Part 26

## Chapter 26

"So you are renouncing the world forever; it's a settled determination, a fixed resolve?"

"Forever. You are my friend today; tomorrow you will be nothing more to me than a shadow; or rather, you will no longer exist. As for the world, it is a sepulcher and nothing else."

"The devil! That's very sad news you give me."

"What can I say! My vocation calls me, it carries me away."

D'Artagnan smiled and did not answer. Aramis continued:

"And yet, while I still cling to the earth, I wished to speak with you about yourself, about our friends."

"And I," said d'Artagnan, "wished to speak with you about yourself, but I see you so detached from everything; you scorn love, friends are shadows, the world a sepulcher."

"Alas! you will see for yourself," said Aramis with a sigh.

"Let us speak no more of it, then," said d'Artagnan, "and let us burn this letter which no doubt announces some new infidelity on the part of your grisette or your chambermaid."

"What letter?" cried Aramis eagerly.

"A letter that came for you in your absence and was given to me for you."

"But from whom is this letter?"

"Ah! from some tearful servant, some desperate grisette; perhaps Madame de Chevreuse's chambermaid, who has been obliged to return to Tours with her mistress, and who, to make herself smart, took perfumed paper and sealed her letter with a duchess's coronet."

"What are you saying?"

"Here, I must have lost it!" said the young man slyly, pretending to search. "Fortunately the world is a sepulcher, men and consequently women are shadows, and love is a sentiment you scorn!"

"Ah! d'Artagnan, d'Artagnan!" cried Aramis, "you are killing me!"

"Here it is, at last!" said d'Artagnan.

And he drew the letter from his pocket.

Aramis leaped, seized the letter, read it or rather devoured it; his face beamed.

"It seems the servant has a fine style," said the messenger nonchalantly.

"Thank you, d'Artagnan!" cried Aramis almost deliriously. "She was forced to return to Tours; she is not unfaithful to me, she still loves me. Come, my friend, come, let me embrace you; happiness is choking me!"

And the two friends began to dance around the venerable Saint Chrysostom, trampling bravely on the leaves of the thesis that had rolled over the floor.

At that moment, Bazin entered with the spinach and the omelette.

"Flee, wretch!" cried Aramis, throwing his skullcap in his face; "go back where you came from; take away those horrible vegetables and that frightful side dish! Order a landed hare, a fat capon, a leg of mutton with garlic, and four bottles of old Burgundy."

Bazin, who was staring at his master and understood nothing of this change, let the omelette slip melancholically into the spinach, and the spinach onto the floor.

"This is the moment to consecrate your existence to the King of Kings," said d'Artagnan, "if you wish to do him a courtesy: _Non inutile desiderium in oblatione_."

"Go to the devil with your Latin! My dear d'Artagnan, let us drink, by heaven, let us drink cool, let us drink much, and tell me a little what is happening back there."

## CHAPTER XXVII. ATHOS'S WIFE

"Now we must get news of Athos," said d'Artagnan to the dashing Aramis, when he had brought him up to date on what had happened in the capital since their departure, and when an excellent dinner had made one forget his thesis and the other his fatigue.

"Do you think, then, that some misfortune has befallen him?" asked Aramis. "Athos is so cold, so brave, and handles his sword so skillfully."

"Yes, no doubt, and no one recognizes Athos's courage and skill better than I, but I prefer the shock of lances to that of cudgels; I fear Athos may have been thrashed by lackeys. Lackeys are people who strike hard and do not finish quickly. That is why, I confess, I would like to set out again as soon as possible."

"I shall try to accompany you," said Aramis, "though I hardly feel fit to ride a horse. Yesterday I tried the discipline you see on that wall, and the pain prevented me from continuing that pious exercise."

"Besides, my dear friend, no one has ever tried to cure a gunshot wound with strokes of a martinet; but you were sick, and sickness weakens the head, which is why I excuse you."

"And when do you leave?"

