The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [75]
He began by asking M. Bonacieux his last name and first names, his age, his profession, and his address.
The accused replied that he was Jacque-Michel Bonacieux, that he was fifty-one years old, a retired mercer, and lived at 11 rue des Fossoyeurs.
Then the commissary, instead of continuing to interrogate him, made him a long speech on how dangerous it was for an obscure bourgeois to mix in public affairs.
He complicated this exordium with an exposition in which he told of the power and deeds of M. le cardinal, that incomparable minister, that vanquisher of past ministers, that example for ministers to come: deeds and power that no one could oppose with impunity.
After this second part of his speech, fixing his hawklike gaze on poor Bonacieux, he invited him to reflect on the gravity of his situation.
The mercer’s reflections were ready-made: he consigned to the devil the moment when M. de La Porte had had the idea of marrying him to his goddaughter, and above all the moment when this goddaughter had been received as a seamstress in the queen’s household.
The essence of Master Bonacieux’s character was profound egotism mixed with base avarice, the whole seasoned by an extreme cowardice. The love his young wife had inspired in him, being quite a secondary sentiment, could not struggle against the primal sentiments we have just enumerated.
Bonacieux reflected indeed on what had just been said to him.
“But, Monsieur le commissaire,” he said timidly, “believe me, I know and value more than anyone the merit of the incomparable Eminence by which we have the honor to be governed.”
“Really?” asked the commissary with a doubtful look. “But if that is indeed the case, how is it that you are in the Bastille?”
“How it is that I am here, or, rather, why I am here,” replied M. Bonacieux, “it is perfectly impossible for me to tell you, seeing that I do not know myself; but quite certainly it is not for having displeased M. le cardinal, at least not consciously.”
“You must have committed some crime, however, since you are accused here of high treason.”
“High treason?” cried Bonacieux, terrified. “High treason? And how can a poor mercer who detests the Huguenots and abhors the Spanish be accused of high treason? Consider, Monsieur, the thing is materially impossible.”
“M. Bonacieux,” said the commissary, looking at the accused as if his little eyes had the faculty of reading the very depths of hearts, “M. Bonacieux, do you have a wife?”
“Yes, Monsieur,” replied the mercer, trembling all over, feeling that it was here that matters would become embroiled, “that is to say, I had one.”
“How’s that? You had one? What did you do with her, if you don’t have her anymore?”
“She was abducted from me, Monsieur.”
“She was abducted from you?” said the commissary. “Ah!”
Bonacieux felt at this “Ah!” that the matter was becoming more and more embroiled.
“She was abducted from you!” repeated the commissary. “And do you know the man who committed this ravishment?”
“I think I know him.”
“Who is it?”
“Understand that I affirm nothing, Monsieur le commissaire, I merely suspect.”
“Whom do you suspect? Come, answer frankly.” M. Bonacieux was in the greatest perplexity: should he deny everything or tell everything? If he denied everything, they might think he knew too much to admit it; if he told everything, he would give proof of his good will. So he decided to tell everything.
“I suspect,” he said, “a tall, dark-haired man, of haughty bearing, who has all the marks of a great lord. He followed us several times, as it seems to me, when I waited for my wife outside the gate of the Louvre to bring her home.”
The commissary seemed to feel a certain uneasiness.
“And his name?” he asked.
“Oh! as for his name,