all is over then. Nothing
is now left me in this world. Nothing to look for, nothing to hope for.
Guiche has told me so, my father has told me so, and M. d'Artagnan
likewise. Everything is a mere idle dream in this life. That future
which I have been hopelessly pursuing for the last ten years, a dream!
that union of our hearts, a dream! that life formed of love and
happiness, a dream! Poor fool that I am," he continued, 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 enemies may laugh
at my sorrows. And so my unhappiness will soon become a notorious
disgrace, a public scandal; and who knows but that to-morrow I may not
even be ignominiously 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 M. 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 replace 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 sorrowful. The voice of human nature is nothing but one
prolonged 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