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

torn glove. This glove, wherever it had not touched the muddy ground, was of irreproachable odor. It was one of those perfumed gloves that lovers like to snatch from a pretty hand.

As d’Artagnan pursued his investigations, a more abundant and more icy sweat rolled in large drops from his forehead; his heart was oppressed by a horrible anguish; his respiration was broken and short. And yet he said, to reassure himself, that this pavilion perhaps had nothing in common with Madame Bonacieux; that the young woman had made an appointment with him before the pavilion, and not in the pavilion; that she might have been detained in Paris by her duties, or perhaps by the jealousy of her husband.

But all these reasons were combated, destroyed, overthrown, by that feeling of intimate pain which, on certain occasions, takes possession of our being, and cries to us so as to be understood unmistakably that some great misfortune is hanging over us.

Then d’Artagnan became almost wild. He ran along the high road, took the path he had before taken, and reaching the ferry, interrogated the boatman.

About seven o’clock in the evening, the boatman had taken over a young woman, wrapped in a black mantle, who appeared to be very anxious not to be recognized; but entirely on account of her precautions, the boatman had paid more attention to her and discovered that she was young and pretty.

There were then, as now, a crowd of young and pretty women who came to St. Cloud, and who had reasons for not being seen, and yet d’Artagnan did not for an instant doubt that it was Madame Bonacieux whom the boatman had noticed.

D’Artagnan took advantage of the lamp which burned in the cabin of the ferryman to read the billet of Madame Bonacieux once again, and satisfy himself that he had not been mistaken, that the appointment was at St. Cloud and not elsewhere, before the D’Estrées’s pavilion and not in another street. Everything conspired to prove to d’Artagnan that his presentiments had not deceived him, and that a great misfortune had happened.

He again ran back to the château. It appeared to him that something might have happened at the pavilion in his absence, and that fresh information awaited him. The lane was still deserted, and the same calm soft light shone through the window.

D’Artagnan then thought of that cottage, silent and obscure, which had no doubt seen all, and could tell its tale. The gate of the enclosure was shut; but he leaped over the hedge, and in spite of the barking of a chained-up dog, went up to the cabin.

No one answered to his first knocking. A silence of death reigned in the cabin as in the pavilion; but as the cabin was his last resource, he knocked again.

It soon appeared to him that he heard a slight noise within⁠—a timid noise which seemed to tremble lest it should be heard.

Then d’Artagnan ceased knocking, and prayed with an accent so full of anxiety and promises, terror and cajolery, that his voice was of a nature to reassure the most fearful. At length an old, worm-eaten shutter was opened, or rather pushed ajar, but closed again as soon as the light from a miserable lamp which burned in the corner had shone upon the baldric, sword belt, and pistol pommels of d’Artagnan. Nevertheless, rapid as the movement had been, d’Artagnan had had time to get a glimpse of the head of an old man.

“In the name of heaven!” cried he, “listen to me; I have been waiting for someone who has not come. I am dying with anxiety. Has anything particular happened in the neighborhood? Speak!”

The window was again opened slowly, and the same face appeared, only it was now still more pale than before.

D’Artagnan related his story simply, with the omission of names. He told how he had a rendezvous with a young woman before that pavilion, and how, not seeing her come, he had climbed the linden tree, and by the light of the lamp had seen the disorder of the chamber.

The old man listened attentively, making a sign only that it was all so; and then, when d’Artagnan had ended, he shook his head with an air that announced nothing good.

“What do you mean?” cried d’Artagnan. “In the name of heaven, explain yourself!”

“Oh! Monsieur,” said the old man, “ask me nothing; for if I dared tell you what I have seen, certainly no good would befall me.”

“You have, then, seen something?” replied d’Artagnan. “In that case, in the name of heaven,” continued he, throwing him a pistole, “tell me what you have seen, and I will pledge you the word of a gentleman that not one of your words shall escape from my heart.”

The old man read so much truth and so much grief in the face of the young man that he made him a sign to listen, and repeated in a low voice: “It was scarcely nine o’clock when I heard a noise in the street, and was wondering what it could be, when on coming to my door, I found that somebody was endeavoring to open it. As I am very poor and am not afraid of being robbed, I went and opened the gate and saw three men at a few paces from it. In the shadow was a carriage with two horses, and some saddlehorses. These horses evidently belonged to the three men, who were dressed as cavaliers. ‘Ah, my worthy gentlemen,’ cried I, ‘what do you want?’ ‘You must have a ladder?’ said he who appeared to be the leader of the party. ‘Yes, Monsieur, the one with which I gather my fruit.’ ‘Lend it to us, and go into your house again; there is a crown for the annoyance we have caused you. Only remember this⁠—if you speak a word of what you may see or what you may hear (for you will look and you will listen, I am quite sure, however we may threaten you), you are lost.’