Twenty Years After - The Original Classic Edition. Dumas d.Ä. Alexandre

"'Tis true, my lord," answered La Ramee, "that his pates are famous and his wine magnificent."

       "In any case," said the duke, "his cellar and kitchen might easily excel those of Monsieur de Chavigny."

       "Well, my lord," said La Ramee, falling into the trap, "what is there to prevent your trying them? Besides, I have promised him your patronage."

       "You are right," said the duke. "If I am to remain here permanently, as Monsieur Mazarin has kindly given me to understand, I must provide myself with a diversion for my old age, I must turn gourmand."

       "My lord," said La Ramee, "if you will take a bit of good advice, don't put that off till you are old."

       "Good!" said the Duc de Beaufort to himself, "every man in order that he may lose his heart and soul, must receive from celestial bounty one of the seven capital sins, perhaps two; it seems that Master La Ramee's is gluttony. Let us then take advantage of it." Then, aloud:

       "Well, my dear La Ramee! the day after to-morrow is a holiday."

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       "Yes, my lord--Pentecost."

       "Will you give me a lesson the day after to-morrow?" "In what?"

       "In gastronomy?" "Willingly, my lord."

       "But tete-a-tete. Send the guards to take their meal in the canteen of Monsieur de Chavigny; we'll have a supper here under your

       direction."

       "Hum!" said La Ramee.

       The proposal was seductive, but La Ramee was an old stager, acquainted with all the traps a prisoner was likely to set. Monsieur de Beaufort had said that he had forty ways of getting out of prison. Did this proposed breakfast cover some stratagem? He reflected, but he remembered that he himself would have charge of the food and the wine and therefore that no powder could be mixed with the food, no drug with the wine. As to getting him drunk, the duke couldn't hope to do that, and he laughed at the mere thought of it. Then an idea came to him which harmonized everything.

       The duke had followed with anxiety La Ramee's unspoken soliloquy, reading it from point to point upon his face. But presently the exempt's face suddenly brightened.

       "Well," he asked, "that will do, will it not?" "Yes, my lord, on one condition."

       "What?"

       "That Grimaud shall wait on us at table."

       Nothing could be more agreeable to the duke, however, he had presence of mind enough to exclaim: "To the devil with your Grimaud! He will spoil the feast."

       "I will direct him to stand behind your chair, and since he doesn't speak, your highness will neither see nor hear him and with a little effort can imagine him a hundred miles away."

       "Do you know, my friend, I find one thing very evident in all this, you distrust me."

       "My lord, the day after to-morrow is Pentecost."

       "Well, what is Pentecost to me? Are you afraid that the Holy Spirit will come as a tongue of fire to open the doors of my prison?" "No, my lord; but I have already told you what that damned magician predicted."

       "And what was it?"

       "That the day of Pentecost would not pass without your highness being out of Vincennes." "You believe in sorcerers, then, you fool?"

       "I---I mind them no more than that----" and he snapped his fingers; "but it is my Lord Giulio who cares about them; as an Italian

       he is superstitious."

       The duke shrugged his shoulders.

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       "Well, then," with well acted good-humor, "I allow Grimaud, but no one else; you must manage it all. Order whatever you like for supper--the only thing I specify is one of those pies; and tell the confectioner that I will promise him my custom if he excels this time in his pies--not only now, but when I leave my prison."

       "Then you think you will some day leave it?" said La Ramee.

       "The devil!" replied the prince; "surely, at the death of Mazarin. I am fifteen years younger than he is. At Vincennes, 'tis true, one

       lives faster----"

       "My lord," replied La Ramee, "my lord----" "Or dies sooner, for it comes to the same thing."

       La Ramee was going out. He stopped, however, at the door for an instant. "Whom does your highness wish me to send to you?"

       "Any one, except Grimaud."

       "The officer of the guard, then, with his chessboard?"

       "Yes."

       Five minutes afterward the officer entered and the duke seemed to be immersed in the sublime combinations of chess.

       A strange thing is the mind, and it is wonderful what revolutions may be wrought in it by a sign, a word, a hope. The duke had been five years in prison, and now to him, looking back upon them, those five years, which had passed so slowly, seemed not so long a time as were the two days, the forty-eight hours, which still parted him from the time fixed for his escape. Besides, there was one thing that engaged his most anxious thought--in what way was the escape to be effected? They had told him to hope for it, but had not told him what was to be hidden in the mysterious pate. And what friends awaited him without? He had friends, then, after five years in prison? If that were so he was indeed a highly favored prince. He forgot that besides his friends of his own sex, a woman, strange to say, had remembered him. It is true that she had not, perhaps, been scrupulously faithful to him, but she had remembered him; that was something.

       So the duke had more than enough to think about; accordingly he fared at chess as he had fared at tennis; he made blunder upon blunder and the officer with whom he played found him easy game.

       But his successive defeats did service to the duke in one way--they killed time for him till eight o'clock in the evening; then would come night, and with night, sleep. So, at least, the duke believed; but sleep is a capricious fairy, and it is precisely when one invokes her presence that she is most likely to keep him waiting. The duke waited until midnight, turning on his mattress like St. Laurence on his gridiron. Finally he slept.

       But at daybreak he awoke. Wild dreams had disturbed his repose. He dreamed that he was endowed with wings--he wished to fly away. For a time these wings supported him, but when he reached a certain height this new aid failed him. His wings were broken and he seemed to sink into a bottomless abyss, whence he awoke, bathed in perspiration and nearly as much overcome as if he had

       really fallen. He fell asleep again and another vision appeared. He was in a subterranean passage by which he was to leave Vincennes. Grimaud was walking before him with a lantern. By degrees the passage narrowed, yet the duke continued his course. At last it be-came so narrow that the fugitive tried in vain to proceed. The sides of the walls seem to close in, even to press against him. He made fruitless efforts to go on; it was impossible. Nevertheless, he still saw Grimaud with his lantern in front, advancing. He wished to call out to him but could not utter a word. Then at the other extremity he heard the footsteps of those who were pursuing him. These steps came on, came fast. He was discovered; all hope of flight was gone. Still the walls seemed to be closing on him; they appeared to be in concert with his enemies. At last he heard the voice of La Ramee. La Ramee took his hand and laughed aloud. He was captured again, and conducted to the low and vaulted chamber, in which Ornano, Puylaurens, and his uncle had died. Their three graves were there, rising above the ground, and a fourth was also there, yawning for its ghastly tenant.

       The duke was obliged to make as many efforts to awake as he had done to go to sleep; and La Ramee found him so pale and fatigued

       that he inquired whether he was ill.

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       "In fact," said one of the guards who had remained in the chamber and had been kept awake by a toothache, brought on by the dampness of the atmosphere, "my lord has had a very restless night and two or three times, while dreaming, he called for help."

       "What is the matter with your highness?" asked La Ramee.

       "'Tis your fault, you simpleton," answered the duke. "With your idle nonsense yesterday about