The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [131]
“Did you give your guest this message?”
“We were very careful to do nothing of the kind, Monsieur, because he would have found out how we delivered the letter.”
“So he still expects the money?”
“Why, yes, Monsieur. Just yesterday he wrote again, but this time his lackey posted the letter.”
“And the Duchess—I mean Madame la Procureuse—the lawyer’s wife—is old and ugly?”
“At least fifty years old, Monsieur, and my man Pathaud reported that she was no pleasure to behold!”
“Never mind, landlord, the uglier she is, the more generous she will be. Besides, Monsieur Porthos can’t owe you so very much.”
“Well, no, Monsieur, not very much: just a matter of twenty pistoles so far, not counting the doctor. Oh no! Monsieur Porthos is a very generous man; he denies himself nothing. I can see he is used to lordly living.”
“Well, my dear host, if his mistress forsakes him, I’m sure he will not lack friends. Cheer up, take things in your stride, and pray continue to treat him with all the courtesy his situation demands.”
“Monsieur promised me not to breathe a word about the lawyerling duchess, eh? Monsieur will not betray my confidence in regard to the wound?”
“I have given you my word!”
“You see, Monsieur, if he knew I had told you, he would kill me!”
“Rest easy, my dear landlord; Monsieur Porthos is not so fierce or diabolic as he would have you believe.”
With which D’Artagnan nodded to the host and climbed the stairs, leaving the good man somewhat more cheerful about two things he seemed to value very much—the money owed him and his life. At the top of the stairs, he saw a monstrously conspicuous door, with, over the panel, a gigantic sign, traced in black ink, reading Number One. D’Artagnan, knocking, was summoned to enter. He was greeted with a hilarious spectacle.
Porthos lay back in bed in sumptuous comfort; he was playing lansquenet with Mousqueton, just to keep his hand in. A spit loaded with partridges was turning gaily before the fire; at either side of the spacious chimney piece, on twin andirons, stood two chafing dishes over which two boiling stewpans exhaled the most fragrant odor of gibelotte—fricassee of hare—and matelotte—a fish stew with prevailing flavors of wine, onions and herbs. The top of a writing desk and the marble cover of a chest of drawers loomed aglitter with empty bottles.
Seeing his friend, Porthos cried out with joy:
“D’Artagnan? You? I can scarcely believe my eyes! By God, you are welcome, my dear fellow. Forgive me for not rising to greet you.” Then with a certain degree of embarrassment, Porthos added: “Have you heard about me?”
“No!”
“You haven’t talked to the landlord?”
“No, Porthos, he told me where to find you and up I came.”
Porthos heaved a sigh of relief.
“Tell me all about yourself, Porthos?” D’Artagnan asked.
“Ah, it’s a sorry story,” Porthos sighed. “You left me here fighting against a stranger . . . I had dealt him three neat thrusts . . . I was about to settle him with a fourth . . . and, guess what happened?”
“What?”
“I tripped on a stone and sprained my knee.”
“What dreadful luck!”
“Ay, my friend, it’s God’s truth! Happily for the cad I was fighting, I couldn’t dispatch him. He had enough of it and took to his heels. . . . And you, D’Artagnan?”
“I am quite well, as you see. But tell me about your knee? It keeps you abed, I dare say.”
“Yes, my friend, it’s an infernal nuisance, but in a few days, I shall be up and about!”
“Why didn’t you go back to Paris, Porthos? You must find it terribly boring here?”
“I wanted to go back to Paris. It is boring here, too, but I must confess—”
“What?”
“Well, as you may judge, I was terribly bored here. And I had the seventy-five pistoles you lent me. So I gambled with a gentleman who happened to be staying here overnight; I invited him up for a game of dice. He accepted and very swiftly transferred your seventy-five pistoles from my pocket to his, not to mention my horse, which I lost to him in a last, desperate effort to recoup. But enough of