“Humph!” said d’Artagnan, a little confused by this violent tempest of grief.
“Let me speak to him, Athos? Who knows?”
“Try if you please, but I am convinced you will not succeed.”
“I will not attempt to console him, I will serve him.”
“You will?”
“Doubtless, I will. Do you think this would be the first time a woman had repented of an infidelity? I will go to him, I tell you.”
Athos shook his head, and continued his walk alone. D’Artagnan, cutting across the brambles, rejoined Raoul, and held out his hand to him. “Well, Raoul! You have something to say to me?”
“I have a kindness to ask of you,” replied Bragelonne.
“Ask it then.”
“You will some day return to France?”
“I hope so.”
“Ought I to write to Mademoiselle de la Vallière?”
“No; you must not.”
“But I have so many things to say to her.”
“Come and say them to her, then.”
“Never! ”
“Pray, what virtue do you attribute to a letter, which your speech might not possess?”
“Perhaps you are right.”
“She loves the King,” said d’Artagnan bluntly; “and she is an honest girl.”
Raoul started. “And you, you! whom she abandons, she, perhaps, loves better than she does the King, but after another fashion.”
“D’Artagnan, do you believe she loves the King?”
“To idolatry. Her heart is inaccessible to any other feeling. You might continue to live near her, and would be her best friend.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Raoul, with a passionate burst of repugnance for such a painful hope.
“Will you do so?”
“It would be base.”
“That is a very absurd word, which would lead me to think slightly of your understanding. Please understand, Raoul, that it is never base to do that which is imposed by a superior force. If your heart says to you, ‘Go there or die,’ why, go there, Raoul. Was she base or brave, she whom you loved, in preferring the King to you, the King whom her heart commanded her imperiously to prefer to you? No, she was the bravest of women. Do then as she has done. Obey yourself. Do you know one thing of which I am sure, Raoul?”
“What is that?”
“Why, that by seeing her closely with the eyes of a jealous man—”
“Well?”
“Well! you would cease to love her.”
“Then I am decided, my dear d’Artagnan.”
“To set off to see her again?”
“No; to set off that I may never see her again. I wish to love her for ever.”
“Humph! I must confess,” replied the musketeer, “that is a conclusion which I was far from expecting.”
“This is what I wish, my friend. You will see her again, and you will give her a letter, which, if you think proper, will explain to her as to yourself, what is passing in my heart. Read it; I prepared it last night. Something told me I should see you today.” He held the letter out, and d’Artagnan read it:—
“Mademoiselle,—
You are not wrong in my eyes in not loving me. You have only been guilty of one fault towards me, that of having left me to believe you loved me. This error will cost me my life. I pardon you, but I cannot pardon myself. It is said that happy lovers are deaf to the complaints of rejected lovers. It will not be so with you, who did not love me, except with anxiety. I am sure that if I had persisted in endeavouring to change that friendship into love, you would have yielded out of a fear of bringing about my death, or of lessening the esteem I had for you. It is much more delightful to me to die, knowing you are free and satisfied. How much, then, will you love me, when you will no longer fear either my presence or my reproaches! You will love me, because, however charming a new love may appear to you, God has not made me in anything inferior to him you have chosen, and because my devotedness, my sacrifice, and my painful end will assure me, in your eyes, a certain superiority over him. I have allowed to escape, in the candid credulity of my heart, the treasure I possessed. Many people tell me that you loved me enough to lead me to hope you would have loved me much. That idea takes from my mind all bitterness, and leads me only to blame myself. You will accept this last farewell, and you will bless me for having taken refuge in the inviolable asylum where all hatred is extinguished, and all love endures for ever. Adieu, mademoiselle. If your happiness could be purchased by the last drop of my blood, I would shed that drop. I willingly make the sacrifice of it to my misery!
“Raoul, Vicomte de Bragelonne.”
“The letter is very well,” said the captain. “I have only one fault to find with it.”
“Tell me what that is?” said Raoul.
