“‘Canings?’ I replied. ‘I can’t say, Monsieur, as no one has ever dared to give me one.’
“‘Well, listen to me, Monsieur l’Abbé. If you ever return to the house where I found you this evening—I will dare.’
“I think I was frightened. I went pale and felt my legs fail me. I tried to find something to say, but could say nothing. The officer waited for a reply, but seeing it so long in coming, he laughed, turned on his heel and reentered the house. I went back to the seminary.
“I’m a gentleman, my dear d’Artagnan—my blood is noble and sometimes rather hot, as you may have noticed. This was a terrible insult, and even though it was unknown to the rest of the world, it festered within me and gnawed at my heart. I informed my superiors that I didn’t feel sufficiently prepared for ordination and, at my request, they postponed the ceremony for a year.
“I sought out the best master of arms in Paris and contracted with him for daily fencing lessons. Every day, for a year, I took those lessons. Then, on the anniversary of the day I’d been insulted, I hung up my cassock, donned the complete attire of a cavalier, and took myself to a ball given by a lady friend of mine where I knew I would find my man. It was in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, quite near La Force.
“In fact, my officer was there. I approached him as he sang a love lay to a lady he was making eyes at and interrupted him just in the middle of the second couplet.
“‘Monsieur,’ I said to him, ‘does it still displease you if I return to a certain house in the Rue Payenne, and would you still give me a caning if I took a fancy to disobey you?’
“The officer looked at me with astonishment, then said, ‘What do you want with me, Monsieur? I don’t know you.’
“I said, ‘I’m the little abbot who read The Lives of the Saints and translated Judith into verse.’
“‘Ah, yes! Now I recall you,’ said the officer, mockingly. ‘What do you want with me?’
“‘I’d like you to find the time to take a little walk with me.’
“‘Tomorrow morning, if that suits you, and with the greatest of pleasure.’
“‘No. Not tomorrow morning, if you please. Now.’
“‘If you absolutely insist on it . . .’
“‘I insist.’
“‘Then let’s go. Ladies,’ said the officer, ‘don’t disturb yourselves. Just give me a few minutes to kill monsieur here, and I’ll return to finish the final couplet.’
“We went out. I led him to the Rue Payenne, to the same spot, at the very hour where a year before he’d paid me the compliment I told you of. It was a superb moonlit night. We drew our swords, and at the first pass, I ran him through.”
“The devil!” said d’Artagnan.
“Now,” continued Aramis, “as the ladies didn’t see their singer return, and as he was found in the Rue Payenne with a great sword wound through his body, it was supposed that I had accommodated him thus, and there was something of a scandal. I had no choice but to renounce the cassock for a while. Athos, whom I’d met around that time, and Porthos, who’d supplemented my fencing lessons by showing me a few lively new thrusts, persuaded me to request the tabard of a musketeer. The king thought well of my father, who’d been killed at the siege of Arras,76 and granted me the tabard. But now the moment has come for me to rejoin the bosom of the Church.”
“Oh? Why today rather than yesterday, or tomorrow? What’s happened today to give you these moldy ideas?”
“This wound, my dear d’Artagnan, was a warning to me from heaven.”
“That wound? Bah! It’s nearly healed. I’m sure that’s not what’s giving you the most pain.”
“What, then?” demanded Aramis, reddening.
“You have a wound in your heart, Aramis, deeper and more painful—a wound made by a woman.”
Despite himself, Aramis’s eye flickered. “Là!” he said, hiding his emotions under a feigned nonchalance. “Don’t speak of such things. What makes you think I would have such thoughts? Why should I suffer pains of love? Vanitas vanitatum! So you think I’ve lost my heart, and over who? Some grisette, some chambermaid I chased around the barracks? Spare me!”
“Spare me, my dear Aramis—for I think you set your sights rather higher.”
“Higher? And who am I, to have such ambitions? A poor musketeer, wretched and obscure, who hates servitude and has no real place in the world!”
“Aramis, Aramis!” cried d’Artagnan, giving his friend a skeptical look.
