“Speak, speak! tell me!”
“I am strong against everything, except against the death of those I love. For that only there is no remedy. He who dies, gains; he who sees others die, loses. No; this it is,- to know that I should no more meet upon earth him whom I now behold with joy; to know that there would nowhere be a d’Artagnan any more, nowhere again be a Raoul,- oh! I am old, see you, I have no longer courage. I pray God to spare me in my weakness; but if he struck me so plainly and in that fashion, I should curse him. A Christian gentleman ought not to curse his God, d’Artagnan; it is quite enough to have cursed his King!”
“Humph!” said d’Artagnan, a little confused by this violent tempest of grief.
“D’Artagnan, my friend, you who love Raoul, look at him,” he added, pointing to his son; “see that melancholy which never leaves him. Can you imagine anything more dreadful than to witness, minute by minute, the ceaseless agony of that poor soul?”
“Let me speak to him, Athos. Who knows?”
“Try, if you please, but I am convinced you will not succeed.”
“I will not attempt to console him, I will serve him.”
“You will?”
“Doubtless. Do you think this would be the first time a woman had repented of an infidelity? I will go to him, I tell you.”
Athos shook his head, and continued his walk alone. D’Artagnan, cutting across the brambles, rejoined Raoul, and held out his hand to him. “Well, Raoul! you wished to speak to me?”
“I have a kindness to ask of you,” replied Bragelonne.
“Ask it, then.”
“You will some day return to France?”
“I hope so.”
“Ought I to write to Mademoiselle de la Valliere?”
“No; you must not.”
“But I have so many things to say to her.”
“Come and say them to her, then.”
“Never!”
“Pray, what virtue do you attribute to a letter which your speech might not possess?”
“Perhaps you are right.”
“She loves the King,” said d’Artagnan, bluntly; “and she is an honest girl.” Raoul started. “And you, you whom she abandons,” added the captain, “she perhaps loves better than she does the King, but after another fashion.”
“D’Artagnan, do you believe she loves the King?”
“To idolatry. Her heart is inaccessible to any other feeling. You might continue to live near her, and would be her best friend.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Raoul, with a passionate burst of repugnance for such a painful hope.
“Will you do so?”
“It would be base.”
“That is a very absurd word, which would lead me to think slightly of your understanding. Please to understand, Raoul, that it is never base to do that which is imposed by a superior force. If your heart says to you, ‘Go there, or die,’ why, go there, Raoul. Was she base or brave, she whom you loved, in preferring the King to you,- the King whom her heart commanded her imperiously to prefer to you? No, she was the bravest of women. Do, then, as she has done. Obey yourself. Do you know one thing of which I am sure, Raoul?”
“What is that?”
“Why, that by seeing her closely with the eyes of a jealous man-”
“Well?”
“Well; you would cease to love her.”
“Then I am decided, my dear d’Artagnan.”
“To set off to see her again?”
“No; to set off that I may never see her again. I wish to love her forever.”
“Frankly,” replied the musketeer, “that is a conclusion which I was far from expecting.”
“This is what I wish, my friend. You will see her again, and you will give her a letter which, if you think proper, will explain to her as to yourself what is passing in my heart. Read it; I prepared it last night. Something told me I should see you to-day.” He held the letter out, and d’Artagnan read it:-
“MADEMOISELLE: You are not wrong in my eyes in not loving me. You have only been guilty of one fault towards me,- that of having left me to believe you loved me. This error will cost me my life. I pardon you; but I cannot pardon myself. It is said that happy lovers are deaf to the complaints of rejected lovers. It will not be so with you who did not love me except with anxiety. I am sure that if I had persisted in endeavoring to change that friendship into love, you would have yielded through fear of bringing about my death, or of lessening the esteem I had for you. It is much more delightful to me to die, knowing you are free and satisfied. How much, then, will you love me when you will no longer fear either my presence or my reproaches! You will love me, because, however charming a new love may appear to you, God has not made me in anything inferior to him you have chosen, and because my devotedness, my sacrifice, and my painful end will assure me, in your eyes, a certain superiority over him. I have allowed to escape, in the candid credulity of my heart, the treasure I possessed. Many people tell me that you loved me to such a degree that you might have come to love me much. That idea takes from my mind all the bitterness, and leads me only to blame myself. You will accept this last farewell, and you will bless me for having taken refuge in the inviolable asylum where all hatred is extinguished, and where all love endures forever. Adieu, Mademoiselle. If your happiness could be purchased by the last drop of my blood, I would shed that drop. I willingly make the sacrifice of it to my misery!
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