L. Frank Baum - "American Fairy Tales"

Alfred de Vigny - "Cinq Mars, v6"

Abraham Cahan - "The Rise of David Levinsky"

Unknown - "The Koran"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Man in the Iron Mask

A >> Alexandre Dumas, Pere >> The Man in the Iron Mask




"This is what I wish, my friend. You will see her again, and you will
give her a letter which, if you think proper, will explain to her, as to
yourself, what is passing in my heart. Read it; I drew it up last
night. Something told me I should see you to-day." He held the letter
out, and D'Artagnan read:

"MADEMOISELLE, - You are not wrong in my eyes in not loving me. You have
only been guilty of one fault towards me, that of having left me to
believe you loved me. This error will cost me my life. I pardon you,
but I cannot pardon myself. It is said that happy lovers are deaf to the
sorrows of rejected lovers. It will not be so with you, who did not love
me, save with anxiety. I am sure that if I had persisted in endeavoring
to change that friendship into love, you would have yielded out of a fear
of bringing about my death, or lessening the esteem I had for you. It is
much more delightful to me to die, knowing that _you_ are free and
satisfied. How much, then, will you love me, when you will no longer
fear either my presence or reproaches? You will love me, because,
however charming a new love may appear to you, God has not made me in
anything inferior to him you have chosen, and because my devotedness, my
sacrifice, and my painful end will assure me, in your eyes, a certain
superiority over him. I have allowed to escape, in the candid credulity
of my heart, the treasure I possessed. Many people tell me that you
loved me enough to lead me to hope you would have loved me much. That
idea takes from my mind all bitterness, and leads me only to blame
myself. You will accept this last farewell, and you will bless me for
having taken refuge in the inviolable asylum where hatred is
extinguished, and where all love endures forever. Adieu, mademoiselle.
If your happiness could be purchased by the last drop of my blood, I
would shed that drop. I willingly make the sacrifice of it to my misery!
"RAOUL, VICOTME DE BRAGELONNE."

"The letter reads very well," said the captain. "I have only one fault to find
with it."

"Tell me what that is!" said Raoul.

"Why, it is that it tells everything, except the thing which exhales,
like a mortal poison from your eyes and from your heart; except the
senseless love which still consumes you." Raoul grew paler, but
remained silent.

"Why did you not write simply these words:

"'MADEMOISELLE, - Instead of cursing you, I love you and I die.'"

"That is true," exclaimed Raoul, with a sinister kind of joy.

And tearing the letter he had just taken back, he wrote the following
words upon a leaf of his tablets:

"To procure the happiness of once more telling you I love you, I commit
the baseness of writing to you; and to punish myself for that baseness, I
die." And he signed it.

"You will give her these tablets, captain, will you not?"

"When?" asked the latter.

"On the day," said Bragelonne, pointing to the last sentence, "on the day
when you can place a date under these words." And he sprang away quickly
to join Athos, who was returning with slow steps.

As they re-entered the fort, the sea rose with that rapid, gusty
vehemence which characterizes the Mediterranean; the ill-humor of the
element became a tempest. Something shapeless, and tossed about
violently by the waves, appeared just off the coast.

"What is that?" said Athos, - "a wrecked boat?"

"No, it is not a boat," said D'Artagnan.

"Pardon me," said Raoul, "there is a bark gaining the port rapidly."

"Yes, there is a bark in the creek, which is prudently seeking shelter
here; but that which Athos points to in the sand is not a boat at all –
it has run aground."

"Yes, yes, I see it."

"It is the carriage, which I threw into the sea after landing the
prisoner."

"Well!" said Athos, "if you take my advice, D'Artagnan, you will burn
that carriage, in order that no vestige of it may remain, without which
the fishermen of Antibes, who have believed they had to do with the
devil, will endeavor to prove that your prisoner was but a man."

"Your advice is good, Athos, and I will this night have it carried out,
or rather, I will carry it out myself; but let us go in, for the rain
falls heavily, and the lightning is terrific."

As they were passing over the ramparts to a gallery of which D'Artagnan
had the key, they saw M. de Saint-Mars directing his steps towards the
chamber inhabited by the prisoner. Upon a sign from D'Artagnan, they
concealed themselves in an angle of the staircase.

"What is it?" said Athos.

"You will see. Look. The prisoner is returning from chapel."

