The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [136]
Porthos replied that, in all probability, his sprain would not allow him to leave in the meantime. Besides, he had to stay in Chantilly to await a reply from his duchess.
D’Artagnan wished him a prompt and good reply, and after commending Porthos to Mousqueton once again and settling his account with the host, he set out on his way with Planchet, already relieved of one of his spare horses.
XXVI
THE THESIS OF ARAMIS
D’Artagnan had said nothing to Porthos about his wound, or about his procureuse. Our Béarnais was a very wise lad, young as he was. He had therefore pretended to believe everything the vainglorious musketeer had told him, convinced that there is no friendship that cares about an overheard secret, above all when that secret has to do with pride; then one always has a certain moral superiority over those whose life one knows.
So d’Artagnan, in his plans for intrigues to come, and resolved as he was to make his three companions the instruments of his fortune, did not mind bringing together in his hand ahead of time the invisible threads by means of which he counted on leading them.
However, all along his way, a deep sadness gripped his heart: he thought of the young and pretty Mme Bonacieux, who was to have given him the reward for his devotion. But, we hasten to say, the young man’s sadness came less from regret for his lost happiness than from the fear he felt lest some misfortune befall the poor woman. For him there was no doubt that she was the victim of the cardinal’s vengeance, and, as we know, the cardinal’s vengeance was terrible. What he did not know was how he himself had found grace in His Eminence’s eyes, and that was no doubt what M. de Cavois would have revealed to him had he found him at home.
Nothing makes the time pass or shortens the way like a thought that absorbs in itself all the faculties of the one who is thinking. External existence is then like a sleep of which this thought is the dream. Under its influence, time has no more measure, space has no more distance. You leave one place and arrive at another, that is all. Of the interval in between, nothing more remains in your memory than a vague mist in which a thousand confused images of trees, mountains, and landscapes dissolve. It was in the grips of this hallucination that d’Artagnan covered, at whatever speed his horse wished to take, the six or eight leagues from Chantilly to Crèvecoeur, reaching that village without recalling anything he had met on the way.
Only there did memory return to him. He shook his head, spotted the tavern where he had left Aramis, and, setting his horse at a trot, drew up at the gate.
This time it was not a host but a hostess who received him. D’Artagnan was a physiognomist; he took in the fat, jolly figure of the mistress of the place at a single glance, and understood that he had no need to pretend with her, and that he had nothing to fear from such a joyful physiognomy.
“My good woman,” d’Artagnan asked her, “can you tell me what has become of a friend of mine whom we were forced to leave here some twelve days ago?”
“A handsome young man of twenty-three or twenty-four, gentle, amiable, well-built?”
“Yes, and wounded in the shoulder.”
“That’s it!”
“Exactly.”
“Well, Monsieur, he’s still here.”
“Ah, pardieu, my dear lady,” said d’Artagnan, dismounting and throwing his horse’s bridle over Planchet’s arm, “you’ve restored me to life! Tell me where he is, that dear Aramis, so that I can embrace him, for I admit I can’t wait to see him again!”
“Excuse me, Monsieur, but I doubt he can receive you at this moment.”
“Why not? Is he with a woman?”
“Lord, what are you saying, poor lad! No, Monsieur, he is not with a woman.”
“And who is he with, then?”
“With the curate of Montdidier and the superior of the Jesuits of Amiens.”
“My God!” cried d’Artagnan, “has the poor lad taken a turn for the worse?”
“No, Monsieur, on the contrary, as a result of his illness he has been touched by grace