The Man in the Iron Mask
The Prisoner.
Since Aramis’s into a of the order, Baisemeaux was no longer the same man. Up to that period, the place which Aramis had in the governor’s was that of a he and a friend to he a of gratitude; but now he himself an inferior, and that Aramis was his master. He himself a lantern, a turnkey, and said, returning to Aramis, “I am at your orders, monseigneur.” Aramis his head, as much as to say, “Very good”; and to him with his hand to lead the way. Baisemeaux advanced, and Aramis him. It was a and night; the steps of three men on the of the terraces, and the of the keys from the jailer’s itself up to the of the towers, as if to the that the of earth was a luxury their reach. It might have been said that the in Baisemeaux to the prisoners. The turnkey, the same who, on Aramis’s had himself so and curious, was now not only silent, but impassible. He his down, and to keep his ears open. In this wise they the of the Bertaudiere, the two of which were and slowly; for Baisemeaux, though from disobeying, was from any to obey. On at the door, Baisemeaux a to enter the prisoner’s chamber; but Aramis, stopping him on the threshold, said, “The do not allow the to the prisoner’s confession.”
Baisemeaux bowed, and way for Aramis, who took the and entered; and then to them to close the door him. For an he standing, Baisemeaux and the had retired; but as soon as he was by the of their that they had left the tower, he put the on the table and around. On a of green serge, in all respect to the other in the Bastile, save that it was newer, and under half-drawn, a man, to we have already once Aramis. According to custom, the was without a light. At the hour of curfew, he was to his lamp, and we how much he was favored, in being allowed to keep it till then. Near the a large armchair, with legs, his clothes. A little table—without pens, books, paper, or ink—stood neglected in near the window; while plates, still unemptied, that the had touched his meal. Aramis saw that the man was upon his bed, his by his arms. The of a visitor did not any of position; either he was waiting in expectation, or was asleep. Aramis the from the lantern, pushed the armchair, and approached the with an mixture of and respect. The man his head. “What is it?” said he.
“You a confessor?” Aramis.
“Yes.”
“Because you were ill?”
“Yes.”
“Very ill?”
The man gave Aramis a glance, and answered, “I thank you.” After a moment’s silence, “I have you before,” he continued. Aramis bowed.
Doubtless the the had just of the cold, crafty, and upon the of the of Vannes was little to one in his situation, for he added, “I am better.”
“And so?” said Aramis.
“Why, then—being better, I have no longer the same need of a confessor, I think.”
“Not of the hair-cloth, which the note you in your you of?”
The man started; but he had either or denied, Aramis continued, “Not of the from you were to an revelation?”
“If it be so,” said the man, again on his pillow, “it is different; I am listening.”
Aramis then looked at him more closely, and was with the easy of his mien, one which can be unless Heaven has it in the blood or heart. “Sit down, monsieur,” said the prisoner.
Aramis and obeyed. “How the Bastile agree with you?” asked the bishop.
“Very well.”
“You do not suffer?”
“No.”
“You have nothing to regret?”
“Nothing.”
“Not your liberty?”
“What do you call liberty, monsieur?” asked the prisoner, with the of a man who is preparing for a struggle.
“I call liberty, the flowers, the air, light, the stars, the of going the of one-and-twenty to wish to you.”
The man smiled, in or contempt, it was difficult to tell. “Look,” said he, “I have in that Japanese two roses yesterday in the from the governor’s garden; this they have and spread their my gaze; with every opening they the of their perfumes, my with a that it. Look now on these two roses; among roses these are beautiful, and the rose is the most of flowers. Why, then, do you me other flowers when I the of all?”
Aramis at the man in surprise.
“If flowers liberty,” sadly the captive, “I am free, for I them.”
“But the air!” Aramis; “air is so necessary to life!”
“Well, monsieur,” returned the prisoner; “draw near to the window; it is open. Between high and earth the wind on its of and lightning, its or in breezes. It my face. When on the of this armchair, with my arm around the of the window to myself, I I am the wide me.” The of Aramis as the man continued: “Light I have! what is than light? I have the sun, a friend who comes to visit me every day without the permission of the or the jailer’s company. He comes in at the window, and in my room a square the shape of the window, which lights up the of my and the very floor. This square from ten o’clock till midday, and from one till three slowly, as if, having to my presence, it at me farewell. When its last I have its presence for five hours. Is not that sufficient? I have been told that there are beings who in quarries, and who in mines, who it at all.” Aramis the from his brow. “As to the which are so to view,” the man, “they all each other save in size and brilliancy. I am a mortal, for if you had not that you would have been able to see the which I was at from my your arrival, were through my brain.”
