The three musketeers
“Oh! The affair was not long, I assure you. They placed themselves on
guard; the stranger made a feint and a lunge, and that so rapidly that
when Monsieur Porthos came to the _parade_, he had already three inches
of steel in his breast. He immediately fell backward. The stranger
placed the point of his sword at his throat; and Monsieur Porthos,
finding himself at the mercy of his adversary, acknowledged himself
conquered. Upon which the stranger asked his name, and learning that it
was Porthos, and not D’Artagnan, he assisted him to rise, brought him
back to the hôtel, mounted his horse, and disappeared.”
“So it was with Monsieur d’Artagnan this stranger meant to quarrel?”
“It appears so.”
“And do you know what has become of him?”
“No, I never saw him until that moment, and have not seen him since.”
“Very well; I know all that I wish to know. Porthos’s chamber is, you
say, on the first story, Number One?”
“Yes, monsieur, the handsomest in the inn—a chamber that I could have
let ten times over.”
“Bah! Be satisfied,” said D’Artagnan, laughing, “Porthos will pay you
with the money of the Duchess Coquenard.”
“Oh, monsieur, procurator’s wife or duchess, if she will but loosen her
pursestrings, it will be all the same; but she positively answered that
she was tired of the exigencies and infidelities of Monsieur Porthos,
and that she would not send him a denier.”
“And did you convey this answer to your guest?”
“We took good care not to do that; he would have found in what fashion
we had executed his commission.”
“So that he still expects his money?”
“Oh, Lord, yes, monsieur! Yesterday he wrote again; but it was his
servant who this time put the letter in the post.”
“Do you say the procurator’s wife is old and ugly?”
“Fifty at least, monsieur, and not at all handsome, according to
Pathaud’s account.”
“In that case, you may be quite at ease; she will soon be softened.
Besides, Porthos cannot owe you much.”
“How, not much! Twenty good pistoles, already, without reckoning the
doctor. He denies himself nothing; it may easily be seen he has been
accustomed to live well.”
“Never mind; if his mistress abandons him, he will find friends, I will
answer for it. So, my dear host, be not uneasy, and continue to take
all the care of him that his situation requires.”
“Monsieur has promised me not to open his mouth about the procurator’s
wife, and not to say a word of the wound?”
“That’s agreed; you have my word.”
“Oh, he would kill me!”
“Don’t be afraid; he is not so much of a devil as he appears.”
Saying these words, D’Artagnan went upstairs, leaving his host a little
better satisfied with respect to two things in which he appeared to be
very much interested—his debt and his life.
At the top of the stairs, upon the most conspicuous door of the
corridor, was traced in black ink a gigantic number “1.” D’Artagnan
knocked, and upon the bidding to come in which came from inside, he
entered the chamber.
Porthos was in bed, and was playing a game at _lansquenet_ with
Mousqueton, to keep his hand in; while a spit loaded with partridges
was turning before the fire, and on each side of a large chimneypiece,
over two chafing dishes, were boiling two stewpans, from which exhaled
a double odor of rabbit and fish stews, rejoicing to the smell. In
addition to this he perceived that the top of a wardrobe and the marble
of a commode were covered with empty bottles.
At the sight of his friend, Porthos uttered a loud cry of joy; and
Mousqueton, rising respectfully, yielded his place to him, and went to
give an eye to the two stewpans, of which he appeared to have the
particular inspection.
“Ah, _pardieu!_ Is that you?” said Porthos to D’Artagnan. “You are
right welcome. Excuse my not coming to meet you; but,” added he,
looking at D’Artagnan with a certain degree of uneasiness, “you know
what has happened to me?”
“No.”
“Has the host told you nothing, then?”
“I asked after you, and came up as soon as I could.”
Porthos seemed to breathe more freely.
“And what has happened to you, my dear Porthos?” continued D’Artagnan.
“Why, on making a thrust at my adversary, whom I had already hit three
times, and whom I meant to finish with the fourth, I put my foot on a
stone, slipped, and strained my knee.”
“Truly?”
“Honor! Luckily for the rascal, for I should have left him dead on the
spot, I assure you.”
“And what has became of him?”
“Oh, I don’t know; he had enough, and set off without waiting for the
rest. But you, my dear D’Artagnan, what has happened to you?”
“So that this strain of the knee,” continued D’Artagnan, “my dear
Porthos, keeps you in bed?”
“My God, that’s all. I shall be about again in a few days.”
“Why did you not have yourself conveyed to Paris? You must be cruelly
bored here.”
“That was my intention; but, my dear friend, I have one thing to
confess to you.”
“What’s that?”
“It is that as I was cruelly bored, as you say, and as I had the
seventy-five pistoles in my pocket which you had distributed to me, in
order to amuse myself I invited a gentleman who was traveling this way
to walk up, and proposed a cast of dice. He accepted my challenge, and,
my faith, my seventy-five pistoles passed from my pocket to his,
without reckoning my horse, which he won into the bargain. But you, my
dear D’Artagnan?”
“What can you expect, my dear Porthos; a man is not privileged in all
ways,” said D’Artagnan. “You know the proverb ‘Unlucky at play, lucky
in love.’ You are too fortunate in your love for play not to take its
revenge. What consequence can the reverses of fortune be to you? Have
you not, happy rogue that you are—have you not your duchess, who cannot
fail to come to your aid?”
