she has just broken my heart, the heart of the friend and playmate of her childhood, in no way affect M. de Bragelonne, an excellent officer, a courageous leader, who will cover himself with glory at the first encounter, and who will become a hundred times greater than Mademoiselle de la Vallière is to-day, the mistress of the King—for the King will not marry her—and the more publicly he will proclaim her as his mistress, the thicker will become the bandage of shame which he casts in her face, in the guise of a crown; and in proportion as others will despise her, as I despise her, I shall be gaining honours in the field. Alas! we had walked together side by side, she and I, during the earliest, the brightest and best portion of our existence, hand in hand along the charming path of life, covered with the flowers of youth; and then, alas! we reach a cross-road, where she separates herself from me, in which we have to follow a different route, whereby we become more and more widely separated from each other. And to attain the end of this path, oh, Heaven! I am now alone, in utter despair, and crushed to the very earth!”
Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 20
