The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [152]
“Well, then?”
“Well, then, one day when she was hunting with her husband,” Athos went on in a low voice and speaking very quickly, “she fell from her horse and fainted. The count rushed to her aid, and, as she was suffocating in her clothes, he cut them open with his dagger and bared her shoulder. Guess what she had on her shoulder, d’Artagnan?” said Athos, with a loud burst of laughter.
“How should I know?” asked d’Artagnan.
“A fleur-de-lis,” said Athos. “She was branded!”119
And Athos emptied the glass he was holding at one draft.
“Horrible!” cried d’Artagnan. “What are you telling me?”
“The truth. My dear, the angel was a demon. The poor girl had been a thief.”
“And what did the count do?”
“The count was a great lord, he had the right to render low and high justice on his lands: he finished tearing off the countess’s clothes, tied her hands behind her back, and hanged her from a tree.”
“Good heavens, Athos, a murder!” cried d’Artagnan.
“Yes, a murder, no more nor less,” said Athos, pale as death. “But I’m left without wine, it seems.”
And Athos seized the last remaining bottle by the neck and emptied it at one draft, as he would have done an ordinary glass.
Then he let his head drop in both hands. D’Artagnan sat staring at him, stricken with horror.
“That cured me of beautiful, poetic, and loving women,” said Athos, straightening up and not thinking of maintaining his fable about the count. “God grant you as much! Let’s drink!”
“So she’s dead?” stammered d’Artagnan.
“Parbleu!” said Athos. “But reach me your glass. Ham, you rascal,” cried Athos, “we can’t drink any more!”
“And her brother?” d’Artagnan added timidly.
“Her brother?” Athos picked up.
“Yes, the priest.”
“Ah! I made inquiries about him in order to hang him, too, but he had anticipated me; he had quit his parish the evening before.”
“Did anyone at least find out who the wretch was?”
“He was no doubt the beauty’s first lover and accomplice, a worthy man, who may have pretended to be a priest in order to marry off his mistress and assure her future. He must have been drawn and quartered, or so I hope.”
“Oh, my God, my God!” said d’Artagnan, stunned by this horrible adventure.
“Have some of this ham, d’Artagnan, it’s exquisite,” said Athos, cutting a slice, which he put on the young man’s plate. “Too bad there weren’t four like that in the cellar. I’d have drunk fifty bottles more!”
D’Artagnan could no longer bear this conversation; it would have driven him mad. He let his head drop in both hands and pretended to sleep.
“Young people don’t know how to drink anymore,” said Athos, looking at him with pity, “and yet he’s one of the best!…”
XXVIII
THE RETURN
D’Artagnan was left stunned by Athos’s terrible secret. However, many things still seemed obscure to him in this half revelation. First of all, it had been made by a man totally drunk to a man who was half so, and yet, despite the vagueness that rises to the brain from the vapors of two or three bottles of burgundy, d’Artagnan, on waking up the next morning, had Athos’s every word as present to his mind as if they had been imprinted there just as they had fallen from his mouth. All this doubt only gave him a more intense desire to reach some certainty, and he went to his friend with the firm intention of renewing the evening’s conversation; but he found Athos completely sober again—that is, the most subtle and impenetrable of men.
Moreover, after shaking hands with him, the musketeer anticipated his thoughts.
“I was rather drunk yesterday, my dear d’Artagnan,” he said. “I felt it this morning in my tongue, which was still quite thick, and in my pulse, which was still quite agitated. I’ll bet I came out with a thousand extravagances.”
And in saying these words, he looked at his friend with a fixity that embarrassed him.
“Why, not at all,” replied d’Artagnan. “If I remember rightly, you said nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Ah, you astonish