The three musketeers
paces, and at each cast he caught the neck of the bottle in his running
noose. I practiced this exercise, and as nature has endowed me with
some faculties, at this day I can throw the lasso with any man in the
world. Well, do you understand, monsieur? Our host has a well-furnished
cellar the key of which never leaves him; only this cellar has a
ventilating hole. Now through this ventilating hole I throw my lasso,
and as I now know in which part of the cellar is the best wine, that’s
my point for sport. You see, monsieur, what the New World has to do
with the bottles which are on the commode and the wardrobe. Now, will
you taste our wine, and without prejudice say what you think of it?”
“Thank you, my friend, thank you; unfortunately, I have just
breakfasted.”
“Well,” said Porthos, “arrange the table, Mousqueton, and while we
breakfast, D’Artagnan will relate to us what has happened to him during
the ten days since he left us.”
“Willingly,” said D’Artagnan.
While Porthos and Mousqueton were breakfasting, with the appetites of
convalescents and with that brotherly cordiality which unites men in
misfortune, D’Artagnan related how Aramis, being wounded, was obliged
to stop at Crèvecœur, how he had left Athos fighting at Amiens with
four men who accused him of being a coiner, and how he, D’Artagnan, had
been forced to run the Comtes de Wardes through the body in order to
reach England.
But there the confidence of D’Artagnan stopped. He only added that on
his return from Great Britain he had brought back four magnificent
horses—one for himself, and one for each of his companions; then he
informed Porthos that the one intended for him was already installed in
the stable of the tavern.
At this moment Planchet entered, to inform his master that the horses
were sufficiently refreshed and that it would be possible to sleep at
Clermont.
As D’Artagnan was tolerably reassured with regard to Porthos, and as he
was anxious to obtain news of his two other friends, he held out his
hand to the wounded man, and told him he was about to resume his route
in order to continue his researches. For the rest, as he reckoned upon
returning by the same route in seven or eight days, if Porthos were
still at the Great St. Martin, he would call for him on his way.
Porthos replied that in all probability his sprain would not permit him
to depart yet awhile. Besides, it was necessary he should stay at
Chantilly to wait for the answer from his duchess.
D’Artagnan wished that answer might be prompt and favorable; and having
again recommended Porthos to the care of Mousqueton, and paid his bill
to the host, he resumed his route with Planchet, already relieved of
one of his led horses.
Chapter XXVI.
ARAMIS AND HIS THESIS
D’Artagnan had said nothing to Porthos of his wound or of his
procurator’s wife. Our Béarnais was a prudent lad, however young he
might be. Consequently he had appeared to believe all that the
vainglorious Musketeer had told him, convinced that no friendship will
hold out against a surprised secret. Besides, we feel always a sort of
mental superiority over those whose lives we know better than they
suppose. In his projects of intrigue for the future, and determined as
he was to make his three friends the instruments of his fortune,
D’Artagnan was not sorry at getting into his grasp beforehand the
invisible strings by which he reckoned upon moving them.
And yet, as he journeyed along, a profound sadness weighed upon his
heart. He thought of that young and pretty Mme. Bonacieux who was to
have paid him the price of his devotedness; but let us hasten to say
that this sadness possessed the young man less from the regret of the
happiness he had missed, than from the fear he entertained that some
serious misfortune had befallen the poor woman. For himself, he had no
doubt she was a victim of the cardinal’s vengeance; and, as was well
known, the vengeance of his Eminence was terrible. How he had found
grace in the eyes of the minister, he did not know; but without doubt
M. de Cavois would have revealed this to him if the captain of the
Guards had found him at home.
Nothing makes time pass more quickly or more shortens a journey than a
thought which absorbs in itself all the faculties of the organization
of him who thinks. External existence then resembles a sleep of which
this thought is the dream. By its influence, time has no longer
measure, space has no longer distance. We depart from one place, and
arrive at another, that is all. Of the interval passed, nothing remains
in the memory but a vague mist in which a thousand confused images of
trees, mountains, and landscapes are lost. It was as a prey to this
hallucination that D’Artagnan traveled, at whatever pace his horse
pleased, the six or eight leagues that separated Chantilly from
Crèvecœur, without his being able to remember on his arrival in the
village any of the things he had passed or met with on the road.
There only his memory returned to him. He shook his head, perceived the
cabaret at which he had left Aramis, and putting his horse to the trot,
he shortly pulled up at the door.
This time it was not a host but a hostess who received him. D’Artagnan
was a physiognomist. His eye took in at a glance the plump, cheerful
countenance of the mistress of the place, and he at once perceived
there was no occasion for dissembling with her, or of fearing anything
from one blessed with such a joyous physiognomy.
“My good dame,” asked D’Artagnan, “can you tell me what has become of
one of my friends, whom we were obliged to leave here about a dozen
days ago?”
“A handsome young man, three- or four-and-twenty years old, mild,
amiable, and well made?”
“That is he—wounded in the shoulder.”
“Just so. Well, monsieur, he is still here.”
“Ah, _pardieu!_ My dear dame,” said D’Artagnan, springing from his
horse, and throwing the bridle to Planchet, “you restore me to life;
where is this dear Aramis? Let me embrace him, I am in a hurry to see
him again.”
