Part 9

Indeed, four men such as they, four men devoted to each other from purse to life, four men always supporting each other, never retreating, executing individually or together resolutions taken in common; four arms threatening the four cardinal points or turning toward a single point, must inevitably, whether underground or in daylight, whether by mine or by trench, whether by cunning or by force, open a path toward the goal they wished to attain, however well defended or distant it might be. The only thing that astonished d'Artagnan was that his companions had not thought of that.

He thought of it, and seriously too, racking his brain to find a direction for this unique strength quadrupled, with which he had no doubt that, like the lever Archimedes sought, one might succeed in lifting the world—when someone knocked softly at the door. D'Artagnan woke Planchet and ordered him to go open it.

May the reader not infer from this phrase, "D'Artagnan wakened Planchet," that it was night or that day had not yet come. No! four o'clock had just struck. Planchet, two hours earlier, had come to ask his master for dinner, to which he had replied with the proverb: "He who sleeps, dines." And Planchet dined by sleeping.

A man was introduced, of rather simple appearance and who looked like a bourgeois.

Planchet, for his dessert, would very much have liked to hear the conversation; but the bourgeois declared to d'Artagnan that what he had to say to him was important and confidential, and he wished to remain alone with him.

D'Artagnan dismissed Planchet and had his visitor sit down.

There was a moment of silence during which the two men looked at each other as if to make a preliminary acquaintance, after which d'Artagnan bowed as a sign that he was listening.

"I have heard of M. d'Artagnan as a very brave young man," said the bourgeois, "and this reputation, which he justly enjoys, has decided me to confide a secret to him."

"Speak, monsieur, speak," said d'Artagnan, who instinctively smelled something advantageous.

The bourgeois made another pause and continued:

"I have a wife who is a linen maid to the queen, monsieur, and who lacks neither virtue nor beauty. I was made to marry her nearly three years ago, though she had only a small dowry, because M. de La Porte, the queen's wardrobe-keeper, is her godfather and protects her..."

"Well, monsieur?" asked d'Artagnan.

"Well," resumed the bourgeois, "well, monsieur, my wife was abducted yesterday morning, as she was leaving her workroom."

"And by whom was your wife abducted?"

"I don't know for certain, monsieur, but I suspect someone."

"And who is this person you suspect?"

"A man who had been pursuing her for a long time."

"The devil!"

"But would you like me to tell you, monsieur," continued the bourgeois, "I am convinced, myself, that there is less love than politics in all this."

"Less love than politics," repeated d'Artagnan with a very thoughtful air, "and what do you suspect?"

"I don't know if I should tell you what I suspect..."

"Monsieur, I will point out to you that I am asking you absolutely nothing. It is you who came. It is you who told me you had a secret to confide. So do as you please; it is still time to withdraw."

"No, monsieur, no; you seem to me an honest young man, and I will trust you. I believe, therefore, that it is not because of her own love affairs that my wife was arrested, but because of those of a greater lady than she."

"Ah! ah! Could it be because of the love affairs of Mme de Bois-Tracy?" said d'Artagnan, who wanted to seem, in the eyes of his bourgeois, to be up on court affairs.

"Higher, monsieur, higher."

"Of Mme d'Aiguillon?"

"Higher still."

"Of Mme de Chevreuse?"

"Higher, much higher!"

"Of the..." D'Artagnan stopped.

"Yes, monsieur," replied the terrified bourgeois, so softly that he could barely be heard.

"And with whom?"

"With whom can it be, if not with the Duke of..."

"The Duke of..."

"Yes, monsieur!" replied the bourgeois, giving his voice an even duller intonation.

"But how do you know all this?"

"Ah! how do I know it?"

"Yes, how do you know it? No half-confidences, or... you understand."

"I know it through my wife, monsieur, through my wife herself."

"Who knows it, she, through whom?"

