The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [135]
This time it was no host but a hostess who greeted him. A canny physiognomist, he took in at one glance the plump, merry countenance of the mistress of the place, understanding at once that he need not dissemble and that he had nothing to fear from anyone with so cheerful an air.
“My dear Madame,” he asked before dismounting, “could you tell me what has happened to a friend of mine, whom we were obliged to leave here about twelve days ago?”
“Does Monsieur mean a handsome young man? Twenty-three or twenty-four years old? A gentle, pleasant-spoken and very well-built young man?”
“Your description fits him like a glove. What’s more, he was wounded in the shoulder.”
“True, Monsieur.”
“Well, what about him?”
“He’s still here, Monsieur.”
D’Artagnan leaped off his horse, tossed the reins to Planchet and:
“God help us, Madame,” he cried, “you restore me to life. Where is my dear Aramis? I long to embrace him again; I vow I cannot wait to see him.”
“Begging your pardon, Monsieur, I doubt whether he can see you just now.”
“How so? Has he a lady with him?”
“God forbid, Monsieur; by Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what are you saying? No, he is with no woman.”
“Well then, whom is he with?”
“With the curé of Montdidier and the Superior of the Jesuits of Amiens.”
“Good Lord, can the poor fellow have taken a turn for the worse?”
“No, Monsieur, on the contrary. But after his troubles the grace of Heaven seems to have touched him and he has decided to take up Holy Orders.”
“Ah, yes, I had forgotten he was but a musketeer pro tem.”
“Is Monsieur still eager to see him?”
“More than ever, I assure you.”
“Well, Monsieur has only to take the right-hand staircase off the courtyard and knock at Number Five on the second floor.”
Following her instructions D’Artagnan found one of those outside stairways that may still be seen today in the courtyard of old inns. But it was no easy task to penetrate into the presence of the future abbé; the passages to the chamber Aramis occupied were guarded as closely as ever the alleys of the gardens of Armida in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. Bazin, stationed in the corridor, barred all entrance the more intrepidly because after years of trial he now found himself within sight of the goal he had so steadfastly dreamed of.
Ever since he could remember, poor Bazin had longed to serve a churchman and, year after year, he had been longing for the day when Aramis would at last exchange the uniform for the cassock. It was only his master’s frequent promises that the moment was almost at hand which kept Bazin in the service of a musketeer—a service in which, he was wont to add, his soul was in constant jeopardy.
Bazin was therefore overjoyed; this time in all probability his master would not retract. The combination of physical hurt and moral pain had surely produced the desired result! Suffering both in body and soul, Aramis had at last fixed his eyes and his thoughts upon religion, Bazin was sure. Ay, two horrible accidents had befallen him: the sudden disappearance of his mistress and the wound in his shoulder! Happily now he had come to regard these as warnings from an all-too indulgent Heaven!
In his present frame of mind then Bazin could not have imagined anything more unwelcome than D’Artagnan’s arrival, which must needs cast his master back again into the vortex of mundane concerns that had swept him along for so many years. Bazin therefore resolved to defend the door bravely and since, betrayed by the hostess, he could not say that Aramis was absent,