Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Alexandre Dumas

  D’Artagnan made a sign of approbation with his head.

  “‘Monsieur,’ he said to me,” continued Porthos, “‘a gentleman ought to measure himself. Do me the pleasure to draw near this glass,’ and I drew near the glass. I must own I did not exactly understand what this good M. Volière wanted with me.”

  “Molière.”

  “Ah! yes, Molière—Molière. And as the fear of being measured still possessed me, ‘Take care,’ said I to him, ‘what you are going to do with me; I am very ticklish, I warn you.’ But he, with his soft voice (for he is a courteous fellow, we must admit, my friend), he, with his soft voice, ‘Monsieur,’ said he, ‘that your dress may fit you well, it must be made according to your figure. Your figure is exactly reflected in this mirror. We shall take the measure of this reflection.’ ”

  “In fact,” said d’Artagnan, “you saw yourself in the glass; but where did they find one in which you could see your whole figure?”

  “My good friend, it is the very glass in which the King sees himself.”

  “Yes; but the King is a foot and a half shorter than you are.”

  “Ah! well, I know not how that may be; it would no doubt be a way of flattering the King; but the looking-glass was too large for me. ’Tis true that its height was made up of three Venetian plates of glass, placed one above another, and its breadth of the three similar pieces in juxtaposition.”

  “Oh Porthos! what excellent words you have command of. Where in the world did you make the collection?”

  “At Belle-Isle. Aramis explained them to the architect.”

  “Ah! very good. Let us return to the glass, my friend.”

  “Then, this good M. Volière——”

  “Molière.”

  “Yes—Molière—you are right. You will see, now, my dear friend, that I shall recollect his name too well. This excellent M. Molière set to work tracing out lines on the mirror with a piece of Spanish chalk, following in all the make of my arms and my shoulders, all the while expounding this maxim, which I thought admirable. It is necessary that a dress do not incommode its wearer.”

  “In reality,” said d’Artagnan, “that is an excellent maxim, which is, unfortunately, seldom carried out in practice.”

  “That is why I found it all the more astonishing, when he expatiated upon it.”

  “Ah! he expatiated!”

  “Parbleu!”

  “Let me hear his theory.”

  “‘Seeing that,’ he continued, ‘one may, in awkward circumstances, or in a troublesome position, have one’s doublet on one’s shoulder, and not desire to take one’s doublet off—’”

  “True,” said d’Artagnan.

  “‘And so,’ continued M. Volière—”

  “Molière.”

  “Molière, yes. ‘And so,’ went on M. Molière, ‘you want to draw your sword, monsieur, and you have your doublet on your back, what do you do?’

  “‘I take it off,’ I answered.

  “‘How so?’

  “‘I say that the dress should be so well made that it can in no way encumber you, even in drawing your sword.’

  “‘Ah, ah!’

  “‘Throw yourself on guard,’ pursued he.

  “I did it with such wondrous firmness that two panes of glass burst out of the window.

  “”Tis nothing, nothing,’ said he. ‘Keep your position.’

  “I raised my left arm in the air, the forearm gracefully bent, the ruffle drooping, and my wrist curved, while my right arm, half extended, securely covered my waist with the elbow, and my breast with the wrist.”

  “Yes,” said d‘Artagnan, “’tis the true guard—the academic guard.”

  “You have said the very word, dear friend. In the meanwhile, Volière—”

  “Molière.”

  “Hold! I should certainly, after all, prefer to call him—what did you say his other name was?”

  “Poquelin.”

  “I prefer to call him Poquelin.”

  “And how will you remember this name better than the other?”

  “You understand, he calls himself Poquelin, does he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “I shall recall to mind Madame Coquenard.”

  “Good.”

  “I shall change Coc into Poc, nard into lin; and instead of Coquenard I shall have Poquelin.”

  “‘Tis wonderful,” cried d’Artagnan, astounded. “Go on, my friend, I am listening to you with admiration.”

  “This Coquelin sketched my arm on the glass.”

  “I beg your pardon—Poquelin.”

  “What did I say, then?”

  “You said Coquelin.”