And they saw, by the red flashes of lightning against the violet fog
which the wind stamped upon the bank-ward sky, they saw pass gravely, at
six paces behind the governor, a man clothed in black and masked by a
vizor of polished steel, soldered to a helmet of the same nature, which
altogether enveloped the whole of his head. The fire of the heavens cast
red reflections on the polished surface, and these reflections, flying
off capriciously, seemed to be angry looks launched by the unfortunate,
instead of imprecations. In the middle of the gallery, the prisoner
stopped for a moment, to contemplate the infinite horizon, to respire the
sulphurous perfumes of the tempest, to drink in thirstily the hot rain,
and to breathe a sigh resembling a smothered groan.

"Come on, monsieur," said Saint-Mars, sharply, to the prisoner, for he
already became uneasy at seeing him look so long beyond the walls.
"Monsieur, come on!"

"Say monseigneur!" cried Athos, from his corner, with a voice so solemn
and terrible, that the governor trembled from head to foot. Athos
insisted upon respect being paid to fallen majesty. The prisoner turned
round.

"Who spoke?" asked Saint-Mars.

"It was I," replied D'Artagnan, showing himself promptly. "You know that
is the order."

"Call me neither monsieur nor monseigneur," said the prisoner in his
turn, in a voice that penetrated to the very soul of Raoul; "call me
ACCURSED!" He passed on, and the iron door croaked after him.

"There goes a truly unfortunate man!" murmured the musketeer in a hollow
whisper, pointing out to Raoul the chamber inhabited by the prince.


Chapter XXXIII:
Promises.

Scarcely had D'Artagnan re-entered his apartment with his two friends,
when one of the soldiers of the fort came to inform him that the governor
was seeking him. The bark which Raoul had perceived at sea, and which
appeared so eager to gain the port, came to Sainte-Marguerite with an
important dispatch for the captain of the musketeers. On opening it,
D'Artagnan recognized the writing of the king: "I should think," said
Louis XIV., "you will have completed the execution of my orders, Monsieur
d'Artagnan; return, then, immediately to Paris, and join me at the
Louvre."

"There is the end of my exile!" cried the musketeer with joy; "God be
praised, I am no longer a jailer!" And he showed the letter to Athos.

"So, then, you must leave us?" replied the latter, in a melancholy tone.

"Yes, but to meet again, dear friend, seeing that Raoul is old enough now
to go alone with M. de Beaufort, and will prefer his father going back in
company with M. d'Artagnan, to forcing him to travel two hundred leagues
solitarily to reach home at La Fere; will you not, Raoul?"

"Certainly," stammered the latter, with an expression of tender regret.

"No, no, my friend," interrupted Athos, "I will never quit Raoul till the
day his vessel disappears on the horizon. As long as he remains in
France he shall not be separated from me."

"As you please, dear friend; but we will, at least, leave Sainte-
Marguerite together; take advantage of the bark that will convey me back
to Antibes."

"With all my heart; we cannot too soon be at a distance from this fort,
and from the spectacle that shocked us so just now."

The three friends quitted the little isle, after paying their respects to
the governor, and by the last flashes of the departing tempest they took
their farewell of the white walls of the fort. D'Artagnan parted from
his friend that same night, after having seen fire set to the carriage
upon the shore by the orders of Saint-Mars, according to the advice the
captain had given him. Before getting on horseback, and after leaving
the arms of Athos: "My friends," said he, "you bear too much resemblance
to two soldiers who are abandoning their post. Something warns me that
Raoul will require being supported by you in his rank. Will you allow me
to ask permission to go over into Africa with a hundred good muskets?
The king will not refuse me, and I will take you with me."

"Monsieur d'Artagnan," replied Raoul, pressing his hand with emotion,
"thanks for that offer, which would give us more than we wish, either
monsieur le comte or I. I, who am young, stand in need of labor of mind
and fatigue of body; monsieur le comte wants the profoundest repose. You
are his best friend. I recommend him to your care. In watching over
him, you are holding both our souls in your hands."

"I must go; my horse is all in a fret," said D'Artagnan, with whom the
most manifest sign of a lively emotion was the change of ideas in
conversation. "Come, comte, how many days longer has Raoul to stay here?"

"Three days at most."

"And how long will it take you to reach home?"

"Oh! a considerable time," replied Athos. "I shall not like the idea of
being separated too quickly from Raoul. Time will travel too fast of
itself to require me to aid it by distance. I shall only make half-
stages."

"And why so, my friend? Nothing is more dull than traveling slowly; and
hostelry life does not become a man like you."

"My friend, I came hither on post-horses; but I wish to purchase two
animals of a superior kind. Now, to take them home fresh, it would not
be prudent to make them travel more than seven or eight leagues a day."