“Why, it is, that it tells everything, except the thing which exhales, like a mortal poison, from your eyes and from your heart; except the senseless love which still consumes you.” Raoul grew paler, but remained silent.
“Why did you not write simply these words:—
“‘Mademoiselle,—Instead of cursing you, I love you, and I die.’”
“That is true,” exclaimed Raoul, with a sinister kind of joy.
And, tearing the letter he had just taken back, he wrote the following words upon a leaf of his tablets:—
“To procure the happiness of once more telling you I love you, I commit the baseness of writing to you; and to punish myself for that baseness, I die.” And he signed it.
“You will give her these tablets, captain, will you not?”
“When?” asked the latter.
“On the day,” said Bragelonne, pointing to the last sentence, “On the day when you can place a date under these words.” And he sprang away quickly to join Athos, who was returning with slow steps.
As they re-entered the fort, the sea rose with that rapid, gusty vehemence which characterises the Mediterranean; the ill humour of the element became a tempest. Something shapeless, and tossed about violently by the waves, appeared just off the coast.
“What is that?” said Athos—“a wrecked boat?”
“No, it is not a boat;” said d’Artagnan.
“Pardon me,” said Raoul, “there is a barque gaining the port rapidly.”
“Yes, there is a barque in the creek, which is prudently seeking shelter here; but that which Athos points to in the sand is not a boat at all—it has run aground.”
“Yes, yes, I see it.”
“It is the carriage which I threw into the sea, after landing the prisoner.”
“Well!” said Athos, “if you will take my advice, d’Artagnan, you will burn that carriage, in order that no vestige of it may remain, without which the fishermen of Antibes, who have believed they had to do with the devil, will endeavour to prove that your prisoner was but a man.”
“Your advice is good, Athos, and I will this night have it carried out, or rather, I will carry it out myself; but let us go in, for the rain falls heavily, and the lightning is terrific.”
As they were passing over the ramparts to a gallery of which d‘Artagnan had the key, they saw M. de Saint-Mars directing his steps towards the chamber inhabited by the prisoner. Upon a sign from d’Artagnan they concealed themselves in an angle of the staircase.
“What is it?” said Athos.
“You will see. Look. The prisoner is returning from chapel.”
And they saw, by the red flashes of the lightning against the violet fog which the wind stamped upon the bankward sky, they saw pass gravely, at six paces behind the governor, a man clothed in black, and masked by a visor of polished steel, soldered to a helmet of the same nature, which altogether enveloped the whole of his head. The fire of the heavens cast red reflections upon the polished surface, and these reflections, flying off capriciously, seemed to be angry looks launched by this unfortunate, instead of imprecations. In the middle of the gallery the prisoner stopped for a moment, to contemplate the infinite horizon, to resp
ire the sulphurous perfumes of the tempest, to drink in thirstily the hot rain, and to breathe a sigh resembling a smothered roar.
“Come on, monsieur,” said Saint-Mars, sharply to the prisoner, for he already became uneasy at seeing him look so long beyond the walls. “Monsieur, come on!”
“Say monseigneur! ” cried Athos, from his corner, with a voice so solemn and terrible, that the governor trembled from head to foot. Athos insisted upon respect being paid to fallen majesty. The prisoner turned round.
“Who spoke?” asked Saint-Mars.
“It was I,” replied d’Artagnan, showing himself promptly. “You know that is the order.”
“Call me neither Monsieur nor Monseigneur,” said the prisoner in his turn, in a voice that penetrated to the very soul of Raoul; “call me ACCURSED!” He passed on, and the iron door creaked after him.
“That is truly an unfortunate man!” murmured the musketeer in a hollow whisper, pointing out to Raoul the chamber inhabited by the Prince.
61
Promises
SCARCELY HAD D‘ARTAGNAN RE-ENTERED his apartment with his two friends than one of the soldiers of the fort came to inform him that the governor was seeking for him. The barque which Raoul had perceived at sea, and which appeared so eager to gain the port, came to Sainte-Marguerite with an important despatch for the captain of the musketeers. On opening it, d’Artagnan recognised the writing of the King: “I should think,” said Louis XIV, “you will have completed the execution of my orders, Monsieur d’Artagnan; return then immediately to Paris, and join me at the Louvre.”