Aramis his head; he himself with the of that which is the religion of the captive.
“So much, then, for the flowers, the air, the daylight, and the stars,” the man; “there but exercise. Do I not walk all day in the governor’s garden if it is fine—here if it rains? in the fresh air if it is warm; in perfect warmth, thanks to my winter stove, if it be cold? Ah! monsieur, do you fancy,” the prisoner, not without bitterness, “that men have not done for me that a man can for or desire?”
“Men!” said Aramis; “be it so; but it to me you are Heaven.”
“Indeed I have Heaven,” the prisoner, with emotion; “but why do you mention it? Of what use is it to talk to a of Heaven?”
Aramis looked at this youth, who the of a with the of an atheist. “Is not Heaven in everything?” he in a tone.
“Say rather, at the end of everything,” answered the prisoner, firmly.
“Be it so,” said Aramis; “but let us return to our starting-point.”
“I ask nothing better,” returned the man.
“I am your confessor.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, you ought, as a penitent, to tell me the truth.”
“My whole is to tell it you.”
“Every has some for which he has been imprisoned. What crime, then, have you committed?”
“You asked me the same question the time you saw me,” returned the prisoner.
“And then, as now you me an answer.”
“And what have you for that I shall now reply to you?”
“Because this time I am your confessor.”
“Then if you wish me to tell what I have committed, to me in what a consists. For as my not me, I that I am not a criminal.”
“We are often in the of the great of the earth, not alone for having ourselves crimes, but we know that have been committed.”
The the attention.
“Yes, I you,” he said, after a pause; “yes, you are right, monsieur; it is very possible that, in such a light, I am a in the of the great of the earth.”
“Ah! then you know something,” said Aramis, who he had not through a in the harness, but through the joints of it.
“No, I am not aware of anything,” the man; “but sometimes I think—and I say to myself—”
“What do you say to yourself?”
“That if I were to think but a little more I should either go or I should a great deal.”
“And then—and then?” said Aramis, impatiently.
“Then I off.”
“You off?”
“Yes; my and my ideas melancholy; I me; I wish—”
“What?”
“I don’t know; but I do not like to give myself up to for which I do not possess, when I am so happy with what I have.”
“You are of death?” said Aramis, with a uneasiness.
“Yes,” said the man, smiling.
Aramis the of that smile, and shuddered. “Oh, as you death, you know more about than you say,” he cried.
“And you,” returned the prisoner, “who me to ask to see you; you, who, when I did ask to see you, came here promising a world of confidence; how is it that, nevertheless, it is you who are silent, it for me to speak? Since, then, we wear masks, either let us them or put them together.”
Aramis the and of the remark, saying to himself, “This is no ordinary man; I must be cautious.—Are you ambitious?” said he to the prisoner, aloud, without preparing him for the alteration.
“What do you by ambitious?” the youth.
“Ambition,” Aramis, “is the which a man to more—much more—than he possesses.”
“I said that I was contented, monsieur; but, perhaps, I myself. I am of the nature of ambition; but it is not I may have some. Tell me your mind; that is all I ask.”
“An man,” said Aramis, “is one who that which is his station.”
“I nothing my station,” said the man, with an of manner which for the second time the of Vannes tremble.
He was silent. But to look at the eye, the brow, and the of the captive, it was that he something more than silence,—a which Aramis now broke. “You the time I saw you,” said he.
“Lied!” the man, starting up on his couch, with such a in his voice, and such a in his eyes, that Aramis recoiled, in of himself.
“I should say,” returned Aramis, bowing, “you from me what you of your infancy.”
“A man’s are his own, monsieur,” the prisoner, “and not at the of the chance-comer.”
“True,” said Aramis, still than before, “‘tis true; me, but to-day do I still the place of a chance-comer? I you to reply, monseigneur.”
This title the prisoner; but he did not appear that it was him. “I do not know you, monsieur,” said he.
“Oh, but if I dared, I would take your hand and it!”
The man as if he were going to give Aramis his hand; but the light which in his away, and he and his hand again. “Kiss the hand of a prisoner,” he said, his head, “to what purpose?”
“Why did you tell me,” said Aramis, “that you were happy here? Why, that you to nothing? Why, in a word, by thus speaking, do you prevent me from being in my turn?”
The same light a third time in the man’s eyes, but died away as before.
“You me,” said Aramis.
