The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [100]
At the moment when Bonacieux’s knuckle resounded on the door, the two young people felt their hearts leap.
“There’s nobody home,” said Bonacieux.
“Never mind, let’s still go to your place; we’ll be safer than in some doorway.”
“Ah, my God!” murmured Mme Bonacieux, “we won’t be able to hear anything!”
“On the contrary,” said d’Artagnan, “we’ll hear all the better.”
D’Artagnan removed the three or four tiles that made his room another ear of Dionysius,81 spread a rug on the floor, knelt down, and made a sign to Mme Bonacieux to bend down to the opening as he had done.
“You’re sure there’s nobody there?” asked the stranger.
“I guarantee it,” said Bonacieux.
“And you think your wife…”
“Has returned to the Louvre.”
“Without speaking to anyone other than you?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“It’s an important point, you understand.”
“So the news I’ve brought you is of some value?”
“Very great value, my dear Bonacieux, I won’t conceal it from you.”
“Then the cardinal will be pleased with me?”
“I have no doubt of it.”
“The great cardinal!”
“You’re sure that your wife didn’t mention any proper names in her conversation with you?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“She didn’t name Mme de Chevreuse, or M. de Buckingham, or Mme de Vernet?”
“No, she only told me that she wanted to send me to London to serve the interest of an illustrious person.”
“The traitor!” murmured Mme Bonacieux.
“Hush!” said d’Artagnan, taking her hand, which she let him have without thinking of it.
“Never mind,” the man in the cloak went on, “you’re a ninny not to have pretended to accept the commission. You’d have the letter now; the threatened State would be saved, and you…”
“And I?”
“And you! Why, the cardinal would have granted you letters of nobility…”
“He told you so?”
“Yes, I know he wanted to give you that surprise.”
“Don’t worry,” Bonacieux picked up, “my wife adores me, and there’s still time.”
“The ninny!” murmured Mme Bonacieux.
“Hush!” said d’Artagnan, squeezing her hand more strongly.
“How is there still time?” the man in the cloak picked up.
“I go back to the Louvre, I ask for Mme Bonacieux, I tell her I’ve thought it over, I take up the matter again, I obtain the letter, and I go running to the cardinal.”
“Well, then, be quick! I’ll come back soon to find out what comes of your efforts.”
The unknown man left.
“The scoundrel!” said Mme Bonacieux, again addressing this epithet to her husband.
“Hush!” d’Artagnan repeated, squeezing her hand still more strongly.
Then a terrible howl interrupted the reflections of d’Artagnan and Mme Bonacieux. It was her husband, who had noticed the disappearance of his pouch and was crying thief.
“Oh, my God!” cried Mme Bonacieux, “he’ll rouse the whole quarter.”
Bonacieux shouted for a long time. But as such cries, given their frequency, attracted no one in the rue des Fossoyeurs, and, besides that, the mercer’s house had been rather ill-famed for some time, Bonacieux, seeing that no one came, went out himself, still shouting, and his voice could be heard moving off in the direction of the rue du Bac.
“And now that he’s gone, it’s our turn to get away,” said Mme Bonacieux. “Courage, but prudence above all, and remember your duty is to the queen.”
“To her and to you!” cried d’Artagnan. “Don’t worry, beautiful Constance, I’ll come back worthy of her gratitude, but will I also come back worthy of your love?”
The young woman replied only with the bright flush that colored her cheeks. A few moments later, d’Artagnan left in his turn, also wrapped in a great cloak, the skirt of which was raised cavalierly by the scabbard of a long sword.
Mme Bonacieux’s eyes followed him in that long, loving gaze with which a woman accompanies the man she feels she loves; but when he disappeared around the corner of the street, she fell to her knees, clasped her hands, and cried out:
“Oh, my God, protect the queen, protect me!”
XIX
THE CAMPAIGN PLAN
D’Artagnan went straight to M. de Tréville. He had realized that in a few minutes the