"Through M. de La Porte. Did I not tell you that she is the goddaughter of M. de La Porte, the queen's trusted man? Well, M. de La Porte placed her near Her Majesty so that our poor queen might at least have someone to trust, abandoned as she is by the king, spied upon as she is by the cardinal, betrayed as she is by everyone."

"Ah! ah! that's taking shape," said d'Artagnan.

"Now my wife came four days ago, monsieur; one of her conditions was that she was to come to see me twice a week; for, as I had the honor to tell you, my wife loves me very much; my wife therefore came, and confided to me that the queen, at this moment, had great fears."

"Really?"

"Yes, M. the cardinal, it seems, pursues and persecutes her more than ever. He cannot forgive her the story of the sarabande. Do you know the story of the sarabande?"

"Pardieu, if I know it!" replied d'Artagnan, who knew nothing at all about it, but who wanted to seem up to date.

"So that now it is no longer hatred, it is vengeance."

"Really?"

"And the queen believes..."

"Well, what does the queen believe?"

"She believes that someone has written to M. the Duke of Buckingham in her name."

"In the queen's name?"

"Yes, to make him come to Paris, and once come to Paris, to lure him into some trap."

"The devil! But your wife, my dear monsieur, what does she have to do with all this?"

"Her devotion to the queen is known, and they want either to remove her from her mistress, or to intimidate her in order to obtain Her Majesty's secrets, or to seduce her in order to use her as a spy."

"That is probable," said d'Artagnan; "but the man who abducted her, do you know him?"

"I told you I think I know him."

"His name?"

"I do not know it; all I know is that he is a creature of the cardinal, his evil genius."

"But have you seen him?"

"Yes, my wife showed him to me one day."

"Has he any distinguishing features by which he might be recognized?"

"Oh! certainly, he is a lord of noble mien, black hair, swarthy complexion, piercing eye, white teeth, and a scar on his temple."

"A scar on his temple!" cried d'Artagnan; "and with that, white teeth, piercing eye, swarthy complexion, black hair, and noble mien; that's my man from Meung!"

"That is your man, you say?"

"Yes, yes; but that has nothing to do with the matter. No, I am wrong, that simplifies it a great deal, on the contrary: if your man is mine, I will take two revenges at once, that's all; but where to find this man?"

"I do not know."

"You have no information about his dwelling?"

"None; one day when I was escorting my wife to the Louvre, he was coming out as she was going in, and she pointed him out to me."

"The devil! the devil!" murmured d'Artagnan; "all this is very vague; from whom did you learn of your wife's abduction?"

"From M. de La Porte."

"Did he give you any details?"

"He had none."

"And you have learned nothing from any other source?"

"Yes, I have received..."

"What?"

"But I do not know whether I am not committing a great imprudence?"

"You are coming back to that again; however, I will point out to you that this time it is a little late to withdraw."

"Therefore I do not withdraw, morbleu!" cried the bourgeois, swearing to raise his spirits. "Besides, on the word of Bonacieux—"

"You are called Bonacieux?" interrupted d'Artagnan.

"Yes, that is my name."

"You were saying, then: on the word of Bonacieux! pardon me if I interrupted you; but it seemed to me that this name was not unknown to me."

"It is possible, monsieur. I am your landlord."

"Ah! ah!" said d'Artagnan, half rising and bowing, "you are my landlord?"

"Yes, monsieur, yes. And since you have been living with me for three months, and, doubtless distracted by your great occupations, you have forgotten to pay me my rent; since, I say, I have not tormented you for a single instant, I thought you would take my delicacy into consideration."

"My dear Monsieur Bonacieux, of course!" replied d'Artagnan; "believe that I am full of gratitude for such conduct, and that, as I told you, if I can be of any use to you in something..."

"I believe you, monsieur, I believe you, and as I was about to tell you, on the word of Bonacieux, I have confidence in you."

"Then finish what you began to tell me."

The bourgeois drew a paper from his pocket and presented it to d'Artagnan.

"A letter!" said the young man.

"Which I received this morning."

D'Artagnan opened it, and as the daylight was beginning to fade, he went to the window. The bourgeois followed him.