“And why say you so, monsieur?”
“Oh, for a very reason; if you know what you ought to know, you ought to everybody.”
“Then do not be that I am mistrustful, since you me of what I do not know.”
Aramis was with at this resistance. “Oh, monseigneur! you drive me to despair,” said he, the with his fist.
“And, on my part, I do not you, monsieur.”
“Well, then, try to me.” The looked at Aramis.
“Sometimes it to me,” said the latter, “that I have me the man I seek, and then—”
“And then your man disappears,—is it not so?” said the prisoner, smiling. “So much the better.”
Aramis rose. “Certainly,” said he; “I have nothing to say to a man who me as you do.”
“And I, monsieur,” said the prisoner, in the same tone, “have nothing to say to a man who will not that a ought to be of everybody.”
“Even of his old friends,” said Aramis. “Oh, monseigneur, you are too prudent!”
“Of my old friends?—you one of my old friends,—you?”
“Do you no longer remember,” said Aramis, “that you once saw, in the village where your early years were spent—”
“Do you know the name of the village?” asked the prisoner.
“Noisy-le-Sec, monseigneur,” answered Aramis, firmly.
“Go on,” said the man, with an aspect.
“Stay, monseigneur,” said Aramis; “if you are positively to on this game, let us off. I am here to tell you many things, ‘tis true; but you must allow me to see that, on your side, you have a to know them. Before the I still withhold, be I am in need of some encouragement, if not candor; a little sympathy, if not confidence. But you keep in a which me. Oh, not for the you think; for, as you may be, or as you to be, you are none the less what you are, monseigneur, and there is nothing—nothing, mark me! which can you not to be so.”
“I promise you,” the prisoner, “to you without impatience. Only it to me that I have a right to repeat the question I have already asked, ‘Who are you?’”
“Do you remember, fifteen or eighteen years ago, at Noisy-le-Sec a cavalier, by a lady in black silk, with flame-colored in her hair?”
“Yes,” said the man; “I once asked the name of this cavalier, and they told me that he called himself the Abbe d’Herblay. I was that the had so an air, and they that there was nothing in that, that he was one of Louis XIII.‘s musketeers.”
“Well,” said Aramis, “that and abbe, of Vannes, is your now.”
“I know it; I you.”
“Then, monseigneur, if you know that, I must add a of which you are ignorant—that if the king were to know this of the presence of this musketeer, this abbe, this bishop, this confessor, here—he, who has to visit you, to-morrow would the of the executioner’s in a more gloomy, more than yours.”
While to these words, delivered with emphasis, the man had himself on his couch, and was now more and more at Aramis.
The result of his was that he appeared to some from it. “Yes,” he murmured, “I perfectly. The woman of you speak came once with you, and twice with another.” He hesitated.
“With another, who came to see you every month—is it not so, monseigneur?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who this lady was?”
The light to from the prisoner’s eyes. “I am aware that she was one of the ladies of the court,” he said.
“You that lady well, do you not?”
“Oh, my can be very on this head,” said the prisoner. “I saw that lady once with a about forty-five years old. I saw her once with you, and with the lady in black. I have her twice since then with the same person. These four people, with my master, and old Perronnette, my jailer, and the of the prison, are the only with I have spoken, and, indeed, almost the only I have seen.”
“Then you were in prison?”
“If I am a here, then I was free, although in a very narrow sense—a house I quitted, a garden with I not climb, these my residence, but you know it, as you have been there. In a word, being to live these bounds, I to them. And so you will understand, monsieur, that having anything of the world, I have nothing left to for; and therefore, if you relate anything, you will be to each item to me as you go along.”
“And I will do so,” said Aramis, bowing; “for it is my duty, monseigneur.”
“Well, then, by telling me who was my tutor.”
“A and, above all, an gentleman, monseigneur; fit for and soul. Had you any to complain of him?”
“Oh, no; the contrary. But this of yours often used to tell me that my father and mother were dead. Did he me, or did he speak the truth?”
“He was to with the orders him.”
“Then he lied?”
“In one respect. Your father is dead.”
“And my mother?”
“She is for you.”
“But then she for others, she not?”
“Yes.”
“And I—and I, then” (the man looked at Aramis) “am to live in the of a prison?”
“Alas! I so.”
“And that my presence in the world would lead to the of a great secret?”
“Certainly, a very great secret.”
“My enemy must be powerful, to be able to up in the Bastile a child such as I then was.”
“He is.”
“More powerful than my mother, then?”
“And why do you ask that?”
