“So it was Monsieur d’Artagnan the stranger wanted.”
“Apparently.”
“And do you know what became of the man?”
“No; I’d never seen him before that moment, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“Good. That’s what I needed to know. Now, you say Porthos’s room is Number 1, on the first floor up?”
“Yes, Monsieur, the best in the house, a chamber I could have rented ten times over by now.”
“Calm down,” d’Artagnan said, smiling. “Porthos will pay you with money from la Duchesse Coquenard.”
“Prosecutor’s wife or duchess, Monsieur, I couldn’t care less, so long as she opens her purse. But she positively swore she was fed up with Monsieur Porthos’s infidelities and wouldn’t send him a denier.”
“Did you give that answer to your guest?”
“We were careful not to! He’d find out how we’d delivered his letter.”
“So he’s still expecting his money?”
“My God, yes! He wrote to her again yesterday, but this time his lackey put the letter in the post.”
“Did you say this prosecutor’s wife is old and ugly?”
“Fifty at least, Monsieur, and not good-looking at all, is what Pathaud said.”
“In that case, rest easy—her heart will soon soften. Besides, Porthos can’t owe you all that much.”
“Not that much, you say! Twenty pistoles already, not counting the doctor’s fee. He must be used to high living—he denies himself nothing.”
“Well, if his mistress abandons him, he still has his friends, I can assure you of that. Relax, my dear host, and keep supplying him with whatever he needs.”
“Monsieur promises not to mention the prosecutor’s wife and not to say a word about the wound?”
“So be it; you have my word.”
“Because he’d kill me, you know!”
“Don’t worry, he’s not quite the devil he appears to be.”
With these words, d’Artagnan leaped up the staircase, leaving his host somewhat reassured about his two primary concerns: his finances and his life.
At the top of the stairs, on the most conspicuous door on the corridor, a gigantic “No. 1” was traced in black ink. D’Artagnan knocked, was invited in, and entered.
Porthos was in bed, playing a game of lansquenet with Mousqueton, just to keep his hand in. A partridge turned on a spit over the fire, while on either side boiled two casseroles, exhaling an enticing double aroma of gibelotte and matelote, rabbit stew and fish soup. A nearby desk and marble-topped table were covered with empty bottles.
At the sight of his friend, Porthos gave a great cry of joy. Mousqueton, rising respectfully, yielded his place to d’Artagnan, then went to take a look at the two casseroles, in which he seemed to take a keen interest.
“By God! It’s you!” said Porthos to d’Artagnan. “Come in, and pardon me if I don’t come to meet you. Do you know,” he added uneasily, “what’s happened to me?”
“No!”
“The host told you nothing?”
“I asked where you were, and I came straight up.”
Porthos seemed to breathe more easily.
“And what has happened to you, my dear Porthos?” continued d’Artagnan.
“What happened was that, while lunging at my opponent—whom I’d already stabbed three times, and whom I meant to finish with a fourth—my foot slipped on a stone, and I sprained my knee.”
“Really?”
“Word of honor! And it was lucky for the rogue, for you can bet I’d have left him dead on the spot.”
“And what became of him?”
“I have no idea. He’d had enough and went off without waiting for more. But you, my dear d’Artagnan, what happened to you?”
“So it’s this sprain that keeps you in bed, my dear Porthos?” persisted d’Artagnan.
“My God, yes—that’s all! I’ll be on my feet again in a few days.”
“Why didn’t you get a ride into Paris? It must be awfully boring here.”
“I’d planned to—but, my dear friend, I have something to confess to you.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, as I had in my pocket the seventy-five pistoles you’d dispensed to me, and since, as you say, it’s awfully boring here, to distract myself I asked a passing gentleman to come up and have a game of lansquenet with me. He accepted and, my faith! My seventy-five pistoles soon passed from my pocket to his—plus my horse, which he won into the bargain. But what of you, d’Artagnan?”
