The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [145]
And yet he had a marked preference for this gentleman. The noble and distinguished air of Athos, those flashes of greatness that shot now and then from the darkness in which he voluntarily enclosed himself, that unalterable evenness of temper which made him the most easygoing companion on earth, that forced and biting gaiety, that bravery which might have been called blind had it not been the result of the rarest coolheadedness—all these qualities drew more than esteem, more than friendship from d’Artagnan, they drew his admiration.
Indeed, even held up to M. de Tréville, the elegant and noble courtier, Athos, on days when he was in his best humor, could sustain the comparison advantageously. He was of average height, but that height was so admirably borne and so well proportioned that more than once, in his contests with Porthos, whose physical strength was proverbial among the musketeers, he had forced the giant to yield. His head, with its piercing eyes, its straight nose, its chin formed like that of Brutus, had an indefinable character of grandeur and grace. His hands, which he took no care of, were the despair of Aramis, who cultivated his with a great deal of almond butter and scented oil. The sound of his voice was at once penetrating and melodious. Then, too, what was indefinable in Athos, who always made himself obscure and small, was that delicate knowledge of the world and of the ways of the most brilliant society, that well-born habit which showed through without his knowing it in the least of his actions.
If it was a question of dinner, Athos arranged it better than anyone in the world, placing each guest in the place and rank that his ancestors had made for him or that he had made for himself. If it was a question of heraldry, Athos knew all the noble families of the realm, their genealogy, their alliances, their coats of arms, and the origin of their coats of arms. Etiquette had no minutiae that were foreign to him, he knew the rights of the great landowners, he had a thorough knowledge of hunting and falconry, and one day, while discussing this great art, he had astonished King Louis XIII himself, though he was a past master of it.
Like all the great lords of that time, he rode and wielded arms to perfection. More than that: his education had been so little neglected, even with regard to scholastic studies, so rare at that time among gentlemen, that he smiled at the tags of Latin Aramis came out with, and that Porthos looked as if he understood. Two or three times, to the great astonishment of his friends, when Aramis had made some rudimentary mistake, he had put the verb into the right tense or the noun into the right case. Moreover, his probity was unassailable, in that age when men of war compromised so easily with their religion and their conscience, lovers with the rigorous delicacy of our day, and the poor with the seventh commandment of God. Athos was, then, a highly extraordinary man.
And yet one saw so distinguished a nature, so handsome a creature, so fine an essence, sink insensibly into material life, as old men sink into physical and moral imbecility. In his times of privation, and they were frequent, the whole luminous part of Athos would be extinguished, and his brilliant side would disappear as if into a dark night.
Then, with the demigod vanished, there remained barely a man. Head hung down, eye dull, speech heavy and labored, Athos would stare for long hours either at his bottle and glass, or at Grimaud, who, accustomed to obeying by signs, read even the smallest wish in his master’s lifeless gaze and fulfilled it at once. If the four friends happened to meet during one of those moments, a single word, produced with violent effort, was all the share Athos would contribute to the conversation.