“Because my mother would have taken my part.”
Aramis hesitated. “Yes, monseigneur; more powerful than your mother.”
“Seeing, then, that my nurse and were off, and that I, also, was from them—either they were, or I am, very to my enemy?”
“Yes; but you are to a from which he himself, by the nurse and to disappear,” answered Aramis, quietly.
“Disappear!” the prisoner, “how did they disappear?”
“In a very sure way,” answered Aramis—“they are dead.”
The man pale, and passed his hand over his face. “Poison?” he asked.
“Poison.”
The a moment. “My enemy must have been very cruel, or hard by necessity, to those two people, my support; for the and the nurse had a being.”
“In your family, monseigneur, is stern. And so it is which me, to my great regret, to tell you that this and the lady have been assassinated.”
“Oh, you tell me nothing I am not aware of,” said the prisoner, his brows.
“How?”
“I it.”
“Why?”
“I will tell you.”
At this moment the man, supporting himself on his two elbows, close to Aramis’s face, with such an of dignity, of self-command and of even, that the the electricity of in from that great of his, into his brain of adamant.
“Speak, monseigneur. I have already told you that by with you I my life. Little value as it has, I you to accept it as the of your own.”
“Well,” the man, “this is why I they had killed my nurse and my preceptor—”
“Whom you used to call your father?”
“Yes; I called my father, but son I well I was not.”
“Who you to so?”
“Just as you, monsieur, are too for a friend, he was also too for a father.”
“I, however,” said Aramis, “have no to myself.”
The man and continued: “Undoubtedly, I was not to seclusion,” said the prisoner; “and that which makes me so, above all, now, is the that was taken to me as a as possible. The to my person me he himself—mathematics, a little geometry, astronomy, and riding. Every I through exercises, and on horseback. Well, one the summer, it being very hot, I to sleep in the hall. Nothing, up to that period, the respect paid me, had me, or my suspicions. I as children, as birds, as plants, as the air and the sun do. I had just my year—”
“This, then, is eight years ago?”
“Yes, nearly; but I have to time.”
“Excuse me; but what did your tell you, to you to work?”
“He used to say that a man was to make for himself, in the world, that which Heaven had him at his birth. He added that, being a poor, orphan, I had no one but myself to look to; and that nobody either did, or would, take any in me. I was, then, in the I have spoken of, asleep from with long fencing. My was in his room on the floor, just over me. Suddenly I him exclaim, and then he called: ‘Perronnette! Perronnette!’ It was my nurse he called.”
“Yes, I know it,” said Aramis. “Continue, monseigneur.”
“Very likely she was in the garden; for my came downstairs. I rose, at him anxious. He opened the garden-door, still out, ‘Perronnette! Perronnette!’ The of the looked into the court; the were closed; but through a in them I saw my near a large well, which was almost directly under the of his study. He over the brim, looked into the well, and again out, and wild and gestures. Where I was, I not only see, but hear—and see and I did.”
“Go on, I pray you,” said Aramis.
“Dame Perronnette came up, the governor’s cries. He to meet her, took her by the arm, and her the edge; after which, as they over it together, ‘Look, look,’ he, ‘what a misfortune!’
“‘Calm yourself, yourself,’ said Perronnette; ‘what is the matter?’
“‘The letter!’ he exclaimed; ‘do you see that letter?’ pointing to the of the well.
“‘What letter?’ she cried.
“‘The you see there; the last from the queen.’
“At this word I trembled. My tutor—he who passed for my father, he who was me and humility—in with the queen!
“‘The queen’s last letter!’ Perronnette, without more than at this at the of the well; ‘but how came it there?’
“‘A chance, Dame Perronnette—a chance. I was entering my room, and on opening the door, the window, too, being open, a of air came and off this paper—this of her majesty’s; I after it, and the window just in time to see it a moment in the and the well.’
“‘Well,’ said Dame Perronnette; ‘and if the has into the well, ‘tis all the same as if it was burnt; and as the queen all her every time she comes—’
“And so you see this lady who came every month was the queen,” said the prisoner.
“‘Doubtless, doubtless,’ the old gentleman; ‘but this instructions—how can I them?’
“‘Write to her; give her a plain account of the accident, and the queen will no you another in place of this.’
“‘Oh! the queen would the story,’ said the good gentleman, his head; ‘she will that I want to keep this of it up like the rest, so as to have a over her. She is so distrustful, and M. de Mazarin so—Yon of an Italian is of having us at the of suspicion.’”
