If there be one saying more true than another, it is this: great griefs contain within themselves the germ of their consolation. This painful wound inflicted upon Raoul had drawn him nearer to his father; and God knows how sweet were the consolations that flowed from the eloquent mouth and generous heart of Athos. The wound was not healed, but Athos, by dint of conversing with his son and mingling a little of his life with that of the young man, had brought him to understand that this pang of a first infidelity is necessary to every human existence; and that no one has loved without meeting with it.
Raoul listened often, but never understood. Nothing replaces in the deeply afflicted heart the remembrance and thought of the beloved object. Raoul replied to the reasonings of his father, “Monsieur, all that you tell me is true. I believe that no one has suffered in the affections of the heart so much as you have; but you are a man too great in intelligence, and too severely tried by misfortunes, not to allow for the weakness of the soldier who suffers for the first time. I am paying a tribute which I shall not pay a second time; permit me to plunge myself so deeply in my grief that I may forget myself in it, that I may drown in it even my reason.”
“Raoul! Raoul!”
“Listen, Monsieur. Never shall I accustom myself to the idea that Louise, the most chaste and the most innocent of women, has been able so basely to deceive a man so honest and so loving as I. Never can I persuade myself that I see that sweet and good mask change into a hypocritical and lascivious face. Louise lost! Louise infamous! Ah, Monseigneur, that idea is much more cruel to me than Raoul abandoned, Raoul unhappy!”
Athos then employed the heroic remedy. He defended Louise against Raoul, and justified her perfidy by her love. “A woman who would have yielded to the King because he is the King,” said he, “would deserve to be styled infamous; but Louise loves Louis. Both young, they have forgotten, he his rank, she her vows. Love absolves everything, Raoul. The two young people love each other with sincerity.”
And when he had dealt this severe poniard-thrust, Athos, with a sigh, saw Raoul bound away under the cruel wound, and fly to the thickest recesses of the wood or the solitude of his chamber, whence, an hour after, he would return, pale and trembling, but subdued. Then coming up to Athos with a smile he would kiss his hand, like the dog who having been beaten caresses a good master to redeem his fault. Raoul listened only to his weakness, and confessed only his grief.
Thus passed away the days that followed that scene in which Athos had so violently shaken the indomitable pride of the King. Never, when conversing with his son, did he make any allusion to that scene; never did he give him the details of that vigorous lecture, which might perhaps have consoled the young man, by showing him his rival humbled. Athos did not wish that the offended lover should forget the respect due to the King. And when Bragelonne, ardent, furious, and melancholy, spoke with contempt of royal words, of the equivocal faith which certain madmen draw from promises falling from thrones; when, passing over two centuries with the rapidity of a bird which traverses a narrow strait, to go from one world to the other, Raoul ventured to predict the time in which kings would become less than other men,- Athos said to him in his serene, persuasive voice, “You are right, Raoul. All that you say will happen: kings will lose their privileges, as stars which have completed their time lose their splendor. But when that moment shall come, Raoul, we shall be dead. And remember well what I say to you. In this world, all- men, women, and kings must live for the present. We can live for the future only in living for God.”
This was the manner in which Athos and Raoul were as usual conversing, as they walked backwards and forwards in the long alley of limes in the park, when the bell which served to announce to the count either the hour of dinner or the arrival of a visitor, was rung. Mechanically, without attaching any importance to the summons, he turned towards the house with his son; and at the end of the alley they found themselves in the presence of Aramis and Porthos.