The three musketeers
the friendly adieu of his Eminence, they plainly perceived that the
cardinal went away with rage in his heart.
Athos alone smiled, with a self-possessed, disdainful smile.
When the cardinal was out of hearing and sight, “That Grimaud kept bad
watch!” cried Porthos, who had a great inclination to vent his
ill-humor on somebody.
Grimaud was about to reply to excuse himself. Athos lifted his finger,
and Grimaud was silent.
“Would you have given up the letter, Aramis?” said D’Artagnan.
“I,” said Aramis, in his most flutelike tone, “I had made up my mind.
If he had insisted upon the letter being given up to him, I would have
presented the letter to him with one hand, and with the other I would
have run my sword through his body.”
“I expected as much,” said Athos; “and that was why I threw myself
between you and him. Indeed, this man is very much to blame for talking
thus to other men; one would say he had never had to do with any but
women and children.”
“My dear Athos, I admire you, but nevertheless we were in the wrong,
after all.”
“How, in the wrong?” said Athos. “Whose, then, is the air we breathe?
Whose is the ocean upon which we look? Whose is the sand upon which we
were reclining? Whose is that letter of your mistress? Do these belong
to the cardinal? Upon my honor, this man fancies the world belongs to
him. There you stood, stammering, stupefied, annihilated. One might
have supposed the Bastille appeared before you, and that the gigantic
Medusa had converted you into stone. Is being in love conspiring? You
are in love with a woman whom the cardinal has caused to be shut up,
and you wish to get her out of the hands of the cardinal. That’s a
match you are playing with his Eminence; this letter is your game. Why
should you expose your game to your adversary? That is never done. Let
him find it out if he can! We can find out his!”
“Well, that’s all very sensible, Athos,” said D’Artagnan.
“In that case, let there be no more question of what’s past, and let
Aramis resume the letter from his cousin where the cardinal interrupted
him.”
Aramis drew the letter from his pocket; the three friends surrounded
him, and the three lackeys grouped themselves again near the wine jar.
“You had only read a line or two,” said D’Artagnan; “read the letter
again from the commencement.”
“Willingly,” said Aramis.
“MY DEAR COUSIN, I think I shall make up my mind to set out for
Béthune, where my sister has placed our little servant in the convent
of the Carmelites; this poor child is quite resigned, as she knows she
cannot live elsewhere without the salvation of her soul being in
danger. Nevertheless, if the affairs of our family are arranged, as we
hope they will be, I believe she will run the risk of being damned, and
will return to those she regrets, particularly as she knows they are
always thinking of her. Meanwhile, she is not very wretched; what she
most desires is a letter from her intended. I know that such viands
pass with difficulty through convent gratings; but after all, as I have
given you proofs, my dear cousin, I am not unskilled in such affairs,
and I will take charge of the commission. My sister thanks you for your
good and eternal remembrance. She has experienced much anxiety; but she
is now at length a little reassured, having sent her secretary away in
order that nothing may happen unexpectedly.
“Adieu, my dear cousin. Tell us news of yourself as often as you
can; that is to say, as often as you can with safety. I embrace
you.
“MARIE MICHON”
“Oh, what do I not owe you, Aramis?” said D’Artagnan. “Dear Constance!
I have at length, then, intelligence of you. She lives; she is in
safety in a convent; she is at Béthune! Where is Béthune, Athos?”
“Why, upon the frontiers of Artois and of Flanders. The siege once
over, we shall be able to make a tour in that direction.”
“And that will not be long, it is to be hoped,” said Porthos; “for they
have this morning hanged a spy who confessed that the Rochellais were
reduced to the leather of their shoes. Supposing that after having
eaten the leather they eat the soles, I cannot see much that is left
unless they eat one another.”
“Poor fools!” said Athos, emptying a glass of excellent Bordeaux wine
which, without having at that period the reputation it now enjoys,
merited it no less, “poor fools! As if the Catholic religion was not
the most advantageous and the most agreeable of all religions! All the
same,” resumed he, after having clicked his tongue against his palate,
“they are brave fellows! But what the devil are you about, Aramis?”
continued Athos. “Why, you are squeezing that letter into your pocket!”
“Yes,” said D’Artagnan, “Athos is right, it must be burned. And yet if
we burn it, who knows whether Monsieur Cardinal has not a secret to
interrogate ashes?”
“He must have one,” said Athos.
“What will you do with the letter, then?” asked Porthos.
“Come here, Grimaud,” said Athos. Grimaud rose and obeyed. “As a
punishment for having spoken without permission, my friend, you will
please to eat this piece of paper; then to recompense you for the
service you will have rendered us, you shall afterward drink this glass
of wine. First, here is the letter. Eat heartily.”
Grimaud smiled; and with his eyes fixed upon the glass which Athos held
in his hand, he ground the paper well between his teeth and then
swallowed it.
“Bravo, Monsieur Grimaud!” said Athos; “and now take this. That’s well.
We dispense with your saying grace.”
Grimaud silently swallowed the glass of Bordeaux wine; but his eyes,
raised toward heaven during this delicious occupation, spoke a language
which, though mute, was not the less expressive.
