The three musketeers
Milady’s favorite monkey, which had pulled him by the doublet.
“You are welcome, monsieur,” said Milady, in a voice whose singular
sweetness contrasted with the symptoms of ill-humor which D’Artagnan
had just remarked; “you have today acquired eternal rights to my
gratitude.”
The Englishman then turned round and described the combat without
omitting a single detail. Milady listened with the greatest attention,
and yet it was easily to be perceived, whatever effort she made to
conceal her impressions, that this recital was not agreeable to her.
The blood rose to her head, and her little foot worked with impatience
beneath her robe.
Lord de Winter perceived nothing of this. When he had finished, he went
to a table upon which was a salver with Spanish wine and glasses. He
filled two glasses, and by a sign invited D’Artagnan to drink.
D’Artagnan knew it was considered disobliging by an Englishman to
refuse to pledge him. He therefore drew near to the table and took the
second glass. He did not, however, lose sight of Milady, and in a
mirror he perceived the change that came over her face. Now that she
believed herself to be no longer observed, a sentiment resembling
ferocity animated her countenance. She bit her handkerchief with her
beautiful teeth.
That pretty little _soubrette_ whom D’Artagnan had already observed
then came in. She spoke some words to Lord de Winter in English, who
thereupon requested D’Artagnan’s permission to retire, excusing himself
on account of the urgency of the business that had called him away, and
charging his sister to obtain his pardon.
D’Artagnan exchanged a shake of the hand with Lord de Winter, and then
returned to Milady. Her countenance, with surprising mobility, had
recovered its gracious expression; but some little red spots on her
handkerchief indicated that she had bitten her lips till the blood
came. Those lips were magnificent; they might be said to be of coral.
The conversation took a cheerful turn. Milady appeared to have entirely
recovered. She told D’Artagnan that Lord de Winter was her
brother-in-law, and not her brother. She had married a younger brother
of the family, who had left her a widow with one child. This child was
the only heir to Lord de Winter, if Lord de Winter did not marry. All
this showed D’Artagnan that there was a veil which concealed something;
but he could not yet see under this veil.
In addition to this, after a half hour’s conversation D’Artagnan was
convinced that Milady was his compatriot; she spoke French with an
elegance and a purity that left no doubt on that head.
D’Artagnan was profuse in gallant speeches and protestations of
devotion. To all the simple things which escaped our Gascon, Milady
replied with a smile of kindness. The hour came for him to retire.
D’Artagnan took leave of Milady, and left the saloon the happiest of
men.
On the staircase he met the pretty _soubrette_, who brushed gently
against him as she passed, and then, blushing to the eyes, asked his
pardon for having touched him in a voice so sweet that the pardon was
granted instantly.
D’Artagnan came again on the morrow, and was still better received than
on the evening before. Lord de Winter was not at home; and it was
Milady who this time did all the honors of the evening. She appeared to
take a great interest in him, asked him whence he came, who were his
friends, and whether he had not sometimes thought of attaching himself
to the cardinal.
D’Artagnan, who, as we have said, was exceedingly prudent for a young
man of twenty, then remembered his suspicions regarding Milady. He
launched into a eulogy of his Eminence, and said that he should not
have failed to enter into the Guards of the cardinal instead of the
king’s Guards if he had happened to know M. de Cavois instead of M. de
Tréville.
Milady changed the conversation without any appearance of affectation,
and asked D’Artagnan in the most careless manner possible if he had
ever been in England.
D’Artagnan replied that he had been sent thither by M. de Tréville to
treat for a supply of horses, and that he had brought back four as
specimens.
Milady in the course of the conversation twice or thrice bit her lips;
she had to deal with a Gascon who played close.
At the same hour as on the preceding evening, D’Artagnan retired. In
the corridor he again met the pretty Kitty; that was the name of the
_soubrette_. She looked at him with an expression of kindness which it
was impossible to mistake; but D’Artagnan was so preoccupied by the
mistress that he noticed absolutely nothing but her.
D’Artagnan came again on the morrow and the day after that, and each
day Milady gave him a more gracious reception.
Every evening, either in the antechamber, the corridor, or on the
stairs, he met the pretty _soubrette_. But, as we have said, D’Artagnan
paid no attention to this persistence of poor Kitty.
Chapter XXXII.
A PROCURATOR’S DINNER
However brilliant had been the part played by Porthos in the duel, it
had not made him forget the dinner of the procurator’s wife.
On the morrow he received the last touches of Mousqueton’s brush for an
hour, and took his way toward the Rue aux Ours with the steps of a man
who was doubly in favor with fortune.
His heart beat, but not like D’Artagnan’s with a young and impatient
love. No; a more material interest stirred his blood. He was about at
last to pass that mysterious threshold, to climb those unknown stairs
by which, one by one, the old crowns of M. Coquenard had ascended. He
was about to see in reality a certain coffer of which he had twenty
times beheld the image in his dreams—a coffer long and deep, locked,
bolted, fastened in the wall; a coffer of which he had so often heard,
and which the hands—a little wrinkled, it is true, but still not
without elegance—of the procurator’s wife were about to open to his
admiring looks.
