“Not half an hour had passed before I began to feel the same symptoms as before; only this time, as I’d had only half a glass of water, I was able to fight it off longer, and instead of falling completely asleep, I sank into a state of lethargy that left me aware of what was happening around me, while robbing me of the strength to defend myself or flee.
“I dragged myself toward the bed, to seek the only defense I had left—my knife, my savior—but I couldn’t reach the pillows. I fell to my knees, my hands clenched on a bedpost, and I was certain I was lost.”
Felton became dangerously pale, and a convulsive shudder ran through his body.
“And what was most frightful,” Milady continued, her voice altered, as if she were reliving the agony of that terrible moment, “was that, this time, I was fully conscious of the danger I was in. It was as if my soul were awake while my body was asleep. I could still see; I could still hear; and though it felt as if I were in a dream, it was not the less dreadful for that.
“I saw the lamp ascend and leave me in darkness; then I heard the creak of the door, so familiar to me, though I’d heard it only twice before.
“I felt instinctively that someone was approaching me. They say those lost in the American desert have the same feeling at the approach of a deadly serpent.
“I forced myself to make an effort, to try to cry out, and through an incredible act of will I managed to rise up . . . only to immediately collapse, and fall into the arms of my persecutor.”
“Tell me, who was this man?” cried the young officer.
Milady saw with a glance the agonies she was putting Felton through by dwelling on every detail of her story—but she was determined not to spare him a single pang of torture. The more pain he suffered, the more certain it was that he’d avenge her. She continued, then, as if she hadn’t heard his exclamation, or as if she thought it was not yet the moment to reply to it.
“But this time, the beast didn’t have to deal with a kind of dead body, without feeling. As I told you, though I couldn’t regain control of my faculties, I still had a feeling of acute danger. I struggled, then, with all the force I could muster, and I must have put up a long resistance, weak though I was, for I heard him cry out, ‘These miserable Puritans! I knew they were a trial to their executioners, but I never imagined they’d be so hard on their seducers.’
“Alas! My desperate resistance couldn’t last long. I felt my strength fail me, and this time it wasn’t sleep that enabled the coward to take advantage of me, but overpowering dizziness.”
Felton listened without a sound except for a sort of suppressed moan, but the sweat streamed from his marble brow, and his hand, under his clothes, pawed at his chest.
“When I came to, my first impulse was to feel under my pillow for the knife I hadn’t been able to reach. If it hadn’t served me as a defense, at least it might grant me expiation.
“But on taking up this knife, Felton, a terrible idea came to me. I’ve sworn to tell you everything, and I will tell you everything—I promised you the whole truth and you’ll have it, even if it means my ruin.”
“The idea came into your mind to avenge yourself on this man, didn’t it?” cried Felton.
“Yes!” Milady said. “This was no thought for a Christian, I knew—but doubtless that eternal enemy of our souls, that lion roaring ceaselessly around us, breathed it into my ear. What can I tell you, Felton?” Milady continued, in the tone of a woman accusing herself of a crime. “This idea came to me, and wouldn’t leave. It’s because of this homicidal thought that I’m now being punished.”
“Go on, go on,” Felton said. “I want to see you wreak your revenge.”
“I resolved it would take place as soon as possible. I had no doubt he would return the following night. During the day I had nothing to fear.
“So when the hour of breakfast came, I didn’t hesitate to eat and drink. I was determined to only pretend to eat supper, but to actually take nothing. The meal from the morning would have to make up for the fast of the evening.
“Only I hid a glass of water that had come with my breakfast, as thirst had been the worst of my sufferings during that forty-eight hours without eating or drinking.
“The day passed away, with no other effect on me other than to affirm the resolution I’d taken. But I took care that my face shouldn’t betray what was in my heart, for I had no doubt that I was watched. Several times I even felt a smile touch my lips. Felton, I don’t dare tell you the idea that made me smile; you would feel such horror . . .”
