THE THREE MUSKETEERS - Complete Series: The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, The Vicomte of Bragelonne, Ten Years Later, Louise da la Valliere & The Man in the Iron Mask. Alexandre DumasЧитать онлайн книгу.
had before surrounded him with her enchantments. His love, which he believed to be extinct but which was only asleep, awoke again in his heart. Milady smiled, and d’Artagnan felt that he could damn himself for that smile. There was a moment at which he felt something like remorse.
By degrees, Milady became more communicative. She asked d’Artagnan if he had a mistress.
“Alas!” said d’Artagnan, with the most sentimental air he could assume, “can you be cruel enough to put such a question to me—to me, who, from the moment I saw you, have only breathed and sighed through you and for you?”
Milady smiled with a strange smile.
“Then you love me?” said she.
“Have I any need to tell you so? Have you not perceived it?”
“It may be; but you know the more hearts are worth the capture, the more difficult they are to be won.”
“Oh, difficulties do not affright me,” said d’Artagnan. “I shrink before nothing but impossibilities.”
“Nothing is impossible,” replied Milady, “to true love.”
“Nothing, madame?”
“Nothing,” replied Milady.
“The devil!” thought d’Artagnan. “The note is changed. Is she going to fall in love with me, by chance, this fair inconstant; and will she be disposed to give me myself another sapphire like that which she gave me for de Wardes?”
D’Artagnan rapidly drew his seat nearer to Milady’s.
“Well, now,” she said, “let us see what you would do to prove this love of which you speak.”
“All that could be required of me. Order; I am ready.”
“For everything?”
“For everything,” cried d’Artagnan, who knew beforehand that he had not much to risk in engaging himself thus.
“Well, now let us talk a little seriously,” said Milady, in her turn drawing her armchair nearer to d’Artagnan’s chair.
“I am all attention, madame,” said he.
Milady remained thoughtful and undecided for a moment; then, as if appearing to have formed a resolution, she said, “I have an enemy.”
“You, madame!” said d’Artagnan, affecting surprise; “is that possible, my God?—good and beautiful as you are!”
“A mortal enemy.”
“Indeed!”
“An enemy who has insulted me so cruelly that between him and me it is war to the death. May I reckon on you as an auxiliary?”
D’Artagnan at once perceived the ground which the vindictive creature wished to reach.
“You may, madame,” said he, with emphasis. “My arm and my life belong to you, like my love.”
“Then,” said Milady, “since you are as generous as you are loving—”
She stopped.
“Well?” demanded d’Artagnan.
“Well,” replied Milady, after a moment of silence, “from the present time, cease to talk of impossibilities.”
“Do not overwhelm me with happiness,” cried d’Artagnan, throwing himself on his knees, and covering with kisses the hands abandoned to him.
“Avenge me of that infamous de Wardes,” said Milady, between her teeth, “and I shall soon know how to get rid of you—you double idiot, you animated sword blade!”
“Fall voluntarily into my arms, hypocritical and dangerous woman,” said d’Artagnan, likewise to himself, “after having abused me with such effrontery, and afterward I will laugh at you with him whom you wish me to kill.”
D’Artagnan lifted up his head.
“I am ready,” said he.
“You have understood me, then, dear Monsieur d’Artagnan,” said Milady.
“I could interpret one of your looks.”
“Then you would employ for me your arm which has already acquired so much renown?”
“Instantly!”
“But on my part,” said Milady, “how should I repay such a service? I know these lovers. They are men who do nothing for nothing.”
“You know the only reply that I desire,” said d’Artagnan, “the only one worthy of you and of me!”
And he drew nearer to her.
She scarcely resisted.
“Interested man!” cried she, smiling.
“Ah,” cried d’Artagnan, really carried away by the passion this woman had the power to kindle in his heart, “ah, that is because my happiness appears so impossible to me; and I have such fear that it should fly away from me like a dream that I pant to make a reality of it.”
“Well, merit this pretended happiness, then!”
“I am at your orders,” said d’Artagnan.
“Quite certain?” said Milady, with a last doubt.
“Only name to me the base man that has brought tears into your beautiful eyes!”
“Who told you that I had been weeping?” said she.
“It appeared to me—”
“Such women as I never weep,” said Milady.
“So much the better! Come, tell me his name!”
“Remember that his name is all my secret.”
“Yet I must know his name.”
“Yes, you must; see what confidence I have in you!”
“You overwhelm me with joy. What is his name?”
“You know him.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes.”
“It is surely not one of my friends?” replied d’Artagnan, affecting hesitation in order to make her believe him ignorant.
“If it were one of your friends you would hesitate, then?” cried Milady; and a threatening glance darted from her eyes.
“Not if it were my own brother!” cried d’Artagnan, as if carried away by his enthusiasm.
Our Gascon promised this without risk, for he knew all that was meant.
“I love your devotedness,” said Milady.
“Alas, do you love nothing else in me?” asked d’Artagnan.
“I love you also, YOU!” said she, taking his hand.
The warm pressure made d’Artagnan tremble, as if by the touch that fever which consumed Milady attacked himself.
“You love me, you!” cried he. “Oh, if that were so, I should lose my reason!”
And he folded her in his arms. She made no effort to remove her lips from his kisses; only she did not respond to them. Her lips were cold; it appeared to d’Artagnan that he had embraced a statue.
He was not the less intoxicated with joy, electrified by love. He almost believed in the tenderness of Milady; he almost believed in the crime of de Wardes. If de Wardes had at that moment been under his hand, he would have killed him.
Milady seized the occasion.
“His name is—” said she, in her turn.
“De Wardes; I know it,” cried d’Artagnan.
“And