The Club Dumas

“Yes,” I agreed, sitting down again. “But a genius. While some would simply have plagiarized, he created a fictional world that still endures today... ‘Man does not steal, he con­quers,’ he often said. ‘Every province he seizes becomes an an­nex of his empire: he imposes laws, peoples it with themes and characters, casting his shadow over it.’ What else is literary creation? For Dumas, the history of France was a rich source of material. His was an extraordinary trick: he’d leave the frame alone but alter the picture, mercilessly plundering the treasure that was offered to him. He turned central characters into mi­nor ones, humble secondary characters became protagonists, and he wrote pages about events that took up only two lines in the historical chronicles. The pact of friendship between d’Artagnan and his companions never existed, one of the reasons being that half of them didn’t even know each other. Nor was there a Comte de la Fere. Or, rather, there were several of them, though none called Athos. But Athos did exist. He was Armand de Sillegue, Lord of Athos, and he was killed in a duel before d’Artagnan ever joined the king’s musketeers. Aramis was Henri d’Aramitz, a squire and lay priest in the seneschalship of Oloron, who enrolled in the musketeers under his uncle’s com­mand in 1640. He ended his days on his estate, with a wife and four children. As for Porthos ...”

“Don’t tell me there was a Porthos too.”

“Yes. His name was Isaac de Portau and he must have known Aramis, because he joined the musketeers just three years after him, in 1643. According to the chronicles, he died prematurely, from a disease, at war, or in a duel like Athos.”

Corso drummed his fingers on d’Artagnan’s Memoirs and shook his head, smiling. “Any minute now you’ll tell me there was a Milady.”

“Correct. But her name wasn’t Anne de Breuil, and she wasn’t the Duchess de Winter. Nor did she have a fleur-de-lis tattooed on her shoulder. But she was one of Richelieu’s secret agents. Her name was the Countess of Carlisle and she stole two diamond tags from the Duke of Buckingham ... Don’t look at me like that. It’s all in La Rochefoucauld’s memoirs. And La Rochefoucauld was a very reliable man.”

Corso was staring at me intently. He wasn’t the type to be easily surprised, particularly when it came to books, but he seemed impressed. Later, when I came to know him better, I wondered whether his admiration was sincere or just another of his professional wiles. Now that it’s all over, I think I know: I was one more source of information, and Corso was trying to get as much out of me as possible.

“This is all very interesting,” he said.

“If you go to Paris, Replinger can tell you much more than I can.” I looked at the manuscript on the table. “Though I’m not sure it’s worth the price of a trip ... What would this chap­ter fetch on the market?”

He started chewing his pencil again and looked doubtful. “Not much. I’m really after something else.”

I gave a sad conspiratorial smile. Among my few possessions I have an Ibarra edition of Don Quixote and a Volkswagen. Of course the car cost more than the book.

“I know what you mean,” I said warmly.

Corso made a resigned gesture. He bared his rodent teeth in a bitter smile. “Unless the Japanese get fed up with Van Gogh and Picasso,” he suggested, “and start investing in rare books.”

I shuddered. “God help us if that ever happens.”

“Speak for yourself.” He looked at me sardonically through his crooked glasses. “I plan to make a fortune.”

He put his notebook away and stood up, the strap of his canvas bag over his shoulder. I couldn’t help wondering about his falsely placid appearance, with his steel-rimmed glasses sit­ting unsteadily on his nose. I found out later that he lived alone, surrounded by books, both his own and other people’s, and that as well as being a hired hunter of books he was an expert on Napoleon’s battles. He could set out on a board, from memory, the exact positions of troops on the eve of Waterloo. A detail from his family, slightly strange, and I found out about it only much later. I have to admit that from this description Corso doesn’t sound very appealing. And yet, if I keep to the strict accuracy with which I am narrating this story, I must add that his awkward appearance, the very clumsiness that seemed— and I don’t know how he managed it—vulnerable and caustic, ingenuous and aggressive at the same time, made him both attractive to women and sympathetic to men. But the positive feeling was quickly dispelled, as when you touch your pocket and realize that your wallet has just been stolen.

Corso picked up his manuscript, and I saw him to the door. He shook my hand in the hallway, where portraits of Stendhal, Conrad, and Valle-Inclan looked out severely at an atrocious print that the building’s residents’ association had decided to hang on the landing a few months earlier, much against my wishes.