"Where is Grimaud?"

"He arrived yesterday morning with Raoul's appointments; and I have left
him to sleep."

"That is, never to come back again," D'Artagnan suffered to escape him.
"Till we meet again, then, dear Athos - and if you are diligent, I shall
embrace you the sooner." So saying, he put his foot in the stirrup,
which Raoul held.

"Farewell!" said the young man, embracing him.

"Farewell!" said D'Artagnan, as he got into his saddle.

His horse made a movement which divided the cavalier from his friends.
This scene had taken place in front of the house chosen by Athos, near
the gates of Antibes, whither D'Artagnan, after his supper, had ordered
his horses to be brought. The road began to branch off there, white and
undulating in the vapors of the night. The horse eagerly respired the
salt, sharp perfume of the marshes. D'Artagnan put him to a trot; and
Athos and Raoul sadly turned towards the house. All at once they heard
the rapid approach of a horse's steps, and first believed it to be one
of those singular repercussions which deceive the ear at every turn in a
road. But it was really the return of the horseman. They uttered a cry
of joyous surprise; and the captain, springing to the ground like a young
man, seized within his arms the two beloved heads of Athos and Raoul. He
held them long embraced thus, without speaking a word, or suffering the
sigh which was bursting his breast to escape him. Then, as rapidly as he
had come back, he set off again, with a sharp application of his spurs to
the sides of his fiery horse.

"Alas!" said the comte, in a low voice, "alas! alas!"

"An evil omen!" on his side, said D'Artagnan to himself, making up for
lost time. "I could not smile upon them. An evil omen!"

The next day Grimaud was on foot again. The service commanded by M. de
Beaufort was happily accomplished. The flotilla, sent to Toulon by the
exertions of Raoul, had set out, dragging after it in little nutshells,
almost invisible, the wives and friends of the fishermen and smugglers
put in requisition for the service of the fleet. The time, so short,
which remained for father and son to live together, appeared to go by
with double rapidity, like some swift stream that flows towards
eternity. Athos and Raoul returned to Toulon, which began to be filled
with the noise of carriages, with the noise of arms, the noise of
neighing horses. The trumpeters sounded their spirited marches; the
drummers signalized their strength; the streets were overflowing with
soldiers, servants, and tradespeople. The Duc de Beaufort was
everywhere, superintending the embarkation with the zeal and interest of
a good captain. He encouraged the humblest of his companions; he scolded
his lieutenants, even those of the highest rank. Artillery, provisions,
baggage, he insisted upon seeing all himself. He examined the equipment
of every soldier; assured himself of the health and soundness of every
horse. It was plain that, light, boastful, egotistical, in his hotel,
the gentleman became the soldier again - the high noble, a captain - in
face of the responsibility he had accepted. And yet, it must be admitted
that, whatever was the care with which he presided over the preparations
for departure, it was easy to perceive careless precipitation, and the
absence of all the precaution that make the French solider the first
soldier in the world, because, in that world, he is the one most
abandoned to his own physical and moral resources. All things having
satisfied, or appearing to have satisfied, the admiral, he paid his
compliments to Raoul, and gave the last orders for sailing, which was
ordered the next morning at daybreak. He invited the comte had his son
to dine with him; but they, under a pretext of service, kept themselves
apart. Gaining their hostelry, situated under the trees of the great
Place, they took their repast in haste, and Athos led Raoul to the rocks
which dominate the city, vast gray mountains, whence the view is infinite
and embraces a liquid horizon which appears, so remote is it, on a level
with the rocks themselves. The night was fine, as it always is in these
happy climes. The moon, rising behind the rocks, unrolled a silver sheet
on the cerulean carpet of the sea. In the roadsteads maneuvered silently
the vessels which had just taken their rank to facilitate the
embarkation. The sea, loaded with phosphoric light, opened beneath the
hulls of the barks that transported the baggage and munitions; every dip
of the prow plowed up this gulf of white flames; from every oar dropped
liquid diamonds. The sailors, rejoicing in the largesses of the admiral,
were heard murmuring their slow and artless songs. Sometimes the
grinding of the chains was mixed with the dull noise of shot falling into
the holds. Such harmonies, such a spectacle, oppress the heart like
fear, and dilate it like hope. All this life speaks of death. Athos had
seated himself with his son, upon the moss, among the brambles of the
promontory. Around their heads passed and repassed large bats, carried
along by the fearful whirl of their blind chase. The feet of Raoul were
over the edge of the cliff, bathed in that void which is peopled by
vertigo, and provokes to self-annihilation. When the moon had risen to
its fullest height, caressing with light the neighboring peaks, when the
watery mirror was illumined in its full extent, and the little red fires
had made their openings in the black masses of every ship, Athos,
collecting all his ideas and all his courage, said:

"God has made all these things that we see, Raoul; He has made us also, -
poor atoms mixed up with this monstrous universe. We shine like those
fires and those stars; we sigh like those waves; we suffer like those
great ships, which are worn out in plowing the waves, in obeying the wind
that urges them towards an end, as the breath of God blows us towards a
port. Everything likes to live, Raoul; and everything seems beautiful to
living things."

"Monsieur," said Raoul, "we have before us a beautiful spectacle!"

"How good D'Artagnan is!" interrupted Athos, suddenly, "and what a rare
good fortune it is to be supported during a whole life by such a friend
as he is! That is what you have missed, Raoul."

"A friend!" cried Raoul, "I have wanted a friend!"

"M. de Guiche is an agreeable companion," resumed the comte, coldly, "but
I believe, in the times in which you live, men are more engaged in their
own interests and their own pleasures than they were in ours. You have
sought a secluded life; that is a great happiness, but you have lost your
strength thereby. We four, more weaned from those delicate abstractions
that constitute your joy, furnished much more resistance when misfortune
presented itself."

"I have not interrupted you, monsieur, to tell you that I had a friend,
and that that friend is M. de Guiche. _Certes_, he is good and generous,
and moreover he loves me. But I have lived under the guardianship of
another friendship, monsieur, as precious and as strong as that of which
you speak, since it is yours."

"I have not been a friend for you, Raoul," said Athos.

"Eh! monsieur, and in what respect not?"

"Because I have given you reason to think that life has but one face,
because, sad and severe, alas! I have always cut off for you, without,
God knows, wishing to do so, the joyous buds that spring incessantly
from the fair tree of youth; so that at this moment I repent of not
having made of you a more expansive, dissipated, animated man."

"I know why you say that, monsieur. No, it is not you who have made me
what I am; it was love, which took me at the time when children only have
inclinations; it is the constancy natural to my character, which with
other creatures is but habit. I believed that I should always be as I
was; I thought God had cast me in a path quite clear, quite straight,
bordered with fruits and flowers. I had ever watching over me your
vigilance and strength. I believed myself to be vigilant and strong.
Nothing prepared me; I fell once, and that once deprived me of courage
for the whole of my life. It is quite true that I wrecked myself. Oh,
no, monsieur! you are nothing in my past but happiness - in my future but
hope! No, I have no reproach to make against life such as you made it
for me; I bless you, and I love you ardently."

"My dear Raoul, your words do me good. They prove to me that you will
act a little for me in the time to come."

"I shall only act for you, monsieur."

"Raoul, what I have never hitherto done with respect to you, I will
henceforward do. I will be your friend, not your father. We will live
in expanding ourselves, instead of living and holding ourselves
prisoners, when you come back. And that will be soon, will it not?"

"Certainly, monsieur, for such an expedition cannot last long."

"Soon, then, Raoul, soon, instead of living moderately on my income, I
will give you the capital of my estates. It will suffice for launching
you into the world till my death; and you will give me, I hope, before
that time, the consolation of not seeing my race extinct."

"I will do all you may command," said Raoul, much agitated.

"It is not necessary, Raoul, that your duty as aide-de-camp should lead
you into too hazardous enterprises. You have gone through your ordeal;
you are known to be a true man under fire. Remember that war with Arabs
is a war of snares, ambuscades, and assassinations."

"So it is said, monsieur."

"There is never much glory in falling in an ambuscade. It is a death
which always implies a little rashness or want of foresight. Often,
indeed, he who falls in one meets with but little pity. Those who are
not pitied, Raoul, have died to little purpose. Still further, the
conqueror laughs, and we Frenchmen ought not to allow stupid infidels to
triumph over our faults. Do you clearly understand what I am saying to
you, Raoul? God forbid I should encourage you to avoid encounters."

"I am naturally prudent, monsieur, and I have very good fortune," said
Raoul, with a smile which chilled the heart of his poor father; "for,"
the young man hastened to add, "in twenty combats through which I have
been, I have only received one scratch."

"There is in addition," said Athos, "the climate to be dreaded: that is
an ugly end, to die of fever! King Saint-Louis prayed God to send him an
arrow or the plague, rather than the fever."

