The Club Dumas

“Their technique was complicated.” Replinger gestured at the chairs and table, as if the scene had taken place there. “Dumas drew up a plan for each novel and discussed it with his collaborator, who then did the research and made an outline of the story, or a first draft. These were the white pages. Then Dumas would rewrite it on the blue paper. He worked in his shirtsleeves, and only in the morning or at night, hardly ever in the afternoon. He didn’t drink coffee or spirits while writing, only selt/er water. Also he rarely smoked. He wrote page after page under pressure from his publishers, who were always de­manding more. Maquet sent him the material in bulk by post, and Dumas would complain about the delays.” Replinger took a sheet from the folder and put it on the table in front of Corso. “Here’s proof, in one of the notes they exchanged during the writing of Queen Margot. As you can see, Dumas was com­plaining. “All is going perfectly, despite the six or seven pages of politics we’ll have to endure so as to revive interest.... If we’re not going faster, dear friend, it is your fault. I’ve been hard at work since nine o’clock yesterday.” He paused to take a breath and pointed at “The Anjou Wine.” “These four pages in Maquet’s handwriting with annotations by Dumas were probably received by Dumas only moments before Le Siecle went to press. So he had to make do with rewriting a few of them and hurriedly correcting some of the other pages on the original itself.”

He put the papers back in their folders and returned them to the filing cabinet, under D. Corso had time to cast a final glance at Dumas’s note demanding more pages from his col­laborator. In addition to the handwriting, which was similar in every way, the paper was identical—blue with faint squaring —to that of “The Anjou Wine” manuscript. One folio was cut in two—the bottom more uneven than the others. Maybe all the pages had been part of the same ream lying on the novelist’s desk.

“Who really wrote The Three Musketeers?”

Replinger, busy shutting the filing cabinet, took some time to answer.

“I can’t give you a definitive answer. Maquet was a re­sourceful man, he was well versed in history, he had read a lot... but he didn’t have the master’s touch.”

“They fell out with each other in the end, didn’t they?”

“Yes. A pity. Did you know they traveled to Spain together at the time of Isabel II’s wedding? Dumas even published a serial, From Madrid to Cadiz, in the form of letters. As for Maquet, he later went to court to demand that he be declared the author of eighteen of Dumas’s novels, but the judges ruled that his work had been only preparatory. Today he is considered a mediocre writer who used Dumas’s fame to make money. Although there are some who believe that he was exploited— the great man’s ghostwriter....”

“What do you think?”

Replinger glanced furtively at Dumas’s portrait above the door.

“I’ve already told you that I’m not an expert like my friend Mr. Balkan, just a trader, a bookseller.” He seemed to reflect, weighing where his professional opinion ended and his personal taste began. “But I’d like to draw your attention to something. In France between 1870 and 1894, three million books and eight million serials were sold with the name of Alexandre Dumas on the title page. Novels written before, during, and after his collaboration with Maquet. I think that has some significance.”

“Fame in his lifetime, at least,” said Corso.

“Definitely. For half a century he was the voice of Europe. Boats were sent over from the Americas for the sole purpose of bringing back consignments of his novels. They were read just as much in Cairo, Moscow, Istanbul, and Chandernagor as in France.... Dumas lived life to the full, enjoying all his pleas­ures and his fame. He lived and had a good time, stood on the barricades, fought in duels, was taken to court, chartered boats, paid pensions out of his own pocket, loved, ate, drank, earned ten million and squandered twenty, and died gently in his sleep, like a child.” Replinger pointed at the corrections to Maquet’s pages. “It could be called many things: talent, genius.... But whatever it was, he didn’t improvise, or steal from others.” He thumped his chest like Porthos. “It’s something you have in here. No other writer has known such glory in his lifetime. Dumas rose from nothing to have it all. As if he’d made a pact with God.”

“Yes,” said Corso. “Or with the devil.”

HE CROSSED THE ROAD to the other bookshop. Outside, under an awning, stacks of books were piled up on trestle tables. The girl was still there, rummaging among the books and bunches of old pictures and postcards. She was standing against the light. The sun was on her shoulders, turning the hair on the back of her head and her temples golden. She didn’t stop what she was doing when he arrived.