The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [134]
Mousqueton bowed modestly, adding:
“Now Monsieur understands the relation between the New World and the bottles which now grace our desk and our chest of drawers. Perhaps Monsieur would care to sample one of our bottles and tell us quite frankly what he thinks of our wares.”
“Thank you, Mousqueton, unfortunately I have just breakfasted.”
“Well, Mousqueton, lay the table and while you and I breakfast, Monsieur D’Artagnan can tell us what he has been doing these last ten days.”
“Willingly,” D’Artagnan said. And whilst Porthos and Mousqueton ate with the appetites of convalescents and with that brotherly cordiality which unties men in times of adversity, D’Artagnan told how Aramis, wounded, had remained at Crévecoeur . . . how Athos, accused of counterfeiting, had been left fighting off four men at Amiens . . . and how he, D’Artagnan, had been forced to run the Comte de Vardes through the body in order to reach England. . . . There D’Artagnan’s confidences stopped; he merely added that on his return from England he brought back four magnificent horses, one for himself and one for each of his comrades, and that the one destined for Porthos was stabled in the inn. . . .
At that moment Planchet entered to inform his master that the horses were sufficiently refreshed and that they could all reach Clermont that night. Since D’Artagnan was tolerably reassured about Porthos and very anxious to obtain news of Aramis and Athos, he shook hands with the portly convalescent, telling him what he meant to do. Probably he would be returning through Chantilly; he therefore proposed to call for Porthos on the way if Porthos were still at the Hostelry of the Grand Saint-Martin.
Porthos replied that in all probability his knee would not permit him to leave yet a while; besides, he must stay at Chantilly to await the reply from his duchess.
“May the reply be prompt and favorable,” our Gascon said and, recommending Porthos to Mousqueton, he settled the musketeer’s debt to the inn. Then, with Planchet relieved of one horse, he rode off toward Crèvecoeur. . . .
XXVI
OF ARAMIS AND HIS THESIS
D’Artagnan had said nothing to Porthos about his wound or about his precious duchess. Our young man from Béarn was young, to be sure, but he was wise and prudent beyond his years. He had therefore pretended to believe all the vainglorious musketeer had told him, for he was convinced that no friendship can stand the strain of a secret discovered, particularly when that secret involves a man’s pride. Again, a man always enjoys a certain feeling of mental superiority over those whose lives he knows better than they suspect. Further, D’Artagnan planned other intrigues for the future and was resolved that his three friends could be instrumental in making his fortune for him; he therefore was not at all sorry to grasp beforehand the invisible strings by which he hoped to move them.
Yet as he journeyed onward a profound melancholy weighed heavily upon his heart. He thought of the young and pretty Madame Bonacieux who was to have given him the reward of his devotion; but in all justice to him it must be confessed that his sorrow rose less from regret at the happiness he had missed than from his fear that some misfortune had befallen the poor woman. In his opinion there was no doubt she had become a victim of the Cardinal’s vengeance, and as everyone knew, the Cardinal’s vengeance was a terrible thing. How D’Artagnan himself could have found favor in the minister’s eyes was a complete mystery to him; doubtless Monsieur de Cavois would have revealed this to him had D’Artagnan been at home when the Captain of the Cardinal’s guards called upon him.
Now nothing makes time pass more quickly and shortens a journey more effectively than thoughts which absorb the thinker’s every faculty. External existence seems to resemble a deep slumber of which this thought is the dream. Under its influence time becomes measureless and space loses all distance. We leave our place