“Dust I am, and to dust I return. Life is full of humiliation and sorrow,” Aramis continued somberly. “All the threads that lead to happiness break when a man grasps them, especially the golden threads. Oh, mon cher d’Artagnan!” he said, with a touch of bitterness. “Believe me, if you’ve been hurt, never reveal it! Silence is the last remaining satisfaction of the stricken. Beware of giving voice to your grief—the voyeurs will gloat over your tears the way flies suck the blood of a wounded stag.”
“Alas, my dear Aramis,” said d’Artagnan, heaving a deep sigh, “that’s my own story you tell.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s true. A woman I love, even adore, has been stolen from me— abducted! I don’t know where she is or where she’s been taken. She may be a prisoner, she may even be dead.”
“But at least you can say she didn’t leave you voluntarily. If you have no news of her, it’s because her messages have been interdicted— while I . . .”
“While you?”
“Nothing,” replied Aramis. “Nothing.”
“So, you renounce the world forever? That’s it, then—your resolution is unshakable?”
“For all time! Today you’re my friend, d’Artagnan, but tomorrow you’ll be nothing to me but a shadow, or even nonexistent. As to the world, it’s nothing but a sepulcher.”
“The devil! That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What would you have? My vocation calls me—it carries me off.” D’Artagnan smiled, but said nothing. Aramis continued, “However, as long as I’m still of this earth, let’s talk about you, and our friends.”
“Personally, I’d prefer to talk about you,” said d’Artagnan, “but you’re so detached from everything. Spare you from love! Your friends are but shadows! The world is a sepulcher!”
“Alas! You’ll see it that way yourself someday,” Aramis sighed.
“All right, we’ll say no more about it then,” said d’Artagnan, “and we’ll burn this letter. It probably just contains news of some fresh infidelity on the part of your chambermaid.”
“Letter? What letter?” cried Aramis.
“Just a letter that arrived at your place in your absence, and which I brought along for you.”
“But who’s it from?”
“Some desperate, heartbroken grisette, I imagine. Maybe it’s from Madame de Chevreuse’s chambermaid, who had to go back to Tours with her mistress. She probably wanted to impress you, so she stole some perfumed paper and sealed her letter with a duchess’s coronet.”
“What are you saying?”
“Oh, no! I think I’ve lost it,” said the young man maliciously, pretending to search his clothes. “Fortunately, the world is a sepulcher, men—and, of course, women—are but shadows, and to love you say, ‘Spare me!’”
“D’Artagnan, d’Artagnan!” cried Aramis. “You’re killing me!”
“Ohé! Here it is!” said d’Artagnan, and drew the letter from his pocket.
Aramis darted toward him, seized the letter, and read it—or rather, devoured it. His face positively glowed.
“Your chambermaid seems to have a pleasing way of writing,” said the messenger nonchalantly.
“Thank you, d’Artagnan! Thank you!” cried Aramis, nearly delirious. “She was forced to escape through Tours; she’s not faithless, she still loves me! Come here, dear friend, and let me embrace you! I’m drowning in happiness!”
And the two friends danced around the venerable Saint Chrysostom, kicking up the sheets
of the thesis, which had fallen to the floor.
Just then, Bazin entered with the spinach and the omelet.
“Begone, wretch!” cried Aramis, throwing the dish in his face. “Go back where you came from and take these appalling vegetables with you! Send for some stewed rabbit, a savory chicken, a leg of mutton with garlic, and four bottles of old burgundy!”
Bazin, who couldn’t understand what had gotten into his master, sadly let the omelet slide into the spinach, and the spinach slide onto the floor.
“This is the moment to consecrate your existence to the King of Kings,” said d’Artagnan, “if you still want to tender Him your respects. ‘Non inutile desiderium in oblatione.’”
“Go to hell, you with your Latin! Let’s drink, my dear d’Artagnan! Morbleu! Drink deep, drink heartily—and meanwhile tell me what’s been going on out in the big world.”
XXVII
The Wife of Athos
“Now we just need to find some news of Athos,” said d’Artagnan to the still-jovial Aramis, once he’d brought him au courant on everything that had happened since their departure from Paris, and an excellent dinner had made the one forget his thesis and the other his fatigue.
