The three musketeers
“A _fleur-de-lis_,” said Athos. “She was branded.”
Athos emptied at a single draught the glass he held in his hand.
“Horror!” cried D’Artagnan. “What do you tell me?”
“Truth, my friend. The angel was a demon; the poor young girl had
stolen the sacred vessels from a church.”
“And what did the count do?”
“The count was of the highest nobility. He had on his estates the
rights of high and low tribunals. He tore the dress of the countess to
pieces; he tied her hands behind her, and hanged her on a tree.”
“Heavens, Athos, a murder?” cried D’Artagnan.
“No less,” said Athos, as pale as a corpse. “But methinks I need wine!”
and he seized by the neck the last bottle that was left, put it to his
mouth, and emptied it at a single draught, as he would have emptied an
ordinary glass.
Then he let his head sink upon his two hands, while D’Artagnan stood
before him, stupefied.
“That has cured me of beautiful, poetical, and loving women,” said
Athos, after a considerable pause, raising his head, and forgetting to
continue the fiction of the count. “God grant you as much! Let us
drink.”
“Then she is dead?” stammered D’Artagnan.
“_Parbleu!_” said Athos. “But hold out your glass. Some ham, my boy, or
we can’t drink.”
“And her brother?” added D’Artagnan, timidly.
“Her brother?” replied Athos.
“Yes, the priest.”
“Oh, I inquired after him for the purpose of hanging him likewise; but
he was beforehand with me, he had quit the curacy the night before.”
“Was it ever known who this miserable fellow was?”
“He was doubtless the first lover and accomplice of the fair lady. A
worthy man, who had pretended to be a curate for the purpose of getting
his mistress married, and securing her a position. He has been hanged
and quartered, I hope.”
“My God, my God!” cried D’Artagnan, quite stunned by the relation of
this horrible adventure.
“Taste some of this ham, D’Artagnan; it is exquisite,” said Athos,
cutting a slice, which he placed on the young man’s plate.
“What a pity it is there were only four like this in the cellar. I
could have drunk fifty bottles more.”
D’Artagnan could no longer endure this conversation, which had made him
bewildered. Allowing his head to sink upon his two hands, he pretended
to sleep.
“These young fellows can none of them drink,” said Athos, looking at
him with pity, “and yet this is one of the best!”
Chapter XXVIII.
THE RETURN
D’Artagnan was astounded by the terrible confidence of Athos; yet many
things appeared very obscure to him in this half revelation. In the
first place it had been made by a man quite drunk to one who was half
drunk; and yet, in spite of the incertainty which the vapor of three or
four bottles of Burgundy carries with it to the brain, D’Artagnan, when
awaking on the following morning, had all the words of Athos as present
to his memory as if they then fell from his mouth—they had been so
impressed upon his mind. All this doubt only gave rise to a more lively
desire of arriving at a certainty, and he went into his friend’s
chamber with a fixed determination of renewing the conversation of the
preceding evening; but he found Athos quite himself again—that is to
say, the most shrewd and impenetrable of men. Besides which, the
Musketeer, after having exchanged a hearty shake of the hand with him,
broached the matter first.
“I was pretty drunk yesterday, D’Artagnan,” said he, “I can tell that
by my tongue, which was swollen and hot this morning, and by my pulse,
which was very tremulous. I wager that I uttered a thousand
extravagances.”
While saying this he looked at his friend with an earnestness that
embarrassed him.
“No,” replied D’Artagnan, “if I recollect well what you said, it was
nothing out of the common way.”
“Ah, you surprise me. I thought I had told you a most lamentable
story.” And he looked at the young man as if he would read the bottom
of his heart.
“My faith,” said D’Artagnan, “it appears that I was more drunk than
you, since I remember nothing of the kind.”
Athos did not trust this reply, and he resumed; “you cannot have failed
to remark, my dear friend, that everyone has his particular kind of
drunkenness, sad or gay. My drunkenness is always sad, and when I am
thoroughly drunk my mania is to relate all the lugubrious stories which
my foolish nurse inculcated into my brain. That is my failing—a capital
failing, I admit; but with that exception, I am a good drinker.”
Athos spoke this in so natural a manner that D’Artagnan was shaken in
his conviction.
“It is that, then,” replied the young man, anxious to find out the
truth, “it is that, then, I remember as we remember a dream. We were
speaking of hanging.”
“Ah, you see how it is,” said Athos, becoming still paler, but yet
attempting to laugh; “I was sure it was so—the hanging of people is my
nightmare.”
“Yes, yes,” replied D’Artagnan. “I remember now; yes, it was about—stop
a minute—yes, it was about a woman.”
“That’s it,” replied Athos, becoming almost livid; “that is my grand
story of the fair lady, and when I relate that, I must be very drunk.”
“Yes, that was it,” said D’Artagnan, “the story of a tall, fair lady,
with blue eyes.”
“Yes, who was hanged.”
“By her husband, who was a nobleman of your acquaintance,” continued
D’Artagnan, looking intently at Athos.
“Well, you see how a man may compromise himself when he does not know
what he says,” replied Athos, shrugging his shoulders as if he thought
himself an object of pity. “I certainly never will get drunk again,
D’Artagnan; it is too bad a habit.”
D’Artagnan remained silent; and then changing the conversation all at
once, Athos said:
“By the by, I thank you for the horse you have brought me.”
“Is it to your mind?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Yes; but it is not a horse for hard work.”
“You are mistaken; I rode him nearly ten leagues in less than an hour
and a half, and he appeared no more distressed than if he had only made
the tour of the Place St. Sulpice.”
