The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [55]
“It’s not a bad business,” said Athos, after having tasted the wine as a connoisseur and indicated with a nod of the head that he found it good, “and we could get fifty or sixty pistoles out of the brave man. Now it remains to find out if fifty or sixty pistoles are worth the trouble of risking four heads.”
“But mind you,” cried d’Artagnan, “there’s a woman involved in this business, an abducted woman, a woman who is no doubt being threatened, who is perhaps being tortured, and all that because she’s faithful to her mistress!”
“Take care, d’Artagnan, take care,” said Aramis, “you’re getting a bit too excited, in my opinion, about the fate of Mme Bonacieux. Woman was created for our ruin, and it is from her that all our miseries come.”
At this pronouncement from Aramis, Athos frowned and bit his lips.
“It’s not at all Mme Bonacieux that worries me,” cried d’Artagnan, “it’s the queen, whom the king has abandoned, whom the cardinal persecutes, and who has seen the heads of her friends fall one after another.”
“Why does she love what we detest most in the world—the Spanish and the English?”
“Spain is her country,” replied d’Artagnan, “and it’s quite simple why she loves the Spanish, they’re children of the same land as she. As for the second reproach you make against her, I’ve heard it said that she loves not the English, but one Englishman.”
“Ah, by heaven,” said Athos, “one must admit that that Englishman was quite worthy of being loved! I’ve never seen grander bearing than his.”
“Not to mention that he dresses like no one else,” said Porthos. “I was at the Louvre the day he scattered his pearls, and, pardieu, I gathered up two that I sold for ten pistoles apiece. And you, Aramis, do you know him?”
“As well as you do, gentlemen, for I was one of those who arrested him in the garden at Amiens, where I had been introduced by M. de Putange,51 the queen’s equerry. I was in seminary at that time, and the adventure seemed to me cruel for the king.”
“Which wouldn’t prevent me,” said d’Artagnan, “from taking the duke of Buckingham by the hand, if I knew where he was, and bringing him to the queen, if only so as to enrage the cardinal; for our real, only, eternal enemy, gentlemen, is the cardinal, and if we could find the means of playing him some really cruel turn, I confess I’d gladly risk my head on it.”
“And,” Athos picked up, “the mercer told you, d’Artagnan, that the queen thought someone had made Buckingham come on false notice.”
“She’s afraid so.”
“Wait,” said Aramis.
“For what?” asked Porthos.
“Just a minute, I’m trying to remember the circumstances.”
“And now I’m convinced,” said d’Artagnan, “that the abduction of this woman of the queen’s is connected to the events we’re speaking of, and maybe to M. de Buckingham’s presence in Paris.”
“The Gascon’s full of ideas,” Porthos said with admiration.
“I love to hear him speak,” said Athos, “his patter amuses me.”
“Gentlemen,” Aramis picked up, “listen to this.”
“Listen to Aramis,” said the three friends.
“Yesterday I happened to be with a learned doctor of theology, whom I consult occasionally to do with my studies…”
Athos smiled.
“He lives in a deserted quarter,” Aramis went on, “his tastes and his profession demand it. Now, just as I was leaving his place…”
Here Aramis stopped.
“Well?” asked his listeners, “just as you were leaving his place?”
Aramis seemed to be struggling with himself, like a man who, in the midst of a lie, finds himself stopped by some unforeseen obstacle. But the eyes of his three companions were fixed on him, their ears waited gaping, there was no way to retreat.
“This doctor has a niece,” Aramis went on.
“Ah! he has a niece!” Porthos interrupted.
“A highly respectable lady,” said Aramis.
The three friends began to laugh.
“Ah, if you laugh, or if you doubt me,” said Aramis, “then you’ll learn nothing!”
“We’re