“God’s guts!” cried d’Artagnan, leaping to his feet. This morning’s story had made him forget last night’s.
“Patience,” said Athos calmly. “I had a plan. This Englishmen was an eccentric; I’d seen him talking earlier with Grimaud, and Grimaud had said that he’d tried to hire him into his service. So, I staked Grimaud, old silent Grimaud, divided into ten parts.”
“Ah! That was a stroke!” said d’Artagnan, laughing despite himself.
“Grimaud himself, mark me! And with these ten parts of Grimaud, which aren’t worth the tenth part of a ducat, I won back the diamond. Now, tell me persistence isn’t a virtue.”
“My faith, that’s funny!” cried d’Artagnan, somewhat consoled, and holding his sides with laughter.
“So, naturally, seizing the moment, I once again staked the diamond.”
“The devil!” said d’Artagnan, taken aback.
“I won back your equipage, then your horse, then my equipage, then my horse—then I lost again. To sum up, I managed to retrieve your horse furniture and mine. That’s where we are. My final throw was superb, so I decided to leave well enough alone.”
D’Artagnan could breathe again; he felt like the weight of the whole inn had been on his chest. “So I still have my diamond?” he asked timidly.
“Intact! Plus, my dear friend, the furniture of your Bucephalus and mine.”
“But what’s the point of horse-furniture without horses?”
“I have an idea about that.”
“Athos, you’re scaring me again.”
“No, but listen: you haven’t gambled in quite a while, have you, d’Artagnan?”
“Nor do I want to!”
“Never say never. As I said, you haven’t gambled in some time, so your luck ought to be in.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Well! That Englishman and his companion are still here. I noticed he was very sorry not to get your equipment. You appear quite attached to your horse. In your place, I would stake the equipment against the horse.”
“But he won’t want just one set of equipment.”
“Then stake both, by God! I’m not the selfish one here.”
“You would really do that?” D’Artagnan was wavering; Athos had more influence over him than even he realized.
“Word of honor. I’d risk all on a single throw.”
“But having lost the horses, I really would like to keep the furniture, at least.”
“Stake your diamond, then.”
“This? Never! That’s another thing entirely.”
“The devil!” said Athos. “I’d propose that you stake Planchet, but the way things worked out last time the Englishman might not be willing.”
“My dear Athos, I’d rather not risk anything.”
“That’s a shame,” said Athos coolly. “That Englishman is positively stuffed with pistoles. Good God, man! Just try one throw. One throw is nothing!”
“And if I lose?”
“You’ll win!”
“But if I lose?”
“Then you give up the furniture.”
“All right. One throw,” said d’Artagnan.
Athos went to find the Englishman and discovered him in the stable, casting a covetous eye on their saddles. It was the perfect moment, and Athos proposed his conditions: both sets of furniture against one horse or a hundred pistoles, winner’s choice. The Englishman made a quick calculation: the furnishings were worth three hundred pistoles per set. He agreed.
D’Artagnan’s hands trembled as he threw the dice. A two and a one: three. Athos was alarmed by his friend’s pallor, but merely said, “That was one sad throw, comrade. It looks like you’re going to have those horses fully furnished, Monsieur.”
The Englishman, triumphant, didn’t even bother to shake the dice—he was so sure of victory, he just threw them on the table without looking at them. D’Artagnan had turned away to hide how badly he was taking the loss.
“My, my, my,” said Athos, in his quiet voice. “That’s an extraordinary throw, something I’ve seen only four times in my life: two aces!”
The Englishman looked, and froze in astonishment. D’Artagnan, on the other hand, nearly jumped for joy.
“Yes,” continued Athos, “only four times. Once at Monsieur de Créquy’s;78 another time at my country château at—that is, when I had a château; a third time at Monsieur de Tréville’s, where it surprised all of us; and the fourth time at a cabaret, where it fell to me. I lost a hundred crowns and a supper on it.”
“Then Monsieur takes back his horse?” said the Englishman.
“Certainly,” said d’Artagnan.
“No chance of revenge?”
“No revenge: that was the condition. Remember?”
