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Chapter LVIII. The Angel of Death. Athos was at this part of his marvelous vision,
when the charm was suddenly broken by a great noise rising from the outer gates. A horse
was heard galloping over the hard gravel of the great alley, and the sound of noisy and
animated conversations ascended to the chamber in which the comte was dreaming. Athos did
not stir from the place he occupied; he scarcely turned his head towards the door to ascertain
the sooner what these noises could be. A heavy step ascended the stairs; the horse, which
had recently galloped, departed slowly towards the stables. Great hesitation appeared in
the steps, which by degrees approached the chamber. A door was opened, and Athos, turning
a little towards the part of the room the noise came from, cried, in a weak voice:
"It is a courier from Africa, is it not?" "No, monsieur le comte," replied a voice which
made the father of Raoul start upright in his bed.
"Grimaud!" murmured he. And the sweat began to pour down his face. Grimaud appeared in
the doorway. It was no longer the Grimaud we have seen, still young with courage and
devotion, when he jumped the first into the boat destined to convey Raoul de Bragelonne
to the vessels of the royal fleet. 'Twas now a stern and pale old man, his clothes covered
with dust, and hair whitened by old age. He trembled whilst leaning against the door-frame,
and was near falling on seeing, by the light of the lamps, the countenance of his master.
These two men who had lived so long together in a community of intelligence, and whose
eyes, accustomed to economize expressions, knew how to say so many things silently—these
two old friends, one as noble as the other in heart, if they were unequal in fortune
and birth, remained tongue-tied whilst looking at each other. By the exchange of a single
glance they had just read to the bottom of each other's hearts. The old servitor bore
upon his countenance the impression of a grief already old, the outward token of a grim familiarity
with woe. He appeared to have no longer in use more than a single version of his thoughts.
As formerly he was accustomed not to speak much, he was now accustomed not to smile at
all. Athos read at a glance all these shades upon the visage of his faithful servant, and
in the same tone he would have employed to speak to Raoul in his dream:
"Grimaud," said he, "Raoul is dead. Is it not so?"
Behind Grimaud the other servants listened breathlessly, with their eyes fixed upon the
bed of their sick master. They heard the terrible question, and a heart-breaking silence followed.
"Yes," replied the old man, heaving the monosyllable from his chest with a hoarse, broken sigh.
Then arose voices of lamentation, which groaned without measure, and filled with regrets and
prayers the chamber where the agonized father sought with his eyes the portrait of his son.
This was for Athos like the transition which led to his dream. Without uttering a cry,
without shedding a tear, patient, mild, resigned as a martyr, he raised his eyes towards Heaven,
in order there to see again, rising above the mountain of Gigelli, the beloved shade
that was leaving him at the moment of Grimaud's arrival. Without doubt, while looking towards
the heavens, resuming his marvelous dream, he repassed by the same road by which the
vision, at once so terrible and sweet, had led him before; for after having gently closed
his eyes, he reopened them and began to smile: he had just seen Raoul, who had smiled upon
him. With his hands joined upon his breast, his face turned towards the window, bathed
by the fresh air of night, which brought upon its wings the aroma of the flowers and the
woods, Athos entered, never again to come out of it, into the contemplation of that
paradise which the living never see. God willed, no doubt, to open to this elect the treasures
of eternal beatitude, at this hour when other men tremble with the idea of being severely
received by the Lord, and cling to this life they know, in the dread of the other life
of which they get but merest glimpses by the dismal murky torch of death. Athos was spirit-guided
by the pure serene soul of his son, which aspired to be like the paternal soul. Everything
for this just man was melody and perfume in the rough road souls take to return to the
celestial country. After an hour of this ecstasy, Athos softly raised his hands as white as
wax; the smile did not quit his lips, and he murmured low, so low as scarcely to be
audible, these three words addressed to God or to Raoul:
"HERE I AM!" And his hands fell slowly, as though he himself
had laid them on the bed. Death had been kind and mild to this noble
creature. It had spared him the tortures of the agony, convulsions of the last departure;
had opened with an indulgent finger the gates of eternity to that noble soul. God had no
doubt ordered it thus that the pious remembrance of this death should remain in the hearts
of those present, and in the memory of other men—a death which caused to be loved the
passage from this life to the other by those whose existence upon this earth leads them
not to dread the last judgment. Athos preserved, even in the eternal sleep, that placid and
sincere smile—an ornament which was to accompany him to the tomb. The quietude and calm of
his fine features made his servants for a long time doubt whether he had really quitted
life. The comte's people wished to remove Grimaud, who, from a distance, devoured the
face now quickly growing marble-pale, and did not approach, from pious fear of bringing
to him the breath of death. But Grimaud, fatigued as he was, refused to leave the room. He sat
himself down upon the threshold, watching his master with the vigilance of a sentinel,
jealous to receive either his first waking look or his last dying sigh. The noises all
were quiet in the house—every one respected the slumber of their lord. But Grimaud, by
anxiously listening, perceived that the comte no longer breathed. He raised himself with
his hands leaning on the ground, looked to see if there did not appear some motion in
the body of his master. Nothing! Fear seized him; he rose completely up, and, at the very
moment, heard some one coming up the stairs. A noise of spurs knocking against a sword—a
warlike sound familiar to his ears—stopped him as he was going towards the bed of Athos.
