The Man in the Iron Mask
The Last Canto of the Poem.
On the morrow, all the of the provinces, of the environs, and had the news, might have been in detachments. D’Artagnan had himself up, without being to speak to anybody. Two such deaths upon the captain, so closely after the death of Porthos, for a long time that which had been so and invulnerable. Except Grimaud, who entered his once, the saw neither guests. He supposed, from the in the house, and the and going, that were being for the of the comte. He to the king to ask for an of his of absence. Grimaud, as we have said, had entered D’Artagnan’s apartment, had seated himself upon a joint-stool near the door, like a man who profoundly; then, rising, he a to D’Artagnan to him. The in silence. Grimaud to the comte’s bed-chamber, the captain with his the place of the empty bed, and his Heaven.
“Yes,” D’Artagnan, “yes, good Grimaud—now with the son he loved so much!”
Grimaud left the chamber, and the way to the hall, where, according to the of the province, the was out, to being put away forever. D’Artagnan was at two open in the hall. In reply to the mute of Grimaud, he approached, and saw in one of them Athos, still in death, and, in the other, Raoul with his closed, his as those of the Palls of Virgil, with a on his lips. He at the father and son, those two souls, on earth by two silent, bodies, of each other, close they might be.
“Raoul here!” he. “Oh! Grimaud, why did you not tell me this?”
Grimaud his head, and no reply; but taking D’Artagnan by the hand, he him to the coffin, and him, under the thin winding-sheet, the black by which life had escaped. The captain away his eyes, and, it was to question Grimaud, who would not answer, he that M. de Beaufort’s had more than he, D’Artagnan, had had the to read. Taking up the of the which had cost Raoul his life, he these words, which ended the paragraph of the letter:
“Monseigneur le has ordered that the of le should be embalmed, after the manner by the Arabs when they wish their to be to their native land; and le has relays, so that the same who up the man might take his to M. le Comte de la Fere.”
“And so,” D’Artagnan, “I shall funeral, my dear boy—I, already old—I, who am of no value on earth—and I shall upon that I but two months since. God has it to be so. Thou it to be so, thyself. I have no longer the right to weep. Thou death; it to a gift to life.”
At length the moment when the of these two were to be to mother earth. There was such an of and other people that up to the place of the sepulture, which was a little on the plain, the road from the city was with and in mourning. Athos had for his resting-place the little of a by himself near the of his estates. He had had the stones, cut in 1550, from an old Gothic manor-house in Berry, which had his early youth. The chapel, thus rebuilt, transported, was to the its of and sycamores. It was in every Sunday, by the of the bourg, to Athos paid an of two hundred for this service; and all the of his domain, with their families, came to mass, without having any occasion to go to the city.
Behind the extended, by two high of hazel, and white thorn, and a ditch, the little inclosure—uncultivated, though in its sterility; the there thick, wild and there perfumes, while from an a spring, a in its marble cistern, and on the all around thousands of from the plants, and sang among the flower-spangled hedges. It was to this place the were carried, by a and crowd. The office of the being celebrated, the last paid to the departed, the dispersed, talking, along the roads, of the and mild death of the father, of the the son had given, and of his end upon the of Africa.
Little by little, all were extinguished, like the the nave. The minister for the last time to the and the still fresh graves; then, by his assistant, he slowly took the road to the presbytery. D’Artagnan, left alone, that night was on. He had the hour, only of the dead. He from the bench on which he was seated in the chapel, and wished, as the had done, to go and a last to the which his two friends.
A woman was praying, on the earth. D’Artagnan stopped at the door of the chapel, to avoid her, and also to to out who was the friend who performed this with so much and perseverance. The unknown had her in her hands, which were white as alabaster. From the of her costume, she must be a woman of distinction. Outside the were by servants; a was in waiting for this lady. D’Artagnan in to make out what her delay. She praying, and pressed her to her face, by which D’Artagnan she was weeping. He her her with the of a Christian woman. He her times as from a heart: “Pardon! pardon!” And as she appeared to herself to her grief, as she herself down, almost fainting, by and prayers, D’Artagnan, touched by this love for his so much friends, a steps the grave, in order to the of the with the dead. But as soon as his step on the gravel, the unknown her head, to D’Artagnan a with tears, a well-known face. It was Mademoiselle de la Valliere! “Monsieur d’Artagnan!” she.
