The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [199]
With an involuntary movement, and despite the warning he had been given, d’Artagnan set his horse at a gallop and in a few bounds caught up with the carriage; but the window of the coach door was hermetically sealed: the vision had disappeared.
D’Artagnan then remembered the injunction: “If you value your life and that of those who love you, remain motionless and as if you had not seen anything.”
He stopped, trembling not for himself but for the poor woman, who had evidently exposed herself to great danger in giving him this rendezvous.
The carriage continued on its way, still going at breakneck speed, plunged into Paris, and disappeared.
D’Artagnan remained dumbfounded on the same spot, not knowing what to think. If it was Mme Bonacieux, and if she was returning to Paris, why this fleeting rendezvous, why this simple exchange of glances, why this lost kiss? If, on the other hand, it was not she, which was still quite possible, for the little remaining light made error easy, if it was not she, would this not be the beginning of a move against him, using as bait this woman whom he was known to love?
The three companions approached him. All three had distinctly seen a woman’s head appear in the coach door, but none of them except Athos knew Mme Bonacieux. Athos’s opinion, however, was that it was certainly she; but, being less preoccupied than d’Artagnan by that pretty face, he thought he had seen a second head, a man’s head, in the carriage.
“If so,” said d’Artagnan, “they’re no doubt transporting her from one prison to another. But what do they mean to do to the poor creature, and how will I ever join her again?”
“Friend,” Athos said gravely, “remember that the dead are the only ones we’re in no danger of meeting again on earth. You and I both know something about that, don’t we? Now, if your mistress isn’t dead, if it was her we just saw, you’ll find her again one day or another. And, by God,” he added with a typically misanthropic note, “maybe sooner than you’d like.”
It struck half-past seven. The carriage had been some twenty minutes late for the rendezvous. D’Artagnan’s friends reminded him that he had a visit to pay, observing at the same time that it was still possible to cancel it.
But d’Artagnan was both stubborn and curious. He had taken it into his head that he would go to the Palais Cardinal and would find out what His Eminence wanted to say to him. Nothing could make him change his decision.
They came to the rue Saint-Honoré, and on the place du Palais Cardinal they found the dozen musketeers they had summoned pacing up and down while waiting for their comrades. Only then were they informed of what it was all about.
D’Artagnan was well known to the honorable corps of the king’s musketeers, in which it was understood that he would one day take his place. He was thus looked upon beforehand as a comrade. The result of all this was that each of them wholeheartedly accepted the mission for which he had been summoned. Besides, it was a question, in all probability, of doing the cardinal and his men a bad turn, and for such expeditions these worthy gentlemen were always ready.
Athos divided them into three groups, took command of one, gave the second to Aramis, and the third to Porthos. Then each group went to lie in ambush facing one of the exits.
D’Artagnan, for his part, bravely entered by the main gate.
Though he felt himself vigorously supported, it was not without uneasiness that the young man climbed the grand stairway step by step. His conduct with Milady bore a slight resemblance to treachery, and he suspected that there were political relations between this woman and the cardinal. Moreover, de Wardes, whom he had done up so badly, was among His Eminence’s faithful, and d’Artagnan knew that if His Eminence was terrible to his enemies, he was strongly attached to his friends.
“If de Wardes has told the cardinal about our whole affair, which is not