  “Ah! true. This Poquelin, then, sketched my arm on the glass; but he took his time over it; he kept looking at me a good deal. The fact is, that I was very handsome.”

  “‘Does it weary you?’ he asked.

  “‘A little,’ I replied, bending a little in my hands, ‘but I could yet hold out an hour.’

  “‘No, no, I will not allow it; the willing fellows will make it a duty to support your arms, as of old, men supported those of the prophet.’

  “‘Very good,’ I answered.

  “‘That will not be humiliating to you?’

  “‘My friend,’ said I, ‘there is, I think, a great difference between being supported and being measured.’ ”

  “The distinction is full of sense,” interrupted d’Artagnan.

  “Then,” continued Porthos, “he made a sign; two lads approached; one supported my left arm, while the other, with infinite address, supported my right.”

  “‘Another, my man,’ cried he. A third approached. ‘Support Monsieur by the waist,’ said he. The garçon complied.”

  “So that you were at rest?” asked d’Artagnan.

  “Perfectly; and Pocquenard drew me in the glass.”

  “Poquelin, my friend.”

  “Poquelin—you are right. Stay, decidedly I prefer calling him Volière.”

  “Yes, and then it was over, wasn’t it?”

  “During that time Volière drew me on the mirror.”

  “’Twas delicate in him.”

  “I much like the plan; it is respectful, and keeps every one in his place.”

  “And there it ended?”

  “Without a soul having touched me, my friend.”

  “Except the three garçons who supported you.”

  “Doubtless; but I have, I think, already explained to you the difference there is between supporting and measuring.”

  “‘Tis true,” answered d’Artagnan, who afterwards said to himself, “I’faith, I greatly deceive myself, or I have been the means of a good windfall to that rascal Molière, and we shall assuredly see the scene hit off to the life in some comedy or other.” Porthos smiled.

  “What are you laughing at?” asked d’Artagnan.

  “Must I confess? Well, I was laughing over my good fortune.”

  “Oh, that is true; I don’t know a happier man than you. But what is this last piece of luck that has befallen you?”

  “Well, my dear fellow, congratulate me.”

  “I desire nothing better.”

  “It seems I am the first who has had his measure taken in that manner.”

  “Are you sure of it?”

  “Nearly so. Certain signs of intelligence which passed between Volière and the other garçons showed me the fact.”

  “Well, my friend, that does not surprise me from Molière,” said d’Artagnan.

  “Volière, my friend.”

  “Oh, no, no, indeed; I am very willing to leave you to say Volière; but myself I shall continue to say Molière. Well, this, I was saying, does not surprise me, coming from Molière, who is a very ingenious fellow, and inspired you with this grand idea.”

  “It will be of great use to him by-and-by, I am sure.”

  “Won’t it be of use to him, indeed! I believe you it will, and not a little so; for you see, my friend Molière is of all known tailors
the man who best clothes our barons, comtes, and marquises—according to their measure.”

  On this observation, neither the application nor depth of which shall we discuss, d’Artagnan and Porthos quitted M. Percerin’s house and rejoined their carriage, wherein we will leave them, in order to look after Molière and Aramis at Saint Mandé.

  34

  The Beehive, the Bees, and the Honey

  THE BISHOP OF VANNES, much annoyed at having met d‘Artagnan at M. Percerin’s, returned to Saint Mandé in no very good humour. Molière, on the other hand, quite delighted at having made such a capital rough sketch, and at knowing where to find its original again, whenever he should desire to convert his sketch into a picture, Molière arrived in the merriest of moods. All the first storey of the left wing was occupied by the most celebrated Epicureans in Paris, and those on the freest footing in the house—every one in his compartment, like the bees in their cells, employed in producing the honey intended for that royal cake which M. Fouquet proposed to offer his Majesty Louis XIV during the fête at Vaux. Pélisson, his head leaning on his hand, was engaged in drawing out the plan of the prologue to the Fâcheux, a comedy in three acts, which was to be put on the stage by Poquelin de Molière, as d’Artagnan called him, or Coquelin de Volière, as Porthos styled him. Loret, with all the charming innocence of a gazetteer—the gazetteers of all ages have always been so artless! —Loret was composing an account of the fêtes of Vaux, before those fêtes had taken place; La Fontaine sauntering about from one to the other, a wandering, absent, boring, unbearable shade, who kept buzzing and humming at everybody’s shoulder a thousand poetic abstractions. He so often disturbed Pélisson, that the latter, raising his head, crossly said, “At least, La Fontaine, supply me with a rhyme, since you say you have the run of the gardens of Parnassus.”

