The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [52]
“You forget there is a woman in the case,” D’Artagnan protested, “a woman who was carried off, a woman who is probably being threatened, and perhaps even being tortured, and all because she is faithful to her mistress.”
“Careful, D’Artagnan, go easy! In my opinion, you are overzealous about Madame Bonacieux’s fate,” Aramis cautioned. “Woman was created for our destruction; it is from woman that we inherit all our afflictions.”
As Aramis uttered this maxim, Athos frowned and bit his lips.
“I’m not worried about Madame Bonacieux,” D’Artagnan answered, “but about the Queen. The King neglects her, the Cardinal persecutes her, and her friends are being killed one after the other.”
“Why does she love what we hate most in the world, the Spaniards and the English?”
“Spain is her native land,” D’Artagnan explained. “It is quite natural that she should love the Spaniards; are they not children of the same soil as herself? As for your second reproach, I have heard say that she does not love the English, but rather one Englishman.”
“Upon my faith,” said Athos, “that Englishman deserves to be loved. I never saw a man of nobler aspect in all my life.”
“And he dresses better than anyone in the world,” Porthos added. “I was at the Louvre the day he scattered his pearls. I picked up two that I sold for ten pistoles apiece. Do you know him, Aramis?”
“Quite as well as you do, gentlemen. I was with those who arrested him in the gardens at Amiens. (Monsieur de Putange, the Queen’s equerry, had let me in.) I was at the seminary at the time. The whole adventure seemed to me to be a cruel blow for the King.”
“If I knew where the Duke of Buckingham was,” said D’Artagnan, “nothing could prevent me from taking him by the hand and leading him to the Queen’s side, if only to enrage the Cardinal. After all, gentlemen, our true, sole and eternal enemy is His Eminence. If we could find some way to play him a cruel trick, I confess I would gladly risk my head.”
“Please set me right about what your haberdasher-landlord told you,” said Athos slowly. “Did he say the Queen believed that Buckingham came to Paris on the strength of a forged letter?”
“That is what the Queen fears.”
“Wait, wait a minute!” Aramis commanded.
“What for?” asked Porthos.
“Go on talking; I shall try to recall the exact circumstances,” Aramis answered, falling into a brown study.
“I am convinced,” D’Artagnan said, “that the abduction of the Queen’s seamstress is connected with what we have been discussing and perhaps even with the presence of Buckingham in Paris.”
“That Gascon is full of ideas!” Porthos said admiringly.
“I like to hear him speak,” said Athos, “his patois delights me.”
“Gentlemen, please listen to what I am about to tell you,” Aramis broke in.
“Go ahead!”
“We are listening!”
“We are all ears.”
“Yesterday,” said Aramis, “I happened to be at the house of a learned doctor of theology whom I sometimes consult about my studies.”
Athos smiled.
“He lives in a quiet, unfrequented quarter; his tastes and profession require it,” Aramis continued. “Now, just as I was leaving his house. . . .”
Aramis paused.
“Well, just as you were leaving his house?”
Aramis appeared to be making a great effort to master himself. He was like a man who, having launched full-sail into a lie, suddenly runs afoul of some unforeseen obstacle. But his three friends were staring at him, their ears were wide open, and he had no means of retreat.
“This doctor has a niece,” Aramis went on.
“Ah, he has a niece!” said Porthos meaningfully.
“A very respectable lady,” Aramis insisted, as the others burst into peals of laughter. “If you laugh or if you doubt my word,” Aramis warned, “you shall hear nothing further.”
“We believe like Mahometans and we are mute as tombstones,” said Athos.
“Very well then, I shall go on. This niece I mentioned often calls on her uncle; she happened to come yesterday while I was there and I had to offer to see her into