S98 LOUISE DE LA VALLIERE. been hopelessly pursuing for the last ten years, a dream f that union of our hearts, a dream! that life formed of love and happiness, a dream! Poor fool that I am!'* he con- tinued, after a pause, "to dream away my existence aloud, publicly, and in the face of others, my friends and my enemies — and for what purpose, too? in order that my friends may be saddened by my troubles, and that my en- emies may laugh at my sorrows. And so my uuhappiness will soon become a notorious disgrace, a public scandal; and who knows but that to-morrow I may not even be ignominously pointed at?" And, despite the composure which he had promised his father and D'Artagnan to observe, Raoul could not resist uttering a few words of dark menace. "And yet," he continued, "if my name were De Wardes, and if I had the pliant character and strength of will of Monsieur d'Artagnan, I should laugh, with my lips, at least; I should convince other women that this perfidious girl, honored by the affection I have wasted on her, leaves me only one regret, that of having been abused and deceived by her resemblance of a modest and irreproachable conduct; a few men might perhaps fawn upon the king by laughing at my expense; I should put myself on the track of some of those jesters; I should chastise a few of them, perhaps; the men would fear me, and by the time I had laid three dying or dead at my feet, I should be adored by the women. Yes, yes; that indeed would be the proper course to adopt, and the Comte de la Fere himself would not object to it. Has not he also been tried, in his earlier days, in the same manner as I have just been tried myself? Did he not re- place affection by intoxication? He has often told me so. Why should not I replace love by pleasure? He must have suffered as much as I suffer, even more so, perhaps. The history of one man is the history of all men, a lengthened trial, more or less so, at least, more or less bitter or sorrow- ful. The voice of human nature is nothing but one pro- ionged cry. But what are the sufferings of others compared to those from which I am now suffering? Does the open wound in another's breast soften the ;pain of the gaping wound in our own? or does the blood which is welling from another man's side stanch that which is pouring from our own? Does the general anguish of our fellow-creatures lessen our own private and particular anguish? No, no; each suffers on his own account, each struggles with his own grief, each sheds his own tears. And, besides," he
