LITMIR.BIZ

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try to make us believe you obtained that baldric by paternal generosity. It was given to you by that veiled lady I met you with the other Sunday, near the gate St. Honor.”

      “No, upon honor and by the faith of a gentleman, I bought it with the contents of my own purse,” answered he whom they designated by the name Porthos.

      “Yes; about in the same manner,” said another Musketeer, “that I bought this new purse with what my mistress put into the old one.”

      “It’s true, though,” said Porthos; “and the proof is that I paid twelve pistoles for it.”

      The wonder was increased, though the doubt continued to exist.

      “Is it not true, Aramis?” said Porthos, turning toward another Musketeer.

      This other Musketeer formed a perfect contrast to his interrogator, who had just designated him by the name of Aramis. He was a stout man, of about two- or three-and-twenty, with an open, ingenuous countenance, a black, mild eye, and cheeks rosy and downy as an autumn peach. His delicate mustache marked a perfectly straight line upon his upper lip; he appeared to dread to lower his hands lest their veins should swell, and he pinched the tips of his ears from time to time to preserve their delicate pink transparency. Habitually he spoke little and slowly, bowed frequently, laughed without noise, showing his teeth, which were fine and of which, as the rest of his person, he appeared to take great care. He answered the appeal of his friend by an affirmative nod of the head.

      This affirmation appeared to dispel all doubts with regard to the baldric. They continued to admire it, but said no more about it; and with a rapid change of thought, the conversation passed suddenly to another subject.

      “What do you think of the story Chalais’s esquire relates?” asked another Musketeer, without addressing anyone in particular, but on the contrary speaking to everybody.

      “And what does he say?” asked Porthos, in a self-sufficient tone.

      “He relates that he met at Brussels Rochefort, the AME DAMNEE of the cardinal disguised as a Capuchin, and that this cursed Rochefort, thanks to his disguise, had tricked Monsieur de Laigues, like a ninny as he is.”

      “A ninny, indeed!” said Porthos; “but is the matter certain?”

      “I had it from Aramis,” replied the Musketeer.

      “Indeed?”

      “Why, you knew it, Porthos,” said Aramis. “I told you of it yesterday. Let us say no more about it.”

      “Say no more about it? That’s YOUR opinion!” replied Porthos.

      “Say no more about it! PESTE! You come to your conclusions quickly. What! The cardinal sets a spy upon a gentleman, has his letters stolen from him by means of a traitor, a brigand, a rascal-has, with the help of this spy and thanks to this correspondence, Chalais’s throat cut, under the stupid pretext that he wanted to kill the king and marry Monsieur to the queen! Nobody knew a word of this enigma. You unraveled it yesterday to the great satisfaction of all; and while we are still gaping with wonder at the news, you come and tell us today, ‘Let us say no more about it.’”

      “Well, then, let us talk about it, since you desire it,” replied Aramis, patiently.

      “This Rochefort,” cried Porthos, “if I were the esquire of poor Chalais, should pass a minute or two very uncomfortably with me.”

      “And you-you would pass rather a sad quarter-hour with the Red Duke,” replied Aramis.

      “Oh, the Red Duke! Bravo! Bravo! The Red Duke!” cried Porthos, clapping his hands and nodding his head. “The Red Duke is capital. I’ll circulate that saying, be assured, my dear fellow. Who says this Aramis is not a wit? What a misfortune it is you did not follow your first vocation; what a delicious abbe you would have made!”

      “Oh, it’s only a temporary postponement,” replied Aramis; “I shall be one someday. You very well know, Porthos, that I continue to study theology for that purpose.”

      “He will be one, as he says,” cried Porthos; “he will be one, sooner or later.”

      “Sooner,” said Aramis.

      “He only waits for one thing to determine him to resume his cassock, which hangs behind his uniform,” said another Musketeer.

      “What is he waiting for?” asked another.

      “Only till the queen has given an heir to the crown of France.”

      “No jesting upon that subject, gentlemen,” said Porthos; “thank God the queen is still of an age to give one!”

      “They say that Monsieur de Buckingham is in France,” replied Aramis, with a significant smile which gave to this sentence, apparently so simple, a tolerably scandalous meaning.

      “Aramis, my good friend, this time you are wrong,” interrupted Porthos. “Your wit is always leading you beyond bounds; if Monsieur de Treville heard you, you would repent of speaking thus.”

      “Are you going to give me a lesson, Porthos?” cried Aramis, from whose usually mild eye a flash passed like lightning.

      “My dear fellow, be a Musketeer or an abbe. Be one or the other, but not both,” replied Porthos. “You know what Athos told you the other day; you eat at everybody’s mess. Ah, don’t be angry, I beg of you, that would be useless; you know what is agreed upon between you, Athos and me. You go to Madame d’Aguillon’s, and you pay your court to her; you go to Madame de Bois-Tracy’s, the cousin of Madame de Chevreuse, and you pass for being far advanced in the good graces of that lady. Oh, good Lord! Don’t trouble yourself to reveal your good luck; no one asks for your secret-all the world knows your discretion. But since you possess that virtue, why the devil don’t you make use of it with respect to her Majesty? Let whoever likes talk of the king and the cardinal, and how he likes; but the queen is sacred, and if anyone speaks of her, let it be respectfully.”

      “Porthos, you are as vain as Narcissus; I plainly tell you so,” replied Aramis. “You know I hate moralizing, except when it is done by Athos. As to you, good sir, you wear too magnificent a baldric to be strong on that head. I will be an abbe if it suits me. In the meanwhile I am a Musketeer; in that quality I say what I please, and at this moment it pleases me to say that you weary me.”

      “Aramis!”

      “Porthos!”

      “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” cried the surrounding group.

      “Monsieur de Treville awaits Monsieur d’Artagnan,” cried a servant, throwing open the door of the cabinet.

      At this announcement, during which the door remained open, everyone became mute, and amid the general silence the young man crossed part of the length of the antechamber, and entered the apartment of the captain of the Musketeers, congratulating himself with all his heart at having so narrowly escaped the end of this strange quarrel.

      3 THE AUDIENCE

      M de Treville was at the moment in rather ill-humor, nevertheless he saluted the young man politely, who bowed to the very ground; and he smiled on receiving d’Artagnan’s response, the Bearnese accent of which recalled to him at the same time his youth and his country-a double remembrance which makes a man smile at all ages; but stepping toward the antechamber and making a sign to d’Artagnan with his hand, as if to ask his permission to finish with others before he began with him, he called three times, with a louder voice at each time, so that he ran through the intervening tones between the imperative accent and the angry accent.

      “Athos! Porthos! Aramis!”

      The two Musketeers with whom we have already made acquaintance, and who answered to the last of these three names, immediately quitted the group of which they had formed a part, and advanced toward the cabinet, the door of which closed after them as soon as they had entered. Their appearance, although it was not quite at ease, excited by its carelessness, at once full of dignity and submission, the admiration of d’Artagnan, who beheld in these two men demigods, and in their leader an Olympian Jupiter, armed with all his thunders.

      When

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