The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [171]
“It’s my cousin!” cried the procureuse. “Come in, come in, M. Porthos.”
Porthos’s name had its effect on the clerks, who started to laugh; but Porthos turned around, and all the faces resumed their gravity.
They reached the procureur’s study after passing through the antechamber where the clerks were, and the office where they ought to have been: the latter was a sort of dark hall furnished with waste paper. On leaving the office, they passed the kitchen on the right and entered the reception room.
All these rooms leading one to the other hardly inspired any good ideas in Porthos. Talk could be heard from far off through all those open doors; then, in passing, he had cast a rapid and investigative glance into the kitchen, and confessed to himself, to the shame of the procureuse and his own great regret, that he had not seen that fire, that animation, that bustle which usually reign in such a sanctuary of gluttony before the start of a good meal.
The procureur had no doubt been informed of this visit, for he showed no surprise on seeing Porthos, who went up to him with a rather jaunty air and bowed courteously.
“We are cousins, it seems, M. Porthos?” said the procureur, raising himself in his rattan wheelchair with the help of his arms.
The old man, enveloped in a great black doublet in which his slender body swam, was green and dry. His little gray eyes glittered like carbuncles and seemed, along with his grimacing mouth, to be the only part of his face that had any life left in it. Unfortunately, the legs had begun to refuse their service to the rest of this bony mechanism; in the five or six months since this weakening had made itself felt, the worthy procureur had very nearly become the slave of his wife.
The cousin was accepted with resignation, that was all. A spry Master Coquenard would have declined any relation with M. Porthos.
“Yes, Monsieur, we are cousins,” said the unfazed Porthos, who, besides, had never counted on being received enthusiastically by the husband.
“Through the female side, I believe?” the procureur said maliciously.
Porthos felt none of this mockery and took it for a naïveté at which he laughed into his thick mustache. Mme Coquenard, who knew that a naive procureur was an extremely rare variety of the species, smiled slightly and blushed deeply.
Since Porthos’s arrival, Master Coquenard had been casting his eyes uneasily on a large cupboard placed opposite his oak desk. Porthos understood that this cupboard, though it did not correspond at all to the form of the one he had seen in his dreams, must be the blessed chest, and he applauded the fact that the reality was six feet taller than the dream.
Master Coquenard did not push his genealogical investigations any further, but, shifting his uneasy gaze from the cupboard to Porthos, contented himself with saying:
“Before leaving for the country, Monsieur our cousin will surely do us the favor of dining with us once, will he not, Mme Coquenard?”
This time Porthos received the blow right in the stomach, and felt it. It seemed that, for her part, Mme Coquenard was also not insensible of it, for she added:
“My cousin will not come again if we treat him badly; but, on the contrary, he has too little time to spend in Paris, and therefore to see us, for us not to insist that he give us almost every moment he can spare before his departure.”
“Oh, my legs, my poor legs, where have you gone?” murmured Coquenard. And he attempted to smile.
This help, which had come to Porthos just as he was attacked in his gastronomic hopes, filled the musketeer with exceeding gratitude towards his procureuse.
Soon dinnertime came. They went to the dining room, a big dark room located opposite the kitchen.
The clerks, who, it seemed, had sensed unaccustomed fragrances in the house, were of military precision, and held their stools in their hands, ready as they were to sit down. One could see them moving their