Twenty years after
best supper you can, and especially give us some good wine.”
Bazin bowed low, sighed, and left the room.
“Now we are alone, dear Aramis,” said D’Artagnan, “tell me how the
devil you managed to alight upon the back of Planchet’s horse.”
“I’faith!” answered Aramis, “as you see, from Heaven.”
“From Heaven,” replied D’Artagnan, shaking his head; “you have no more
the appearance of coming from thence than you have of going there.”
“My friend,” said Aramis, with a look of imbecility on his face which
D’Artagnan had never observed whilst he was in the musketeers, “if I
did not come from Heaven, at least I was leaving Paradise, which is
almost the same.”
“Here, then, is a puzzle for the learned,” observed D’Artagnan, “until
now they have never been able to agree as to the situation of Paradise;
some place it on Mount Ararat, others between the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates; it seems that they have been looking very far away for it,
while it was actually very near. Paradise is at Noisy le Sec, upon the
site of the archbishop’s château. People do not go out from it by the
door, but by the window; one doesn’t descend here by the marble steps
of a peristyle, but by the branches of a lime-tree; and the angel with
a flaming sword who guards this elysium seems to have changed his
celestial name of Gabriel into that of the more terrestrial one of the
Prince de Marsillac.”
Aramis burst into a fit of laughter.
“You were always a merry companion, my dear D’Artagnan,” he said, “and
your witty Gascon fancy has not deserted you. Yes, there is something
in what you say; nevertheless, do not believe that it is Madame de
Longueville with whom I am in love.”
“A plague on’t! I shall not do so. After having been so long in love
with Madame de Chevreuse, you would hardly lay your heart at the feet
of her mortal enemy!”
“Yes,” replied Aramis, with an absent air; “yes, that poor duchess! I
once loved her much, and to do her justice, she was very useful to us.
Eventually she was obliged to leave France. He was a relentless enemy,
that damned cardinal,” continued Aramis, glancing at the portrait of
the old minister. “He had even given orders to arrest her and would
have cut off her head had she not escaped with her waiting-maid—poor
Kitty! I have heard that she met with a strange adventure in I don’t
know what village, with I don’t know what curé, of whom she asked
hospitality and who, having but one chamber, and taking her for a
cavalier, offered to share it with her. For she had a wonderful way of
dressing as a man, that dear Marie; I know only one other woman who can
do it as well. So they made this song about her: ‘_Laboissiere, dis
moi_.’ You know it, don’t you?”
“No, sing it, please.”
Aramis immediately complied, and sang the song in a very lively manner.
“Bravo!” cried D’Artagnan, “you sing charmingly, dear Aramis. I do not
perceive that singing masses has spoiled your voice.”
“My dear D’Artagnan,” replied Aramis, “you understand, when I was a
musketeer I mounted guard as seldom as I could; now when I am an abbé I
say as few masses as I can. But to return to our duchess.”
“Which—the Duchess de Chevreuse or the Duchess de Longueville?”
“Have I not already told you that there is nothing between me and the
Duchess de Longueville? Little flirtations, perhaps, and that’s all.
No, I spoke of the Duchess de Chevreuse; did you see her after her
return from Brussels, after the king’s death?”
“Yes, she is still beautiful.”
“Yes,” said Aramis, “I saw her also at that time. I gave her good
advice, by which she did not profit. I ventured to tell her that
Mazarin was the lover of Anne of Austria. She wouldn’t believe me,
saying that she knew Anne of Austria, who was too proud to love such a
worthless coxcomb. After that she plunged into the cabal headed by the
Duke of Beaufort; and the ‘coxcomb’ arrested De Beaufort and banished
Madame de Chevreuse.”
“You know,” resumed D’Artagnan, “that she has had leave to return to
France?”
“Yes she is come back and is going to commit some fresh folly or
another.”
“Oh, but this time perhaps she will follow your advice.”
“Oh, this time,” returned Aramis, “I haven’t seen her; she is much
changed.”
“In that respect unlike you, my dear Aramis, for you are still the
same; you have still your beautiful dark hair, still your elegant
figure, still your feminine hands, which are admirably suited to a
prelate.”
“Yes,” replied Aramis, “I am extremely careful of my appearance. Do you
know that I am growing old? I am nearly thirty-seven.”
“Mind, Aramis”—D’Artagnan smiled as he spoke—“since we are together
again, let us agree on one point: what age shall we be in future?”
“How?”
“Formerly I was your junior by two or three years, and if I am not
mistaken I am turned forty years old.”
“Indeed! Then ’tis I who am mistaken, for you have always been a good
chronologist. By your reckoning I must be forty-three at least. The
devil I am! Don’t let it out at the Hotel Rambouillet; it would ruin
me,” replied the abbé.
“Don’t be afraid,” said D’Artagnan. “I never go there.”
“Why, what in the world,” cried Aramis, “is that animal Bazin doing?
Bazin! Hurry up there, you rascal; we are mad with hunger and thirst!”
Bazin entered at that moment carrying a bottle in each hand.
“At last,” said Aramis, “we are ready, are we?”
“Yes, monsieur, quite ready,” said Bazin; “but it took me some time to
bring up all the——”
“Because you always think you have on your shoulders your beadle’s
robe, and spend all your time reading your breviary. But I give you
warning that if in polishing your chapel utensils you forget how to
brighten up my sword, I will make a great fire of your blessed images
and will see that you are roasted on it.”