And then he—a wanderer on the earth, a man without fortune, a man
without family, a soldier accustomed to inns, cabarets, taverns, and
restaurants, a lover of wine forced to depend upon chance treats—was
about to partake of family meals, to enjoy the pleasures of a
comfortable establishment, and to give himself up to those little
attentions which “the harder one is, the more they please,” as old
soldiers say.
To come in the capacity of a cousin, and seat himself every day at a
good table; to smooth the yellow, wrinkled brow of the old procurator;
to pluck the clerks a little by teaching them _bassette_, _passe-dix_,
and _lansquenet_, in their utmost nicety, and winning from them, by way
of fee for the lesson he would give them in an hour, their savings of a
month—all this was enormously delightful to Porthos.
The Musketeer could not forget the evil reports which then prevailed,
and which indeed have survived them, of the procurators of the
period—meanness, stinginess, fasts; but as, after all, excepting some
few acts of economy which Porthos had always found very unseasonable,
the procurator’s wife had been tolerably liberal—that is, be it
understood, for a procurator’s wife—he hoped to see a household of a
highly comfortable kind.
And yet, at the very door the Musketeer began to entertain some doubts.
The approach was not such as to prepossess people—an ill-smelling, dark
passage, a staircase half-lighted by bars through which stole a glimmer
from a neighboring yard; on the first floor a low door studded with
enormous nails, like the principal gate of the Grand Châtelet.
Porthos knocked with his hand. A tall, pale clerk, his face shaded by a
forest of virgin hair, opened the door, and bowed with the air of a man
forced at once to respect in another lofty stature, which indicated
strength, the military dress, which indicated rank, and a ruddy
countenance, which indicated familiarity with good living.
A shorter clerk came behind the first, a taller clerk behind the
second, a stripling of a dozen years rising behind the third. In all,
three clerks and a half, which, for the time, argued a very extensive
clientage.
Although the Musketeer was not expected before one o’clock, the
procurator’s wife had been on the watch ever since midday, reckoning
that the heart, or perhaps the stomach, of her lover would bring him
before his time.
Mme. Coquenard therefore entered the office from the house at the same
moment her guest entered from the stairs, and the appearance of the
worthy lady relieved him from an awkward embarrassment. The clerks
surveyed him with great curiosity, and he, not knowing well what to say
to this ascending and descending scale, remained tongue-tied.
“It is my cousin!” cried the procurator’s wife. “Come in, come in,
Monsieur Porthos!”
The name of Porthos produced its effect upon the clerks, who began to
laugh; but Porthos turned sharply round, and every countenance quickly
recovered its gravity.
They reached the office of the procurator after having passed through
the antechamber in which the clerks were, and the study in which they
ought to have been. This last apartment was a sort of dark room,
littered with papers. On quitting the study they left the kitchen on
the right, and entered the reception room.
All these rooms, which communicated with one another, did not inspire
Porthos favorably. Words might be heard at a distance through all these
open doors. Then, while passing, he had cast a rapid, investigating
glance into the kitchen; and he was obliged to confess to himself, to
the shame of the procurator’s wife and his own regret, that he did not
see that fire, that animation, that bustle, which when a good repast is
on foot prevails generally in that sanctuary of good living.
The procurator had without doubt been warned of his visit, as he
expressed no surprise at the sight of Porthos, who advanced toward him
with a sufficiently easy air, and saluted him courteously.
“We are cousins, it appears, Monsieur Porthos?” said the procurator,
rising, yet supporting his weight upon the arms of his cane chair.
The old man, wrapped in a large black doublet, in which the whole of
his slender body was concealed, was brisk and dry. His little gray eyes
shone like carbuncles, and appeared, with his grinning mouth, to be the
only part of his face in which life survived. Unfortunately the legs
began to refuse their service to this bony machine. During the last
five or six months that this weakness had been felt, the worthy
procurator had nearly become the slave of his wife.
The cousin was received with resignation, that was all. M. Coquenard,
firm upon his legs, would have declined all relationship with M.
Porthos.
“Yes, monsieur, we are cousins,” said Porthos, without being
disconcerted, as he had never reckoned upon being received
enthusiastically by the husband.
“By the female side, I believe?” said the procurator, maliciously.
Porthos did not feel the ridicule of this, and took it for a piece of
simplicity, at which he laughed in his large mustache. Mme. Coquenard,
who knew that a simple-minded procurator was a very rare variety in the
species, smiled a little, and colored a great deal.
M. Coquenard had, since the arrival of Porthos, frequently cast his
eyes with great uneasiness upon a large chest placed in front of his
oak desk. Porthos comprehended that this chest, although it did not
correspond in shape with that which he had seen in his dreams, must be
the blessed coffer, and he congratulated himself that the reality was
several feet higher than the dream.
M. Coquenard did not carry his genealogical investigations any further;
but withdrawing his anxious look from the chest and fixing it upon
Porthos, he contented himself with saying, “Monsieur our cousin will do
us the favor of dining with us once before his departure for the