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

by Alexandre Dumas

  The visitors took their places as they arrived; and the great room had just been closed when the clock had struck twelve, the hour fixed for the reading of the important document. Porthos’s procureur—and that was naturally the successor of Master Coquenard—commenced by slowly unfolding the vast parchment upon which the powerful hand of Porthos had traced his sovereign will. The seal broken—the spectacles put on—the preliminary cough having sounded—every one opened his ears. Mousqueton had squatted himself in a corner, the better to weep, and the better to hear. All at once the folding-doors of the great room, which had been shut, were thrown open as if by a prodigy, and a manly figure appeared upon the threshold, resplendent in the full light of the sun. This was d‘Artagnan, who had come alone to the gate, and finding nobody to hold his stirrup, he had tied his horse to a knocker and announced himself. The splendour of the daylight invading the room, the murmur of all present, and, more than all that, the instinct of the faithful dog, drew Mousqueton from his reverie; he raised his head, recognised the old friend of his master, and, howling with grief, he embraced his knees, watering the floor with his tears. D’Artagnan raised up the poor intendant, embraced him as if he had been a brother, and, having nobly saluted the assembly, who all bowed as they whispered to each other his name, he went and took his seat at the extremity of the great carved oak hall, still holding by the hand poor Mousqueton, who was suffocating and sunk down upon the steps. Then the procureur, who, like the rest, was considerably agitated, commenced the reading.

  Porthos, after a profession of faith of the most Christian character, asked pardon of his enemies for all the injuries he might have done them. At this paragraph, a ray of inexpressible pride beamed from the eyes of d’Artagnan. He recalled to his mind the old soldier; all those enemies of Porthos brought to the earth by his valiant hand, he reckoned up the numbers of them, and said to himself that Porthos had acted wisely not to detail his enemies or the injuries done to them, or the task would have been too much for the reader. Then came the following enumeration:—

  “I possess at this present time, by the grace of God:—

  “1. The domain of Pierrefonds, lands, woods, meadows, waters, and forests, surrounded by good walls.

  “2. The domain of Bracieux, château, forests, ploughed lands, forming three farms.

  “3. The little estate du Vallon, so named because it is in the valley.” (Brave Porthos!)

  “4. Fifty farms in Touraine, amounting to five hundred acres.

  “5. Three mills upon the Cher, bringing in six hundred livres each.

  “6. Three fish-pools in Berry, producing two hundred livres a year.

  “As to my personal or movable property, so called because it can be moved, as is so well explained by my learned friend the Bishop of Vannes—” (D’Artagnan shuddered at the dismal remembrance attached to that name)—the procureur continued imperturbably—“they consist—”

  “1. In goods which I cannot detail here for want of room, and which furnish all my châteaux or houses, but of which the list is drawn up by my intendant.”

  Every one turned his eyes towards Mousqueton, who was absorbed in his grief.

  “2. In twenty horses for saddle and draught, which I have particularly at my chateau of Pierrefonds, and which are called—Bayard, Roland, Charlemagne, Pépin, Dunois, La Hire, Ogier, Samson, Milo, Nimrod, Urganda, Armida, Falstrade, Dalilah, Rebecca, Yolande, Finette, Grisette, Lisette, and Musette.

  “3. In sixty dogs, forming six packs, divide as follows: the first, for the stag; the second, for the wolf; the third, for the wild boar; the fourth, for the hare; and the two others, for setters and protection.

  “4. In arms for war and the chase contained in my gallery of arms.

  “5. My wines of Anjou, selected for Athos, who liked them formerly; my wines of Burgundy, Champagne, Bordeaux, and Spain, stocking eight cellars and twelve vaults, in my various houses.

  “6. My pictures and statues, which are said to be of great value, and which are sufficiently numerous to fatigue the sight.

  “7. My library, consisting of six thousand volumes, quite new, and have never been opened.

  “8. My silver plate, which is perhaps a little worn, but which ought to weigh from a thousand to twelve hundred pounds, for I had great trouble in lifting the coffer that contained it, and could not carry it more than six times round my chamber.