“Well, you see, my dear D’Artagnan, with what ill luck I play,” replied
Porthos, with the most careless air in the world. “I wrote to her to
send me fifty louis or so, of which I stood absolutely in need on
account of my accident.”
“Well?”
“Well, she must be at her country seat, for she has not answered me.”
“Truly?”
“No; so I yesterday addressed another epistle to her, still more
pressing than the first. But you are here, my dear fellow, let us speak
of you. I confess I began to be very uneasy on your account.”
“But your host behaves very well toward you, as it appears, my dear
Porthos,” said D’Artagnan, directing the sick man’s attention to the
full stewpans and the empty bottles.
“So, so,” replied Porthos. “Only three or four days ago the impertinent
jackanapes gave me his bill, and I was forced to turn both him and his
bill out of the door; so that I am here something in the fashion of a
conqueror, holding my position, as it were, my conquest. So you see,
being in constant fear of being forced from that position, I am armed
to the teeth.”
“And yet,” said D’Artagnan, laughing, “it appears to me that from time
to time you must make _sorties_.” And he again pointed to the bottles
and the stewpans.
“Not I, unfortunately!” said Porthos. “This miserable strain confines
me to my bed; but Mousqueton forages, and brings in provisions. Friend
Mousqueton, you see that we have a reinforcement, and we must have an
increase of supplies.”
“Mousqueton,” said D’Artagnan, “you must render me a service.”
“What, monsieur?”
“You must give your recipe to Planchet. I may be besieged in my turn,
and I shall not be sorry for him to be able to let me enjoy the same
advantages with which you gratify your master.”
“Lord, monsieur! There is nothing more easy,” said Mousqueton, with a
modest air. “One only needs to be sharp, that’s all. I was brought up
in the country, and my father in his leisure time was something of a
poacher.”
“And what did he do the rest of his time?”
“Monsieur, he carried on a trade which I have always thought
satisfactory.”
“Which?”
“As it was a time of war between the Catholics and the Huguenots, and
as he saw the Catholics exterminate the Huguenots and the Huguenots
exterminate the Catholics—all in the name of religion—he adopted a
mixed belief which permitted him to be sometimes Catholic, sometimes a
Huguenot. Now, he was accustomed to walk with his fowling piece on his
shoulder, behind the hedges which border the roads, and when he saw a
Catholic coming alone, the Protestant religion immediately prevailed in
his mind. He lowered his gun in the direction of the traveler; then,
when he was within ten paces of him, he commenced a conversation which
almost always ended by the traveler’s abandoning his purse to save his
life. It goes without saying that when he saw a Huguenot coming, he
felt himself filled with such ardent Catholic zeal that he could not
understand how, a quarter of an hour before, he had been able to have
any doubts upon the superiority of our holy religion. For my part,
monsieur, I am Catholic—my father, faithful to his principles, having
made my elder brother a Huguenot.”
“And what was the end of this worthy man?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Oh, of the most unfortunate kind, monsieur. One day he was surprised
in a lonely road between a Huguenot and a Catholic, with both of whom
he had before had business, and who both knew him again; so they united
against him and hanged him on a tree. Then they came and boasted of
their fine exploit in the cabaret of the next village, where my brother
and I were drinking.”
“And what did you do?” said D’Artagnan.
“We let them tell their story out,” replied Mousqueton. “Then, as in
leaving the cabaret they took different directions, my brother went and
hid himself on the road of the Catholic, and I on that of the Huguenot.
Two hours after, all was over; we had done the business of both,
admiring the foresight of our poor father, who had taken the precaution
to bring each of us up in a different religion.”
“Well, I must allow, as you say, your father was a very intelligent
fellow. And you say in his leisure moments the worthy man was a
poacher?”
“Yes, monsieur, and it was he who taught me to lay a snare and ground a
line. The consequence is that when I saw our laborers, which did not at
all suit two such delicate stomachs as ours, I had recourse to a little
of my old trade. While walking near the wood of Monsieur le Prince, I
laid a few snares in the runs; and while reclining on the banks of his
Highness’s pieces of water, I slipped a few lines into his fish ponds.
So that now, thanks be to God, we do not want, as Monsieur can testify,
for partridges, rabbits, carp or eels—all light, wholesome food,
suitable for the sick.”
“But the wine,” said D’Artagnan, “who furnishes the wine? Your host?”
“That is to say, yes and no.”
“How yes and no?”
“He furnishes it, it is true, but he does not know that he has that
honor.”
“Explain yourself, Mousqueton; your conversation is full of instructive
things.”
“That is it, monsieur. It has so chanced that I met with a Spaniard in
my peregrinations who had seen many countries, and among them the New
World.”
“What connection can the New World have with the bottles which are on
the commode and the wardrobe?”
“Patience, monsieur, everything will come in its turn.”
“This Spaniard had in his service a lackey who had accompanied him in
his voyage to Mexico. This lackey was my compatriot; and we became the
more intimate from there being many resemblances of character between
us. We loved sporting of all kinds better than anything; so that he
related to me how in the plains of the Pampas the natives hunt the
tiger and the wild bull with simple running nooses which they throw to
a distance of twenty or thirty paces the end of a cord with such
nicety; but in face of the proof I was obliged to acknowledge the truth
of the recital. My friend placed a bottle at the distance of thirty