The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (to read list txt) 📕

“Hold, Madame,” said Porthos, “let us say no more upon the subject, I beg of you. You have misunderstood me, all sympathy is extinct between us.”

“Ingrate that you are!”

“Ah! I advise you to complain!” said Porthos.

“Begone, then, to your beautiful duchess; I will detain you no longer.”

“And she is not to be despised, in my opinion.”

“Now, M. Porthos, once more, and this is the last! Do you love me still?”

“Ah, Madame,” said Porthos, in the most melancholy tone he could assume, “when we are about to enter upon a campaign⁠—a campaign, in which my presentiments tell me I shall be killed⁠—”

“Oh, don’t talk of such things!” cried the procurator’s wife, bursting into tears.

“Something whispers me so,” continued Porthos, becoming more and more melancholy.

“Rather say that you have a new love.”

“Not so; I speak frankly to you. No object affects me; and I even feel here, at the bottom of my heart, something which speaks for you. But in fifteen days, as you know, or as you do not know, this fatal campaign is to open. I shall be fearfully preoccupied with my outfit. Then I must make a journey to see my family, in the lower part of Brittany, to obtain the sum necessary for my departure.”

Porthos observed a last struggle between love and avarice.

“And as,” continued he, “the duchess whom you saw at the church has estates near to those of my family, we mean to make the journey together. Journeys, you know, appear much shorter when we travel two in company.”

“Have you no friends in Paris, then, M. Porthos?” said the procurator’s wife.

“I thought I had,” said Porthos, resuming his melancholy air; “but I have been taught my mistake.”

“You have some, M. Porthos, you have some!” cried the procurator’s wife, in a transport that surprised even herself. “Come to our house tomorrow. You are the son of my aunt, consequently my cousin; you come from Noyon, in Picardy; you have several lawsuits and no attorney. Can you recollect all that?”

“Perfectly, Madame.”

“Come at dinnertime.”

“Very well.”

“And be upon your guard before my husband, who is rather shrewd, notwithstanding his seventy-six years.”

“Seventy-six years! Peste! That’s a fine age!” replied Porthos.

“A great age, you mean, M. Porthos. Yes, the poor man may be expected to leave me a widow, any hour,” continued she, throwing a significant glance at Porthos. “Fortunately, by our marriage contract, the survivor takes everything.”

“All?”

“Yes, all.”

“You are a woman of precaution, I see, my dear Madame Coquenard,” said Porthos, squeezing the hand of the procurator’s wife tenderly.

“We are then reconciled, dear M. Porthos?” said she, simpering.

“For life,” replied Porthos, in the same manner.

“Till we meet again, then, dear traitor!”

“Till we meet again, my forgetful charmer!”

“Tomorrow, my angel!”

“Tomorrow, flame of my life!”

D’Artagnan followed Milady without being perceived by her. He saw her get into her carriage, and heard her order the coachman to drive to St. Germain.

It was useless to try to keep pace on foot with a carriage drawn by two powerful horses. D’Artagnan therefore returned to the Rue Férou.

In the Rue de Seine he met Planchet, who had stopped before the house of a pastry cook, and was contemplating with ecstasy a cake of the most appetizing appearance.

He ordered him to go and saddle two horses in M. de Tréville’s stables⁠—one for himself, d’Artagnan, and one for Planchet⁠—and bring them to Athos’s place. Once for all, Tréville had placed his stable at d’Artagnan’s service.

Planchet proceeded toward the Rue du Colombier, and d’Artagnan toward the Rue Férou. Athos was at home, emptying sadly a bottle of the famous Spanish wine he had brought back with him from his journey into Picardy. He made a sign for Grimaud to bring a glass for d’Artagnan, and Grimaud obeyed as usual.

D’Artagnan related to Athos all that had passed at the church between Porthos and the procurator’s wife, and how their comrade was probably by that time in a fair way to be equipped.

“As for me,” replied Athos to this recital, “I am quite at my ease; it will not be women that will defray the expense of my outfit.”

“Handsome, well-bred, noble lord as you are, my dear Athos, neither princesses nor queens would be secure from your amorous solicitations.”

“How young this d’Artagnan is!” said Athos, shrugging his shoulders; and he made a sign to Grimaud to bring another bottle.

At that moment Planchet put his head modestly in at the half-open door, and told his master that the horses were ready.

“What horses?” asked Athos.

“Two horses that M. de Tréville lends me at my pleasure, and with which I am now going to take a ride to St. Germain.”

“Well, and what are you going to do at St. Germain?” then demanded Athos.

Then d’Artagnan described the meeting which he had at the church, and how he had found that lady who, with the seigneur in the black cloak and with the scar near his temple, filled his mind constantly.

“That is to say, you are in love with this lady as you were with Madame Bonacieux,” said Athos, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, as if he pitied human weakness.

“I? Not at all!” said d’Artagnan. “I am only curious to unravel the mystery to which she is attached. I do not know why, but I imagine that this woman, wholly unknown to me as she is, and wholly unknown to her as I am, has an influence over my life.”

“Well, perhaps you are right,” said Athos. “I do not know a woman that is worth the trouble of being sought for when she is once lost. Madame Bonacieux is lost; so much the worse for her if she is found.”

“No, Athos, no, you are mistaken,” said d’Artagnan; “I love my poor Constance more than ever, and if I knew the place in which she is, were it at the end of the world, I would go to free her from the hands of her enemies; but I am ignorant. All my researches have been useless. What is to be said? I must divert my attention!”

“Amuse yourself