The Three Musketeers

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Lord de Winter perceived nothing of this. When he had
finished, he went to a table upon which was a salver with
Spanish wine and glasses. He filled two glasses, and by a
sign invited d'Artagnan to drink.

D'Artagnan knew it was considered disobliging by an
Englishman to refuse to pledge him. He therefore drew near
to the table and took the second glass. He did not,
however, lose sight of Milady, and in a mirror he perceived
the change that came over her face. Now that she believed
herself to be no longer observed, a sentiment resembling
ferocity animated her countenance. She bit her handkerchief
with her beautiful teeth.

That pretty little SOUBRETTE whom d'Artagnan had already
observed then came in. She spoke some words to Lord de
Winter in English, who thereupon requested d'Artagnan's
permission to retire, excusing himself on account of the
urgency of the business that had called him away, and
charging his sister to obtain his pardon.

D'Artagnan exchanged a shake of the hand with Lord de
Winter, and then returned to Milady. Her countenance, with
surprising mobility, had recovered its gracious expression;
but some little red spots on her handkerchief indicated that
she had bitten her lips till the blood came. Those lips
were magnificent; they might be said to be of coral.

The conversation took a cheerful turn. Milady appeared to
have entirely recovered. She told d'Artagnan that Lord de
Winter was her brother-in-law, and not her brother. She had
married a younger brother of the family, who had left her a
widow with one child. This child was the only heir to Lord
de Winter, if Lord de Winter did not marry. All this showed
d'Artagnan that there was a veil which concealed something;
but he could not yet see under this veil.

In addition to this, after a half hour's conversation
d'Artagnan was convinced that Milady was his compatriot; she
spoke French with an elegance and a purity that left no
doubt on that head.

D'Artagnan was profuse in gallant speeches and protestations
of devotion. To all the simple things which escaped our
Gascon, Milady replied with a smile of kindness. The hour
came for him to retire. D'Artagnan took leave of Milady,
and left the saloon the happiest of men.

On the staircase he met the pretty SOUBRETTE, who brushed
gently against him as she passed, and then, blushing to the
eyes, asked his pardon for having touched him in a voice so
sweet that the pardon was granted instantly.

D'Artagnan came again on the morrow, and was still better
received than on the evening before. Lord de Winter was not
at home; and it was Milady who this time did all the honors
of the evening. She appeared to take a great interest in
him, asked him whence he came, who were his friends, and
whether he had not sometimes thought of attaching himself to
the cardinal.

D'Artagnan, who, as we have said, was exceedingly prudent
for a young man of twenty, then remembered his suspicions
regarding Milady. He launched into a eulogy of his
Eminence, and said that he should not have failed to enter
into the Guards of the cardinal instead of the king's Guards
if he had happened to know M. de Cavois instead of M. de
Treville.

Milady changed the conversation without any appearance of
affectation, and asked d'Artagnan in the most careless
manner possible if he had ever been in England.

D'Artagnan replied that he had been sent thither by M. de
Treville to treat for a supply of horses, and that he had
brought back four as specimens.

Milady in the course of the conversation twice or thrice bit
her lips; she had to deal with a Gascon who played close.

At the same hour as on the preceding evening, d'Artagnan
retired. In the corridor he again met the pretty Kitty; that
was the name of the SOUBRETTE. She looked at him with an
expression of kindness which it was impossible to mistake;
but d'Artagnan was so preoccupied by the mistress that he
noticed absolutely nothing but her.

D'Artagnan came again on the morrow and the day after that,
and each day Milady gave him a more gracious reception.

Every evening, either in the antechamber, the corridor, or
on the stairs, he met the pretty SOUBRETTE. But, as we have
said, d'Artagnan paid no attention to this persistence of
poor Kitty.

32 A PROCURATOR'S DINNER

However brilliant had been the part played by Porthos in the
duel, it had not made him forget the dinner of the
procurator's wife.

On the morrow he received the last touches of Mousqueton's
brush for an hour, and took his way toward the Rue aux Ours
with the steps of a man who was doubly in favor with
fortune.

His heart beat, but not like d'Artagnan's with a young and
impatient love. No; a more material interest stirred his
blood. He was about at last to pass that mysterious
threshold, to climb those unknown stairs by which, one by
one, the old crowns of M. Coquenard had ascended. He was
about to see in reality a certain coffer of which he had
twenty times beheld the image in his dreams--a coffer long
and deep, locked, bolted, fastened in the wall; a coffer of
which he had so often heard, and which the hands--a little
wrinkled, it is true, but still not without elegance--of the
procurator's wife were about to open to his admiring looks.