"Tomorrow at daybreak; rest as well as you can tonight, and tomorrow, if you can, we shall leave together."

"Tomorrow, then," said Aramis; "for as iron as you are, you must need rest."

The next day, when d'Artagnan entered Aramis's room, he found him at the window.

"What are you looking at there?" asked d'Artagnan.

"Faith! I am admiring those three magnificent horses that the stable boys are holding by the bridle; it is a prince's pleasure to travel on such mounts."

"Well, my dear Aramis, you shall give yourself that pleasure, for one of those horses is yours."

"Ah, bah! and which one?"

"Whichever of the three you wish; I have no preference."

"And the rich caparison that covers it is also mine?"

"Without doubt."

"You are joking, d'Artagnan."

"I no longer laugh since you speak French."

"They are for me—those gilded holsters, that velvet housing, that saddle studded with silver?"

"For you yourself, just as the horse that prances is mine, as that other horse that caracoles is Athos's."

"Pest! They are three superb beasts."

"I am flattered that they please you."

"Then it is the king who made you this gift?"

"Certainly it is not the cardinal; but do not worry where they come from, and only think that one of the three is your property."

"I take the one held by the red-haired groom."

"Excellent!"

"By God!" cried Aramis, "this makes me forget the rest of my pain; I would mount it with thirty bullets in my body. Ah! upon my soul, what fine stirrups! Holla, Bazin! come here, this instant."

Bazin appeared, glum and languid, on the threshold.

"Polish my sword, straighten my felt hat, brush my cloak, and load my pistols!" said Aramis.

"That last recommendation is unnecessary," interrupted d'Artagnan; "there are loaded pistols in your holsters."

Bazin sighed.

"Come, Master Bazin, be comforted," said d'Artagnan; "one gains the kingdom of heaven in every condition."

"Monsieur was already such a good theologian!" said Bazin, almost tearful; "he would have become a bishop and perhaps a cardinal."

"Well, my poor Bazin, come, think a little; what use is being a churchman, I ask you? That does not prevent you from going to war; you see well that the cardinal is making his first campaign with a pot on his head and a partisan in his hand; and Monsieur de Nogaret de La Valette, what do you say of him? He is a cardinal too; ask his lackey how many times he has made lint for him."

"Alas!" sighed Bazin, "I know it, monsieur; everything is upside down in the world today."

Meanwhile, the two young men and the poor lackey had gone downstairs.

"Hold my stirrup, Bazin," said Aramis.

And Aramis leaped into the saddle with his usual grace and lightness; but after a few voltes and curvetings of the noble animal, his rider felt such unbearable pain that he grew pale and staggered. D'Artagnan, who, foreseeing this accident, had not taken his eyes off him, rushed to him, caught him in his arms, and led him to his room.

"It's all right, my dear Aramis; take care of yourself," he said; "I will go alone in search of Athos."

"You are a man of bronze," said Aramis.

"No, I have good luck, that's all; but how will you live while waiting for me? No more thesis, no more commentary on fingers and blessings, eh?"

Aramis smiled.

"I shall make verses," he said.

"Yes, verses perfumed with the scent of Madame de Chevreuse's chambermaid's note. Teach prosody to Bazin; that will console him. As for the horse, ride it a little every day, and that will accustom you to maneuvers."

"Oh! as for that, be easy," said Aramis; "you will find me ready to follow you."

They bade each other farewell, and ten minutes later, after recommending his friend to Bazin and the mistress of the house, d'Artagnan was trotting in the direction of Amiens.

How was he going to find Athos, or even if he would find him at all?

The situation in which he had left him was critical; he might well have succumbed. This idea, darkening his brow, drew some sighs from him and made him formulate some vows of vengeance under his breath. Of all his friends, Athos was the oldest, and therefore apparently the least close to his tastes and sympathies.