  “9. All these objects, in addition to the table and house linen, are divided in the residences I liked the best.”

  Here the reader stopped to take breath. Every one sighed, coughed, and redoubled his attention. The procureur resumed: —

  “I have lived without having any children, and it is probable I never shall have any, which to me is a cutting grief. And yet I am mistaken, for I have a son, in common with my other friends: that is M. Raoul Auguste Jules de Bragelonne, the true son of M. le Comte de la Fère.

  “This young nobleman has appeared to me worthy to succeed to the three valiant gentlemen, of whom I am the friend and the very humble servant.”

  Here a sharp sound interrupted the reader. It was d‘Artagnan’s sword, which, slipping from his baldric, had fallen on the sonorous flooring. Every one turned his eyes that way, and saw that a large tear had rolled from the thick lid of d’Artagnan on to his aquiline nose, the luminous edge of which shone, like a crescent enlightened by the sun.

  “This is why,” continued the procureur, “I have left all my property, movable or immovable, comprised in the above enumerations, to M. le Vicomte Raoul Auguste Jules de Bragelonne, son of M. le Comte de la Fère, to console him for the grief he seems to suffer, and enable him to support his name gloriously.”

  A long murmur ran through the auditory. The procureur continued, seconded by the flashing eye of d’Artagnan, which, glancing over the assembly, quickly restored the interrupted silence: —

  “On condition that M. le Vicomte de Bragelonne do give to M. le Chevalier d‘Artagnan, captain of the King’s musketeers, whatever the said Chevalier d’Artagnan may demand of my property. On condition that M. le Vicomte de Bragelonne do pay a good pension to M. le Chevalier d’Herblay, my friend, if he should need it in exile. I leave to my intendant Mousqueton all my clothes, of city, war, or chase, to the number of forty-seven suits, with the assurance that he will wear them till they are worn out, for the love of and in remembrance of his master. Moreover, I bequeath to M. le Vicomte de Bragelonne my old servant and faithful friend Mousqueton, already named, providing that the said Vicomte shall so act that Mousqueton shall declare when dying he has never ceased to be happy.”

  On hearing these words, Mousqueton bowed, pale and trembling; his large shoulders shook convulsively; his countenance, impressed by a frightful grief, appeared from between his icy hands, and the spectators saw him stagger, and hesitate, as if, though wishing to leave the hall, he did not know the way.

  “Mousqueton, my good friend,” said d’Artagnan, “go and make your preparations. I will take you with me to Athos’s house, whither I shall go on leaving Pierrefonds.”

  Mousqueton made no reply. He scarcely breathed, as if everything in that hall would from that time be foreign. He opened the door, and disappeared slowly.

  The procureur finished his reading, after which the greater part of those who had come to hear the last will of Porthos dispersed by degrees, many disappointed, but all penetrated with respect. As to d‘Artagnan, left alone, after having received the formal compliments of the procureur, he was lost in admiration of the wisdom of the testator, who had so judiciously bestowed his wealth upon the most necessitous and the most worthy with a delicacy that none among the most refined courtiers and the most noble hearts could have displayed more becomingly. When Porthos enjoined Raoul de Bragelonne to give d’Artagnan all he would ask, he knew well, did that worthy Porthos, that d‘Artagnan would ask or take nothing; and, in case he did demand anything, none but himself could say what. Porthos left a pension to Aramis, who, if he should be inclined to ask too much, w
as checked by the example of d’Artagnan; and that word exile, thrown out by the testator, without apparent intention, was it not the most mild, the most exquisite criticism upon that conduct of Aramis which had brought about the death of Porthos? But there was no mention of Athos in the testament of the dead. Could the latter for a moment suppose that the son would not offer the best part to the father? The rough mind of Porthos had judged all these causes, seized all these shades, better than the law, better than custom, better than taste.