A voice more sonorous than brass or steel resounded within three paces of him.
"Athos! Athos! my friend!" cried this voice, agitated even to tears.
"Monsieur le Chevalier d'Artagnan," faltered out Grimaud.
"Where is he? Where is he?" continued the musketeer. Grimaud seized his arm in his bony
fingers, and pointed to the bed, upon the sheets of which the livid tints of death already
showed. A choked respiration, the opposite to a sharp
cry, swelled the throat of D'Artagnan. He advanced on tip-toe, trembling, frightened
at the noise his feet made on the floor, his heart rent by a nameless agony. He placed
his ear to the breast of Athos, his face to the comte's mouth. Neither noise, nor breath!
D'Artagnan drew back. Grimaud, who had followed him with his eyes, and for whom each of his
movements had been a revelation, came timidly; seated himself at the foot of the bed, and
glued his lips to the sheet which was raised by the stiffened feet of his master. Then
large drops began to flow from his red eyes. This old man in invincible despair, who wept,
bent doubled without uttering a word, presented the most touching spectacle that D'Artagnan,
in a life so filled with emotion, had ever met with.
The captain resumed standing in contemplation before that smiling dead man, who seemed to
have burnished his last thought, to give his best friend, the man he had loved next to
Raoul, a gracious welcome even beyond life. And for reply to that exalted flattery of
hospitality, D'Artagnan went and kissed Athos fervently on the brow, and with his trembling
fingers closed his eyes. Then he seated himself by the pillow without dread of that dead man,
who had been so kind and affectionate to him for five and thirty years. He was feeding
his soul with the remembrances the noble visage of the comte brought to his mind in crowds—some
blooming and charming as that smile—some dark, dismal, and icy as that visage with
its eyes now closed to all eternity. All at once the bitter flood which mounted
from minute to minute invaded his heart, and swelled his breast almost to bursting. Incapable
of mastering his emotion, he arose, and tearing himself violently from the chamber where he
had just found dead him to whom he came to report the news of the death of Porthos, he
uttered sobs so heart-rending that the servants, who seemed only to wait for an explosion of
grief, answered to it by their lugubrious clamors, and the dogs of the late comte by
their lamentable howlings. Grimaud was the only one who did not lift up his voice. Even
in the paroxysm of his grief he would not have dared to profane the dead, or for the
first time disturb the slumber of his master. Had not Athos always bidden him be dumb?
At daybreak D'Artagnan, who had wandered about the lower hall, biting his fingers to stifle
his sighs—D'Artagnan went up once more; and watching the moments when Grimaud turned
his head towards him, he made him a sign to come to him, which the faithful servant obeyed
without making more noise than a shadow. D'Artagnan went down again, followed by Grimaud; and
when he had gained the vestibule, taking the old man's hands, "Grimaud," said he, "I have
seen how the father died; now let me know about the son."
Grimaud drew from his breast a large letter, upon the envelope of which was traced the
address of Athos. He recognized the writing of M. de Beaufort, broke the seal, and began
to read, while walking about in the first steel-chill rays of dawn, in the dark alley
of old limes, marked by the still visible footsteps of the comte who had just died.