The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [302]
“Help me, friends, help me! Her hands are ice cold,” cried d’Artagnan. “She’s ill! Good God, she’s lost consciousness!”
While Porthos was calling for help at the top of his voice, Aramis ran to the table for a glass of water; but he stopped on seeing the terrible alteration in the face of Athos, who, standing by the table, his hair on end, his eyes glazed with stupor, was looking at one of the glasses and seemed a prey to the most horrible suspicion.
“Oh, no!” said Athos. “Oh, no, it’s not possible! God would not permit such a crime!”
“Water, water!” cried d’Artagnan. “Bring water!”
“Oh, poor woman, poor woman,” murmured Athos in a broken voice.
Mme Bonacieux opened her eyes again under d’Artagnan’s kisses.
“She’s reviving!” cried the young man. “Oh, my God, my God, I thank you!”
“Madame,” said Athos, “Madame, in the name of heaven, whose is this empty glass?”
“Mine, Monsieur…” the young woman replied in a dying voice.
“But who poured you the wine that was in this glass?”
“She did.”
“But who is this she?”
“Ah, I remember,” said Mme Bonacieux, “the countess de Winter…”
The four friends cried out with one voice, but Athos’s dominated the others.
Just then Mme Bonacieux’s face became livid, a dull pain overwhelmed her, she fell gasping into the arms of Porthos and Aramis.
D’Artagnan seized Athos’s hands with an anguish difficult to describe.
“And what,” he said, “you think…”
His voice died out in a sob.
“I think everything,” said Athos, biting his lips till they bled.
“D’Artagnan, d’Artagnan!” cried Mme Bonacieux. “Where are you? Don’t leave me, you can see I’m going to die.”
D’Artagnan let go of Athos’s hands, which he was still holding clenched in his own, and ran to her.
His handsome face was all distorted, his glassy eyes no longer saw anything, a convulsive trembling shook his body, sweat streamed from his brow.
“In the name of heaven, run for someone! Porthos, Aramis, call for help!”
“No use,” said Athos, “no use. To the poison she pours out, there is no antidote.”
“Yes,” murmured Mme Bonacieux, “help, help!”
Then, gathering all her strength, she took the young man’s head in her hands, looked at him for a moment as if all her soul were in that look, and, with a sobbing cry, pressed her lips to his.
“Constance! Constance!” cried d’Artagnan.
A sigh escaped from Mme Bonacieux’s mouth as it brushed against d’Artagnan’s; that sigh was her chaste and loving soul ascending to heaven.
D’Artagnan held only a lifeless body in his arms.
The young man cried out and fell down beside his mistress, as pale and chill as she was.
Porthos wept, Aramis raised his fist to heaven, Athos made the sign of the cross.
At that moment a young man appeared in the doorway, almost as pale as those who were in the room, looked all around him, and saw Mme Bonacieux dead and d’Artagnan unconscious.
He appeared just at that moment of stupor that follows great catastrophes.
“I was not mistaken,” he said. “Here is M. d’Artagnan, and you are his three friends, MM. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.”
Those whose names had just been spoken looked at the stranger in astonishment. All three seemed to recognize him.
“Gentlemen,” the newcomer went on, “you, like me, are searching for a woman. She must have passed this way,” he added with a terrible smile, “for I see a dead body!”
The three friends remained mute; only the voice, like the face, reminded them of a man they had already seen, though they could not remember in what circumstances.
“Gentlemen,” the stranger continued, “since you do not wish to recognize a man who probably owes you his life twice over, I shall have to name myself: I am Lord de Winter, that woman’s brother-in-law.”
The three friends cried out in surprise.
Athos stood up and held out his hand to him.
“Welcome, Milord,” he said, “you are one of us.”
“I left Portsmouth five hours after her,” said Lord de Winter, “I reached Boulogne three hours after her, I missed her by twenty minutes at Saint-Omer;