  “Porthos was a heart,” said d‘Artagnan to himself, with a sigh. As he made this reflection, he fancied he heard a groan in the room above him; and he thought immediately of poor Mousqueton, whom he felt it was a pleasing duty to divert from his grief. For this purpose he left the hall hastily to seek the worthy intendant, as he had not returned. He ascended the staircase leading to the first storey, and perceived, in Porthos’s own chamber, a heap of clothes of all colours and all materials, upon which Mousqueton had laid himself down after heaping them together. It was the legacy of the faithful friend. Those clothes were truly his own; they had been given to him; the hand of Mousqueton was stretched over these relics, which he kissed with all his lips, with all his face, which he covered with his whole body. D’Artagnan approached to console the poor fellow.

  “My God!” said he, “he does not stir—he has fainted!”

  But d’Artagnan was mistaken—Mousqueton was dead. Dead, like the dog who, having lost his master, comes back to die upon his cloak.

  84

  The Old Age of Athos

  WHILE ALL THESE AFFAIRS Were separating for ever the four musketeers, formerly bound together in a manner that seemed indissoluble, Athos, left alone after the departure of Raoul, began to pay his tribute to that anticipated death which is called the absence of those we love. Returned to his house at Blois, no longer having even Grimaud to receive a poor smile when he passed through the parterre, Athos daily felt the decline of the vigour of a nature which for so long a time had appeared infallible. Age, which had been kept back by the presence of the beloved object, now came on, with its attendant pains and inconveniences. Athos had no longer his son to induce him to walk firmly, with his head erect, as a good example; he had no longer, in those brilliant eyes of the young man, an ever-ardent focus at which to regenerate the fire of his looks. And then, must it be said, that nature, exquisite in its tenderness and its reserve, no longer finding anything that comprehended its feelings, gave itself up to grief with all the warmth of vulgar natures when they give themselves up to joy. The Comte de la Fère, who had remained a young man up to his sixty-second year; the warrior who had preserved his strength in spite of fatigues, his freshness of mind in spite of misfortunes, his mild serenity of soul and body in spite of malady, in spite of Mazarin, in spite of La Vallière; Athos had become an old man in a week, from the moment at which he had lost the support of his latter youth. Still handsome, though bent; noble, but sad; gentle, and tottering under his grey hairs, he sought, since his solitude, the glades where the rays of the sun penetrated through the foliage of the walks. He discontinued all the strong exercises he had enjoyed through life, when Raoul was no longer with him. The servants, accustomed to see him stirring with the dawn at all seasons, were astonished to hear seven o’clock strike before their master had quitted his bed. Athos remained in bed with a book under his pillow, but he did not sleep, neither did he read. Remaining in bed that he might no longer have to carry his body, he allowed his soul and spirit to wander from their envelope, and return to his son, or to God.

  His people were sometimes terrified to see him, for hours together, absorbed in a silent reverie, mute and insensible; he no longer heard the timid step of the servant who came to the door of his chamber to watch the sleeping or waking of his master. It often occurred that he forgot that the day had half passed away, that the hours for the two first meals were gone by. Then he was awakened. He rose, descended to his shaded walk, then came out a little into the sun, as if to partake its warmth for a minute with his absent child. And then the dismal, monotonous walk recommenced, until, quite exhausted, he regained the chamber and the bed, his domicile by choice. For several days the Comte did not speak a single word. He refused to receive the visits that were paid him, and, during the night, he was seen to relight his lamp, and pass long hours in writing, or examining parchments.

  Athos wrote one of these letters to Vannes, another to Fontainebleau; they remained without answers. We know why Aramis had quitted France, and d’Artagnan was travelling from Nantes to Paris, from Paris to Pierrefonds. His valet-de-chambre observed that he shortened his walk every day by several turns. The great alley of limes soon became too long for feet that used to traverse it formerly a hundred times a day. The Comte walked feebly as far as the middle trees, seated himself upon a mossy bank which sloped towards a lateral walk, and there awaited the return of his strength, or rather the return of night. Very shortly, a hundred steps exhausted him. At length Athos refused to rise at all, he declined all nourishment, and his terrified people, although he did not complain, although he had a smile on his lips, although he continued to speak with his sweet voice—his people went to Blois in search of the ancient physician of the late Monsieur, and brought him to the Comte de la Fère in such a fashion that he could see the Comte without being himself seen. For this purpose, they placed him in a closet adjoining the chamber of the patient, and implored him not to show himself, in the fear of displeasing their master, who had not asked for a physician. The doctor obeyed; Athos was a sort of model for the gentlemen of the country; Blaisois boasted of possessing this sacred relic of the old French glories. Athos was a great seigneur compared with such nobles as the King improvised by touching with his yellow fecundating sceptre the dried trunks of the heraldric trees of the province.

