“Very well, then. I advise you, after your long journey from England, after your visit to M. de Guiche, after your visit to Madame, after your visit to Porthos, after your journey to Vincennes,- I advise you, I say, to take a few hours’ rest; go and lie down, sleep for a dozen hours, and when you wake up, go and ride one of my horses until you have tired him to death.” And drawing Raoul towards him, d’Artagnan embraced him as if he were his own child. Athos did the like; only, it was very apparent that the father’s kiss was more tender and his embrace closer than those of the friend.
The young man again looked at his companions, endeavoring with the utmost strength of his intelligence to read what was in their minds; but his look was powerless upon the smiling countenance of the musketeer or upon the calm and composed features of the Comte de la Fere.
“Where are you going, Raoul?” inquired the latter, seeing that Bragelonne was preparing to go out.
“To my own apartments,” replied Raoul, in his soft and sad voice.
“We shall be sure to find you there, then, if we should have anything to say to you?”
“Yes, Monsieur; but do you suppose it likely you will have something to say to me?”
“How can I tell?” said Athos.
“Yes, new consolations,” said d’Artagnan, pushing him gently towards the door.
Raoul, observing the perfect composure which marked every gesture of his two friends, quitted the count’s room, carrying away with him nothing but the individual feeling of his own particular distress. “Thank Heaven!” he said; “since that is the case, I need only think of myself.” And wrapping himself in his cloak, in order to conceal from the passers-by in the streets his gloomy face, he started out to return to his own rooms, as he had promised Porthos.
The two friends watched the young man as he walked away with a feeling akin to pity; only, each expressed it in a very different way.
“Poor Raoul!” said Athos, sighing deeply.
“Poor Raoul!” said d’Artagnan, shrugging his shoulders.
Chapter XXI: Heu! Miser!
“POOR RAOUL!” Athos had said; “Poor Raoul!” d’Artagnan had said: to be pitied by both these men, Raoul must indeed have been most unhappy. And when he found himself alone, face to face as it were with his own troubles, leaving behind him the intrepid friend and the indulgent father; when he recalled the avowal of the King’s affection, which had robbed him of Louise de la Valliere, whom he loved so deeply,- he felt his heart almost breaking; as indeed we all have at least once in our lives, at the first illusion destroyed, at the first love betrayed. “Oh,” he murmured, “all is over then! Nothing is now left me in this world,- nothing to look for, nothing to hope for! Guiche has told me so; my father has told me so, and M. d’Artagnan likewise. Everything is a mere idle dream in this life. That future which I have been hopelessly pursuing for the last ten years, a dream! that union of our hearts, a dream! that life formed of love and happiness, a dream! Poor fool, to publish my dreams in the face of my friends and my enemies,- that my friends may be saddened by my troubles and my enemies may laugh at my sorrows! So my unhappiness will soon become a notorious disgrace, a public scandal; so to-morrow I shall be ignominiously pointed at.”
Despite the composure which he had promised his father and d’Artagnan to observe, Raoul could not resist uttering a few words of dark menace. “And yet,” he continued, “if my name were De Wardes, and if I had the pliant character and strength of will of M. d’Artagnan, I should laugh, with my lips at least; I should convince other women that this perfidious girl, honored by my love, leaves me only one regret,- that of having been deceived by her counterfeit of honesty. Some men might perhaps make favor with the King at my expense: I should put myself on the track of those jesters; I should chastise a few of them,- the men would fear me, and by the time I had laid three at my feet I should be adored by the women. Yes, yes; that indeed would be the proper course to adopt, and the Comte de la Fere himself would not object to it. Has not he also been tried, in his earlier days, in the same manner as I have just been tried myself? Did he not replace love by intoxication? He has often told me so. Why should not I replace love by pleasure? He must have suffered as much as I suffer,- even more so, perhaps. The history of one man is the history of all men,- a lengthened trial, of greater or less duration, more or less bitter or sorrowful. The voice of human nature is nothing but one prolonged cry. But what are the sufferings of others compared to those from which I am now suffering? Does the open wound in another’s breast soften the pain of the gaping wound in our own? Or does the blood which is welling from another man’s side stanch that which is pouring from our own? Does the general anguish of our fellow-creatures lessen our own private and particular anguish? No, no; each suffers on his own account, each struggles with his own grief, each sheds his own tears. And besides, what has my life been up to the present moment? A cold, barren, sterile arena, in which I have always fought for others, never for myself,- sometimes for a king, sometimes for a woman. The King has betrayed me; the woman disdained me. Miserable, unhappy wretch that I am! Women! Can I not make all expiate the crime of one of their sex? What does that require? To have a heart no longer, or to forget that I ever had one; to be strong, even against weakness itself; to lean always, even when one feels that the support is giving way. What is needed to attain that result? To be young, handsome, strong, valiant, rich. I am, or shall be, all that. But, honor? What is honor, after all? A theory which every man understands in his own way. My father tells me: ‘Honor is the consideration of what is due to others, and particularly of what one owes to one’s self.’ But De Guiche and Manicamp, and De Saint-Aignan particularly would say to me, ‘Honor consists in serving the passions and pleasures of one’s King.’ Honor such as that, indeed, is easy and productive enough. With honor like that I can keep my post at the court, become a gentleman of the chamber, and have the command of a regiment. With honor such as that, I can be both duke and peer.