“Go on, go on,” said Felton. “You can see how I’m listening. I must know the end!”
“Evening came, with its usual routine: during the darkness, my supper was served, and when the lamp was relit, I sat down to table.
“I ate nothing but a little fruit, and though I pretended to pour water from the carafe, I drank only what I’d saved in my glass. This substitution was made so carefully that spies, if there were any, could have had no suspicions.
“After supper, I displayed the same signs of lethargy as the night before—but this time, as I succumbed to the dizziness, or as if I’d become used to it, I dragged myself to my bed and pretended to fall asleep.
“And this time, I found my knife under the pillow, and while feigning sleep, I gripped the handle desperately.
“Two hours passed during which nothing happened. Dear God! If only I could have said that of the night before! I even began to fear he would not come.
“Eventually I saw the lamp rise softly and disappear into the heights of the ceiling. My chamber filled with shadows, but I tried intently to see through the darkness.
“Nearly ten minutes passed. I could hear nothing but the sound of the beating of my heart.
“I prayed to heaven for him to come.
“Finally I heard the familiar sound as the door opened and closed. I heard, despite the thickness of the carpet, a step that made the floor creak; I saw, despite the darkness, a shadow approach my bed.”
“Faster! Faster!” Felton said. “Can’t you see that every word burns me like molten lead?”
“Then,” continued Milady, “I gathered all my strength, as I told myself that the hour of vengeance—or rather, of justice—had struck. I saw myself as another Judith; I readied myself, my knife in my hand, and when I saw him near me, reaching out his arms to find his victim, then, with a final cry of anguish and despair, I struck him in the middle of the chest.
“The wretch! He’d foreseen everything. His chest was covered with a coat of mail, and the knife turned against it.
“‘Ah ha!’ he cried, seizing my arms, and wresting from me the knife that had served me so poorly. ‘So you want to take my life, my pretty Puritan? But that’s worse than hatred—that’s ingratitude!’
“‘Come, come, calm yourself, my girl. I thought you might be ready now to be more congenial. Well, I’m not one of these tyrants who holds women by force. So you don’t love me? With my usual egotism, I doubted it—but now I’m convinced. Tomorrow, you’ll be free.’
“But by then my only desire was that he should kill me. ‘Take care,’ I told him, ‘for my freedom will be your dishonor. Yes, as soon as I’m away from here, I’ll tell everything! I’ll describe the violence you’ve used against me; I’ll describe my captivity; I’ll denounce this palace of infamy. You have a lofty position, Milord, but tremble! Above you is the king, and above the king is God.’
“Despite his self-possession, at this my persecutor let slip an angry movement. I couldn’t see the expression on his face, but I felt his arm tremble under my hand.
“‘Then, you must not leave here,’ he said.
“‘Good!’ I cried. ‘Then the place of my suffering will be the same as my tomb. Here I will die, and you’ll see if an accusing phantom isn’t more terrible than a living threat!’
“‘You’ll be allowed no weapons.’
“‘But there’s a weapon that despair gives to every creature who has the courage to use it.
I’ll allow myself to die of hunger.’
“‘Come, now,’ the wretch said, ‘isn’t peace better than that sort of war? I’ll set you free this very moment. I’ll proclaim your virtue far and wide, and name you the Lucretia109 of England.’
“‘And I’ll say you are the Sextus! I’ll denounce you before men as I’ve denounced you before God, and if, like Lucretia, I must sign my accusation in my own blood, I’ll do so.’
“‘Indeed?’ said my enemy, in a tone of mockery. ‘Well, that’s quite another thing. Faith! All things considered, you’re fine right here. You’ll want for nothing, and if you let yourself die of hunger, it will be your own fault.’
“At these words, he retired. I heard the door open and shut, and I was left, dismayed—though less by grief, I must confess, than by the shame at having failed to avenge myself.
“He kept his word. The day, the night, and the next day passed without my seeing him again. But I also kept my word, and neither ate nor drank; I was, as I’d told him, resolved to let myself die of hunger.
