The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [76]
The commissary’s brow darkened more.
“You would recognize him out of a thousand, you say?” he continued.
“That is,” Bonacieux picked up, seeing that he had made a misstep, “that is…”
“You replied that you would recognize him,” said the commissary. “Very well, that’s enough for today. Before we go further, someone must be informed that you know your wife’s ravisher.”
“But I didn’t tell you I know him!” Bonacieux cried out in despair. “I told you, on the contrary…”
“Take the prisoner away,” the commissary said to the two guards.
“And where must we bring him?” asked the clerk.
“To a cell.”
“Which one?”
“Oh, my God, the first one you come to, provided it locks tight!” the commissary replied with an indifference that filled poor Bonacieux with horror.
“Alas! alas!” he said to himself, “misfortune hangs over my head! My wife must have committed some frightful crime. They think I’m her accomplice, and they will punish me along with her. She must have talked, she must have admitted that she told me everything—women are so weak! A cell, the first you come to! That’s it! A night is soon past; and tomorrow, the wheel, the gallows! Oh, my God! my God! have mercy on me!”
Without paying the least attention to the lamentations of Master Bonacieux, lamentations to which they had anyhow become accustomed, the two guards took the prisoner by the arms and led him away, while the commissary hastily wrote a letter that his clerk waited for.
Bonacieux never closed an eye, not that his cell was so disagreeable, but because his worries were too great. He spent the whole night on his stool, shuddering at the least noise; and when the first rays of light slipped into his room, dawn seemed to him to have taken on funereal hues.
Suddenly he heard the bolts being drawn, and he gave a terrible start. He thought they had come for him in order to lead him to the scaffold. And so, when, instead of the executioner he was expecting, he saw appear purely and simply his commissary and his clerk from the day before, he was ready to throw himself on their necks.
“Your case has become extremely complicated since yesterday evening, my brave fellow,” the commissary said to him, “and I advise you to tell the whole truth, for your repentance alone can avert the cardinal’s wrath.”
“But I’m quite ready to tell everything,” cried Bonacieux, “at least everything I know. Question me, I beg you.”
“Where is your wife, first of all?”
“But I’ve told you she was abducted from me.”
“Yes, but since five o’clock yesterday afternoon, thanks to you, she has escaped.”
“My wife has escaped?” cried Bonacieux. “Oh, the poor woman! Monsieur, if she has escaped, it’s not my fault, I swear it.”
“What were you doing, then, with M. d’Artagnan, your neighbor, with whom you had a long consultation during the day?”
“Ah, yes, Monsieur le commissaire, yes, that’s true! And I admit I was wrong. I was with M. d’Artagnan.”
“What was the goal of that visit?”
“To beg him to help me find my wife. I thought I had the right to reclaim her. I was wrong, it seems, and I ask you to pardon me for that.”
“And what was M. d’Artagnan’s reply?”
“M. d’Artagnan promised me his help, but I soon realized that he was betraying me.”
“You’re trying to bluff the law! M. d’Artagnan made a pact with you, and by virtue of that pact, he put to flight the policemen who had arrested your wife, and shielded her from all pursuit.”
“M. d’Artagnan has abducted my wife? Ah! but what are you telling me?”
“Fortunately, M. d’Artagnan is in our hands, and you are going to confront him.”
“Ah! my word, I could ask for nothing better,” cried Bonacieux. “I won’t be sorry to see a familiar face.”
“Bring in M. d’Artagnan,” the commissary said to the two guards.
The two guards brought in Athos.
“M. d’Artagnan,” said the commissary, addressing Athos, “state what went on between you and Monsieur.”
“But,” cried Bonacieux, “this man you’re showing me is not d’Artagnan!”
“What? This is