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Chapter LII
Chapter LII
The First Day Of Captivity
Let us return to milady, whom a glance thrown upon the coast of France
has made us lose sight of for an instant.
We shall find her still in the despairing attitude in which we left her,
plunged in an abyss of dismal reflection, a dark hell, at the gate of which
she has almost left hope behind; for, for the first time she doubts, for the
first time she fears.
On two occasions her fortune has failed her, on two occasions she has
found herself discovered and betrayed; and on these two occasions, it was
before the fatal genius, sent doubtlessly by heaven to combat her, that she
has succumbed: D`Artagnan has conquered her; her, that invincible power of
evil.
He has deceived her in her love, humbled her in her pride, thwarted her
in her ambition, and now he ruins her fortune, deprives her of liberty, and
even threatens her life. Still more, he has lifted the corner of her mask,
that aegis with which she covered herself, and which rendered her so strong.
D`Artagnan has turned aside from Buckingham, whom she hates as she hates
all she has loved, the tempest with which Richelieu threatened him in the
person of the queen. D`Artagnan had passed himself upon her as De Wardes,
for whom she had conceived one of those tigress-like fancies common to women
of her character. D`Artagnan knows that terrible secret which she has sworn
no one shall know without dying. In short, at the moment in which she has
just obtained from Richelieu a carte blanche by the means of which she is
about to take vengeance on her enemy, this precious paper is torn from her
hands, and it is D`Artagnan who holds her prisoner, and is about to send her
to some filthy Botany Bay, some infamous Tyburn of the Indian Ocean.
All this she owes to D`Artagnan, without doubt; from whom can come so
many disgraces heaped upon her head, if not from him? He alone could have
transmitted to Lord de Winter all these frightful secrets, which he has
discovered one after another, by a train of fatalities. He knows her
brother-in-law, he must have written to him.
What hatred she distils! There, motionless, with her burning, fixed
glances in her desert apartment, how well the outbursts of passion, which at
times escape from the depths of her chest with her respiration, accompany the
sound of the surf which rises, growls, roars, and breaks itself, like an
eternal and powerless despair, against the rocks upon which is built this
dark and lofty castle! How many magnificent projects of vengeance she
conceives by the light of the flashes which her tempestuous passion casts
over her mind, against Madame Bonacieux, against Buckingham, but, above all,
against D`Artagnan - projects lost in the distance of the future!
Yes, but in order to avenge herself she must be free; and to be free a
prisoner has to pierce a wall, detach bars, cut through a floor - all
undertakings which a patient and strong man may accomplish, but before which
the feverish irritations of a woman must give way. Besides, to do all this,
time is necessary - months, years - and she has ten or twelve days, as Lord
de Winter, her fraternal and terrible gaoler, told her.
And yet, if she were a man, she would attempt all this, and, perhaps,
might succeed; why, then, did heaven make the mistake of placing that manlike
soul in that frail and delicate body?"
The first moments of her captivity were terrible; a few convulsions of
rage which she could not suppress paid her debt of feminine weakness to
nature. But by degrees she overcame the outbursts of her mad passion; the
nervous tremblings which agitated her frame disappeared, and she remained
folded within herself, like a fatigued serpent reposing.
"Why, I must have been mad to follow myself to be carried away so," says
she, plunging into the glass, which reflects back to her eyes the burning
glance by which she appears to interrogate herself. "No violence; violence
is the proof of weakness. In the first place, I have never succeeded by that
means; perhaps if I employed my strength against women, I should have a
chance to find them weaker than myself, and consequently to conquer them.
But it is with men that my struggle is, and I am but a woman for them. Let
us struggle like a woman, then; my strength is in my weakness."
Then, as if to render an account to herself of the changes she could
impose upon her countenance, so mobile and so expressive, she made it take
all expressions, from that of passionate anger, which convulsed her features,
to that of the most sweet, most affectionate, and most seducing smile. Then
her hair assumed successively under her skillful hands, all the undulations
she thought might assist the charms of her face. At length she murmured,
satisfied with herself:
"Come, nothing is lost. I am still beautiful."