"Oh, monsieur! with sobriety, with reasonable exercise - "

"I have already obtained from M. de Beaufort a promise that his
dispatches shall be sent off every fortnight to France. You, as his aide-
de-camp, will be charged with expediting them, and will be sure not to
forget me."

"No, monsieur," said Raoul, almost choked with emotion.

"Besides, Raoul, as you are a good Christian, and I am one also, we ought
to reckon upon a more special protection of God and His guardian angels.
Promise me that if anything evil should happen to you, on any occasion,
you will think of me at once."

"First and at once! Oh! yes, monsieur."

"And will call upon me?"

"Instantly."

"You dream of me sometimes, do you not, Raoul?"

"Every night, monsieur. During my early youth I saw you in my dreams,
calm and mild, with one hand stretched out over my head, and that it was
which made me sleep so soundly - formerly."

"We love each other too dearly," said the comte, "that from this moment,
in which we separate, a portion of both our souls should not travel with
one and the other of us, and should not dwell wherever we may dwell.
Whenever you may be sad, Raoul, I feel that my heart will be dissolved in
sadness; and when you smile on thinking of me, be assured you will send
me, from however remote a distance, a vital scintillation of your joy."

"I will not promise you to be joyous," replied the young man; "but you
may be certain that I will never pass an hour without thinking of you,
not one hour, I swear, unless I shall be dead."

Athos could contain himself no longer; he threw his arm round the neck of
his son, and held him embraced with all the power of his heart. The moon
began to be now eclipsed by twilight; a golden band surrounded the
horizon, announcing the approach of the day. Athos threw his cloak over
the shoulders of Raoul, and led him back to the city, where burdens and
porters were already in motion, like a vast ant-hill. At the extremity
of the plateau which Athos and Bragelonne were quitting, they saw a dark
shadow moving uneasily backwards and forwards, as if in indecision or
ashamed to be seen. It was Grimaud, who in his anxiety had tracked his
master, and was there awaiting him.

"Oh! my good Grimaud," cried Raoul, "what do you want? You are come to
tell us it is time to be gone, have you not?"

"Alone?" said Grimaud, addressing Athos and pointing to Raoul in a tone
of reproach, which showed to what an extent the old man was troubled.

"Oh! you are right!" cried the comte. "No, Raoul shall not go alone; no,
he shall not be left alone in a strange land without some friendly hand
to support him, some friendly heart to recall to him all he loved!"

"I?" said Grimaud.

"You, yes, you!" cried Raoul, touched to the inmost heart.

"Alas!" said Athos, "you are very old, my good Grimaud."

"So much the better," replied the latter, with an inexpressible depth of
feeling and intelligence.

"But the embarkation is begun," said Raoul, "and you are not prepared."

"Yes," said Grimaud, showing the keys of his trunks, mixed with those of
his young master.

"But," again objected Raoul, "you cannot leave monsieur le comte thus
alone; monsieur le comte, whom you have never quitted?"

Grimaud turned his diamond eyes upon Athos and Raoul, as if to measure
the strength of both. The comte uttered not a word.

"Monsieur le comte prefers my going," said Grimaud.

"I do," said Athos, by an inclination of the head.

At that moment the drums suddenly rolled, and the clarions filled the air
with their inspiring notes. The regiments destined for the expedition
began to debouch from the city. They advanced to the number of five,
each composed of forty companies. Royals marched first, distinguished by
their white uniform, faced with blue. The _ordonnance_ colors, quartered
cross-wise, violet and dead leaf, with a sprinkling of golden _fleurs-de-
lis_, left the white-colored flag, with its _fleur-de-lised_ cross, to
dominate the whole. Musketeers at the wings, with their forked sticks
and their muskets on their shoulders; pikemen in the center, with their
lances, fourteen feet in length, marched gayly towards the transports,
which carried them in detail to the ships. The regiments of Picardy,
Navarre, Normandy, and Royal Vaisseau, followed after. M. de Beaufort
had known well how to select his troops. He himself was seen closing the
march with his staff - it would take a full hour before he could reach
the sea. Raoul with Athos turned his steps slowly towards the beach, in
order to take his place when the prince embarked. Grimaud, boiling with
the ardor of a young man, superintended the embarkation of Raoul's
baggage in the admiral's vessel. Athos, with his arm passed through that
of the son he was about to lose, absorbed in melancholy meditation, was
deaf to every noise around him. An officer came quickly towards them to
inform Raoul that M. de Beaufort was anxious to have him by his side.