Yet he had a marked preference for this gentleman. The noble and distinguished air of Athos, those flashes of grandeur that from time to time burst forth from the shadows in which he willingly kept himself enclosed, that unalterable equanimity of temper which made him the easiest companion on earth, that forced and mordant gaiety, that bravery which one would call blind were it not the result of the rarest self-possession—so many qualities attracted more than esteem, more than friendship from d'Artagnan; they attracted his admiration.

Indeed, even compared to Monsieur de Tréville, the elegant and noble courtier, Athos, in his days of good humor, could advantageously sustain the comparison; he was of medium height, but his figure was so admirably formed and so well proportioned that more than once, in his struggles with Porthos, he had made the giant bend, whose physical strength had become proverbial among the musketeers; his head, with piercing eyes, a straight nose, and a chin shaped like Brutus's, had an indefinable character of grandeur and grace; his hands, of which he took no care, drove Aramis to despair, who cultivated his own with a great supply of almond paste and perfumed oil; the sound of his voice was penetrating and melodious at the same time; and then, what was indefinable about Athos, who always made himself obscure and small, was that delicate knowledge of the world and the usages of the most brilliant society, that habit of good breeding which pierced through, as it were, without his knowledge, in his slightest actions.

If it was a matter of a meal, Athos ordered it better than any man in the world, placing each guest in the place and rank that his ancestors had given him or that he had made for himself. If it was a matter of heraldic science, Athos knew all the noble families of the kingdom, their genealogy, their alliances, their coats of arms, and the origin of their coats of arms. Etiquette had no minutiae that were foreign to him; he knew the rights of the great landowners; he understood hunting and falconry thoroughly; and one day, while discussing this great art, he had astonished King Louis XIII himself, who was nonetheless a master of it.

Like all the great lords of that era, he rode and wielded arms to perfection. Moreover, his education had been so little neglected, even in the matter of scholastic studies, so rare at that time among gentlemen, that he smiled at the Latin scraps that Aramis let fall and that Porthos seemed to understand; two or three times, even to the great astonishment of his friends, when Aramis let slip some elementary error, he had put a verb back in its tense and a noun back in its case. Besides, his probity was unassailable, in that century when men of war compromised so easily with their religion and their conscience, lovers with the strict delicacy of our day, and the poor with the seventh commandment of God. Athos was therefore a very extraordinary man.

And yet, one saw this nature so distinguished, this creature so beautiful, this essence so fine, turning imperceptibly toward material life, as old men turn toward physical and moral imbecility. Athos, in his hours of privation—and these hours were frequent—would become extinguished in all his luminous part, and his brilliant side would disappear as into a profound night.

Then, the demigod vanished, scarcely a man remained. With head bowed, eyes dull, speech heavy and painful, Athos would stare for long hours either at his bottle and glass, or at Grimaud, who, accustomed to obeying him by signs, read in his master's atonic gaze his slightest desire, which he immediately satisfied. If the reunion of the four friends took place at one of those moments, a word, escaped with a violent effort, was all the contribution Athos made to the conversation. In exchange, Athos alone drank like four, and that without any other sign than a more pronounced frown and a deeper sadness.

D'Artagnan, whose penetrating and investigative mind we know, however much interest he had in satisfying his curiosity on this subject, had yet been unable to assign any cause to this depression, nor to note its occurrences. Athos never received letters; Athos never took any step that was not known to all his friends.

One could not say that it was wine that gave him this sadness, for on the contrary he only drank to combat this sadness, which remedy, as we have said, made it even darker. One could not attribute this excess of black humor to gambling, for, unlike Porthos, who accompanied all the variations of luck with his songs or oaths, Athos, when he had won, remained as impassive as when he had lost. He had been seen, at the musketeers' circle, to win three thousand pistoles in one evening, lose them down to the gold-embroidered belt of gala days, win it all back plus a hundred louis, without his beautiful black eyebrow having risen or lowered half a line, without his hands having lost their pearly hue, without his conversation, which was pleasant that evening, having ceased to be calm and agreeable.