“There is the end of my exile,” cried the musketeer with joy; “God be praised, I am no longer a jailer!” And he showed the letter to Athos.
“So then you must leave us,” replied the latter, in a melancholy tone.
“Yes, but to meet again, dear friend, seeing that Raoul is old enough now to go alone with M. de Beaufort, and who will prefer his father going back in company with M. d’Artagnan, to forcing him to travel two hundred leagues solitarily to reach home at La Fère; would you not, Raoul?”
“Certainly,” stammered the latter, with an expression of tender regret.
“No, no, my friend,” interrupted Athos, “I will never quit Raoul till the day his vessel shall have disappeared on the horizon. As long as he remains in France, he shall not be separated from me.”
“As you please, dear friend; but we will, at least, leave Sainte-Marguerite together; take advantage of the barque which will convey me back to Antibes.”
“With all my heart; we cannot too soon be at a distance from this fort, and from the spectacle which saddened us so just now.”
The three friends quitted the little isle, after paying their respects to the governor, and by the last flashes of the departing tempest they took their farewell of the white walls of the fort. D’Artagnan parted from his friends that same night, after having seen fire set to the carriage upon the shore, by the orders of Saint-Mars, according to the advice the captain had given him. Before getting on horseback, and after leaving the arms of Athos: “My friends,” said he, “you bear too much resemblance to two soldiers who are abandoning their post. Something warns me that Raoul will require being supported by you in his rank. Will you allow me to ask permission to go over into Africa with a hundred good muskets? The King will not refuse me, and I will take you with me.”
“Monsieur d’Artagnan,” replied Raoul, pressing his hand with emotion, “thanks for that offer, which would give us more than we wish, either Monsieur le Comte or I. I, who am young, stand in need of labour of mind and fatigue of body; Monsieur le Comte wants the profoundest repose. You are his best friend. I recommend him to your care. In watching over him, you will hold both our souls in your hands.”
“I must go; my horse is all in a fret,” said d’Artagnan, with whom the most manifest sign of a lively emotion was the change of ideas in a conversation. “Come Comte, how many days longer has Raoul to stay here?”
“Three days at most.”
“And how long will it take you to reach home?”
“Oh! a considerable time,” replied Athos. “I shall not like the idea of being separated too quickly from Raoul. Time will travel too fast of itself to require me to aid it by distance. I shall only make half-stages.”
“And why so, my friend? Nothing is more dull than travelling slowly; and hostelry life does not become a man like you.”
“My friend, I came hither on post horses; but I wish to purchase two animals of a superior kind. Now, to take them home fresh, it would not be prudent to make them travel more than seven or eight leagues a day.”
“Where is Grimaud?”
“He arrived yesterday morning, with Raoul’s appointments; and I left him to sleep.”
“That is never to come back again,” d’Artagnan suffered to escape him. “Till we meet again, then, dear Athos—and if you are diligent, well I shall embrace you the sooner.” So saying, he put his foot in the stirrup, which Raoul held.
“Farewell!” said the young man, embracing him.
“Farewell!” said d’Artagnan, as he got into his saddle.
His horse made a movement which divided the cavalier from his friends. This scene had taken place in front of the house chosen by Athos, near the gates of Antibes, whither d‘Artagnan, after his supper, had ordered his horses to be brought. The road began to extend there, white and undulating in the vapours of the night. The horse eagerly respired the salt, sharp perfume of the marshes. D’Artagnan put him into a trot; and Athos and Raoul sadly turned towards the house. All at once they heard the rapid approach of a horse’s steps, and at first believed it to be one of those singular repercussions which deceive the ear at every turn in a road. But it was really the return of the horseman. They uttered a cry of joyous surprise; and the captain, springing to the ground like a young man, seized within his arms the two beloved heads of Athos and Raoul. He held them long embraced thus, without speaking a word, or suffering the sigh which was bursting his breast to escape him. Then, as rapidly as he had come back, he set off again, with a sharp application of his spurs to the sides of his fiery horse.