  “What rhyme do you want?” asked the Fabler, as Madame de Sevigné used to call him.

  “I want a rhyme to lumière.”

  “Ornière,” answered La Fontaine.

  “Ah, but my good friend, one cannot talk of wheel-ruts when celebrating the delights of Vaux,” said Loret.

  “Besides, it doesn’t rhyme;” answered Pélisson.

  “How! doesn’t rhyme,” cried La Fontaine in surprise.

  “Yes; you have an abominable habit, my friend,—a habit which will ever prevent your becoming a poet of the first order. You rhyme in a slovenly manner.”

  “Oh, oh, you think so, do you, Pélisson?”

  “Yes, I do, indeed. Remember that a rhyme is never good so long as one can find a better.”

  “Then I will never write anything again but in prose,” said La Fontaine, who had taken up Pélisson’s reproach in earnest. “Ah! I often suspected I was nothing else but a rascally poet! Yes, ’tis the very truth.”

  “Do not say so; your remark is too sweeping, and there is much that is good in your Fables.”

  “And to begin,” continued La Fontaine, following up his idea, “I will go and burn a hundred verses I have just made.”

  “Where are your verses?”

  “In my head.”

  “Well, if they are in your head you cannot burn them.”

  “True,” said La Fontaine; “but if I do not burn them—”

  “Well, what will happen if you do not burn them?”

  “They will remain in my mind, and I shall never forget them.”

  “The deuce!” cried Loret; “what a dangerous thing! One would go mad with it.”

  “The deuce! the deuce!” repeated La Fontaine; “what can I do?”

  “I have discovered the way,” said Molière, who had entered just at this point of the conversation.

  “What way?”

  “Write them first and burn them afterwards.”

  “How simple it is! Well, I should never have discovered that. What a mind that devil Molière has!” said La Fontaine. Then, striking his forehead, “Oh, thou wilt never be aught but an ass, Jean la Fontaine!” he added.

  “What are you saying there, my friend?” broke in Molière, approaching the poet, whose aside he had heard.

  “I say I shall never be aught but an ass,” answered La Fontaine, with a heavy sigh and swimming eyes. “Yes, my friend,” he added, with increasing grief, “it seems that I rhyme in a slovenly manner.”

  “Oh, ’tis wrong to say so.”

  “Nay, I am a poor creature.”

  “Who said so?”

  “Parbleu! ’twas Pelisson; did you not, Pélisson?”

  Pélisson, again lost in his work, took good care not to answer.

  “But if Pélisson said you were so,” cried Molière, “Pélisson has seriously offended you.”

  “Do you think so?” “Ah! I advise you, as you are a gentleman, not to leave an insult like that unpunished.”

  “How?” exclaimed La Fontaine.

  “Did you ever fight?”

  “Once only, with a lieutenant in the light horse.”

  “What wrong had he done you?”

  “It seems he had run away with my wife.”

  “Ah, ah!” said Molière, becoming slightly pale; but, as at La Fontaine’s declaration, the others had turned round, Molière kept upon his lips the rallying smile which had so nearly died away, and continuing to make La Fontaine speak—,

  “And what was the result of the duel?”

  “The result was that on the ground my opponent disarmed me, and then made an apology, promising never again to set foot in my house.”

  “And you considered yourself satisfied?” said Molière.

  “Not at all! on the contrary, I picked up my sword. ‘I beg your pardon, monsieur,’ I said, ‘I have not fought because you were my wife’s friend, but because I was told I ought to fight. So, as I have never known any peace save since you made her acquaintance, do me the pleasure to continue your visits as heretofore, or, morbleu! let us set to again.’ And so,” continued La Fontaine, “he was compelled to resume his friendship with Madame, and I continue to be the happiest of husbands.”

