The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [291]
The abbess listened more attentively, gradually became animated, and smiled.
“Good,” Milady said to herself, “she’s getting a taste for my twaddle. If she’s a cardinalist, at least she’s not a fanatical one.”
Then she went on to the cardinal’s persecution of his enemies. The abbess merely crossed herself, without approving or disapproving.
This confirmed Milady in her opinion that the nun was more royalist than cardinalist. She went on, raising the price more and more.
“I am very ignorant of all these matters,” the abbess finally said, “but, far as we are from the court, quite outside all worldly interests as we find ourselves here, we have very sad examples of what you have just been recounting, and one of our pensioners has suffered much from the vengeance and persecution of M. le cardinal.”
“One of your pensioners?” said Milady. “Oh, my God, the poor woman, in that case I pity her!”
“And right you are, for she is greatly to be pitied: prison, threats, ill treatment—she has suffered everything. But, after all,” the abbess went on, “M. le cardinal may have had plausible motives for acting in that way, and though she seems an angel, one must not always judge people by their looks.”
“Good!” Milady said to herself. “Who knows, maybe I’ll discover something here. I’m in luck!”
And she applied herself to giving her face an expression of perfect candor.
“Alas!” said Milady. “I know that. They say one must not believe in physiognomies; but in what are we to believe, then, if not in the most beautiful handiwork of the Lord? As for me, perhaps I shall be deceived all my life, but I shall always trust a person whose face inspires sympathy in me.”
“You would be tempted to believe, then,” said the abbess, “that this young woman is innocent?”
“M. le cardinal does not only punish crimes,” she said. “There are certain virtues that he prosecutes more severely than certain wrongdoings.”
“Allow me, Madame, to express to you my surprise,” said the abbess.
“At what?” Milady asked naively.
“Why, at the language you use.”
“What do you find astonishing in this language?” asked Milady, smiling.
“You are the cardinal’s friend, since he sent you here, andyet…”
“And yet I speak ill of him,” Milady picked up, completing the mother superior’s thought.
“At least you do not speak well.”
“The fact is that I am not his friend,” she said, sighing, “I am his victim.”
“And yet this letter in which he recommends you to me?…”
“Is an order to me to keep myself in a sort of prison, from which he will have me taken by some of his henchmen.”
“But why haven’t you run away?”
“Where would I go? Do you think there’s a place on earth that the cardinal cannot touch, if he wishes to take the trouble of reaching out his hand? If I were a man, it would still be faintly possible; but a woman—what do you want a woman to do? This young pensioner you have here—has she tried to run away?”
“No, it’s true. But she is something else. I think it’s some love that keeps her in France.”
“Well, then,” said Milady with a sigh, “if she’s in love, she’s not altogether unfortunate.”
“And so,” said the abbess, looking at Milady with increasing interest, “it’s another poor persecuted woman that I see?”
“Alas, yes,” said Milady.
The abbess looked at Milady uneasily for a moment, as if a new thought had just occurred to her.
“You are not an enemy of our holy faith?” she stammered.
“I?” cried Milady. “I, a Protestant? Oh, no! I call God who hears us as my witness that I am, on the contrary, a fervent Catholic.”
“Well, then, Madame,” said the abbess, smiling, “rest assured, the house you are in will be no harsh prison, and we will do everything necessary to make you cherish your captivity. What’s more, you will find here that young woman, persecuted, no doubt, as the result of some court intrigue. She is kindly, gracious.”
“What do you call her?”
“She was recommended to me by someone very highly placed under the name of Kitty. I have not tried to find out her other name.”
“Kitty!” cried Milady. “What? Are you sure?…”
“That she calls herself