"Do not seek your wife," read d'Artagnan; "she will be returned to you when she is no longer needed. If you make a single step to find her, you are lost."

"That is positive enough," continued d'Artagnan; "but after all, it is only a threat."

"Yes, but that threat frightens me; I, monsieur, am not at all a man of the sword, and I am afraid of the Bastille."

"H'm!" said d'Artagnan; "but I care no more for the Bastille than you do. If it were only a matter of a sword thrust, that would pass."

"Nevertheless, monsieur, I had counted greatly on you in this occasion."

"Yes?"

"Seeing you constantly surrounded by musketeers of very superb appearance, and recognizing that those musketeers were those of M. de Tréville, and consequently enemies of the cardinal, I thought that you and your friends, while doing justice to our poor queen, would be delighted to play a nasty trick on His Eminence."

"No doubt."

"And then I thought that, owing me three months' rent of which I have never spoken to you..."

"Yes, yes, you have already given me that reason, and I find it excellent."

"Counting further, as long as you do me the honor to remain in my house, never to speak to you of your future rent..."

"Very good."

"And add to that, if need be, counting on offering you about fifty pistoles if, against all probability, you should happen to be short at the moment."

"Splendid; but you are rich then, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux?"

"I am comfortable, monsieur, that is the word; I have saved something like two or three thousand crowns of income from the mercery trade, and especially by investing some funds in the last voyage of the famous navigator Jean Mocquet; so that, you understand, monsieur... Ah! but!" cried the bourgeois.

"What?" asked d'Artagnan.

"What do I see there?"

"Where?"

"In the street, opposite your windows, in the recess of that door: a man wrapped in a cloak."

"It is he!" cried both d'Artagnan and the bourgeois at once, each simultaneously recognizing his man.

"Ah! this time," cried d'Artagnan, springing to his sword, "this time he shall not escape me."

And drawing his sword from the scabbard, he rushed out of the apartment.

On the stairs he met Athos and Porthos, who were coming to see him. They stepped aside, d'Artagnan passed between them like an arrow.

"Ah, now, where are you running like that?" both musketeers cried at once.

"The man from Meung!" replied d'Artagnan, and he disappeared.

D'Artagnan had more than once told his friends of his adventure with the unknown man, as well as of the appearance of the beautiful traveler to whom that man seemed to have entrusted so important a letter.

Athos's opinion had been that d'Artagnan had lost his letter in the scuffle. A gentleman, according to him—and from the portrait d'Artagnan had drawn of the unknown, he could only be a gentleman—a gentleman should be incapable of such baseness as stealing a letter.

Porthos had seen in all this only a lovers' rendezvous given by a lady to a cavalier or by a cavalier to a lady, which had been disturbed by the presence of d'Artagnan and his yellow horse.

Aramis had said that these sorts of things being mysterious, it was better not to investigate them too deeply.

They understood, therefore, from the few words that escaped d'Artagnan, what affair was in question, and as they thought that after having caught up with his man or lost sight of him, d'Artagnan would end by coming back home, they continued on their way.

When they entered d'Artagnan's room, the room was empty: the landlord, fearing the consequences of the encounter which was doubtless about to take place between the young man and the unknown, had, as a result of the exposition he had himself made of his character, judged it prudent to decamp.

CHAPTER 9. D'ARTAGNAN SHOWS HIMSELF

As Athos and Porthos had foreseen, after half an hour d'Artagnan returned. This time again he had missed his man, who had disappeared as if by magic. D'Artagnan had run, sword in hand, through all the surrounding streets, but he had found nothing resembling the man he sought; then finally he had returned to the thing with which he should perhaps have begun, which was to knock at the door against which the unknown had been leaning; but it was useless that he had made the knocker resound ten or twelve times in succession, no one had answered, and neighbors, who, attracted by the noise, had come to their doorsteps or put their noses to their windows, had assured him that that house, all of whose openings were moreover closed, had been completely uninhabited for six months.

