The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [29]
“Monsieur, you’ll get roughed up, I warn you, if you rub musketeers the wrong way.”
“Roughed up, Monsieur!” said d’Artagnan. “That’s a harsh word.”
“It’s the right word for a man accustomed to looking his enemies in the face.”
“Ah! Pardieu! I know very well you won’t turn your back on them!”
And the young man, delighted with his waggishness, walked away laughing his head off.
Porthos seethed with rage and was about to hurl himself at d’Artagnan.
“Later, later,” cried the young man, “when you’re no longer wearing your cloak.”
“At one o’clock, then, behind the Luxembourg.”
“Very well, at one o’clock,” replied d’Artagnan, turning the corner.
But neither on the street he had just walked down, nor on the one he now took in at a glance, did he see anyone. Slowly as the unknown man had been walking, he had still gotten away; or perhaps he had gone into some house. D’Artagnan inquired about him from everyone he met, went down as far as the ferry,25 came back up by the rue de Seine and the Croix-Rouge—nothing, absolutely nothing. However, the chase was profitable to him in this sense, that as the sweat drenched his forehead, his heart cooled down.
Then he began to reflect on the events that had just occurred. They were many and ill-fated. It was barely eleven o’clock in the morning, and the day had already brought him into disgrace with M. de Tréville, who could not fail to find the manner in which d’Artagnan had left him a bit cavalier.
Moreover, he had picked up two fine duels with two men, each of whom was capable of killing three d’Artagnans, with two musketeers finally, that is, with two of those beings whom he esteemed so highly that, in his mind and in his heart, he placed them above all other men.
It was a sad prospect. Sure of being killed by Athos, it is understandable that the young man did not worry much about Porthos. And yet, as hope is the last thing to die in a man’s heart, he came to hope that he might survive these two duels, with terrible wounds, of course, and in case of survival, he gave himself the following two reprimands for the future:
“What a birdbrain I was, and what a boor I am! This brave and unfortunate Athos was wounded in just the shoulder I ran into, butting him like a ram. The one thing that surprises me is that he didn’t kill me on the spot. He had every right to, and the pain I caused him must have been atrocious. As for Porthos—oh, as for Porthos, my God, that’s much funnier!”
And despite himself the young man started to laugh, though still looking out for whether this isolated laughter, and with no cause apparent to those who saw him laugh, might not offend some passerby.
“As for Porthos, that’s much funnier, but that doesn’t make me less of a scatterbrain. Does one charge into people that way without any warning? No! And does one go looking under their cloaks for what isn’t there? He’d certainly have forgiven me; he’d have forgiven me if I hadn’t gone and mentioned that cursed baldric to him—in veiled terms, it’s true; yes, prettily veiled! Ah! cursed Gascon that I am, I’d make jokes in the frying pan! Come, d’Artagnan my friend,” he continued, talking to himself with all the amenity he thought was his due, “if you come through, which is unlikely, it’s a question in future of being of the most perfect politeness. Henceforth you must be admired, you must be held up as a model. To be considerate and polite is not to be a coward. Rather look at Aramis: Aramis is all gentleness, he is grace personified. Well, then, did anyone ever dare say that Aramis was a coward? No, certainly not, and henceforth I intend to model myself on him in every point. Ah! here he is!”
D’Artagnan, while walking along and soliloquizing, had come within a few steps of the hôtel d’Aiguillon,26 and in front of this hôtel he caught sight of Aramis talking gaily with three gentlemen of the king’s guards. Aramis, for his part, also caught sight of d’Artagnan, but as he had by no means forgotten that it was before this young man that M.