“I passed the day and night in prayer, for I hoped that God would pardon my suicide.
“The second night, the door opened. I was lying on the floor, for my strength had begun to abandon me. At the noise I raised myself on one arm.
“‘Well,’ said a voice, which was graven too deeply on my memory to ever be forgotten, ‘well, have we softened a little, and will we not pay for our liberty with a single promise of silence? Come, I’m a good sort of prince, and though I don’t usually care for Puritans, I do them justice—especially female Puritans, if they’re pretty. Come, take a little oath for me on the cross, and I won’t ask anything more of you.’
“‘On the cross!’ I cried, rising, for at the sound of that detested voice I’d recovered all my strength. ‘On the cross! I swear that no promise, no threat, no torture shall ever silence me—on the cross! I swear to denounce you everywhere as a murderer, a coward, and a despoiler of honor—on the cross! I swear, if ever I leave this place, to demand vengeance on you from the whole human race.’
“‘Beware!’ said the voice, in a tone of menace I hadn’t heard before. ‘I have extraordinary means, which I will use only as a last resort, to shut your mouth, or at least ensure that no one will believe a word you say.’
“I gathered all my strength to reply with a burst of laughter.
“He saw then that between us was total war, a war to the death.
“‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you the rest of tonight and all day tomorrow to reflect. Promise to be silent, and I’ll surround you with wealth, preferment, and even honor. Threaten to talk, and I’ll condemn you to shame and infamy.’
“‘You,’ I cried, ‘will condemn me?’
“‘To shame and infamy, eternal and irreversible!’
“‘You!’ I repeated. Oh, I tell you, Felton, I thought he must be mad!
“‘Yes, me,’ he replied.
“‘Get out,’ I said. ‘Get out, unless you want to see me dash my head against that wall before your eyes!’
“‘Very well,’ he said, ‘as you wish. Until tomorrow night!’
“‘Tomorrow night!’ I echoed, falling to the floor and biting the carpet with rage . . .”
Felton leaned himself against a table, and Milady saw with demonic glee that his strength might not even last until the end of her story.
LVII
A Scene from Classical Tragedy
After a moment of silence, which Milady spent in observing the young man who listened to her, she continued her story:
“It was almost three days since I’d eaten or drunk anything, and I was suffering terribly. At times my mind was clouded, and my vision was veiled: this was delirium.
“When evening came, I was so weak I was constantly fainting, and every time I fainted I thanked God, for I thought I was about to die.
“During one of these swoons I heard the door open, and terror restored me to my senses.
“My persecutor entered, followed by a masked man. My nemesis was also masked, but I recognized his step, and the imposing air that Hell has granted him for the affliction of humanity.
“‘Well,’ he said to me, ‘have you decided to swear the oath I’ve asked for?’
“‘As you know, a Puritan only gives his word once, and mine you have heard: that I’ll pursue you on earth for the justice of man, or in heaven for the justice of God!’
“‘You persist, then?’
“‘I swear before God, who hears me, that I will bear witness of your crime before the entire world, and never stop until I’ve found an avenger.’
“‘You are a whore,’ he said, in a voice of thunder, ‘and you shall suffer the punishment of whores! Branded in the eyes of the world you wish to rouse, try to prove to that world that you are neither guilty nor mad!’
“Then, addressing the man who accompanied him, he said, ‘Executioner, do your duty.’”
“His name! His name!” cried Felton. “Tell me!”
“Despite my cries, despite my resistance, for I began to understand that I was about to be subjected to something worse than death, the executioner seized me and threw me to the floor, restraining me in his brutal grasp. Then, suffocated by sobs, almost losing my mind, calling out to God, who didn’t hear me, I suddenly screamed with pain and shame—for a searing fire, a red-hot iron, the iron of the executioner, had been burned into the flesh of my shoulder.”
Felton uttered a moan.
