The Club Dumas

Replinger seemed surprised. He pursed his lips, nearly pout­ing. “I thought...”

“I just need an expert opinion. You’ll be paid for your time, of course.”

Achille Replinger shook his head. He didn’t care about the money. Confused, he stopped to look at Corso mistrustfully a couple of times over his glasses. He bent over the manuscript again.

“A pity,” he said at last. He regarded Corso with curiosity, as if wondering how on earth such a thing had fallen into his hands. “How did you get hold of it?”

“I inherited it from an old aunt. Have you ever seen it before?”

Still suspicious, Replinger looked over Corso’s shoulder, through the window at the street, as if someone out there might be able to give him some information about his visitor. Or maybe he was considering how to answer Corso’s question. He pulled at his mustache, as if it were false and he were making sure it was still in place, and smiled evasively.

“Here in the quartier you can never be sure if you’ve seen something before.... This has always been a good area for people who deal in books and prints. People come here to buy and sell, and everything has passed several times through the same hands.” He paused to catch his breath, then looked at Corso uneasily. “I don’t think so.... No, I’ve never seen this manuscript before,” he said. He looked out at the street again, flushed. “I’d be sure if I had.”

“So it’s authentic?” asked Corso.

“Well... In fact, yes.” Replinger wheezed as he stroked the blue pages. He seemed to be trying to stop himself from touching them. Finally he held one up between his thumb and forefinger. “Semirounded, medium- weight handwriting, no annotations or erasures ... Almost no punctuation marks, and unexpected capi­tal letters. This is definitely Dumas at his peak, toward the mid­dle of his life, when he wrote The Musketeers.” He’d become more animated as he spoke. Now he fell silent and lifted a finger. Corso could see him smiling beneath his mustache. He seemed to have reached a decision. “Wait just one moment.”

He went over to one of the filing cabinets marked D and took out some buff-colored folders.

“All this is by Alexandre Dumas pere. The handwriting is identical.”

There were about a dozen documents, some unsigned or else initialed A. D. Some had the full signature. Most were short notes to publishers, letters to friends, or invitations.

“This is one of his American autographs,” explained Replinger. “Lincoln requested one, and Dumas sent him ten dollars and a hundred autographs. They were sold in Pittsburgh for charity.” He showed Corso all the documents with restrained but obvious professional pride. “Look at this one. An invitation to dine with him on Montecristo, at the house he had built in Port-Marly. Sometimes he signed only his initials, and some­times he used pseudonyms. But not all the autographs in cir­culation are authentic. At the newspaper The Musketeer, which he owned, there was a man called Viellot who could imitate his handwriting and signature. And during the last three years of his life, Dumas’s hands trembled so much he had to dictate his work.”

“Why blue paper?”

“He had it sent from Lille. It was made for him specially by a printer who was a great admirer. He almost always used this color, especially for the novels. Occasionally he used pale pink for his articles, or yellow for poetry. He used several dif­ferent pens, depending on the kind of thing he was writing. And he couldn’t stand blue ink.”

Corso pointed to the four white pages of the manuscript, with notes and corrections. “What about these?”

Replinger frowned. “Maquet. His collaborator, Auguste Maquet. They are corrections made by Dumas to the original text.” He stroked his mustache. Then he bent over and read aloud in a theatrical voice: “Horrifying! Horrifying!” murmured Athas, as Porthos shattered the bottles and Aramis gave somewhat belated orders to send for a confessor.... Replinger broke off with a sigh. He nodded, satisfied, and then showed Corso the page. “Look: all Maquet wrote was: And he expired before d’Artagnan’s terrified companions. Dumas crossed out that line and added others above it, fleshing out the passage with more dialogue.”

“What can you tell me about Maquet?” Replinger shrugged his powerful shoulders, hesitating. “Not a great deal.” Once again he sounded evasive. “He was ten years younger than Dumas. A mutual friend, Gerard de Nerval, recommended him. Maquet wrote historical novels without success. He showed Dumas the original version of one, Buvat the Good, or the Conspiracy of Cellamare. Dumas turned the story into The Chevalier d’Harmental and had it published under his name. In return Maquet was paid twelve hundred francs.”

“Can you tell from the handwriting and the style of writing when ‘The Anjou Wine’ was written?”

“Of course I can. It’s similar to other documents from 1844, the year of The Three Musketeers.... These white and blue pages fit in with his way of working. Dumas and his associate would piece the story together. From Courtilz’s D’Artagnan they took the names of their heroes, the journey to Paris, the intrigue with Milady, and the character of the innkeeper’s wife— Dumas gave Madame Bonacieux the features of his mistress, Belle Krebsamer. Constance’s kidnapping came from the Mem­ oirs of De la Porte, a man in the confidence of Anne of Austria. And they obtained the famous story of the diamond tags from La Rochefoucauld and from a book by Roederer, Political and Romantic Intrigues from the Court of France. At that time, in addition to The Three Musketeers, they were also writing Queen Margot and The Chevalier de la Maison Rouge.”

Replinger paused again for breath. He was becoming more and more flushed and animated as he spoke. He mentioned the last few titles in a rush, stumbling a little over the words. He was afraid of boring Corso, but at the same time he wanted to give him all the information he could.

“There’s an amusing anecdote about The Chevalier de la Maison Rouge,” he went on when he’d caught his breath.

“When the serial was announced with its original title, The Knight of Rougeville, Dumas received a letter of complaint from a marquis of the same name. This made him change the title, but soon afterward he received another letter. ‘My dear Sir,’ wrote the marquis. ‘Please give your novel whatever title you wish. I am the last of my family and will blow my brains out in an hour.’ And the Marquis de Rougeville did indeed commit suicide, over some woman.”

He gasped for air. Large and pink-cheeked, he smiled apol­ogetically and leaned one of his strong hands on the table next to the blue pages. He looked like an exhausted giant, thought Corso. Porthos in the cave at Locmaria.

“Boris Balkan didn’t do you justice. You’re an expert on Dumas. I’m not surprised you’re friends.”

“We respect each other. But I’m only doing my job.” Replinger looked down, embarrassed. “I’m a conscientious Frenchman who works with annotated books and documents and handwritten dedications. Always by nineteenth-century French authors. I couldn’t evaluate the things that come to me if I wasn’t sure who wrote them and how. Do you understand?” “Perfectly,” answered Corso. “It’s the difference between a professional and a vulgar salesman.”

Replinger looked at him with gratitude. “You’re in the pro­fession. It’s obvious.”

“Yes,” Corso grimaced. “The oldest profession.” Replinger’s laugh ended in another asthmatic wheeze. Corso took advantage of the pause to turn the conversation to Maquet again.

“Tell me how they did it,” he said.

“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.”