The Club Dumas

He didn’t look convinced but said nothing. I held the can­delabrum high, and we walked down the Louis XIII—style cor­ridor. A magnificent tapestry hung on one of the walls: Ulysses, bow in hand, recently returned to Ithaca, Penelope and the dog rejoicing, the suitors drinking wine in the background, unaware of what awaits them.

“This is an ancient castle, full of history,” I said. “It has been plundered by the English, by the Huguenots, by revolu­tionaries. Even the Germans set up a command post here dur­ing the war. It was very dilapidated when the present owner —a British millionaire, a charming man and a gentleman— acquired it. He restored and furnished it with extraordinary good taste. He even agreed to open it to the public.”

“So what are you doing here outside of visiting hours?”

As I passed a leaded window, I glanced out. The storm was dying down at last, the glow of lightning fading beyond the Loire, to the north.

“An exception is made once a year,” I explained. “After all, Meung is a special place. A novel like The Three Musketeers doesn’t open just anywhere.”

The wooden floors creaked beneath our feet. A suit of armor, genuine sixteenth-century, stood in a bend in the corridor. The light from the candelabrum was reflected in the smooth, pol­ished surfaces of the cuirass. Corso glanced at it as he walked past, as if there might be someone hidden inside.

“I’ll tell you a story. It began ten years ago,” I said, “at an auction in Paris, of a lot of uncatalogued documents. I was writing a book on the nineteenth-century popular novel in France, and the dusty packages fell into my hands quite by chance. When I went through them, I saw they were from the old archives of Le Siecle. Almost all consisted of printing proofs of little value, but one package of blue and white sheets at­tracted my attention. It was the original text, handwritten by Dumas and Maquet, of The Three Musketeers. All sixty-seven chapters, just as they were sent to the printer. Someone, possibly Baudry, the editor of the newspaper, had kept them after com­posing the galley proofs and then forgot all about them....”

I slowed and stopped in the middle of the corridor. Corso was very still, and the light from the candelabrum I held lit up his face from below, making shadows dance in his eye sock­ets. He listened intently to my story, seemed to be unaware of anything else. Solving the mystery that had brought him was the only thing that mattered to him. But he still kept his hand on the knife in his pocket.

“My discovery,” I went on, pretending not to notice, “was of extraordinary importance. We knew of a few fragments of the original draft from Dumas and Maquet’s notes and papers, but we were unaware of the existence of the complete manu­script. At first I thought to make my finding public, in the form of an annotated facsimile edition. But then I encountered a serious moral dilemma.”

The light and shadow on Corso’s face moved, and a dark line crossed his mouth. He was smiling. “I don’t believe it. A moral dilemma, after all this.”

I moved the candelabrum to make invisible the skeptical smile on his face, unsuccessfully.

“I’m quite serious,” I protested as we moved on. “On ex­amining the manuscript, I concluded that the real creator of the story was Auguste Maquet. He had done all the research and outlined the story in broad strokes. Dumas, with his enor­mous talent, his genius, had then brought the raw material to life and turned it into a masterpiece. Although obvious to me, this might not have been so obvious to detractors of the author and his work.” I gestured with my free hand, as if to sweep them all aside. “I had no intention of throwing stones at my hero. Particularly now, in these times of mediocrity and lack of imagination... Times in which people no longer admire mar­vels, as theater audiences and the readers of serials used to. They hissed at the villains and cheered on the heroes with no inhibitions.” I shook my head sadly. “That applause unfortu­nately can no longer be heard. It’s become the exclusive domain of innocents and children.”

Corso was listening with an insolent, mocking expression. He might have agreed with me, but he was the grudge-bearing type and refused to allow my explanation to grant me any sort of moral alibi.

“In short,” he said, “you decided to destroy the manuscript.”

I smiled smugly. He was trying to be too clever.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I decided to do something better: to make a dream come true.”

We had stopped in front of the closed door to the reception room. Through it the muffled sound of music and voices could be heard. I put the candelabrum down on a console table while Corso watched me, again suspicious. He was probably wonder­ing what new trick was hidden there. He didn’t understand, I realized, that we really had reached the solution to the mystery.

“Please allow me to introduce you,” I said, opening the door, “to the members of the Club Dumas.”