The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [141]
“And wrong they are, d’Artagnan, for death is the doorway that leads to perdition or salvation.”
“All right, but, please, let’s not theologize, Aramis. You must have had enough for the rest of the day, and as for me, I’ve all but forgotten the little Latin I ever knew; besides, I confess to you, I haven’t eaten anything since ten o’clock this morning, and I’m as hungry as the very devil.”
“We’ll dine soon, my dear friend; only you’ll remember that today is Friday, and on such a day I can neither see nor eat any meat. If you’ll content yourself with my dinner, it’s composed of cooked tetragons and fruit.”
“What do you mean by tetragons?” d’Artagnan asked uneasily.
“I mean spinach,” said Aramis. “But for you I’ll add eggs, and that is a grave infraction of the rule, for eggs are meat, since they engender the chicken.”
“It’s hardly a succulent feast, but never mind; I’ll put up with it in order to stay with you.”
“I am grateful to you for the sacrifice,” said Aramis, “and if it doesn’t profit your body, you may be certain it will profit your soul.”
“So, Aramis, you’re decidedly entering religion. What will our friends say, what will M. de Tréville say? They’ll treat you as a deserter, I warn you.”
“I am not entering religion, I am re-entering it. It was the Church that I deserted for the world, for you know I did violence to myself in order to put on a musketeer’s tabard.”
“I know nothing about it.”
“You’re unaware of how I left the seminary?”
“Completely.”
“Here is my story. Besides, the Scriptures say, ‘Confess one to another,’111 and so I shall confess to you, d’Artagnan.”
“And I give you absolution beforehand, so you can see I’m a good man.”
“Do not joke about holy things, my friend.”
“Speak, then, I’m listening.”
“I had been in the seminary from the age of nine, I was going to be twenty in three days, I was going to be an abbé, and there was no more to be said. One evening I had gone, as was my habit, to a house I frequented with pleasure—one is young, one is weak, what do you want! An officer who looked with a jealous eye upon my reading the Lives of the Saints to the mistress of the house came in all at once and without being announced. As it happened, that evening I had translated an episode from Judith,112 and I had just communicated my verses to the lady, who paid me all sorts of compliments and, leaning over my shoulder, was rereading them with me. The pose, which was somewhat casual, I admit, offended this officer. He said nothing; but when I left, he came out after me and overtook me.
“‘Monsieur l’abbé,’” he said, ‘do you like canings?’
“‘I cannot say, Monsieur,’ I replied, ‘no one has ever dared give me one.’
“‘Well, then, listen to me, Monsieur l’abbé: if you go back to the house where I met you this evening, I will certainly dare!’
“I believe I was afraid, I became very pale, I felt my legs giving way, I sought for some reply but could find none and said nothing.
“The officer was waiting for that reply, and seeing it delayed, began to laugh, turned his back on me, and went into the house again. I returned to the seminary.
“I am a proper gentleman, and I am hot-blooded, as you may have noticed, my dear d’Artagnan. The insult was terrible, and, unknown though it was to the rest of the world, I felt it living and stirring in the bottom of my heart. I declared to my superiors that I did not feel myself sufficiently prepared for ordination, and, at my request, the ceremony was put off for a year.
“I went to find the best fencing master in Paris, made arrangements with him to take a lesson every day, and every day for a year I took that lesson. Then, on the anniversary of the day I was insulted, I hung my cassock on a nail, put on the full costume of a cavalier, and went to a ball given by a woman I was friends with, and where I knew that my man should be found. It was on the rue des Francs-Bourgeois, quite near to la Force.113
“Indeed, my officer was there. I went up to him while he was singing a love song and looking tenderly at a woman, and interrupted him right in the middle