The Club Dumas

“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.

“Which one would you choose?” she asked. She was hesi­tating between a sepia postcard of Tristan and Isolde embracing and another of Daumier’s The Picture Hunter. Undecided, she held them out in front of her.

“Take both,” suggested Corso. In the corner of his eye he caught sight of a man who had stopped at the stall and was about to reach for a thick bundle of cards held together by a rubber band. Corso, with the reflex of a hunter, grabbed the packet. The man left, muttering. Corso looked through the cards and chose several with a Napoleonic theme: Empress Marie Louise, the Bonaparte family, the death of the Emperor, and his final victory—a Polish lancer and two hussars on horse­back in front of the cathedral at Reims, during the French campaign of 1814, waving flags snatched from the enemy. After hesitating a moment, he added one of Marshall Ney in dress uniform and another of an elderly Wellington, posing for pos­terity. Lucky old devil.

The girl’s long tanned hands moved deftly through the cards and yellowed printed paper. She chose a few more postcards: Robespierre, Saint-Just, and an elegant portrait of Richelieu in his cardinal’s habit and wearing the insignia of the Order of the Holy Spirit.

“How appropriate,” remarked Corso acidly.

She didn’t answer. She moved on toward a pile of books, and the sun slid across her shoulders, enveloping Corso in a golden haze. Dazzled, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the girl was showing him a thick volume in quarto.

“What do you think?”

He glanced at it: The Three Musketeers, with the original illustrations by Leloir, bound in cloth and leather, in good con­dition. Looking at her, he saw that she had a lopsided smile and was waiting, watching him intently.

“Nice edition,” was all he said. “Are you intending to read it?”

“Of course. Don’t tell me the ending.”

Corso laughed halfheartedly.

“As if I could tell you the ending,” he said, sorting the bundles of cards.

“I HAVE A PRESENT for you,” said the girl.

They were walking along the Left Bank, past the stalls of the bouquinistes with their prints hanging in plastic and cello­phane covers and their secondhand books lined up along the parapet. A bateau-mouche was heading slowly upriver, straining under the weight of what Corso estimated to be five thousand Japanese and as many Sony camcorders. Across the street, be­hind exclusive shopwindows covered with Visa and American Express stickers, snooty antique dealers scanned the horizon for a Kuwaiti, a black marketeer, or an African minister of state to whom they might sell Eugenic Grandet’s Sevres porcelain bidet. Their sales patter delivered in the most proper accent, of course.

“I don’t like presents,” muttered Corso sullenly. “Some guys once accepted a wooden horse. Handcrafted by the Achaeans, it said on the label. The fools.”

“Weren’t there any dissenters?”

“One, with his sons. But some beasts came out of the sea and made a lovely sculpture of them. Hellenistic, I seem to remember. Rhodes school. In those days, the gods took sides.” “They always have.” The girl was staring at the muddy river as if it were carrying away her memories. Corso saw her smile thoughtfully, absently. “I never knew an impartial god. Or devil.” She turned to him suddenly—her earlier thoughts seemed to have been washed downstream. “Do you believe in the devil, Corso?”

He looked at her intently, but the river had also washed away the images that filled her eyes seconds before. All he could see there now was liquid green, and light.

“I believe in stupidity and ignorance.” He smiled wearily at the girl. “And I think that the best cut of all is the one you get here. See?” He pointed at his groin. “In the femoral artery. While you’re in somebody’s arms.”

“What are you so afraid of, Corso? That I’ll put my arms around you? That the sky’ll fall on you?”

“I’m afraid of wooden horses, cheap gin, and pretty girls. Especially when they give me presents. And when they go by the name of the woman who defeated Sherlock Holmes.”

They continued walking and were now on the wooden planks of the Pont des Arts. The girl stopped and leaned on the metal rail, by a street artist selling tiny watercolors.

“I like this bridge,” she said. “No cars. Only lovers and old ladies in hats. People with nothing to do. This bridge has ab­solutely no common sense.”

Corso said nothing. He was watching the barges, masts down, pass between the pillars that supported the iron structure. Nikon’s steps had once echoed alongside his on that bridge. He remembered that she too stopped at a stall that sold watercolors. Maybe it was the same one. She wrinkled her nose, because _v her light meter couldn’t deal with the dazzling sunshine that came slanting across the spire and towers of Notre-Dame. They bought foie gras and a bottle of Burgundy. Later they had it for dinner in their hotel room, sitting on their bed watching one of those wordy discussions on TV with huge studio audi­ences that the French like so much. Earlier, on the bridge, Nikon had taken a photograph of him without his knowing. She confessed this, her mouth full of bread