The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [27]
Tréville said to himself: “If the cardinal has sent me this young fox, he will certainly not have failed, he who knows how much I loathe him, to tell his spy that the best way to pay court to me is to tell me the worst muck about him; so, despite my protestations, the cunning accomplice is quite certainly going to answer me that he holds His Eminence in horror.”
But it turned out quite differently than Tréville expected. D’Artagnan replied with the greatest simplicity:
“Monsieur, I have come to Paris with exactly the same intentions. My father instructed me to bear with nothing except from the king, M. le cardinal, and you, whom he held to be the three foremost men in France.”
D’Artagnan added M. de Tréville to the two others, as we can see, but he thought the addition would not hurt anything.
“I thus have the greatest veneration for M. le cardinal,” he went on, “and the most profound respect for his acts. So much the better for me, Monsieur, if you speak to me, as you say, with frankness; for then you do me the honor of valuing this similarity of taste. But if you have felt some mistrust, quite natural in any case, I will feel that I am erring by telling the truth. That is too bad, but you will esteem me nonetheless, and I care more about that than about anything else in the world.”
M. de Tréville was utterly astonished. So much penetration, so much frankness, finally, aroused his admiration, but did not entirely remove his doubts: the more superior this young man was to other young people, the more he was to be feared if he was mistaken. Nevertheless, he shook d’Artagnan’s hand and said to him:
“You’re an honest lad, but at the moment I can do no more than what I offered you earlier. My hôtel will always be open to you. Later on, being able to ask for me at any hour and therefore to seize every opportunity, you will probably obtain what you wish to obtain.”
“That is to say, Monsieur,” replied d’Artagnan, “that you are waiting until I make myself worthy. Well, don’t worry,” he added with Gascon familiarity, “you won’t have to wait long.”
And he began bowing his way out, as if the rest was henceforth up to him.
“But wait a moment,” said M. de Tréville, stopping him, “I promised you a letter to the director of the Academy. Are you too proud to accept it, my young gentleman?”
“No, Monsieur,” said d’Artagnan, “and I give you my word that what happened to the other will not happen to this one. I’ll keep it so well that it will arrive at its destination, I swear to you, and woe to him who tries to take it from me!”
M. de Tréville smiled at this fanfaronade, and leaving his young compatriot in the embrasure of the window where they found themselves and where they had talked together, he sat down at a table and began writing the promised letter of introduction. During this time, d’Artagnan, who had nothing better to do, started beating out a march on the window panes, watching the musketeers who went out one after another, and following them until they disappeared around the corner.
M. de Tréville, after writing the letter, sealed it and, getting up, went over to the young man to give it to him; but at the very moment when d’Artagnan held out his hand to receive it, M. de Tréville was quite astonished to see him give a start, flush with anger, and go rushing out of the office, shouting:
“Ah! sangdieu! he won’t escape me this time!”
“But who is it?” asked M. de Tréville.
“He, my thief!” answered d’Artagnan. “Ah! the traitor!”
And he disappeared.
“Mad devil!” murmured M. de Tréville. “Unless,” he added, “it’s a skillful means of slipping away, seeing that his attempt failed.”
IV
ATHOS’S SHOULDER, PORTHOS’S BALDRIC, AND ARAMIS’S HANDKERCHIEF
D’Artagnan, furious, had crossed