“Quite so. The horse shall be brought to your lackey, Monsieur.”
“One moment,” said Athos. “With your permission, Monsieur, I’d like to have a word with my friend, here.”
“Of course.”
Athos took d’Artagnan aside. “What do you want this time, Monsieur Tempter?” said d’Artagnan. “You want me throw again, don’t you?”
“No, I just want you to reflect.”
“On what?”
“On recovering your horse. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s a mistake. I would take the hundred pistoles. You know you staked the equipment against the horse or a hundred pistoles, winner’s choice.”
“Yes . . .”
“I’d take the hundred pistoles.”
“Fine. As for me, I’ll take the horse.”
“Which is, I repeat, a mistake. What good is one horse when there are two of us? I can’t ride on the crupper; we’d look like the two sons of Aymon who lost their brothers. I know you wouldn’t think of humiliating me by riding at my side, strutting on a magnificent charger while I walk. If it were me, I wouldn’t hesitate a moment: I’d take the hundred pistoles. We’ll need money to get us back to Paris.”
“I’m very attached to that horse, Athos.”
“And there you’re wrong again, my friend. A horse takes a fall and breaks its knees, or eats at a manger where a glandered horse has eaten, and you’re out a horse—or rather, a hundred pistoles. A master has to feed his horse, whereas a hundred pistoles feed their master.”
“But how do we get back to Paris?”
“On our lackeys’ horses, by God! Everyone will still see by our noble attitudes that we’re people of quality.”
“Very pretty we’ll look on our lackeys’ nags, while Aramis and Porthos prance around us on their chargers!”
“Aramis!” Athos cried, breaking up with laughter. “Porthos!”
“What? What?” asked d’Artagnan, who didn’t get the joke.
“All right, all right. Whatever you want,” said Athos.
“So, your advice is . . . ?”
“Take the hundred pistoles, d’Artagnan. With a hundred pistoles we can eat until the end of the month. We’ve been through a great deal; it’s as well to rest a bit.”
“Me, rest? Oh, no, Athos—the minute I get to Paris I have to resume my search for that poor woman.”
“Well, do you think your horse will be more useful to your search than silver and gold? Take the hundred pistoles, my friend.”
All d’Artagnan needed was one good reason to do so, and this last one seemed excellent. Besides, if he resisted any longer, he was afraid he’d appear selfish. So he acquiesced and took the hundred pistoles, which the Englishman counted out on the spot.
It seemed like time to go. Peace with the innkeeper cost them six pistoles, plus Athos’s old horse. The masters rode the lackeys’ horses, and the lackeys set out on foot, carrying the gift saddles on their heads.
However ill-mounted the two friends were, they were nonetheless far ahead of their lackeys by the time they arrived at Crèvecœur. As they approached, they could see Aramis leaning sadly on his windowsill and watching, like Sister
Anne,79 the dust on the horizon.
“Holà! Aramis! What the devil are you doing up there?” cried the two friends.
“Ah! It’s you, d’Artagnan—and Athos!” said the young man. “I was pondering how ephemeral are worldly pleasures, meanwhile watching my English horse disappear in a cloud of dust. To me, it’s a living image of the fragility of earthly things. Life itself can be summed up in three words: ‘Erat, est, fuit.’”
“And that means . . . ?” asked d’Artagnan, who began to suspect the truth.
“That means I’ve made a fool of myself. Sixty crowns for a horse that, from the looks of it, could do five leagues in an hour at a trot.”
D’Artagnan and Athos burst out laughing.
“My dear d’Artagnan,” said Aramis, “don’t be too vexed with me, I pray you. Necessity knows no law. Besides, I’m the one who’s punished, as that rogue of a horse-trader has robbed me of at least fifty crowns. But at least you two are good managers! You ride your lackeys’ horses, and have your own fine chargers hand-led, in careful and easy stages.”
As he said this a wagon, which had been visible for some time toiling up the Amiens road, stopped in front of the inn, and out got Grimaud and Planchet with the saddles on their heads. The wagon was returning empty to Paris, and the lackeys had engaged this means of transport by agreeing to stand drinks for the drover along the way.
