convent.”
“Adieu, abbe,” said the coadjutor, “I am to preach to-morrow
and have twenty texts to examine this evening.”
“Adieu, gentlemen,” said the count; “I am going to sleep
twenty-four hours; I am just falling down with fatigue.”
The three men saluted one another, whilst exchanging a last
look.
Scarron followed their movements with a glance from the
corner of his eye.
“Not one of them will do as he says,” he murmured, with his
little monkey smile; “but they may do as they please, the
brave gentlemen! Who knows if they will not manage to
restore to me my pension? They can move their arms, they
can, and that is much. Alas, I have only my tongue, but I
will try to show that it is good for something. Ho, there,
Champenois! here, it is eleven o’clock. Come and roll me to
bed. Really, that Demoiselle d’Aubigne is very charming!”
So the invalid disappeared soon afterward and went into his
sleeping-room; and one by one the lights in the salon of the
Rue des Tournelles were extinguished.
22
Saint Denis.
The day had begun to break when Athos arose and dressed
himself. It was plain, by a paleness still greater than
usual, and by those traces which loss of sleep leaves on the
face, that he must have passed almost the whole of the night
without sleeping. Contrary to the custom of a man so firm
and decided, there was this morning in his personal
appearance something tardy and irresolute.
He was occupied with the preparations for Raoul’s departure
and was seeking to gain time. In the first place he himself
furbished a sword, which he drew from its perfumed leather
sheath; he examined it to see if its hilt was well guarded
and if the blade was firmly attached to the hilt. Then he
placed at the bottom of the valise belonging to the young
man a small bag of louis, called Olivain, the lackey who had
followed him from Blois, and made him pack the valise under
his own eyes, watchful to see that everything should be put
in which might be useful to a young man entering on his
first campaign.
At length, after occupying about an hour in these
preparations, he opened the door of the room in which the
vicomte slept, and entered.
The sun, already high, penetrated into the room through the
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window, the curtains of which Raoul had neglected to close
on the previous evening. He was still sleeping, his head
gracefully reposing on his arm.
Athos approached and hung over the youth in an attitude full
of tender melancholy; he looked long on this young man,
whose smiling mouth and half closed eyes bespoke soft dreams
and lightest slumber, as if his guardian angel watched over
him with solicitude and affection. By degrees Athos gave
himself up to the charms of his reverie in the proximity of
youth, so pure, so fresh. His own youth seemed to reappear,
bringing with it all those savoury remembrances, which are
like perfumes more than thoughts. Between the past and the
present was an ineffable abyss. But imagination has the
wings of an angel of light and travels safely through or
over the seas where we have been almost shipwrecked, the
darkness in which our illusions are lost, the precipice
whence our happiness has been hurled and swallowed up. He
remembered that all the first part of his life had been
embittered by a woman and he thought with alarm of the
influence love might assume over so fine, and at the same
time so vigorous an organization as that of Raoul.
In recalling all he had been through, he foresaw all that
Raoul might suffer; and the expression of the deep and
tender compassion which throbbed in his heart was pictured
in the moist eye with which he gazed on the young man.
At this moment Raoul awoke, without a cloud on his face
without weariness or lassitude; his eyes were fixed on those
of Athos and perhaps he comprehended all that passed in the
heart of the man who was awaiting his awakening as a lover