The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [258]
For all this D’Artagnan was solely responsible. Who but he could have heaped so much shame upon her head? Who but he could have told Lord Winter all the terrible secrets which he had so providently discovered one after another? He knew Lord Winter, he must undoubtedly have written to him.
What a witch’s brew of hatred she distilled as she sat there in her lonely room, motionless, her eyes burning and fixed. How well the tumult of her hoarse deep-fetched moans of fury and exasperation blended with the surge of the surf as it rose, growled, roared and spent itself, as though in eternal and powerless despair, against the rocks topped by this dark and lofty castle! In the lightning flashes of her tempestuous rage, what magnificent vengeance she plotted against Madame Bonacieux, against Buckingham and especially against D’Artagnan in the future, immediate or remote!
True, but to revenge herself she must be free and to go free a prisoner must pierce a wall, unfasten bars cut through a floor—all of which tasks can be accomplished by a strong patient man but before which the feverish irritations of a woman must give way. Besides, to do all this, time was necessary—months, even years—and Lord Winter, her fraternal and terrifying jailer had warned her that she had but ten or twelve days. Were she a man, she would try to escape, however heavily the odds were stacked against her, and who knows: she might even succeed! But Heaven had committed the hideous error of misplacing a manlike soul in her frail and delicate body.
These, the first few moments of her imprisonment, were a veritable agony as she paid her debt of feminine weakness to nature amid paroxysms of rage that swept her headlong. Presently, little by little, she overcame the outbursts of her insensate rage. The nervous tremblings which wracked her body subsided and she recoiled within herself like an exhausted serpent in repose.
“Ah, God! I must have been mad to lose my self-control!” she mused, gazing into the mirror which reflected her own burning, questioning glance. “Enough of violence; violence is a proof of weakness; what is more, I have never succeeded by that means. Perhaps if I employed my strength against women I might find them weaker than I am and consequently vanquish them. But I am struggling against men to whom I am but a woman. Let me fight like a woman, my whole strength lies in my frailty.”
As if to prove to herself what changes she could impose upon her expressive and mobile countenance, she assumed all manner of varied expressions from that of a passionate anger which convulsed her features to that of the gentlest, most affectionate and seductive serenity. Then under her skilful hands her hair successively took on all the forms which she believed might best flatter her face. At last satisfied, she murmured:
“Ah well, nothing is lost! I am still beautiful!”
It was then nearly eight o’clock in the evening. Milady decided that a rest of several hours would refresh not only her head and her ideas but also her complexion. But a still better idea occurred to her before she retired. She had overheard some talk about supper and she had already been in this chamber an hour; they would surely be bringing her some food before long. Determined not to lose a moment of precious time, she planned this very evening to reconnoitre the terrain by carefully studying the characters of the men to whose guardianship she was committed.
Presently a light under the door announced the return of her jailers. Milady rose hastily from her bed, flung herself into the armchair, tilted her head back, let her beautiful hair fall disheveled