Nor, as with our neighbors the English, was it an atmospheric influence that darkened his face, for this sadness generally became more intense toward the fine days of the year; June and July were Athos's terrible months.

For the present, he had no sorrow; he shrugged his shoulders when one spoke to him of the future; his secret therefore lay in the past, as had been vaguely said to d'Artagnan.

This mysterious hue diffused over his whole person made the man even more interesting, whose eyes or mouth, in the most complete drunkenness, had never revealed anything, whatever the skill of the questions directed at him.

"Well," thought d'Artagnan, "poor Athos is perhaps dead by now, and dead by my fault, for it was I who dragged him into this affair, of which he did not know the origin, of which he will not know the outcome, and from which he was to derive no profit."

"Not to mention, monsieur," replied Planchet, "that we probably owe him our lives. Do you remember how he cried: 'Clear out, d'Artagnan! I am taken!' And after firing his two pistols, what a terrible noise he made with his sword! One would have said twenty men, or rather twenty enraged devils!"

And these words redoubled d'Artagnan's ardor, who urged on his horse, which, having no need of urging, carried its rider at a gallop.

Towards eleven o'clock in the morning, Amiens was sighted; at half past eleven, they were at the door of the cursed inn.

D'Artagnan had often meditated against the perfidious host one of those good vengeances that console, even in anticipation. He therefore entered the inn, his hat over his eyes, his left hand on the pommel of his sword, and whistling with his riding crop in his right hand.

"Do you recognize me?" he said to the host, who came forward to greet him.

"I do not have that honor, my lord," replied the latter, his eyes still dazzled by the brilliant equipment with which d'Artagnan presented himself.

"Ah! you do not know me!"

"No, my lord."

"Well, two words will refresh your memory. What have you done with that gentleman whom you had the audacity, about a fortnight ago, to accuse of counterfeiting coin?"

The host turned pale, for d'Artagnan had assumed the most threatening attitude, and Planchet modeled himself on his master.

"Ah! my lord, do not speak to me of that," cried the host in his most lachrymose tone; "ah! Lord, how dearly I have paid for that fault! Ah! miserable wretch that I am!"

"That gentleman, I tell you—what has become of him?"

"Deign to listen to me, my lord, and be merciful. Come, sit down, I beg you!"

D'Artagnan, mute with anger and anxiety, sat down, threatening like a judge. Planchet leaned proudly against his armchair.

"Here is the story, my lord," resumed the host, all trembling, "for I recognize you now; it is you who left when I had that unfortunate altercation with that gentleman of whom you speak."

"Yes, it is I; so you see well that you have no mercy to expect if you do not tell the whole truth."

"Then please listen to me, and you shall know it all."

"I am listening."

"I had been warned by the authorities that a famous counterfeiter would arrive at my inn with several of his companions, all disguised as guards or musketeers. Your horses, your lackeys, your appearance, my lords—everything had been described to me."

"Afterward, afterward?" said d'Artagnan, who quickly recognized where the so exactly given description came from.

"I therefore took, according to the orders of the authority, which sent me a reinforcement of six men, such measures as I thought urgent to secure the persons of the supposed counterfeiters."

"Again!" said d'Artagnan, to whom that word counterfeiter terribly burned his ears.

"Forgive me, my lord, for saying such things, but they are precisely my excuse. The authority had frightened me, and you know that an innkeeper must manage the authority."

"But once again, that gentleman—where is he? what has become of him? Is he dead? is he alive?"

"Patience, my lord, we are coming to it. Then what you know happened, and whose issue your hasty departure," added the host with a finesse that did not escape d'Artagnan, "seemed to authorize. That gentleman, your friend, defended himself like a desperate man. His valet, who, by an unforeseen misfortune, had picked a quarrel with the men of the authority disguised as stable boys..."

"Ah! wretch!" cried d'Artagnan, "you were all in league, and I don't know what keeps me from exterminating you all!"

