The Man in the Iron Mask, Alexandre Dumas [read out loud books .TXT] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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“For a friend such as you are,” said Aramis—“for so devoted a servant, I have no secrets;” and he put his mouth close to Baisemeaux’s ear, as he said, in a low tone of voice, “you know the resemblance between that unfortunate fellow, and—”
“And the king?—yes!”
“Very good; the first use that Marchiali made of his liberty was to persist—Can you guess what?”
“How is it likely I should guess?”
“To persist in saying that he was king of France; to dress himself up in clothes like those of the king; and then pretend to assume that he was the king himself.”
“Gracious heavens!”
“That is the reason why I have brought him back again, my dear friend. He is mad and lets every one see how mad he is.”
“What is to be done, then?”
“That is very simple; let no one hold any communication with him. You understand that when his peculiar style of madness came to the king’s ears, the king, who had pitied his terrible affliction, and saw that all his kindness had been repaid by black ingratitude, became perfectly furious; so that, now—and remember this very distinctly, dear Monsieur de Baisemeaux, for it concerns you most closely—so that there is now, I repeat, sentence of death pronounced against all those who may allow him to communicate with any one else but me or the king himself. You understand, Baisemeaux, sentence of death!”
“You need not ask me whether I understand.”
“And now, let us go down, and conduct this poor devil back to his dungeon again, unless you prefer he should come up here.”
“What would be the good of that?”
“It would be better, perhaps, to enter his name in the prison-book at once!”
“Of course, certainly; not a doubt of it.”
“In that case, have him up.”
Baisemeaux ordered the drums to be beaten and the bell to be rung, as a warning to every one to retire, in order to avoid meeting a prisoner, about whom it was desired to observe a certain mystery. Then, when the passages were free, he went to take the prisoner from the carriage, at whose breast Porthos, faithful to the directions which had been given him, still kept his musket leveled. “Ah! is that you, miserable wretch?” cried the governor, as soon as he perceived the king. “Very good, very good.” And immediately, making the king get out of the carriage, he led him, still accompanied by Porthos, who had not taken off his mask, and Aramis, who again resumed his, up the stairs, to the second Bertaudiere, and opened the door of the room in which Philippe for six long years had bemoaned his existence. The king entered the cell without pronouncing a single word: he faltered in as limp and haggard as a rain-struck lily. Baisemeaux shut the door upon him, turned the key twice in the lock, and then returned to Aramis. “It is quite true,” he said, in a low tone, “that he bears a striking resemblance to the king; but less so than you said.”
“So that,” said Aramis, “you would not have been deceived by the substitution of the one for the other?”
“What a question!”
“You are a most valuable fellow, Baisemeaux,” said Aramis; “and now, set Seldon free.”
“Oh, yes. I was going to forget that. I will go and give orders at once.”
“Bah! to-morrow will be time enough.”
“To-morrow!—oh, no. This very minute.”
“Well; go off to your affairs, I will go away to mine. But it is quite understood, is it not?”
“What ‘is quite understood’?”
“That no one is to enter the prisoner’s cell, expect with an order from the king; an order which I will myself bring.”
“Quite so. Adieu, monseigneur.”
Aramis returned to his companion. “Now, Porthos, my good fellow, back again to Vaux, and as fast as possible.”
“A man is light and easy enough, when he has faithfully served his king; and, in serving him, saved his country,” said Porthos. “The horses will be as light as if our tissues were constructed of the wind of heaven. So let us be off.” And the carriage, lightened of a prisoner, who might well be—as he in fact was—very heavy in the sight of Aramis, passed across the drawbridge of the Bastile, which was raised again immediately behind it.
Chapter XVIII. A Night at the Bastile.
Pain, anguish, and suffering in human life are always in proportion to the strength with which a man is endowed. We will not pretend to say that Heaven always apportions to a man’s capability of endurance the anguish with which he afflicts him; for that, indeed, would not be true, since Heaven permits the existence of death, which is, sometimes, the only refuge open to those who are too closely pressed—too bitterly afflicted, as far as the body is concerned. Suffering is in proportion to the strength which has been accorded; in other words, the weak suffer more, where the trial is the same, than the strong. And what are the elementary principles, we may ask, that compose human strength? Is it not—more than anything else—exercise, habit, experience? We shall not even take the trouble to demonstrate this, for it is an axiom in morals, as in physics. When the young king, stupefied and crushed in every sense and feeling, found himself led to a cell in the Bastile, he fancied death itself is but a sleep; that it, too, has its dreams as well; that the bed had broken through the flooring of his room at Vaux; that death had resulted from the occurrence; and that, still carrying out his dream, the king, Louis XIV., now no longer living, was dreaming one of those horrors, impossible to realize in life, which is termed dethronement, imprisonment, and insult towards a sovereign who formerly wielded unlimited power. To be present at—an actual witness, too—of this bitterness of death; to float, indecisively, in an incomprehensible mystery, between resemblance and reality; to hear everything, to see everything, without interfering in a single detail of agonizing suffering, was—so the king thought within himself—a torture far more terrible, since it might last forever. “Is this what is termed eternity—hell?” he murmured, at the moment the door was closed upon him, which we remember Baisemeaux had shut with his own hands. He did not even look round him; and in the room, leaning with his back against the wall, he allowed himself to be carried away by the terrible supposition that he was already dead, as he closed his eyes, in order to avoid looking upon something even worse still. “How can I have died?” he said to himself, sick with terror. “The bed might have been let down by some artificial means? But no! I do not remember
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