Chapter 56

Chapter LVI
The Old Age of Athos
While all these affairs were separating forever the four musketeers, formerly bound together in a manner that seemed indissoluble, Athos, left alone after the departure of Raoul, began to pay his tribute to that death by anticipation which is called the absence of those we love. Returned to his house at Blois, no longer having even Grimaud to receive a poor smile when he passed through the parterre, Athos daily felt the decline of the vigor of a nature which for so long a time had appeared infallible. Age, which had been kept back by the presence of the beloved object, arrived with that cortege of pains and inconveniences which increases in proportion as its coming is delayed. Athos had no longer his son’s presence to incite him to walk firmly, with his head erect, as a good example; he had no longer in those brilliant eyes of the young man an ever-ardent focus at which to rekindle the fire of his looks. And then, it must be said, this nature, exquisite in its tenderness and its reserve, no longer finding anything that comprehended its feelings, gave itself up to grief with all the warmth with which vulgar natures give themselves up to joy. The Comte de la Fere, who had remained a young man up to his sixty-second year; the warrior who had preserved his strength in spite of fatigues, his freshness of mind in spite of misfortune, his mild serenity of soul and body in spite of Milady, in spite of Mazarin, in spite of La Valliere,- Athos had become an old man in a week from the moment at which he had lost the support of his latter youth. Still handsome though bent, noble but sad,- gently, and tottering under his gray hairs, he sought since his solitude the glades where the rays of the sun penetrated through the foliage of the walks. He discontinued all the vigorous exercises he had enjoyed through life, since Raoul was no longer with him. The servants, accustomed to see him stirring with the dawn at all seasons, were astonished to hear seven o’clock strike before their master had quitted his bed. Athos remained in bed with a book under his pillow; but he did not sleep, neither did he read. Remaining in bed that he might no longer have to carry his body, he allowed his soul and spirit to wander from their envelope, and return to his son or to God.

His people were sometimes terrified to see him for hours together absorbed in a silent revery, mute and insensible; he no longer heard the timid step of the servant who came to the door of his chamber to watch the sleeping or waking of his master. It sometimes happened that he forgot that the day had half passed away, that the hours for the first two meals were gone by. Then he was awakened. He rose, descended to his shady walk, then came out a little into the sun, as if to partake its warmth for a minute with his absent child; and then the dismal, monotonous walk was resumed, until, quite exhausted, he regained the chamber and the bed,-