“What’s this?” said Aramis, when he saw them. “Nothing but saddles?”
“Don’t you see it yet?” said Athos.
“Ah, of course! I’m like you, my friends: I instinctively retained the equipage. Holà, Bazin! Bring down my new saddle, and we’ll follow the example of these messieurs.”
“And what have you done with your curates?” asked d’Artagnan.
“I invited them to dinner the next day,” said Aramis. “They have some exquisite wines here; I passed them around freely, and did my best to get them stinking drunk. In the end the curate forbade me to give up the tabard, and the Jesuit begged me to recommend him for a place in the musketeers.”
“Without a thesis!” cried d’Artagnan. “Without a thesis! I demand the suppression of the thesis!”
“Since then,” continued Aramis, “life has been agreeable. I have begun a poem in one-syllable verse. It’s a difficult task, but the merit of all things is in their difficulty. The subject is—ahem!—gallantry. Let me read you the first canto: it has four hundred verses, and lasts a minute.”
“My faith!” said d’Artagnan, alarmed—he detested poetry nearly as much as he did Latin. “My dear Aramis, if you add the merit of its difficulty to the merit of its brevity, that’s two merit points for sure.”
“More than that, you’ll see that it breathes genuine passion,” said Aramis. “So, my friends, we return to Paris? Ah ça! Bravo! I’m ready. And if we can pick up the good Porthos on the way, so much the better. You can’t imagine how I’ve missed that big simpleton. He’d never sell his horse, not for a kingdom! I can almost see him, mounted on that big beast, sitting astride his gilded saddle and looking like the Great Mogul.”
They rested for half an hour to breathe the horses. Aramis settled his account, placed Bazin in the wagon with his comrades, and they set off to rejoin Porthos.
They found him up, less pale than d’Artagnan had seen him on his first visit, and seated at a table where, though he was alone, there was dinner enough for four. It consisted of well-dressed meats, some superb fruit, and a few bottles of choice wine.
“By God!” he said, rising, “Your arrival is well-timed, Messieurs. I was just starting on the soup. You’ll dine with me, of course!”
“Oh ho!” said d’Artagnan. “These bottles weren’t provided by Mousqueton’s lasso! Neither was this fricandeau piqué, nor this filet de boeuf. . . ”
“I’m just restoring myself,” said Porthos. “Nothing takes it out of you like these devilish sprains. Have you ever had a sprain, Athos?”
“Never. But I recall that in that scuffle in the Rue Férou I suffered a sword-wound, and after fifteen days or so it had exactly the same effect.”
“But all this dinner wasn’t just for you alone, was it, Porthos?” said Aramis.
“No,” said Porthos. “I was expecting some of the local gentry, who’ve just sent to tell me they can’t come. Now you’ll take their places and I’ll lose nothing by the exchange. Holà! Mousqueton! Some chairs, and call down to double the order of bottles!”
After about ten minutes, Athos said, “Do you know what we’re eating here?”
“For my part,” said d’Artagnan, “I’m eating veau piqué aux cardons et à la moelle.”
“Some filets d’agneau,” said Porthos.
“A blanc de volaille,” said Aramis.
“You are wrong, Messieurs,” replied Athos. “You’re all eating horse.”
“What?” said d’Artagnan.
“Horse-meat!” said Aramis, with a grimace of disgust.
Only Porthos said nothing.
“Yes, horse-meat. We are eating horse, aren’t we, Porthos? Perhaps garnished with the caparison.”
“But no, Messieurs! I kept the furniture,” said Porthos.
“My faith! We’re all equally bad,” said Aramis. “Anyone would think we’d planned it in advance.”
“What would you have?” said Porthos. “That magnificent horse made my visitors ashamed of theirs, and I hate to humiliate people.”
“Then your duchess is still in the country, taking the waters?” asked d’Artagnan.
“Still there,” replied Porthos. “Then, ma foi, the governor of the province, one of the gentlemen I expected today at dinner, seemed to want the horse so badly, I gave it to him.”