“Alas!” said the Comte, in a low voice, “alas! alas!”
“Evil presage! on his side,” said d’Artagnan to himself, making up for lost time. “I could not smile upon them. An evil presage!”
The next day Grimaud was on foot again. The service commanded by M. de Beaufort was happily accomplished. The flotilla, sent to Toulon by the exertions of Raoul, had set out, dragging after it in little nutshells, almost invisible, the wives and friends of the fishermen and smugglers put in requisition for the service of the fleet. The time, so short, which remained for the father and son to live together, appeared to have doubled in rapidity, as the swiftness of everything increases which inclines towards mixing with the gulf of eternity. Athos and Raoul returned to Toulon, which began to be filled with the noise of carriages, with the noise of arms, with the noise of neighing horses. The trumpeters sounded their spirited marches; the drummers signalised their strength; the streets were overflowing with soldiers, servants, and tradespeople. The Duc de Beaufort was everywhere, superintending the embarkation with the zeal and interest of a good captain. He encouraged even the most humble of his companions; he scolded his lieutenants, even those of the highest rank. Artillery, provisions, baggage, he insisted upon seeing all himself. He examined the equipment of every soldier; he assured himself of the health and soundness of every horse. It was plain that, light, boastful, egotistical, in his hotel, the gentleman became the soldier again—the high noble, a captain—in face of the responsibility he had accepted. And yet, it must be admitted that, whatever was the care with which he presided over the preparations for departure, it was easy to perceive careless precipitation, and the absence of all the precaution which make the French soldier the first soldier in the world, because in that world, he is the one most abandoned to his own physical and moral resources. All things having satisfied, or a
ppearing to have satisfied, the admiral, he paid his compliments to Raoul, and gave the last orders for sailing, which was ordered the next morning at daybreak. He invited the Comte and his son to dine with him; but they, under a pretext of the service, kept themselves apart. Gaining their hostelry, situated under the trees of the great Place, they took their repast in haste, and Athos led Raoul to the rocks which dominate the city, vast grey mountains, whence the view is infinite, and embraces a liquid horizon, which appears, so remote is it, on a level with the rocks themselves. The night was fine, as it always is in these happy climates. The moon, rising behind the rocks, unrolled, like a silver sheet, upon the blue carpet of the sea. In the road manoeuvred silently the vessels which had just taken their rank to facilitate the embarkation. The sea, loaded with phosphoric light, opened beneath the hulls of the barques which transported the baggage and munitions; every dip of the prow ploughed up this gulf of white flames; and from every oar dropped liquid diamonds. The sailors, rejoicing in the largesses of the admiral, were heard murmuring their slow and artless songs. Sometimes, the grinding of the chains was mixed with the dull noise of shot falling into the holds. These harmonies, and this spectacle, oppress the heart like fear, and dilate it like hope. All this life speaks of death. Athos had seated himself with his son, upon the moss, among the brambles of the promontory. Around their heads passed and repassed large bats, carried along in the fearful whirl of their blind chase. The feet of Raoul were across the edge of the cliff, and bathed in that void which is peopled by vertigo, and provokes to annihilation. When the moon had risen to its full height, caressing with its light the neighbouring peaks, when the watery mirror was illumined in its full extent, and the little red fires had made their openings in the black masses of every ship, Athos collected all his ideas, and all his courage, and said:—
“God has made all that we see, Raoul; He has made us also—poor atoms mixed up with this great universe. We shine like those fires and those stars; we sigh like those waves; we suffer like those great ships, which are worn out in ploughing the waves, in obeying the wind which urges them towards an end, as the breath of God blows us towards a port. Everything likes to live, Raoul; and everything is beautiful in living things.”
Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 56
