The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [115]
C. B.
Reading this note, D’Artagnan felt his heart dilate and contract with the delicious spasms that torture and caress the hearts of all true lovers. Here was the first note he had received from a woman, the first meeting ever granted him; his heart swelled with the intoxication of joy and he felt about to faint at the very portals of that terrestial Paradise known as Love.
Planchet, worried at his master’s impetuous exit and at the long silence that ensued, stood between sitting-room and bedroom, scratching his ear. Why was his master so excited and why did he successively flush and grow pale?
“Well, Monsieur,” he opined, “was I right? Is this some dirty work or did I guess wrong?”
“You are quite wrong, Planchet and to prove it here is a crown for you to drink to my health.”
“I am much obliged to Monsieur for the money; and I promise to follow your instructions exactly. All the same, letters which suddenly materialize in houses that are bolted and locked—”
“—fall from Heaven, obviously.”
“Then Monsieur is happy?”
“Happy as a king, Planchet, happy as the day is long, happy as a clam at high water. . . .”
“Begging Monsieur’s pardon, may I take advantage of his happiness by going to bed?”
“Certainly, my lad. Off with you!”
“May all the blessings of Heaven fall upon you, Monsieur. All the same, that letter. . . .”
Planchet withdrew, shaking his head; even D’Artagnan’s liberality had not quelled his doubts. Left alone, D’Artagnan read the note over and over; then he kissed it over and over and held it up before him, gazing avidly at the lines traced by the febrile hand of his beautiful mistress. After much ado he went to bed and fell into a deep sleep crowned with golden dreams.
Rising at seven o’clock in the morning, he summoned Planchet who at his second call opened the door, his countenance still dark with anxiety.
“Planchet, I shall probably be gone all day,” D’Artagnan announced. “Your time is your own until seven o’clock this evening. At seven be ready, with two horses.”
“So we are in for it again, Monsieur? Where will their bullets pepper us—in the head, in the back or in the bowels?”
“You will take along your musketoon and a pair of pistols.”
“I knew it . . . I was certain . . . that accursed letter. . . .”
“Cheer up, lad, don’t be afraid! We are off on a little jaunt!”
“Ay, Monsieur, like the jaunt we took the other day, when it rained bullets and ambushes grew underfoot.”
“Well, if you are really frightened, Monsieur Planchet, I shall go alone. Better a man by himself than with a whimpering acolyte.”
“Monsieur does me wrong; after all, Monsieur has seen me at work, I think.”
“Certainly, you were brave on one occasion. But I thought you had used all your courage up.”
“In a tight spot, Monsieur will see that I can still hold my own. I am only begging you not to squander my efforts if you care to use them for long.”
“Have you pluck enough to come along with me tonight?”
“I trust so, Monsieur.”
“Then I can count upon you.”
“I shall be ready, Monsieur, at seven sharp. But I thought Monsieur had only one horse in the stables at the Hôtel des Gardes.”
“There may be only one now; by this evening there will be four.”
“So Monsieur’s journey was by relays?”
“Precisely,” D’Artagnan said, taking his leave.
At the front door he found Monsieur Bonacieux; he intended to pass without exchanging any words but the good haberdasher greeted him with such cordial politeness that his lodger felt compelled not only to return his salutation but to pass the time of day with him. Besides, how could our Gascon fail to entertain a certain condescension for a husband whose wife he was to meet that very evening at the place appointed? D’Artagnan approached Bonacieux with the most amiable air he could assume.
The conversation quite naturally revolved upon the unhappy man’s imprisonment. Monsieur Bonacieux, unaware that D’Artagnan had overheard his conversation with the man of Meung, described all the tortures he had undergone at the hands of that