While d'Artagnan was running through the streets and knocking at doors, Aramis had rejoined his two companions, so that on returning home, d'Artagnan found the reunion complete.

"Well?" said the three musketeers together, seeing d'Artagnan enter, sweat on his forehead and his face distorted by anger.

"Well," cried he, throwing his sword on the bed, "that man must be the devil in person; he has disappeared like a phantom, like a shadow, like a specter."

"Do you believe in apparitions?" Athos asked Porthos.

"I, I only believe what I have seen, and since I have never seen apparitions, I do not believe in them."

"The Bible," said Aramis, "makes it a law for us to believe in them: the shadow of Samuel appeared to Saul, and it is an article of faith that I would be sorry to see doubted, Porthos."

"In any case, whether man or devil, body or shadow, illusion or reality, that man is born for my damnation, for his flight makes us miss a superb affair, gentlemen, an affair in which there were a hundred pistoles and perhaps more to be gained."

"How so?" said Porthos and Aramis together.

As for Athos, faithful to his system of muteness, he contented himself with questioning d'Artagnan with a look.

"Planchet," said d'Artagnan to his servant, who was at that moment putting his head through the half-open door to try to catch some scraps of the conversation, "go down to my landlord, M. Bonacieux, and tell him to send us half a dozen bottles of Beaugency wine; that is the one I prefer."

"Ah, now, then you have open credit with your landlord?" asked Porthos.

"Yes," replied d'Artagnan, "from today, and rest assured, if his wine is bad, we will send for other."

"You must use and not abuse," said Aramis sententiously.

"I have always said that d'Artagnan is the strong head of us four," said Athos, who, after having emitted this opinion, to which d'Artagnan replied with a bow, immediately relapsed into his accustomed silence.

"But finally, come, what is it all about?" asked Porthos.

"Yes," said Aramis, "confide to us, my dear friend, unless the honor of some lady is involved in this confidence, in which case you would do better to keep it to yourself."

"Rest assured," replied d'Artagnan, "no one's honor will have to complain of what I have to tell you."

Then he told his friends word for word what had just passed between him and his host, and how the man who had abducted the worthy landlord's wife was the same with whom he had had a quarrel at the inn of the Franc Meunier.

"Your affair is not bad," said Athos, after having tasted the wine like a connoisseur and indicated by a nod that he found it good, "and we may be able to get fifty to sixty pistoles out of that worthy man. Now, it remains to be seen whether fifty to sixty pistoles are worth the risk of four heads."

"But note," cried d'Artagnan, "that there is a woman in this affair, a woman abducted, a woman who is doubtless threatened, perhaps tortured, and all because she is faithful to her mistress!"

"Take care, d'Artagnan, take care," said Aramis; "you are getting a little too heated, in my opinion, about the fate of Mme Bonacieux. Woman was created for our perdition, and from her come all our miseries."

At this sentence of Aramis, Athos frowned and bit his lips.

"It is not of Mme Bonacieux that I am worried," cried d'Artagnan, "but of the queen, whom the king abandons, whom the cardinal persecutes, and who sees the heads of all her friends fall, one after another."

"Why does she love what we most hate in the world, the Spanish and the English?"

"Spain is her native country," replied d'Artagnan, "and it is quite natural that she loves the Spanish, who are children of the same land as she. As for the second reproach you make her, I have heard it said that she loves not the English, but an Englishman."

"Well, upon my word," said Athos, "it must be admitted that that Englishman was well worthy of being loved. I have never seen a greater air than his."

"Not to mention that he dresses like no one else," said Porthos. "I was at the Louvre on the day when he scattered his pearls, and pardieu! I picked up two that I sold well for ten pistoles each. And you, Aramis, do you know him?"

"As well as you, gentlemen, for I was among those who arrested him in the garden of Amiens, where I had been introduced by M. de Putange, the queen's equerry. I was at the seminary at that time, and the adventure seemed cruel to the king."