Bazin, scandalized, made a sign of the cross with the bottle in his
hand. D’Artagnan, more surprised than ever at the tone and manners of
the Abbé d’Herblay, which contrasted so strongly with those of the
Musketeer Aramis, remained staring with wide-open eyes at the face of
his friend.
Bazin quickly covered the table with a damask cloth and arranged upon
it so many things, gilded, perfumed, appetizing, that D’Artagnan was
quite overcome.
“But you expected some one then?” asked the officer.
“Oh,” said Aramis, “I always try to be prepared; and then I knew you
were seeking me.”
“From whom?”
“From Master Bazin, to be sure; he took you for the devil, my dear
fellow, and hastened to warn me of the danger that threatened my soul
if I should meet again a companion so wicked as an officer of
musketeers.”
“Oh, monsieur!” said Bazin, clasping his hands supplicatingly.
“Come, no hypocrisy! you know that I don’t like it. You will do much
better to open the window and let down some bread, a chicken and a
bottle of wine to your friend Planchet, who has been this last hour
killing himself clapping his hands.”
Planchet, in fact, had bedded and fed his horses, and then coming back
under the window had repeated two or three times the signal agreed
upon.
Bazin obeyed, fastened to the end of a cord the three articles
designated and let them down to Planchet, who then went satisfied to
his shed.
“Now to supper,” said Aramis.
The two friends sat down and Aramis began to cut up fowls, partridges
and hams with admirable skill.
“The deuce!” cried D’Artagnan; “do you live in this way always?”
“Yes, pretty well. The coadjutor has given me dispensations from
fasting on the _jours maigres_, on account of my health; then I have
engaged as my cook the cook who lived with Lafollone—you know the man I
mean?—the friend of the cardinal, and the famous epicure whose grace
after dinner used to be, ‘Good Lord, do me the favor to cause me to
digest what I have eaten.’”
“Nevertheless he died of indigestion, in spite of his grace,” said
D’Artagnan.
“What can you expect?” replied Aramis, in a tone of resignation. “Every
man that’s born must fulfil his destiny.”
“If it be not an indelicate question,” resumed D’Artagnan, “have you
grown rich?”
“Oh, Heaven! no. I make about twelve thousand francs a year, without
counting a little benefice of a thousand crowns the prince gave me.”
“And how do you make your twelve thousand francs? By your poems?”
“No, I have given up poetry, except now and then to write a drinking
song, some gay sonnet or some innocent epigram; I compose sermons, my
friend.”
“What! sermons? Do you preach them?”
“No; I sell them to those of my cloth who wish to become great
orators.”
“Ah, indeed! and you have not been tempted by the hopes of reputation
yourself?”
“I should, my dear D’Artagnan, have been so, but nature said ‘No.’ When
I am in the pulpit, if by chance a pretty woman looks at me, I look at
her again: if she smiles, I smile too. Then I speak at random; instead
of preaching about the torments of hell I talk of the joys of Paradise.
An event took place in the Church of St. Louis au Marais. A gentleman
laughed in my face. I stopped short to tell him that he was a fool; the
congregation went out to get stones to stone me with, but whilst they
were away I found means to conciliate the priests who were present, so
that my foe was pelted instead of me. ’Tis true that he came the next
morning to my house, thinking that he had to do with an abbé—like all
other abbés.”
“And what was the end of the affair?”
“We met in the Place Royale—Egad! you know about it.”
“Was I not your second?” cried D’Artagnan.
“You were; you know how I settled the matter.”
“Did he die?”
“I don’t know. But, at all events, I gave him absolution _in articulo
mortis_. ’Tis enough to kill the body, without killing the soul.”
Bazin made a despairing sign which meant that while perhaps he approved
the moral he altogether disapproved the tone in which it was uttered.
“Bazin, my friend,” said Aramis, “you don’t seem to be aware that I can
see you in that mirror, and you forget that once for all I have
forbidden all signs of approbation or disapprobation. You will do me
the favor to bring us some Spanish wine and then to withdraw. Besides,
my friend D’Artagnan has something to say to me privately, have you
not, D’Artagnan?”
D’Artagnan nodded his head and Bazin retired, after placing on the
table the Spanish wine.
The two friends, left alone, remained silent, face to face. Aramis
seemed to await a comfortable digestion; D’Artagnan, to be preparing
his exordium. Each of them, when the other was not looking, hazarded a
sly glance. It was Aramis who broke the silence.
“What are you thinking of, D’Artagnan?” he began.
“I was thinking, my dear old friend, that when you were a musketeer you
turned your thoughts incessantly to the church, and now that you are an
abbé you are perpetually longing to be once more a musketeer.”
“’Tis true; man, as you know,” said Aramis, “is a strange animal, made
up of contradictions. Since I became an abbé I dream of nothing but
battles.”
“That is apparent in your surroundings; you have rapiers here of every
form and to suit the most exacting taste. Do you still fence well?”
“I—I fence as well as you did in the old time—better still, perhaps; I
do nothing else all day.”
“And with whom?”
“With an excellent master-at-arms that we have here.”
“What! here?”
“Yes, here, in this convent, my dear fellow. There is everything in a
Jesuit convent.”
“Then you would have killed Monsieur de Marsillac if he had come alone
to attack you, instead of at the head of twenty men?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Aramis, “and even at the head of his twenty men, if
I could have drawn without being recognized.”
“God pardon me!” said D’Artagnan to himself, “I believe he has become
more Gascon than I am!” Then aloud: “Well, my dear Aramis, do you ask
me why I came to seek you?”