"Alas! no, my lord, we were not all in league, and you will soon see it. Monsieur your friend (pardon me for not calling him by the honorable name he no doubt bears, but we do not know that name), monsieur your friend, after putting two men out of action with his two pistol shots, retreated, defending himself with his sword, with which he maimed another of my men, and with a blow of the flat of which he stunned me."

"But, you hangman, will you finish?" said d'Artagnan. "Athos—what becomes of Athos?"

"While retreating, as I told my lord, he found behind him the cellar stairs, and as the door was open, he pulled the key to him and barricaded himself inside. As one was sure to find him there, he was left free."

"Yes," said d'Artagnan, "they were not exactly intent on killing him; they only sought to imprison him."

"Just God! to imprison him, my lord? He imprisoned himself well enough, I swear to you. First he had done rough work; one man was killed outright and two others were gravely wounded. The dead man and the two wounded were carried away by their comrades, and I never heard speak of either one or the others again. I myself, when I regained my senses, went to find Monsieur the Governor, to whom I recounted all that had happened, and asked him what I should do with the prisoner. But Monsieur the Governor seemed thunderstruck; he told me that he was completely ignorant of what I meant, that the orders which had reached me did not emanate from him, and that if I had the misfortune to tell anyone that he had any part in all this scuffle, he would have me hanged. It seems I had been mistaken, monsieur, that I had arrested one for another, and that the one who was to be arrested had escaped."

"But Athos?" cried d'Artagnan, whose impatience was doubled by the abandonment with which the authority left the matter; "Athos—what has become of him?"

"As I was eager to make amends to the prisoner," resumed the innkeeper, "I went to the cellar in order to give him back his liberty. Ah! monsieur, it was no longer a man, it was a devil. At this proposition of liberty, he declared that it was a trap laid for him, and that before coming out, he intended to impose his conditions. I told him very humbly—for I was not unaware of the bad position in which I had put myself by laying hands on a musketeer of His Majesty—I told him that I was ready to submit to his conditions.

"'First,' said he, 'I want my valet returned to me fully armed.'

"We hastened to obey this order; for you understand well, monsieur, that we were disposed to do everything your friend wished. Monsieur Grimaud (he pronounced that name, although he does not speak much) was therefore taken down to the cellar, wounded as he was; then, his master having received him, rebarricaded the door and ordered us to stay in our shop."

"But finally," cried d'Artagnan, "where is he? where is Athos?"

"In the cellar, monsieur."

"How, wretch, you have been keeping him in the cellar all this time?"

"Good heavens! No, monsieur. We keep him in the cellar! Do you not know what he does in the cellar? Ah! if you could get him out, monsieur, I would be grateful to you all my life, I would adore you as my patron saint."

"Then he is there; I shall find him there?"

"Without doubt, monsieur; he has obstinately remained there. Every day, we pass him bread through the air hole, at the end of a pitchfork, and meat when he asks for it; but, alas! it is not bread and meat that he consumes the most. Once I tried to go down with two of my men, but he flew into a terrible rage. I heard the noise of his pistols being cocked and of his musketoon being cocked by his servant. Then, as we asked them their intentions, the master answered that they had forty shots to fire, he and his lackey, and that they would fire them to the last rather than permit any one of us to set foot in the cellar. Then, monsieur, I went to complain to the governor, who answered me that I had only what I deserved, and that this would teach me to insult the honorable lords who took lodging with me."

"So that since that time..." resumed d'Artagnan, unable to help laughing at the piteous face of his host.

"So that since that time, monsieur," continued the latter, "we lead the saddest life that can be seen; for, monsieur, you must know that all our provisions are in the cellar; there is our wine in bottles and our wine in casks, the beer, the oil, and the spices, the bacon and the sausages; and as we are forbidden to go down, we are forced to refuse food and drink to the travelers who arrive, so that every day our inn is ruined. Another week with your friend in my cellar, and we are ruined."

"And it will be justice, rascal. Could one not see from our appearance that we were people of quality and not counterfeiters, tell me?"

“Stories of the world, in your language.”