“Gave?” said d’Artagnan.
“Good Lord, yes! ‘Gave’ is the word,” said Porthos, “for he was worth at least a hundred and fifty crowns and the miser wouldn’t pay more than eighty.”
“Without the saddle?” said Aramis.
“Yes, without the saddle.”
“Please note, Messieurs,” said Athos, “that Porthos has made the best bargain of all of us.”
Then came a roar of laughter from all but poor Porthos. But once they’d explained the reason for their hilarity, his laughter, as usual, was louder than anyone’s.
“So at least we’re all in funds,” said d’Artagnan.
“Well, speaking for myself,” said Athos, “I found Aramis’s Crèvecœur wine so good that I bought sixty bottles of it and put it in the wagon with the lackeys, so my funds are somewhat deflated.”
“As for me,” said Aramis, “you should know that I donated heavily to the church of Montdidier and the Jesuits of Amiens, almost down to my last sou; I’d made certain commitments I thought I should keep. I’ve ordered masses said for myself, and for all of you, Messieurs—and I haven’t the least doubt but that you’ll be the better for them.”
“And me,” said Porthos, “did you think my sprain cost me nothing? Not even counting Mousqueton’s wound—the chirurgeon had to come twice a day to tend it, and made me pay double for his visits, because that imbecile Mousqueton had taken a ball in a place generally shown only to apothecaries. I advised him never to get wounded there again.”
“Come, come,” said Athos, sharing a smile with d’Artagnan and Aramis, “it seems to me you’ve treated the poor lad well. That’s just the kind of conduct one expects from such a good master.”
“In short,” continued Porthos, “when all my bills are paid, I might have as many as thirty crowns left.”
“As for me, about ten pistoles,” said Aramis.
“It looks like we’re the Croesuses of this society,” said Athos. “How much of your hundred pistoles do you still have, d’Artagnan?”
“The hundred pistoles? First of all, I gave you fifty.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Athos.”
“Pardieu! You’re right—I remember it now.”
“Then, I gave the innkeeper six.”
“What
an animal he was! Why would you give him six pistoles?”
“Because that’s what you told me to give him.”
“True enough—I’m far too good. In short, what remains?”
“Twenty-five pistoles,” said d’Artagnan.
“And I,” said Athos, drawing some small change from his pocket, “I . . .”
“You: nothing.”
“My faith! There’s so little left, it’s hardly worth counting. All right, let’s see what we have in total. Porthos?”
“Thirty crowns.”
“Aramis?”
“Ten pistoles.”
“And you, d’Artagnan?”
“Twenty-five.”
“So how much in all?” said Athos.
“Four hundred seventy-five livres,” said d’Artagnan, who could calculate like Archimedes.
“When we get to Paris we’ll still have about four hundred,” said Porthos, “plus the horse-furniture.”
“But what about the mounts we need as musketeers?” said Aramis.
“Well, we’ll convert the lackeys’ four nags into two decent horses, and draw lots for them. We’ll set aside the four hundred livres—it’s enough to buy half a horse for one of the dismounted. Then we’ll scour our pockets and give everything left to d’Artagnan, who’s in luck, and send him into the first gambling hell we come across to wager it on our behalf. Voilà. ”
“Then let’s get back to eating,” said Porthos. “It’s getting cold.”
The four friends, their minds settled about the future, concentrated on doing honor to the dinner, leaving the remains to Messieurs Mousqueton, Bazin, Planchet, and Grimaud.
On arriving in Paris, d’Artagnan found a letter from Monsieur de Tréville that informed him that, at Tréville’s request, the king would soon grant him the favor of admission into the musketeers.
As this was what d’Artagnan wanted most in the world (other than, of course, to find Madame Bonacieux), he ran, giddy with joy, to look for his comrades. He’d only left them a half-hour before, but he found them gloomy and preoccupied. They’d gathered in council at Athos’s house, their usual practice when something serious was up.
Monsieur de Tréville had sent to inform them of His Majesty’s declared intention to open the next military campaign on May first.80 His musketeers were to immediately prepare all necessary equipment.