It was then nearly eight o`clock in the evening. Milady perceived a
bed; she calculated that the repose of a few hours would not only refresh her
head and her ideas, but still further, her complexion. A better idea,
however, came into her mind before going to bed. She had heard something
said about supper. She had already been an hour in this apartment; they
could not be long before they brought her her repast. The prisoner was
determined not to lose any time; she resolved to make that very evening some
attempts to ascertain the nature of the ground she had to work upon, by
studying the characters of the people to whose guardianship she was
committed.
A light appeared under the door; this light announced the reappearance
of her goalers. Milady, who had arisen, threw herself quickly into the
fauteuil, her head thrown back, her beautiful hair unbound and disheveled,
her bosom half bare beneath her crumpled laces, one hand on her heart and the
other hanging down.
The bolts were drawn, the door groaned upon its hinges, steps sounded
in the chamber and drew near.
"Place that table there," said a voice, which the prisoner recognized
as the voice of Felton.
The order was obeyed.
"You will bring lights, and relieve the sentinel," continued Felton.
And this double order which the young man gave to the same individuals,
proved to milady that her servants were the same men as her guards - that is
to say, soldiers.
Felton`s orders were, for the rest, executed with a silent rapidity that
gave a good idea of the state in which he kept up discipline.
At length Felton, who had not looked at milady, turned toward her.
"Ah! ah!" said he, "she is asleep, that`s well; when she wakes she can
sup." And he made some steps toward the door.
"But, my lieutenant!" said a soldier, a little less stoical than his
officer, and who had approached milady, "this woman is not asleep."
"What! not asleep!" said Felton, "what is she doing then?"
"She has fainted away; her face is very pale, and I have listened in
vain; I can`t hear her breathe."
"You are right," said Felton, after having looked at milady from the
spot on which he stood, without moving a step toward her: "Go and tell Lord
de Winter that his prisoner has fainted. The case not having been foreseen,
I don`t know what to do."
The soldier went out to obey the orders of his officer; Felton sat down
upon the fauteuil which was by chance near the door, and waited without
speaking a word, without making a gesture. Milady possessed that great art,
so much studied by women, of looking shrough her long eyelashes without
appearing to open the lids; she perceived Felton, who sat with his back
toward her. She continued to look at him during nearly ten minutes, and in
these ten minutes the impassable guardian never turned round once.
She then thought that Lord de Winter would come, and by his presence
give fresh strength to her gaoler: her first trial was lost; she acted like
a woman who reckons upon her resources; she consequently raised her head,
opened her eyes and sighed deeply.
At this sigh Felton turned round.
"Ah! you have awakened again, madame," he said; "then I have nothing
more to do here. If you want anything you can ring."
"Oh! my God! my God! how I have suffered," said milady, in that
harmonious voice, which like that of the ancient enchantresses, charmed all
those they wished to destroy.
And she assumed, upon sitting up in the fauteuil, a still more graceful
and voluptuous position than that she had exhibited when reclining.
Felton rose.
"You will be served thus, madame, three times a day," said he; "in the
morning at nine o`clock, in the day at one o`clock, and in the evening at
eight. If that does not suit you, you can point out what other hours you
prefer, and in this respect your wishes will be complied with."
"But am I to remain always alone in this vast and dismal chamber?" asked
milady.
"A woman of the neighborhood has been sent for, who will be to-morrow
at the castle, and will return as often as you desire her presence."
"I thank you, sir," replied the prisoner humbly.
Felton made a slight bow, and directed his steps toward the door. At
the moment he was about to go out, Lord de Winter appeared in the corridor,
followed by the soldier who had been sent to inform him of the fainting of
milady. He held a phial of salts in his hand.
"Well, what`s going on here," said he in a jeering voice, on seeing the
prisoner sitting up, and Felton about to go out. "is this dead woman come
to life again already? Pardieu, Felton, my lad, did you not perceive that
you were taken for a novice, and that the first act was being performed of
a comedy of which we shall doubtless have the pleasure of following out all
the developments?"
"I imagined that might be the case, my lord," said Felton; "but as the
prisoner is a woman, after all, I wished to pay her the attention that every
man of gentle birth owes to a woman, if not on her account, at least on my
own."
