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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Vicomte De Bragelonne 779 at Prostate Health
and trembling; his large
shoulders shook convulsively; his countenance, impressed by a frightful
grief, appeared from between his icy hands, and the spectators saw him
stagger, and hesitate, as if, though wishing to leave the hall, he did
not know the way.
"Mousqueton, my good friend," said DArtagnan, "go and make your
preparations. I will take you with me to Athos house, whither I shall
go on leaving Pierrefonds."
Mousqueton made no reply. He scarcely breathed, as if everything in that
hall would from that time be foreign. He opened the door, and
disappeared slowly. The procureur finished his reading, after which the
greater part of those who had come to hear the last will of Porthos
dispersed by degrees, many disappointed, but all penetrated with
respect. As to DArtagnan, left alone, after having received the formal
compliments of the procureur, he was lost in admiration of the wisdom of
the testator, who had so judiciously bestowed his wealth upon the most
necessitous and the most worthy, with a delicacy that none among the
most refined courtiers and the most noble hearts could have displayed
more becomingly. When Porthos enjoined Raoul de Bragelonne to give to
DArtagnan all he would ask, he knew well, did that worthy Porthos, that
DArtagnan would ask or take nothing; and in case he did demand
anything, none but himself could say what. Porthos left a pension to
Aramis, who, if he should be inclined to ask too much, was checked by
the example of DArtagnan; and that word _exile_, thrown out by the
testator, without apparent intention, was it not the most mild, the most
exquisite criticism upon that conduct of Aramis which had brought about
the death of Porthos. But there was no mention of Athos in the testament
of the dead. Could the latter for a moment suppose that the son would
not offer the best part to the father? The rough mind of Porthos had
judged all these causes, seized all these shades, better than the law,
better than custom, better than taste.
"Porthos was a heart," said DArtagnan to himself, with a sigh. As he
made this reflection, he fancied he heard a groan in the room above him;
and he thought immediately of poor Mousqueton, whom he felt it was a
pleasing duty to divert from his grief. For this purpose he left the
hall hastily to seek the worthy intendant, as he had not returned. He
ascended the staircase leading to the first story, and perceived, in
Porthos own chamber, a heap of clothes of all colors and all materials,
upon which Mousqueton had laid himself down after heaping them together.
It was the legacy of the faithful friend. These clothes were truly his
own; they had been given to him; the hand of Mousqueton was stretched
over these relics, which he kissed with all his lips, with all his face,
which he covered with his whole body. DArtagnan approached to console
the poor fellow.
"My God!" said he, "he does not stir--he has fainted!"
But DArtagnan was mistaken--Mousqueton was dead! Dead, like the dog
who, having lost his master, comes back to die upon his cloak.
CHAPTER CXXX.
THE OLD AGE OF ATHOS.
While all these affairs were separating forever the four musketeers,
formerly bound together in a manner that seemed indissoluble, Athos,
left alone after the departure of Raoul, began to pay his tribute to
that anticipated death which is called the absence of those we love.
Returned to his house at Blois, no longer having even Grimaud to receive
a poor smile when he passed through the parterre, Athos daily felt the
decline of the vigor of a nature which for so long a time had appeared
infallible. Age, which had been kept back by the presence of the beloved
object, arrived with that cortege of pains and inconveniences, which
increases in proportion as it makes itself looked for. Athos had no
longer his son to induce him to walk firmly, with his head erect, as a
good example; he had no longer, in those brilliant eyes of the young
man, an ever-ardent focus at which to regenerate the fire of his looks.
And then, must it be said, that nature, exquisite in its tenderness and
its reserve, no longer finding anything that comprehended its feelings,
gave itself up to grief with all the warmth of vulgar natures when they
give themselves up to joy. The Comte de la Fere, who had remained a
young man up to his sixty-second year; the warrior, who had preserved
his strength in spite of fatigues,
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