“You!” the captain, in a voice, “you here!—oh! madame, I should have liked to see you with flowers in the of the Comte de la Fere. You would have less—and they too—and I!”
“Monsieur!” said she, sobbing.
“For it was you,” added this friend of the dead,—“it was you who these two men to the grave.”
“Oh! me!”
“God forbid, madame, that I should a woman, or that I should make her in vain; but I must say that the place of the is not upon the of her victims.” She to reply.
“What I now tell you,” added he, coldly, “I have already told the king.”
She her hands. “I know,” said she, “I have the death of the Vicomte de Bragelonne.”
“Ah! you know it?”
“The news at yesterday. I have the night to come and ask of the comte, I to be still living, and to pray God, on the of Raoul, that he would send me all the I have merited, a single one. Now, monsieur, I know that the death of the son has killed the father; I have two to myself with; I have two to from Heaven.”
“I will repeat to you, mademoiselle,” said D’Artagnan, “what M. de Bragelonne said of you, at Antibes, when he already death: ‘If and have her, I her while her. If love has produced her error, I her, but I that no one have loved her as I have done.’”
“You know,” Louise, “that of my love I was about to myself; you know I when you met me lost, dying, abandoned. Well! have I so much as now; then I hoped, desired,—now I have no longer anything to wish for; this death all my into the tomb; I can no longer to love without remorse, and I that he I love—oh! it is but just!—will me with the I have others undergo.”
D’Artagnan no reply; he was too well that she was not mistaken.
“Well, then,” added she, “dear Monsieur d’Artagnan, do not me to-day, I again you! I am like the branch from the trunk, I no longer to anything in this world—a me on, I know not whither. I love madly, to the point of to tell it, that I am, over the of the dead, and I do not for it—I have no on this account. Such love is a religion. Only, as you will see me alone, forgotten, disdained; as you will see me punished, as I am to be punished, me in my happiness, it to me for a days, for a minutes. Now, at the moment I am speaking to you, it no longer exists. My God! this is already expiated!”
While she was speaking thus, the of voices and of the attention of the captain. M. de Saint-Aignan came to La Valliere. “The king,” he said, “is a to and uneasiness.” Saint-Aignan did not D’Artagnan, by the of a chestnut-tree which the grave. Louise thanked Saint-Aignan, and him with a gesture. He the party the inclosure.
“You see, madame,” said the captain to the woman,—“you see your still lasts.”
The woman her with a air. “A day will come,” said she, “when you will of having so me. On that day, it is I who will pray God to you for having been me. Besides, I shall so much that you will be the to my sufferings. Do not me with my happiness, Monsieur d’Artagnan; it me dear, and I have not paid all my debt.” Saying these words, she again down, and affectionately.
“Pardon me the last time, my Raoul!” said she. “I have our chain; we are to die of grief. It is who first; nothing, I shall thee. See, only, that I have not been base, and that I have come to this last adieu. The Lord is my witness, Raoul, that if with my life I have thine, I would have that life without hesitation. I not give my love. Once more, me, dearest, friend.”
She a sweet flowers on the earth; then, the from her eyes, the lady to D’Artagnan, and disappeared.
The captain the of the horses, horsemen, and carriage, then his arms upon his chest, “When will it be my turn to depart?” said he, in an voice. “What is there left for man after youth, love, glory, friendship, strength, and have disappeared? That rock, under which Porthos, who all I have named; this moss, under which Athos and Raoul, who much more!”
He for a moment, with a eye; then, himself up, “Forward! still forward!” said he. “When it is time, God will tell me, as he the others.”
He touched the earth, with the dew, with the ends of his fingers, himself as if he had been at the in church, and alone—ever alone—the road to Paris.