“Do you really think he’s come to grief?” asked Aramis. “Athos is so cool, so brave, and so skilled with his sword.”
“I don’t doubt it. No one thinks more of Athos’s courage and skill than I do, but when armed with a sword I’d rather face steel than wooden clubs. I’m afraid Athos may have been overwhelmed by that mob of ruffians. Such men hit hard and don’t quit when their man is down. That’s why I want to get going as soon as possible.”
“I’ll do my best to keep up with you,” said Aramis, “though I don’t really feel equal to riding yet. Yesterday I undertook to discipline myself with that scourge you see on the wall there, but the pain of my shoulder wound cut short my pious exercise.”
“It’s just as well, my friend. That’s the first time I’ve heard of someone trying to cure a blunderbuss wound with a cat-o’-ninetails. But you were sick, and weak in the head, so you’re excused.”
“When do you plan to leave?”
“Tomorrow, at daybreak. Get as much sleep as you can tonight; tomorrow, if you can manage it, we’ll leave together.”
“Till tomorrow, then,” said Aramis. “You’ll need sleep, too, even if you are a man of iron.”
The next morning, when d’Artagnan entered Aramis’s room, he found him gazing out the window. “What are you looking at so intently?” d’Artagnan asked.
“My faith! I’m admiring those three magnificent horses the stable boys are leading out. It would be a royal pleasure to travel on mounts like those.”
“Well, my dear Aramis, you may have such a pleasure, for one of those horses is yours.”
“Do you say so! Which one?”
“Whichever one you like—it’s all the same to me.”
“And the horse’s rich caparison, is that mine, too?”
“No doubt about it.”
“Stop joking, d’Artagnan.”
“I’ve given up joking since you gave up Latin for French.”
“That silver-studded saddle, the velour trim, those gilded holsters— they’re mine?”
“All yours, just as that horse pawing the ground is mine, and the one caracoling belongs to Athos.”
“Peste! Those are three superb animals!”
“I’m flattered that you find them to your taste.”
“Did the king give them to you?”
“It certainly wasn’t the cardinal! But don’t worry about where they came from; just be glad that one of them is yours.”
“I’ll have the one led by that red-headed stable boy.”
“As you like.”
“God’s life!’ said Aramis. “That clears up the last of my melancholy. I could ride a horse like that with thirty bullet-wounds. Upon my soul! Have you ever seen such stirrups? Holà! Bazin, come here, and make it snappy.”
A sad Bazin reluctantly appeared at the door.
“Sharpen my sword, clock my hat, brush my cloak, and load my pistols!” said Aramis.
“That last order is unnecessary,” said d’Artagnan. “The pistols in your saddle holsters are already loaded.”
Bazin sighed.
“Come now, Master Bazin—don’t be so glum,” said d’Artagnan. “People gain the kingdom of heaven in all sorts of ways.”
“But monsieur was such a fine theologian!” said Bazin, almost in tears. “He might have been a bishop, or even a cardinal!”
“Poor Bazin. Look, what’s the point of being a man of the Church? It doesn’t get you out of going to war—or haven’t you noticed that Cardinal Richelieu is already preparing for the next campaign, helmet on head and halberd in hand? And Monsieur de Nogaret de La Valette, what about him? He’s a cardinal too. Ask his valet how many times he’s had to prepare bandages for him.”
“Alas!” sighed Bazin. “It’s as you say, Monsieur. The world is upside-down nowadays.”
The two young men and the grieving lackey made their way downstairs.
“Hold my stirrup, Bazin,” said Aramis, and he leaped into the saddle with his usual grace and elegance. But the noble horse was lively, and after a few vaults and curvets his rider was so overcome by dizziness and pain that he blanched and almost fell from the saddle. D’Artagnan, who’d foreseen this difficulty and was watching for it, caught Aramis as he fell and helped him back up to his room.
“It’s all right, Aramis. Just look after yourself,” he said. “I’ll find Athos on my own.”