“What do you expect, my dear Porthos? A man can’t be a success at everything,” d’Artagnan said. “You know what they say: ‘Unlucky at play, lucky in love’! You’re too lucky in love for the dice to be always on your side. But what can a few bad throws matter to you? Don’t you have your duchess, you lucky dog, who never lets you down?”
“Well, d’Artagnan, here’s how jinxed I am,” replied Porthos with an air of nonchalance. “I wrote to her to send me fifty crowns, which I needed because of the position I found myself in . . .”
“And?”
“And she must be at her country place, because she hasn’t replied.”
“Really?”
“Not a word. So yesterday I sent her a second letter, more urgent than the first—but you, my friend, let’s talk about you! I have to confess, I was beginning to worry about you.”
“But it looks like your host has been treating you well, my dear Porthos,” said d’Artagnan, with a nod at the bubbling casseroles and the empty bottles.
“So-so,” replied Porthos. “It’s been three or four days since the insolent dog gave me his bill and I threw both him and his bill out the door. So I’m somewhat in the situation of a conqueror in a hostile land—always afraid, you see, that I’ll be forced to defend my position. That’s why I’m armed to the teeth.”
“However, it looks to me like you make sorties from time to time,” d’Artagnan laughed, indicating the food and drink.
“No, not me, unfortunately!” said Porthos. “This miserable sprain keeps me in bed, but Mousqueton has been out on campaign and brings back provisions. Mousqueton, my friend, now that we’ve been reinforced, we’ll need even more victuals.”
“Mousqueton,” said d’Artagnan, “you must do me a favor.”
“What’s that, Monsieur?”
“To share your recipes with Planchet. If I’m ever besieged, I want to enjoy the same delicacies that delight your master.”
“Ah, mon Dieu, Monsieur, nothing could be easier,” said Mousqueton modestly. “It just takes being handy, that’s all. I was raised in the country, and my father, in his spare time, was a bit of a poacher.”
“What did he do the rest of the time?”
“Monsieur, he practiced a trade he found pretty prosperous.”
“What was that?”
“It was during the wars between the Catholics and Huguenots. Since he saw the Catholics exterminating the Huguenots, and the Huguenots exterminating the Catholics, all in the name of religion, he adopted a mixed belief, one that permitted him to be sometimes Catholic and sometimes a Huguenot. He made a practice of strolling with his blunderbuss on his shoulder behind the hedges that lined the roads, and when he saw a lone Catholic coming along, a Protestant feeling arose within him. When he was within ten paces he would point his blunderbuss at the traveler and begin a conversation that nearly always ended with the traveler trading his purse for his life.
“Then, if a Huguenot came along, he was filled with such ardent Catholic zeal that he couldn’t understand how, a quarter of an hour before, he could have had the slightest doubt about the superiority of our holy religion. Personally, Monsieur, I’m a Catholic—though my father, following his principles, raised my brother as a Huguenot.”
“And how did this worthy man end up?” asked d’Artagnan.
“In a most unfortunate way, Monsieur,” said Mousqueton. “One day he was surprised in a narrow lane between a Huguenot and
a Catholic, who recognized him, since he’d had previous business with both. They allied against him and hanged him from a tree. Then they came and boasted of their feat in a tavern in the next village, where my brother and I were drinking.”
“What did you do?”
“We let them have their say,” replied Mousqueton. “Then, as they left the tavern in opposite directions, my brother went and hid himself ahead of the Catholic, and I did the same ahead of the Protestant. In less than two hours, it was done—we’d dealt with both of them. It was a tribute to the foresight of our poor father, who’d taken the precaution of raising us in different religions.”
“As you say, Mousqueton, your father sounds like he was pretty sharp. And you said that, in his spare time, the good man was a poacher?”