“And now,” said Athos, “unless Monsieur Cardinal should form the
ingenious idea of ripping up Grimaud, I think we may be pretty much at
our ease respecting the letter.”
Meantime, his Eminence continued his melancholy ride, murmuring between
his mustaches, “These four men must positively be mine.”
Chapter LII.
CAPTIVITY: THE FIRST DAY
Let us return to Milady, whom a glance thrown upon the coast of France
has made us lose sight of for an instant.
We shall find her still in the despairing attitude in which we left
her, plunged in an abyss of dismal reflection—a dark hell at the gate
of which she has almost left hope behind, because for the first time
she doubts, for the first time she fears.
On two occasions her fortune has failed her, on two occasions she has
found herself discovered and betrayed; and on these two occasions it
was to one fatal genius, sent doubtlessly by the Lord to combat her,
that she has succumbed. D’Artagnan has conquered her—her, that
invincible power of evil.
He has deceived her in her love, humbled her in her pride, thwarted her
in her ambition; and now he ruins her fortune, deprives her of liberty,
and even threatens her life. Still more, he has lifted the corner of
her mask—that shield with which she covered herself and which rendered
her so strong.
D’Artagnan has turned aside from Buckingham, whom she hates as she
hates everyone she has loved, the tempest with which Richelieu
threatened him in the person of the queen. D’Artagnan had passed
himself upon her as De Wardes, for whom she had conceived one of those
tigerlike fancies common to women of her character. D’Artagnan knows
that terrible secret which she has sworn no one shall know without
dying. In short, at the moment in which she has just obtained from
Richelieu a _carte blanche_ by the means of which she is about to take
vengeance on her enemy, this precious paper is torn from her hands, and
it is D’Artagnan who holds her prisoner and is about to send her to
some filthy Botany Bay, some infamous Tyburn of the Indian Ocean.
All this she owes to D’Artagnan, without doubt. From whom can come so
many disgraces heaped upon her head, if not from him? He alone could
have transmitted to Lord de Winter all these frightful secrets which he
has discovered, one after another, by a train of fatalities. He knows
her brother-in-law. He must have written to him.
What hatred she distills! Motionless, with her burning and fixed
glances, in her solitary apartment, how well the outbursts of passion
which at times escape from the depths of her chest with her
respiration, accompany the sound of the surf which rises, growls,
roars, and breaks itself like an eternal and powerless despair against
the rocks on which is built this dark and lofty castle! How many
magnificent projects of vengeance she conceives by the light of the
flashes which her tempestuous passion casts over her mind against Mme.
Bonacieux, against Buckingham, but above all against
D’Artagnan—projects lost in the distance of the future.
Yes; but in order to avenge herself she must be free. And to be free, a
prisoner has to pierce a wall, detach bars, cut through a floor—all
undertakings which a patient and strong man may accomplish, but before
which the feverish irritations of a woman must give way. Besides, to do
all this, time is necessary—months, years; and she has ten or twelve
days, as Lord de Winter, her fraternal and terrible jailer, has told
her.
And yet, if she were a man she would attempt all this, and perhaps
might succeed; why, then, did heaven make the mistake of placing that
manlike soul in that frail and delicate body?
The first moments of her captivity were terrible; a few convulsions of
rage which she could not suppress paid her debt of feminine weakness to
nature. But by degrees she overcame the outbursts of her mad passion;
and nervous tremblings which agitated her frame disappeared, and she
remained folded within herself like a fatigued serpent in repose.
“Go to, go to! I must have been mad to allow myself to be carried away
so,” says she, gazing into the glass, which reflects back to her eyes
the burning glance by which she appears to interrogate herself. “No
violence; violence is the proof of weakness. In the first place, I have
never succeeded by that means. Perhaps if I employed my strength
against women I might perchance find them weaker than myself, and
consequently conquer them; but it is with men that I struggle, and I am
but a woman to them. Let me fight like a woman, then; my strength is in
my weakness.”
Then, as if to render an account to herself of the changes she could
place upon her countenance, so mobile and so expressive, she made it
take all expressions from that of passionate anger, which convulsed her
features, to that of the most sweet, most affectionate, and most
seducing smile. Then her hair assumed successively, under her skillful
hands, all the undulations she thought might assist the charms of her
face. At length she murmured, satisfied with herself, “Come, nothing is
lost; I am still beautiful.”
It was then nearly eight o’clock in the evening. Milady perceived a
bed; she calculated that the repose of a few hours would not only
refresh her head and her ideas, but still further, her complexion. A
better idea, however, came into her mind before going to bed. She had
heard something said about supper. She had already been an hour in this
apartment; they could not long delay bringing her a repast. The
prisoner did not wish to lose time; and she resolved to make that very
evening some attempts to ascertain the nature of the ground she had to
work upon, by studying the characters of the men to whose guardianship
she was committed.
A light appeared under the door; this light announced the reappearance
of her jailers. Milady, who had arisen, threw herself quickly into the
armchair, her head thrown back, her beautiful hair unbound and
disheveled, her bosom half bare beneath her crumpled lace, one hand on
her heart, and the other hanging down.