“You’re a man of metal,” Aramis said to him.
“No—just lucky, that’s all,” said d’Artagnan. “But what will you do till I see you again? No more theses, all right? No more glosses on benedictions, with either fingers or hands?”
Aramis smiled. “I think I’ll write a few verses,” he said.
“Right, perfumed with the aroma of that letter from Madame de Chevreuse’s chambermaid. Teach Bazin how to write poetry—it’ll console him. As for the horse, ride him a little every day, until you get used to him.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Aramis. “I’m determined to be ready to follow you.”
They bid each other adieu, and ten minutes later, after commending his friend to the care of Bazin and the hostess, d’Artagnan set off toward Amiens at a trot.
In what condition was he going to find Athos, if he could find him at all? He’d left him in serious trouble, and the musketeer might have succumbed to it. This depressing idea made d’Artagnan sigh repeatedly, and he swore vengeance, if he found that the worst had happened. Athos was the eldest of all his friends and the least like him in tastes and sympathies. And yet, it was Athos who was first in his heart. Athos’s distinguished and noble air, the gleams of grandeur that from time to time shone from the shadows in which he hid himself, the unshakable composure that made him the most pleasant of companions, his humor, mordant but not malicious, and the courage that might have been called blind if it hadn’t been the product of pure sangfroid—d’Artagnan responded to all these qualities with his esteem, his friendship, and more, his admiration.
In fact, Athos, on those days when he was in a good humor, even compared well with that superbly elegant and noble courtier, Monsieur de Tréville. He was of average height, but so strong and well-proportioned that, when wrestling with Porthos, whose physical might had become proverbial among the musketeers, he’d more than once won out over the giant. His head, with its piercing eyes, straight nose, and chin cut like Brutus’s, had an indefinable character of grandeur and grace. His hands, which he never bothered to care for, were the despair of Aramis, who cultivated his with the aid of almond paste and perfumed oil. His voice was at once penetrating and melodious. Most surprising of all was that Athos, who was always so retiring, had nonetheless a broad knowledge of the world, particularly of the manners and practices of the highest ranks of society.
In fact, the habits of
the high nobility showed themselves in even the least of his actions. If a dinner was to be held, Athos organized it better than anyone, placing each guest in the exact rank of precedence that his ancestors had earned for him. If there was a question of heraldry, Athos knew every noble family in the realm: their genealogy, their alliances by marriage, their family arms, and the origin of those arms. No fine detail of etiquette was too minute for him; he was familiar with all the rights and duties of the great landowners; and he was so well-versed in falconry and hunting lore that one day he’d impressed King Louis XIII himself, who prided himself on being a past-master in the field.
Like all the great nobles of the period, he rode and fought to perfection. But unlike most of the Grands, his scholastic education hadn’t been overlooked. Porthos pretended to understand the scraps of Latin that Aramis deployed, but Athos just smiled at them. Two or three times, to the great astonishment of his friends, he’d even caught Aramis in some fundamental error and restored a verb to its proper tense or a noun to its case. On top of all this, his integrity was irreproachable, in a century when men of war routinely trampled on the dictates of conscience and religion, lovers behaved without the least delicacy or decorum, and the poor roundly ignored God’s seventh commandment.
In short, Athos was an extraordinary man. And yet, this nature so distinguished, this creature so handsome, this essence so fine, daily drifted more and more into a dull and sluggish apathy, as old men fall into mental and physical decay. Athos’s blackest moods—and these moods were frequent—extinguished his bright virtues one by one, until he was nothing but a figure of shadow.
When the demigod disappeared, the remnant was barely a man. His head drooped, his eyes dulled, his speech became slow and painful. Athos would spend hours gazing blankly at his bottle, his glass, or at Grimaud who, accustomed to obey him by signs and gestures, read in the merest glance of his master his least desire and satisfied it immediately. If the four friends were together during one of these moods, a single word, produced with great effort, might be all that Athos contributed to the conversation. However, he drank enough for four, without any effect but a gradual furrowing of his brow as he slid deeper into melancholy.