The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [8]
However, D’Artagnan first wished to examine the insolent fellow who dared make mock of him. His haughty glance fell upon the stranger, a man of forty or forty-five years of age, pale of complexion, with piercing black eyes, a nose boldly fashioned and a black, impeccably trimmed mustache. He wore a doublet and hose of violet, with trimming of like color and no other ornament save the customary slashes through which the shirt appeared. Though new, his doublet and hose looked rumpled, like traveling clothes long packed in a portmanteau. D’Artagnan took in all these details with the speed of the most meticulous observer and also, doubtless, with an instinctive presentiment that this stranger was to exercise a powerful influence upon his future life.
As D’Artagnan stared at the gentleman in violet, the latter was uttering the most sagacious and profound commentary on the nag of Béarn. His two auditors roared with laughter, at which the narrator actually smiled. This time, there could be no doubt whatsoever; D’Artagnan had been truly insulted. Convinced of it, he pulled his beret down over his eyes, and, attempting to copy certain courtly gestures he had picked up from noblemen traveling through Gascony, he stepped forward, his right hand on the hilt of his sword, his left against his hip. Unfortunately fast as he moved, waxing angrier at every step, he seemed to become more confused. Instead of the polite, lofty speech he had prepared as a challenge, his tongue could produce nothing better than a vulgar exclamation which he topped off with a furious gesture.
“Look here, Monsieur,” he cried. “Look here, you, there, skulking behind that shutter . . . yes, I mean you . . . Look here! tell me what you are laughing at, will you, and we can laugh together!”
The gentleman’s gaze moved slowly away from the nag and slowly toward its master, as though a certain lapse of time were requisite before he could understand how such extraordinary reproaches could be leveled at him. Then, when he could entertain no doubt on the matter, he frowned slightly. A moment later, in a tone of irony indescribable in its insolence, he replied:
“I am not aware that I was addressing you, Monsieur.”
“Never mind,” countered D’Artagnan, exasperated by this medley of insolence and good manners, of convention and disdain, “I was addressing you!”
The stranger eyed him again, smiled fleetingly as before, and, withdrawing from the window, walked slowly out of the inn. He took his stand two paces from D’Artagnan and stood there, rooted to the spot, staring at the horse. His tranquil manner and bantering air increased the hilarity of his auditors, who were still gathered around the window, watching the scene.
Seeing him approach, D’Artagnan drew his sword a full foot out of its scabbard.
“Upon my word, this horse is certainly a buttercup!” observed the stranger, pursuing his investigations. His remarks were addressed to his audience at the window; apparently, he was quite unconscious of D’Artagnan’s exasperation although the youth stood between him and his audience. “This color is quite common in botany but until now it has been very rare among horses.”
“Laugh all you will at my horse,” said D’Artagnan angrily. He recalled how his hero, Monsieur de Tréville, had ridden a bob-tailed nag from the Midi to Fortune. “I dare you to smile at his master.”
“As you may judge from my cast of features, Monsieur, I do not laugh frequently,” the stranger replied. “But I intend to preserve the privilege of laughing whenever I please.”
“As for me,” cried D’Artagnan, “I will brook no man’s laughter when it irks me.”
“Well, well, Monsieur I dare say you are right,” said the stranger edging away. But D’Artagnan was not the type of youth to suffer anyone to escape him, least of all a man who had ridiculed him so impudently. Drawing