“Here,” said Milady, rising with the majesty of a queen, “here, Felton, behold the new martyrdom invented for a pure young girl, victim of the brutality of a depraved scoundrel. Learn to know the heart of men, and henceforth don’t be so easily made into the instrument of their unjust revenge.”
Milady, in a single rapid movement, opened her dress, tore back the cambric that covered her upper body, and, blushing with feigned anger and shame, displayed to the young man the ineffaceable brand that dishonored her beautiful shoulder.
“But that’s a fleur-de-lys!” cried Felton.
“That shows the full extent of their infamy,” Milady replied. “With an English brand, there would be a record of what court had imposed it on me, and I could make a public appeal to prove no such record exists. But the brand of France . . . oh, by that, I was branded indeed.”
This was too much for Felton.
Pale, paralyzed, overcome by this frightful revelation, dazzled by the superhuman beauty of this woman, who unveiled herself before him with an immodesty that seemed to him sublime, he fell to his knees before her, as the early Christians did before those pure and holy martyrs whom the persecuting emperors offered up in the circus to a bloody-minded populace. In his eyes the brand disappeared, and only the beauty remained.
“Forgive me! Forgive me!” cried Felton. “Oh, forgive me!”
But in his eyes, Milady read: Love me!
“Forgive you? For what?” she asked.
“Forgive me for having joined with your persecutors.”
Milady held out her hand to him.
“So young! So beautiful!” Felton cried, and covered her hand with kisses.
Milady favored him with one of those looks that makes a slave out of a king.
Felton was a Puritan: he gave up her hand and began kissing her feet.
He no longer loved her—he worshipped her.
Once this crisis was past, and Milady seemed to have regained that self-possession that had never really left her; once Felton had watched her replace her veil of modesty over those treasures of love, which were only hidden from him to make him desire them all the more, he said:
“Now, I have only one more thing to ask of you: the name of your one, true executioner—because for me there is only one; the other was nothing more than a tool.”
“What, Brother?” said Milady. “Must I name him again? Haven’t you guessed?”
“You mean, him?” said Felton. “Again? Him, always? Then, the real culprit . . .”
“The real culprit,” Milady said, “is the pillager of England, the persecutor of true believers, the cowardly ravisher of the honor of so many women; he who, to satisfy the lust of his corrupt heart, is about to shed the blood of two realms; who protects the Protestants today, only to betray them tomorrow . . .”
“Buckingham! It’s Buckingham!” cried Felton, in a frenzy.
Milady hid her face in her hands, as if she couldn’t bear the shame this name recalled to her.
“Buckingham, the executioner of this . . . this angel?” Felton frothed. “And thou hast not struck him down, my God? Thou hast left him noble, and honored, and powerful, to the ruin of us all!”
“God abandons him who abandons himself,” Milady said quietly.
“But he shall draw upon his head the punishment meant for the damned!” Felton continued in rising exaltation. “The Lord wills that human vengeance shall precede heavenly justice!”
“But men fear him, and will spare him.”
“But I,” said Felton, “I do not fear him, and I will not spare him!” Milady felt her soul bathed in infernal joy.
“But how can Lord Winter, my protector, my father, be mixed up in all this?” Felton asked.
“Listen, Felton,” Milady replied. “At the side of craven and contemptible men one often finds great and generous natures. I had a fiancé, a man whom I loved, and who loved me—with a heart like yours, Felton, a man like you. I went to him and told him everything; that man knew me, and didn’t doubt me for an instant. He was a great noble, a man equal to Buckingham in every respect. He said nothing, only belted on his sword, enveloped himself in his cloak, and went directly to Buckingham Palace.”
“Yes, yes,” said Felton. “I know how he felt! But with such men as Buckingham, you can’t use a sword—it must be the dagger.”
“Buckingham had left England the night before, sent as ambassador to Spain110 to demand the hand of the Infanta for King Charles, who was then only Prince of Wales. My fiancé returned.
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - [Full Version] - (ANNOTATED) Page 62