“Yes, Monsieur. He’s the one who taught me how to lay a snare and stretch a tripwire. So when I saw that villain of a host here try to feed us on rotten meat I wouldn’t give away to vagrants, stuff not at all suitable for two sensitive stomachs like ours, I summoned up the old family skills. While strolling near the woods of Monsieur le Prince, I laid a few snares on the game trails; and while lying on the banks of His Highness’s streams, I dropped a few lines in a likely pool. So now, thank the Lord, we won’t starve. As Monsieur can see, we have partridges and rabbits, carp and eels—light, healthy food suitable for recovering invalids.”
“But the wine,” said d’Artagnan, “who furnishes the wine? Your host?”
“Yes and no, you might say.”
“Yes and no? How do you mean?”
“He furnishes it, yes, but he’s unaware of the honor.”
“Explain yourself, Mousqueton. Your conversation is surprisingly instructive.”
“It’s like this, Monsieur. In my travels I chanced to encounter a Spaniard who’d been all over, including to the New World.”
“What does the New World have to do with the bottles on the desk and the table?”
“A little patience, Monsieur. Everything in its turn.”
“Quite so, Mousqueton. You speak, and I’ll listen.”
“This Spaniard had in his service a lackey who’d accompanied him on his voyage to Mexico. This lackey was from my home province and we quickly became friends, especially since we had similar tastes and enjoyed hunting more than anything. He told me how, on the plains of the Pampas, the natives hunt tigers and wild bulls with simple running nooses, which they loop around the necks of these dangerous animals. At first I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so skillful as to throw a cord twenty or thirty paces with any accuracy, but faced with proof I had to acknowledge it was true. Aiming for a bottle thirty paces away, my friend could catch the bottle’s neck in his noose every time. I started practicing, and since I have a little natural talent for this sort of thing, today I can throw my ‘lasso’ as well as any man in the world.
“So, do you see it yet? Our host has a well-furnished wine cellar, but it’s locked, and the key never leaves him. However, this cellar has a small window for ventilation. I toss my lasso through the ventilator, and as I now know in which corner he keeps his best, I amuse myself by fishing for vintage. So that, Monsieur, is what the New World has to do with the bottles on the desk and the table. Now, will you have a taste of our wine and give us your honest opinion of it?”
“Thank you, my friend, but no—I’ve just come from breakfast.”
“Well,” said Porthos, “set the table, Mousqueton, and while we have our breakfast, d’Artagnan can tell us what’s happened to him in the ten days since he left us.”
“Gladly,” said d’Artagnan. While Porthos and Mousqueton ate with the appetites of convalescents, d’Artagnan told how Aramis had been wounded and forced to stop at Crèvecœur, how he’d had to leave Athos fighting at Amiens in the hands of four men who’d accused him of being a counterfeiter, and how he, d’Artagnan, had been forced to run the Comte de Wardes through the body in order to reach England.
But that was as far as he went; he only added that, on his return from Britain, he’d brought with him four magnificent horses, one for himself and one for each of his comrades. He concluded with a flourish, telling Porthos that his horse was already installed at the inn’s stable.
At this moment Planchet entered to tell his master that the horses were rested, and if they left soon they still might sleep that night in Clermont.
As d’Artagnan was now reassured about Porthos, and as he was eager for news of his other two friends, he offered his hand to the convalescent and told him he was off to continue his search. He counted on returning by the same route, so if, in seven or eight days, Porthos was still at the Inn of Grand Saint-Martin, he would stop by to see him.
Porthos said with a wince that, in all probability, his sprain wouldn’t permit him to leave for a while. Besides, he had to stay in Chantilly until he heard from his duchess.
D’Artagnan wished him luck with that and complimented him again on having Mousqueton as a lackey. Then he paid his bill at the inn and resumed his journey with Planchet, who was already relieved of one of the horses he’d been leading.
