The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [119]
Besides, how not show a little condescension to a husband whose wife has given you a rendezvous that same evening at Saint-Cloud, across from M. d’Estrées’s pavilion! D’Artagnan approached with the most amiable air he could assume.
The conversation naturally turned to the poor man’s incarceration. M. Bonacieux, who was not aware that d’Artagnan had overheard his conversation with the unknown man from Meung, told his young tenant about the persecutions of that monster of a M. de Laffemas, whom he never ceased to qualify throughout his account with the title of the cardinal’s hangman, and went on at length about the Bastille, the bolts, the peepholes, the air vents, the bars, and the instruments of torture.
D’Artagnan listened to him with exemplary willingness; then, when he had finished, asked:
“And do you know who abducted Mme Bonacieux? For I have not forgotten that it is to that sorry circumstance that I owe the good fortune of having made your acquaintance.”
“Ah!” said M. Bonacieux, “they took good care not to tell me that, and my wife for her part has sworn to me by all the gods in heaven that she doesn’t know. But you yourself,” M. Bonacieux went on in a tone of perfect joviality, “what became of you over the past few days? I haven’t seen you, or your friends either, and I don’t think it was on the cobblestones of Paris that you picked up all the dust that Planchet brushed from your boots yesterday.”
“You’re right, my dear M. Bonacieux, my friends and I went on a little journey.”
“Far from here?”
“Oh, my God, no! Only forty leagues. We had to take M. Athos to the waters at Forges, where my friends stayed on.”
“But you came back, didn’t you?” M. Bonacieux picked up, giving his physiognomy its most mischievous air. “A handsome lad like you doesn’t obtain long leaves from his mistress, and we were impatiently awaited in Paris, isn’t that so?”
“By heaven,” the young man said, laughing, “I confess it to you, all the more readily, my dear M. Bonacieux, in that I see one can hide nothing from you. Yes, I was awaited, and quite impatiently, I guarantee you.”
A slight cloud passed over Bonacieux’s brow, but so slight that d’Artagnan did not perceive it.
“And we’re to be rewarded for our diligence?” the mercer went on, with a slight alteration in his voice, an alteration that d’Artagnan noticed no more than he had the momentary cloud that, an instant before, had darkened the worthy man’s face.
“Ah, let’s not play the saint!” d’Artagnan said, laughing.
“No, what I said to you,” Bonacieux picked up, “was only so as to know if we’ll be coming home late.”
“Why this question, my dear landlord?” asked d’Artagnan. “Do you count on waiting up for me?”
“No, it’s that since my arrest and the robbery committed upon me, I’m afraid each time I hear a door open, especially at night. What do you want, I’m no man of the sword, indeed not!”
“Well, don’t be frightened if I come home at one, or two, or three in the morning; still less so if I don’t come home at all.”
This time Bonacieux turned so pale that d’Artagnan could not help noticing it and asked him what was wrong.
“Nothing,” replied Bonacieux, “nothing. Since my misfortunes, I’ve become subject to weak spells that come over me all at once, and I just felt a shiver. Pay no attention to that, you who are only busy being happy.”
“I must be very busy then, because that I am.”
“Not yet, wait a little: you said this evening.”
“Ah, well, this evening will come, thank God! And maybe you’re waiting for it as impatiently as I am. Maybe this evening Mme Bonacieux will visit the conjugal dwelling.”
“Mme Bonacieux is not free tonight,” the husband replied gravely, “her service keeps her at the Louvre.”
“Too bad for you, my dear landlord, too bad. When I’m happy, I want everyone in the world to be. But it seems that’s not possible.”
And the young man strode off, laughing loudly at the joke which he alone, as he thought, could understand.
“Have a good time!” replied Bonacieux in a sepulchral voice.