Milady shuddered through her whole system. These words of Felton`s
passed like ice through her veins.
"So," replied De Winter, laughing, "that beautiful hair so skillfully
disheveled, that white skin and that languishing look, have not yet seduced
you, you heart of stone?"
"No, my lord," replied the impassable young man; "your lordship may be
assured that it requires more than the tricks and coquetry of a woman to
corrupt me."
"In that case, my brave lieutenant, let us leave milady to find out
something else, and go to supper; but remember she has a fruitful
imagination, and the second act of the comedy will not be long after the
first."
And at these words Lord de Winter passed his arm through that of Felton,
and led him out, laughing.
"Oh! I will be a match for you!" murmured milady between her teeth; "be
assured of that, you poor should-be monk, you poor converted soldier, who
have cut your uniform out of a monk`s frock!"
"Apropos," resumed De Winter, stopping at the door, "you must not,
milady, let this check take away your appetite. Taste that fowl and those
fish; `pon honor, they are not poisoned. I agree very well with my cook, and
he is not to be my heir; I have full and perfect confidence in him. Do as
I do. Adieu! dear sister! till your next fainting fit!"
This was all that milady could endure: her hands became clenched, she
ground her teeth inwardly, her eyes followed the motion of the door as it
closed behind Lord de Winter and Felton, and the moment she was alone a fresh
fit of despair seized her; she cast her eyes upon the table, saw the
glittering of a knife, rushed toward it and clutched it; but her
disappointment was cruel; the blade was blunt, and of flexible silver.
A burst of laughter resounded from the other side of the ill-closed
door, and the door was reopened.
"Ha! ha! ha!" cried Lord de Winter; "ha! ha! ha! don`t you see, my
brave Felton, don`t you see what I told you? That knife was for you, my lad;
she would have killed you. Observe, this is one of her peculiarities, to get
rid thus, after one fashion or another, of all the people who inconvenience
her. If I had listened to you, the knife would have been pointed and of
steel. Then it would have been all over with Felton; she would have cut your
throat, and, after that, the throat of everybody else. Look at her, John,
see how well she knows how to handle a knife."
In fact, milady still held the harmless weapon in her clenched hand, but
these last words, this supreme insult, relaxed her hands, her strength, and
even her will. The knife fell to the ground.
"You were right, my lord," said Felton, with a tone of profound disgust,
which sounded to the very bottom of the heart of milady; "you were right, my
lord; I was in the wrong."
And both left the room afresh.
But this time milady lent a more attentive ear than the first, and she
heard their steps die away in the distance of the corridor.
"I am lost," murmured she; "I am lost! I am in the power of men upon
whom I can have no more influence than upon statues of bronze or granite;
they know me by heart, and are cuirassed against all my weapons. It is,
however, impossible that this should end as they have decreed!"
In fact, as the last reflection, this instinctive return to hope,
indicated sentiments of weakness or fear did not dwell long in her ardent
spirit. Milady sat down to table, ate of several dishes, drank a little
Spanish wine, and felt all her resolution return.
Before she went to bed she had commented upon, analyzed, turned on all
sides, examined on all points, the words, the gestures, the signs, and even
the silence of her interlocutors, and from this profound, skillful, and
anxious study, it resulted that Felton was, everything considered, the more
vulnerable of her two persecutors.
One expression, above all, recurred to the mind of the prisoner:
"If I had listened to you," Lord de Winter had said to Felton.
Felton, then, had spoken in her favor, since Lord de Winter had not been
willing to listen to Felton.
"Weak or strong," repeated milady, "that man has a spark of pity in his
soul; of that spark I will make a flame that shall devour him.
"As to the other, he knows me, he fears me, and knows what he has to
expect of me, if ever I escape from his hands; it is useless then to attempt
anything with him.
"But, Felton, that`s another thing; he is a young, ingenuous, pure man,
who seems virtuous; him there are means of destroying."
And milady went to bed and fell asleep, with a smile upon her lips. Any
one who had seen her sleeping, might have said she was a young girl dreaming
of the crown of flowers she was to wear on her brow at the next fete.
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