  People respected, we say, if they did not love Athos. The physician could not bear to see his people weep, and to see flock round him the poor of the canton, to whom Athos gave life and consolation by his kind words and his charities. He examined, therefore, from the depths of his hiding-place, the nature of that mysterious malady which bent down and devoured more mortally every day a man but lately so full of life and of a desire to live. He remarked upon the cheeks of Athos the purple of fever, which fires itself and feeds itself; slow fever, pitiless, born in a fold of the heart, sheltering itself behind that rampart, growing from the suffering it engenders, at once cause and effect of a perilous situation. The Comte spoke to nobody, we say; he did not even talk to himself. His thought feared noise; it approached to that degree of overexcitement which borders upon ecstasy. Man thus absorbed, though he does not yet belong to God, already belongs no longer to earth. The doctor remained for several hours studying this painful struggle of the will against a superior power; he was terrified at seeing those eyes always fixed, always directed towards an invisible object; he was terrified at seeing beat with the same movement that heart from which never a sigh arose to vary the melancholy state; sometimes the acuteness of pain creates the hope of the physician. Half a day passed away thus. The doctor formed his resolution like a brave man, like a man of firm mind; he issued suddenly from his place of retreat, and went straight up to Athos, who saw him without evincing more surprise than if he had understood nothing of this apparition.

  “Monsieur le Comte, I crave your pardon,” said the doctor, coming up to the patient with open arms; “but I have a reproach to make you—you shall hear me.” And he seated himself by the pillow of Athos, who had great trouble in rousing himself from his preoccupation.

  “What is the matter, doctor?” asked the Comte, after a silence.

  “Why, the matter is, you are ill, monsieur, and have had no advice.”

  “I! ill!” said Athos, smiling.

  “Fever, consumption, weakness, decay, Monsieur le Comte!”

  “Weakness!” replied Athos; “is that possible? I do not get up.

  “Come, come, Monsieur le Comte, no subterfuges; you are a good Christi
an?”

  “I hope so,” said Athos.

  “Would you kill yourself?”

  “Never, doctor.”

  “Well! monsieur, you are in a fair way of doing so; to remain thus is suicide; get well! Monsieur le Comte, get well!”

  “Of what? Find the disease first. For my part, I never knew myself better; never did the sky appear more blue to me; never did I take more care of my flowers.”

  “You have a concealed grief.”

  “Concealed!—not at all; I have the absence of my son, doctor ; that is my malady, and I do not conceal it.”

  “Monsieur le Comte, your son lives; he is strong, he has all the future before him of men of his merit, and of his race; live for him—”

  “But I do live, doctor; oh! be satisfied of that,” added he, with a melancholy smile; “as long as Raoul lives, it will be plainly known, for as long as he lives, I shall live.”

  “What do you say?”

  “A very simple thing. At this moment, doctor, I leave life suspended in me. A forgetful, dissipated, indifferent life would be above my strength, now I have no longer Raoul with me. You do not ask the lamp to burn when the spark has not enlightened the flame; do not ask me to live amidst noise and light. I vegetate, I prepare myself, I wait. Look, doctor; remember those soldiers we have so often seen together at the ports, where they were waiting to embark; lying down, indifferent, half upon one element, half upon the other; they were neither at the place where the sea was going to carry them, nor at the place where the earth was going to lose them; baggages prepared, minds upon the stretch, looks fixed—they waited. I repeat it—that word is the one which paints my present life. Lying down, like the soldiers, my ear on the stretch for the reports that may reach me, I wish to be ready to set out at the first summons. Who will make me that summons? life or death? God or Raoul? My baggage is packed, my soul is prepared, I await the signal—I wait, doctor, I wait!”