The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [132]
“No, because Porthos will pay you.”
“Hm!” said the innkeeper in a doubtful tone.
“He’s the favorite of a very grand lady, who won’t leave him in difficulties for a trifling sum like the one he owes you.”
“If I dare say what I think about that…”
“What you think?”
“I’ll say more: what I know.”
“What you know?”
“And even what I’m sure of.”
“And just what are you sure of?”
“I will say that I know this grand lady.”
“You?”
“Yes, I.”
“And how do you know her?”
“Oh, Monsieur, if I thought I could trust in your discretion…”
“Speak, and on my honor as a gentleman, you will not have to repent of your confidence.”
“Well, then, Monsieur, as you well realize, many things get done out of anxiety.”
“What did you do?”
“Oh, besides, it’s nothing that’s not within a creditor’s rights.”
“Well?”
“M. Porthos gave us a note for this duchess, and instructed us to put it in the post. His domestic hadn’t come back yet. As he couldn’t leave his room, he had no choice but to entrust us with his commissions.”
“And so?”
“Instead of putting the letter in the post, which is never very certain, I profited from the occasion of one of my lads going to Paris, and ordered him to deliver the letter to the duchess herself. This was fulfilling the intentions of M. Porthos, who had so firmly charged us with this letter, was it not?”
“Nearly.”
“Well, Monsieur, do you know what this grand lady is?”
“No. I’ve heard Porthos speak of her, that’s all.”
“Do you know what this supposed duchess is?”
“I repeat to you, I don’t know her.”
“She’s an old procureuse of the Châtelet,100 Monsieur, by the name of Mme Coquenard, who is at least fifty and still gives herself airs of being jealous. It seemed quite a singular thing to me, a princess living on the rue aux Ours.”101
“How do you know all that?”
“Because she flew into a great rage on receiving the letter, saying that M. Porthos was fickle, and that he had been wounded in a duel over some woman.”
“So he was wounded?”
“Ah, my God! What have I said?”
“You said that Porthos was wounded.”
“Yes, but he strictly forbade me to say it!”
“Why so?”
“Why, Monsieur? Because he boasted that he was going to perforate that stranger you left him in dispute with, and, on the contrary, despite all his bluster, it was the stranger who laid him out on the tiles. Now, as M. Porthos is an extremely vainglorious man, except towards the duchess, whom he thought to interest by telling her the story of his adventure, he did not want to admit to anyone that he had been wounded in a duel.”
“So it’s a sword stroke that’s keeping him in bed?”
“And a master stroke it was, I assure you. Your friend must have his soul well pinned to his body.”
“You were there, then?”
“Monsieur, I followed them out of curiosity, so that I saw the combat without the combatants seeing me.”
“And how did it go?”
“Oh, it wasn’t a long affair, I warrant you. They put themselves on guard; the stranger made a feint, then a thrust, and all that so quickly that, by the time M. Porthos went to parry, he already had three inches of steel in his chest. He fell backwards. The stranger at once put his sword point to his throat, and M. Porthos, seeing himself at the mercy of his adversary, admitted that he was beaten. At which point the stranger asked him his name, and learning that he was M. Porthos and not M. d’Artagnan, offered him his arm, brought him back to the hôtel, mounted his horse, and disappeared.”
“So it was M. d’Artagnan the stranger was after?”
“It seems so.”
“And do you know what became of him?”
“No. I had never seen him till that moment, and we haven’t seen him again since.”
“Very well, I know what I wanted to know. Now, you say that Porthos’s room is on the second floor, number one?”
“Yes, Monsieur, the inn’s finest, a room I’d have had the chance to rent ten times already.”
“Bah! Calm yourself,” d’Artagnan said, laughing. “Porthos will pay you with the duchess Coquenard’s money.”
“Oh, Monsieur, procureuse or duchess, if she loosened her purse strings, this would