“Ah, you begin to awaken my regret.”
“Regret?”
“Yes; I have parted with him.”
“How?”
“Why, here is the simple fact. This morning I awoke at six o’clock. You
were still fast asleep, and I did not know what to do with myself; I
was still stupid from our yesterday’s debauch. As I came into the
public room, I saw one of our Englishman bargaining with a dealer for a
horse, his own having died yesterday from bleeding. I drew near, and
found he was bidding a hundred pistoles for a chestnut nag.
‘_Pardieu_,’ said I, ‘my good gentleman, I have a horse to sell, too.’
‘Ay, and a very fine one! I saw him yesterday; your friend’s lackey was
leading him.’ ‘Do you think he is worth a hundred pistoles?’ ‘Yes! Will
you sell him to me for that sum?’ ‘No; but I will play for him.’
‘What?’ ‘At dice.’ No sooner said than done, and I lost the horse. Ah,
ah! But please to observe I won back the equipage,” cried Athos.
D’Artagnan looked much disconcerted.
“This vexes you?” said Athos.
“Well, I must confess it does,” replied D’Artagnan. “That horse was to
have identified us in the day of battle. It was a pledge, a
remembrance. Athos, you have done wrong.”
“But, my dear friend, put yourself in my place,” replied the Musketeer.
“I was hipped to death; and still further, upon my honor, I don’t like
English horses. If it is only to be recognized, why the saddle will
suffice for that; it is quite remarkable enough. As to the horse, we
can easily find some excuse for its disappearance. Why the devil! A
horse is mortal; suppose mine had had the glanders or the farcy?”
D’Artagnan did not smile.
“It vexes me greatly,” continued Athos, “that you attach so much
importance to these animals, for I am not yet at the end of my story.”
“What else have you done.”
“After having lost my own horse, nine against ten—see how near—I formed
an idea of staking yours.”
“Yes; but you stopped at the idea, I hope?”
“No; for I put it in execution that very minute.”
“And the consequence?” said D’Artagnan, in great anxiety.
“I threw, and I lost.”
“What, my horse?”
“Your horse, seven against eight; a point short—you know the proverb.”
“Athos, you are not in your right senses, I swear.”
“My dear lad, that was yesterday, when I was telling you silly stories,
it was proper to tell me that, and not this morning. I lost him then,
with all his appointments and furniture.”
“Really, this is frightful.”
“Stop a minute; you don’t know all yet. I should make an excellent
gambler if I were not too hot-headed; but I was hot-headed, just as if
I had been drinking. Well, I was not hot-headed then—”
“Well, but what else could you play for? You had nothing left?”
“Oh, yes, my friend; there was still that diamond left which sparkles
on your finger, and which I had observed yesterday.”
“This diamond!” said D’Artagnan, placing his hand eagerly on his ring.
“And as I am a connoisseur in such things, having had a few of my own
once, I estimated it at a thousand pistoles.”
“I hope,” said D’Artagnan, half dead with fright, “you made no mention
of my diamond?”
“On the contrary, my dear friend, this diamond became our only
resource; with it I might regain our horses and their harnesses, and
even money to pay our expenses on the road.”
“Athos, you make me tremble!” cried D’Artagnan.
“I mentioned your diamond then to my adversary, who had likewise
remarked it. What the devil, my dear, do you think you can wear a star
from heaven on your finger, and nobody observe it? Impossible!”
“Go on, go on, my dear fellow!” said D’Artagnan; “for upon my honor,
you will kill me with your indifference.”
“We divided, then, this diamond into ten parts of a hundred pistoles
each.”
“You are laughing at me, and want to try me!” said D’Artagnan, whom
anger began to take by the hair, as Minerva takes Achilles, in the
_Iliad_.
“No, I do not jest, _mordieu!_ I should like to have seen you in my
place! I had been fifteen days without seeing a human face, and had
been left to brutalize myself in the company of bottles.”
“That was no reason for staking my diamond!” replied D’Artagnan,
closing his hand with a nervous spasm.
“Hear the end. Ten parts of a hundred pistoles each, in ten throws,
without revenge; in thirteen throws I had lost all—in thirteen throws.
The number thirteen was always fatal to me; it was on the thirteenth of
July that—”
“_Ventrebleu!_” cried D’Artagnan, rising from the table, the story of
the present day making him forget that of the preceding one.
“Patience!” said Athos; “I had a plan. The Englishman was an original;
I had seen him conversing that morning with Grimaud, and Grimaud had
told me that he had made him proposals to enter into his service. I
staked Grimaud, the silent Grimaud, divided into ten portions.”
“Well, what next?” said D’Artagnan, laughing in spite of himself.
“Grimaud himself, understand; and with the ten parts of Grimaud, which
are not worth a ducatoon, I regained the diamond. Tell me, now, if
persistence is not a virtue?”
“My faith! But this is droll,” cried D’Artagnan, consoled, and holding
his sides with laughter.
“You may guess, finding the luck turned, that I again staked the
diamond.”
“The devil!” said D’Artagnan, becoming angry again.
“I won back your harness, then your horse, then my harness, then my
horse, and then I lost again. In brief, I regained your harness and
then mine. That’s where we are. That was a superb throw, so I left off
there.”
D’Artagnan breathed as if the whole hostelry had been removed from his
breast.
“Then the diamond is safe?” said he, timidly.
“Intact, my dear friend; besides the harness of your Bucephalus and
mine.”
“But what is the use of harnesses without horses?”
“I have an idea about them.”
“Athos, you make me shudder.”