  All burst out laughing. Molière alone passed his hand across his eyes. Why? Perhaps to wipe away a tear, perhaps to smother a sigh. Alas! we know that Molière was a moralist, but he was not a philosopher. “’Tis all the same,” he said, returning to the topic of the conversation, “Pélisson has insulted you.”

  “Ah! truly! I had already forgotten it.”

  “And I am going to challenge him on your behalf.”

  “Well, you can do so if you think it indispensable.”

  “I do think it indispensable, and I am going—”

  “Stay,” exclaimed La Fontaine, “I want your advice.”

  “Upon what? this insult?”

  “No; tell me really now whether lumière does not rhyme with ornière?”

  “I should make them rhyme—ah! I knew you would—and I have made a hundred thousand such rhymes in my time.”

  “A hundred thousand!” cried La Fontaine, “four times as many as La Pucelle, which M. Chaplain is meditating. Is it also on this subject too that you have composed a hundred thousand verses?”

  “Listen to me, you eternally absent creature,” said Molière.

  “It is certain,” continued La Fontaine, “that légume, for instance, rhymes with posthume.”x

  “In the plural, above all.”

  “Yes, above all in the plural, seeing that then it rhymes not with three letters, but with four; as ornière does with lumière.”

  “Put ornières and lumières in the plural, my dear Pélisson,” said La Fontaine, clapping his hand on the shoulder of his friend, whose insult he had quite forgotten, “and they will rhyme.”

  “Hem!” cried Pélisson.

  “Molière says so, and Molière is a judge of it; he declares he has himself made a hundred thousand verses.”

  “Come,” said Molière, laughing, “he is off now.”

  “It is like rivage, which rhymes admirably with herbage.”

  “I would take my oath of it.”

&n
bsp; “But——” said Molière.

  “I tell you all this,” continued La Fontaine, “because you are preparing a divertissement for Vaux, are you not?”

  “Yes, the Fâcheux.”15

  “Ah, yes, the Fâcheux; yes, I recollect. Well, I was thinking a prologue would admirably suit your divertissement.”

  “Doubtless it would suit capitally.”

  “Ah! you are of my opinion?”

  “So much so that I asked you to write this prologue.”

  “You asked me to write it?”

  “Yes, you; and on your refusal begged you to ask Pélisson, who is engaged upon it at this moment.”

  “Ah! that is what Pélisson is doing, then? I’faith, my dear Molière, you might indeed often be right.”

  “When?”

  “When you call me absent. It is a wretched defect. I will cure myself of it, and do your prologue for you.”

  “But seeing that Pélisson is about it!—”

  “Ah, true, double rascal that I am! Loret was indeed right in saying I was a poor creature.”

  “It was not Loret who said so, my friend.”

  “Well, then, whoever said so, ’tis the same to me! And so your divertissement is called the Fâcheux! Well, then, can you not make heureux rhyme with fâcheux?”

  “If obliged, yes.”

  “And even with capriceux.”

  “Oh, no, no.”

  “It would be hazardous, and yet why so?”

  “There is too great a difference in the cadences.”

  “I was fancying,” said La Fontaine, leaving Molière for Loret—“I was fancying—”

  “What were you fancying?” said Loret, in the middle of a sentence. “Make haste.”

  “You are writing the prologue to the Fâcheux, are you not?”

  “No! mordieu! it is Pélisson.”

  “Ah, Pélisson!” cried La Fontaine, going over to him. “I was fancying,” he continued, “that the nymph of Vaux—”

  “Ah beautiful!” cried Loret. “The nymph of Vaux! Thank you, La Fontaine; you have just given me the two concluding verses of my paper.”

  “Well, if you can rhyme so well, La Fontaine,” said Pélisson, “tell me now in what way you would begin my prologue?”

  “I should say, for instance, ‘Oh! nymph, who——’ After ‘who’ I should place a verb in the second person singular of the present indicative; and should go on thus: ‘this grot profound.’”