The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [151]
D’Artagnan told him how he had found Porthos in bed with a sprain, and Aramis at a table between two theologians. As he was finishing, the host came back with the requested bottles and a ham which, fortunately for him, had not gone to the cellar.
“Very good,” said Athos, filling his glass and d’Artagnan’s. “Here’s to Porthos and Aramis. But you, my friend, what’s the matter with you, and what has happened to you personally? I find you have an ominous look.”
“Alas!” said d’Artagnan, “it’s that I’m the unhappiest of us all!”
“You unhappy, d’Artagnan?” said Athos. “Come, how are you unhappy? Tell me.”
“Later,” said d’Artagnan.
“Later? And why later? Because you think I’m drunk, d’Artagnan? Remember this well: my ideas are never clearer than when I’m in my cups. Speak, then, I’m all ears.”
D’Artagnan recounted his adventure with Mme Bonacieux.
Athos listened without batting an eye. When he finished, he said:
“That’s all trifles, mere trifles!”
This was Athos’s word.
“You always say ‘trifles!’ my dear Athos,” said d’Artagnan. “It doesn’t suit you, who have never been in love.”
Athos’s dead eye suddenly lit up; but this was only a flash; then it became as dull and vague as before.
“That’s true,” he said calmly, “I have never been in love.”
“So you see very well, you heart of stone,” said d’Artagnan, “that you’re wrong to be hard on those of us who are tenderhearted.”
“Tenderhearted is brokenhearted,” said Athos.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that love is a lottery in which the one who wins, wins death! You’re very lucky to have lost, believe me, my dear d’Artagnan. And if I have one piece of advice to give you, it’s to go on losing.”
“She seemed to love me so much!”
“She seemed to.”
“Oh, she did love me!”
“Child! There’s no man who hasn’t believed, like you, that his mistress loved him, and there’s no man whose mistress hasn’t deceived him.”
“Except you, Athos, who have never had one.”
“That’s true,” said Athos, after a moment’s silence, “I’ve never had one. Let’s drink!”
“Well, then, philosopher that you are,” said d’Artagnan, “teach me, support me, I need to learn and to be consoled.”
“Consoled for what?”
“For my unhappiness.”
“Your unhappiness is laughable,” said Athos, shrugging his shoulders. “I’d be curious to know what you’d say if I told you a love story.”
“That happened to you?”
“Or to a friend of mine, what matter!”
“Tell me, Athos, tell me.”
“Let’s drink, it will be better.”
“Drink and tell.”
“In fact, that can be done,” said Athos, emptying his glass and filling it again. “The two go perfectly together.”
“I’m listening,” said d’Artagnan.
Athos collected himself, and, as he collected himself, d’Artagnan saw him turn pale. He had reached that stage of drunkenness when vulgar drinkers fall down and sleep. He, however, dreamed aloud without sleeping. This drunken somnambulism had something frightening about it.
“You absolutely insist on it?” he asked.
“I beg you,” said d’Artagnan.
“Let it be as you wish, then. A friend of mine—not I, but a friend of mine, you understand!” said Athos, interrupting himself with a sombre smile, “one of the counts of my province, that is, of Berry, as noble as a Dandolo or a Montmorency,118 fell in love at twenty-five with a girl of sixteen, as beautiful as love itself. An ardent mind showed through the naïveté of her age, the mind not of a woman but of a poet—she did not please, she intoxicated. She lived in a little village with her brother, who was a curate. The two were newly arrived in the area. Where they came from no one knew, but seeing her so beautiful and her brother so pious, no one thought of asking where they came from. Besides, they were said to be of good extraction. My friend, who was the lord of the place, might have seduced her or taken her by force if he liked: he was the master; who would have come to the aid of two strangers, two unknown people? Unfortunately, he was an honest man: he married her. The fool, the simpleton, the imbecile!”
“But why so, if he loved her?” asked d’Artagnan.
“Wait a moment,” said Athos.