The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [63]
There is in affluence a host of aristocratic attentions and caprices that go well with beauty. Fine white stockings, a silk dress, a lace bodice, a pretty slipper on the foot, a fresh ribbon in the hair, will never make an ugly woman pretty, but will make a pretty woman beautiful, not to mention what the hands gain from it all: hands, women’s hands especially, must remain idle to remain beautiful.
Then, too, d’Artagnan—as the reader knows very well, for we have not concealed the state of his fortune—d’Artagnan was not a millionaire. He hoped to become one some day, but the time he set himself for that happy change was rather far off. In the meantime, what despair to see a woman one loves longing for those thousand nothings from which women compose their happiness, and to be unable to give her those thousand nothings. At least, when the woman is rich and the lover is not, what he cannot offer her she can offer herself; and though it is usually with the husband’s money that she affords herself this pleasure, it is rarely he who gets the thanks.
Then, too, d’Artagnan, disposed as he was to be the most tender lover, was meanwhile a very devoted friend. In the midst of his amorous designs on the mercer’s wife, he did not forget his comrades. The pretty Mme Bonacieux was a woman to take on an outing to the plain of Saint-Denis or the fair of Saint-Germain, in the company of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, to whom d’Artagnan would be proud to show such a conquest. Then, too, when one has walked for a long time, hunger comes; d’Artagnan had noticed that some time ago. They would have those charming little dinners, where on one side you touch a friend’s hand, and on the other a mistress’s foot. Finally, in pressing moments, in extreme circumstances, d’Artagnan would be his friends’ savior.
And M. Bonacieux, whom d’Artagnan had pushed into the hands of the police, repudiating him aloud when he had promised in a whisper to save him? We must confess to our readers that d’Artagnan gave him no thought at all, or, if he did, it was to tell himself that he was well off where he was, wherever it might be. Love is the most egotistical of passions.
However, our readers may rest reassured: if d’Artagnan forgets his landlord, or pretends to forget him, under the pretext that he does not know where they took him, we will not forget him, and we know where he is. But, for the time being, let us do like the amorous Gascon. We will come back to the worthy mercer later.
D’Artagnan, while reflecting on his future amours, while speaking to the night, while smiling at the stars, was walking up the rue du Cherche-Midi, or Chasse-Midi,54 as it was called then. As he found himself in Aramis’s quarter, the idea came to him to pay his friend a visit, to give him some explanation of the motives behind his sending Planchet with an invitation to proceed at once to the mousetrap. Now, if Aramis had been found at home when Planchet came, he would undoubtedly have run to the rue des Fossoyeurs, and finding no one except perhaps his other two companions, neither he nor they would have known what to make of it. This inconvenience thus deserved an explanation, as d’Artagnan said aloud.
Then, in a whisper, he reflected that this would be an occasion for him to speak about the pretty little Mme Bonacieux, of whom his mind, if not his heart, was already quite filled. Discretion cannot be demanded of a first love. A first love is accompanied by such great joy that the joy must overflow; otherwise, it will choke you.
Paris had been dark for two hours and was beginning to become deserted. It struck eleven on all the clocks of the faubourg Saint-Germain.55 The weather was mild. D’Artagnan was following a lane along the place where the rue d’Assas now runs, breathing in the fragrant emanations