【正文】
form of the Romancestill work today. As we saw in the closing portions of the book, Dumas gives us a fully developed Romance within his historical framework. He starts with levity and confidence, and ends with moroseness and doubt. The ending, indeed, seems to question many of the books dearly held values. D”Artagnan達(dá)達(dá)尼昂bees a lieutenant in the Musketeers, but his promotion es from the Cardinalthe Cardinal whom he and his four friends had fought so valiantly against for the first half of the novel. In the epilogue, d”Artagnan befriends the Comte de Rochefort, a Cardinalist agent. Was all that earlier fighting really worth it, then? Or was there something futile in all the Musketeers” efforts? Both the possibility of futility and this return to the normal at the end of a great Quest, characterize the form of the Romance as much as do its lighter aspects. Dumas sees the form through. With Dumas”s historical context in mind, the melancholy of