XXVI
The Thesis of Aramis
D’Artagnan had said nothing to Porthos about his friend’s wound or the prosecutor’s wife. He was a wise lad, this Béarnaise, despite his youth. He’d done his best to appear to believe everything the blustering musketeer had told him, as he knew that friendship can’t survive the revelation of such secrets, especially secrets central to a man’s pride. Besides, we always feel a certain moral superiority over those whose secret lives we’ve discovered. Moreover, d’Artagnan hoped to use his three comrades as the instruments of his ambition in future intrigues, so he was happy to grasp whenever he could the invisible reins by which he hoped to lead them.
Nonetheless, as he rode along a profound sadness gripped his heart. He thought of that young and pretty Madame Bonacieux, who’d been on the verge of repaying all his devotion—though it must be said that his sadness was less regret for his lost evening of love than fear of what evil might happen to the poor woman. For himself, he had no doubt but that she was the victim of the cardinal’s vengeance—and as everyone said, the vengeance of His Eminence was terrible. He couldn’t understand how he himself had managed to find favor in that minister’s eyes. No doubt that’s what Monsieur de Cavois would have revealed to him, if the Captain of the Cardinal’s Guards had found him at home.
Nothing makes time pass or shortens a trip like getting lost in one’s thoughts. Then external reality is like sleep, and our thoughts are the dream. Time loses its measure and space no longer has distance. One departs from one place and arrives at another—that’s all. We remember nothing of the interval between but a vague blur, a thousand confused images of trees, slopes, and landscapes. In the grip of such a hallucination d’Artagnan was carried, at whatever pace his horse chose, across the six leagues between Chantilly and Crèvecœur, and later he couldn’t remember a single thing he’d passed or encountered on the road.
Only when he arrived did his mind return to the world around him. He shook his head, spotted the cabaret where he’d left Aramis and, putting his horse into a trot, soon pulled up at the door.
This time it was not a host, but a hostess who received him. D’Artagnan was a physiognomist; at a glance he took in her plump form and round, grinning face and figured there was no need to dissemble with her, or fear anything from anyone with such a cheerful look.
“My good lady,” asked d’Artagnan, “can you tell me what’s become of my friend, whom we had to leave here about twelve days ago?”
“A handsome young man, twenty-three or twenty-four, nicely mannered, amiable, and well set-up?”
“And wounded in the shoulder?”
“That’s him! Well, Monsieur, he’s still here.”
“Thank God!” said d’Artagnan, as he dismounted and threw the bridle to Planchet. “My dear lady, you’ve brought me back to life. Aramis, Aramis! Show me to him, so I can embrace him. I can’t te
ll you how eager I am to see him again!”
“I’m sorry, Monsieur, but I doubt if he’ll receive you just now.” “Why not? Is he with a woman?”
“Lord! The things you say! No, poor lad, he’s not with a woman.” “Who’s he with, then?”
“With the Curate of Montdidier and the Superior of the Jesuits of Amiens.”
“Good God!” cried d’Artagnan. “Is the poor man dying?”
“No, Monsieur, on the contrary! While recovering from his illness he was touched by grace and decided to become ordained.”
“Of course,” said d’Artagnan. “I’d forgotten he was only a temporary musketeer.”
“Is Monsieur still eager to see him?”
“More than ever.”
“Well, Monsieur has only to take that stair on the right side of the yard up to No. 5, on the second floor.”
D’Artagnan strode off in the direction indicated and found one of those exterior staircases that can still be seen climbing the outer walls of ancient French inns. But it afforded no entry to the lodgings of the future abbot: the door to Aramis’s chamber was as fortified as the gardens of Armida,73 for Bazin was stationed outside to bar all passage, emboldened by the thought that, at long last, he was about to see his dreams come true.
Poor Bazin had always aspired to serve a man of the Church and had waited impatiently for that day, always delayed, when Aramis would abandon the uniform and don the cassock. Only Aramis’s promise, renewed daily, that the moment wasn’t far off, had kept him in service to the musketeer—a service in which, he said, he often feared for his very soul.