“Pardon, monsieur, but I doubt whether he can see you at this moment.”
“Why so? Has he a lady with him?”
“Jesus! What do you mean by that? Poor lad! No, monsieur, he has not a
lady with him.”
“With whom is he, then?”
“With the curate of Montdidier and the superior of the Jesuits of
Amiens.”
“Good heavens!” cried D’Artagnan, “is the poor fellow worse, then?”
“No, monsieur, quite the contrary; but after his illness grace touched
him, and he determined to take orders.”
“That’s it!” said D’Artagnan, “I had forgotten that he was only a
Musketeer for a time.”
“Monsieur still insists upon seeing him?”
“More than ever.”
“Well, monsieur has only to take the right-hand staircase in the
courtyard, and knock at Number Five on the second floor.”
D’Artagnan walked quickly in the direction indicated, and found one of
those exterior staircases that are still to be seen in the yards of our
old-fashioned taverns. But there was no getting at the place of sojourn
of the future abbé; the defiles of the chamber of Aramis were as well
guarded as the gardens of Armida. Bazin was stationed in the corridor,
and barred his passage with the more intrepidity that, after many years
of trial, Bazin found himself near a result of which he had ever been
ambitious.
In fact, the dream of poor Bazin had always been to serve a churchman;
and he awaited with impatience the moment, always in the future, when
Aramis would throw aside the uniform and assume the cassock. The
daily-renewed promise of the young man that the moment would not long
be delayed, had alone kept him in the service of a Musketeer—a service
in which, he said, his soul was in constant jeopardy.
Bazin was then at the height of joy. In all probability, this time his
master would not retract. The union of physical pain with moral
uneasiness had produced the effect so long desired. Aramis, suffering
at once in body and mind, had at length fixed his eyes and his thoughts
upon religion, and he had considered as a warning from heaven the
double accident which had happened to him; that is to say, the sudden
disappearance of his mistress and the wound in his shoulder.
It may be easily understood that in the present disposition of his
master nothing could be more disagreeable to Bazin than the arrival of
D’Artagnan, which might cast his master back again into that vortex of
mundane affairs which had so long carried him away. He resolved, then,
to defend the door bravely; and as, betrayed by the mistress of the
inn, he could not say that Aramis was absent, he endeavored to prove to
the newcomer that it would be the height of indiscretion to disturb his
master in his pious conference, which had commenced with the morning
and would not, as Bazin said, terminate before night.
But D’Artagnan took very little heed of the eloquent discourse of M.
Bazin; and as he had no desire to support a polemic discussion with his
friend’s valet, he simply moved him out of the way with one hand, and
with the other turned the handle of the door of Number Five. The door
opened, and D’Artagnan went into the chamber.
Aramis, in a black gown, his head enveloped in a sort of round flat
cap, not much unlike a _calotte_, was seated before an oblong table,
covered with rolls of paper and enormous volumes in folio. At his right
hand was placed the superior of the Jesuits, and on his left the curate
of Montdidier. The curtains were half drawn, and only admitted the
mysterious light calculated for beatific reveries. All the mundane
objects that generally strike the eye on entering the room of a young
man, particularly when that young man is a Musketeer, had disappeared
as if by enchantment; and for fear, no doubt, that the sight of them
might bring his master back to ideas of this world, Bazin had laid his
hands upon sword, pistols, plumed hat, and embroideries and laces of
all kinds and sorts. In their stead D’Artagnan thought he perceived in
an obscure corner a discipline cord suspended from a nail in the wall.
At the noise made by D’Artagnan in entering, Aramis lifted up his head,
and beheld his friend; but to the great astonishment of the young man,
the sight of him did not produce much effect upon the Musketeer, so
completely was his mind detached from the things of this world.
“Good day, dear D’Artagnan,” said Aramis; “believe me, I am glad to see
you.”
“So am I delighted to see you,” said D’Artagnan, “although I am not yet
sure that it is Aramis I am speaking to.”
“To himself, my friend, to himself! But what makes you doubt it?”
“I was afraid I had made a mistake in the chamber, and that I had found
my way into the apartment of some churchman. Then another error seized
me on seeing you in company with these gentlemen—I was afraid you were
dangerously ill.”
The two men in black, who guessed D’Artagnan’s meaning, darted at him a
glance which might have been thought threatening; but D’Artagnan took
no heed of it.
“I disturb you, perhaps, my dear Aramis,” continued D’Artagnan, “for by
what I see, I am led to believe that you are confessing to these
gentlemen.”
Aramis colored imperceptibly. “You disturb me? Oh, quite the contrary,
dear friend, I swear; and as a proof of what I say, permit me to
declare I am rejoiced to see you safe and sound.”
“Ah, he’ll come round,” thought D’Artagnan; “that’s not bad!”
“This gentleman, who is my friend, has just escaped from a serious
danger,” continued Aramis, with unction, pointing to D’Artagnan with
his hand, and addressing the two ecclesiastics.
“Praise God, monsieur,” replied they, bowing together.
“I have not failed to do so, your Reverences,” replied the young man,
returning their salutation.
“You arrive in good time, dear D’Artagnan,” said Aramis, “and by taking