"Which would not prevent me," said d'Artagnan, "if I knew where the Duke of Buckingham is, from taking him by the hand and leading him to the queen, were it only to make M. the cardinal rage; for our true, our only, our eternal enemy, gentlemen, is the cardinal, and if we could find a way to play some very cruel trick on him, I confess that I would willingly stake my head on it."

"And," resumed Athos, "the mercer told you, d'Artagnan, that the queen thought that Buckingham had been summoned on a false pretext?"

"She is afraid of it."

"Wait, then," said Aramis.

"What?" asked Porthos.

"Go on; I am trying to recall circumstances."

"And now I am convinced," said d'Artagnan, "that the abduction of this woman of the queen's is connected with the events we are speaking of, and perhaps with the presence of M. de Buckingham in Paris."

"The Gascon is full of ideas," said Porthos with admiration.

"I very much like hearing him speak," said Athos; "his dialect amuses me."

"Gentlemen," resumed Aramis, "listen to this."

"Let us listen to Aramis," said the three friends.

"Yesterday I was at the house of a learned doctor of theology whom I sometimes consult for my studies..."

Athos smiled.

"He lives in a deserted quarter," continued Aramis; "his tastes, his profession require it. Now, at the moment when I was leaving his house..."

Here Aramis stopped.

"Well?" asked his listeners, "at the moment you were leaving his house?"

Aramis seemed to make an effort over himself, like a man who, in the full stream of a lie, sees himself stopped by some unforeseen obstacle; but the eyes of his three companions were fixed on him, their ears were wide open waiting, there was no way to retreat.

"That doctor has a niece," continued Aramis.

"Ah! he has a niece!" interrupted Porthos.

"A very respectable lady," said Aramis.

The three friends began to laugh.

"Ah! if you laugh or if you doubt," resumed Aramis, "you shall know nothing."

"We are believers like Mohammedans and mute like catafalques," said Athos.

"I continue, then," resumed Aramis. "This niece sometimes comes to see her uncle; now she happened to be there yesterday at the same time as I, by chance, and I had to offer to escort her to her carriage."

"Ah! she has a carriage, the doctor's niece?" interrupted Porthos, one of whose defects was great incontinence of speech; "fine acquaintance, my friend."

"Porthos," resumed Aramis, "I have already pointed out to you more than once that you are very indiscreet, and that it harms you with women."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," cried d'Artagnan, who foresaw the outcome of the adventure, "the thing is serious; let us try not to joke if we can. Go on, Aramis, go on."

"Suddenly, a tall man, dark, with gentlemanly manners... you know, like yours, d'Artagnan."

"The same perhaps," said the latter.

"That is possible," continued Aramis, "... approached me, accompanied by five or six men who followed him ten paces behind, and in the most polite tone: 'Monsieur the Duke,' he said to me, 'and you, madame,' he continued, addressing the lady I had on my arm..."

"To the doctor's niece?"

"Silence then, Porthos!" said Athos; "you are insufferable."

"'Please get into this carriage, and that without attempting the least resistance, without making the least noise.'"

"He had taken you for Buckingham!" cried d'Artagnan.

"I believe so," replied Aramis.

"But this lady?" asked Porthos.

"He had taken her for the queen!" said d'Artagnan.

"Exactly," replied Aramis.

"The Gascon is the devil!" cried Athos; "nothing escapes him."

"The fact is," said Porthos, "that Aramis is of the same height and has something of the bearing of the handsome duke; but however, it seems to me that the musketeer's uniform..."

"I had an enormous cloak," said Aramis.

"In the month of July, the devil!" said Porthos; "is the doctor afraid that you might be recognized?"

"I still understand," said Athos, "that the spy may have been taken in by the bearing; but the face..."

"I had a large hat," said Aramis.

"Oh my God!" cried Porthos, "what precautions to study theology!"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," said d'Artagnan, "let us not lose time in joking; let us scatter and search for the mercer's wife; it is the key to the intrigue."

"A woman of such low condition! do you think so, d'Artagnan?" said Porthos, pouting his lips with contempt.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”