And then he--a wanderer on the earth, a man without fortune,
a man without family, a soldier accustomed to inns,
cabarets, taverns, and restaurants, a lover of wine forced
to depend upon chance treats--was about to partake of
family meals, to enjoy the pleasures of a comfortable
establishment, and to give himself up to those little
attentions which "the harder one is, the more they please,"
as old soldiers say.

To come in the capacity of a cousin, and seat himself every
day at a good table; to smooth the yellow, wrinkled brow of
the old procurator; to pluck the clerks a little by teaching
them BASSETTE, PASSE-DIX, and LANSQUENET, in their utmost
nicety, and winning from them, by way of fee for the lesson
he would give them in an hour, their savings of a month--all
this was enormously delightful to Porthos.

The Musketeer could not forget the evil reports which then
prevailed, and which indeed have survived them, of the
procurators of the period--meanness, stinginess, fasts; but
as, after all, excepting some few acts of economy which
Porthos had always found very unseasonable, the procurator's
wife had been tolerably liberal--that is, be it understood,
for a procurator's wife--he hoped to see a household of a
highly comfortable kind.

And yet, at the very door the Musketeer began to entertain
some doubts. The approach was not such as to prepossess
people--an ill-smelling, dark passage, a staircase half-
lighted by bars through which stole a glimmer from a
neighboring yard; on the first floor a low door studded with
enormous nails, like the principal gate of the Grand
Chatelet.

Porthos knocked with his hand. A tall, pale clerk, his face
shaded by a forest of virgin hair, opened the door, and
bowed with the air of a man forced at once to respect in
another lofty stature, which indicated strength, the
military dress, which indicated rank, and a ruddy
countenance, which indicated familiarity with good living.

A shorter clerk came behind the first, a taller clerk behind
the second, a stripling of a dozen years rising behind the
third. In all, three clerks and a half, which, for the
time, argued a very extensive clientage.

Although the Musketeer was not expected before one o'clock,
the procurator's wife had been on the watch ever since
midday, reckoning that the heart, or perhaps the stomach, of
her lover would bring him before his time.

Mme. Coquenard therefore entered the office from the house
at the same moment her guest entered from the stairs, and
the appearance of the worthy lady relieved him from an
awkward embarrassment. The clerks surveyed him with great
curiosity, and he, not knowing well what to say to this
ascending and descending scale, remained tongue-tied.

"It is my cousin!" cried the procurator's wife. "Come in,
come in, Monsieur Porthos!"

The name of Porthos produced its effect upon the clerks, who
began to laugh; but Porthos turned sharply round, and every
countenance quickly recovered its gravity.

They reached the office of the procurator after having
passed through the antechamber in which the clerks were, and
the study in which they ought to have been. This last
apartment was a sort of dark room, littered with papers. On
quitting the study they left the kitchen on the right, and
entered the reception room.

All these rooms, which communicated with one another, did
not inspire Porthos favorably. Words might be heard at a
distance through all these open doors. Then, while passing,
he had cast a rapid, investigating glance into the kitchen;
and he was obliged to confess to himself, to the shame of
the procurator's wife and his own regret, that he did not
see that fire, that animation, that bustle, which when a
good repast is on foot prevails generally in that sanctuary
of good living.

The procurator had without doubt been warned of his visit,
as he expressed no surprise at the sight of Porthos, who
advanced toward him with a sufficiently easy air, and
saluted him courteously.

"We are cousins, it appears, Monsieur Porthos?" said the
procurator, rising, yet supporting his weight upon the arms
of his cane chair.

The old man, wrapped in a large black doublet, in which the
whole of his slender body was concealed, was brisk and dry.
His little gray eyes shone like carbuncles, and appeared,
with his grinning mouth, to be the only part of his face in
which life survived. Unfortunately the legs began to refuse
their service to this bony machine. During the last five or
six months that this weakness had been felt, the worthy
procurator had nearly become the slave of his wife.

The cousin was received with resignation, that was all. M.
Coquenard, firm upon his legs, would have declined all
relationship with M. Porthos.

"Yes, monsieur, we are cousins," said Porthos, without being
disconcerted, as he had never reckoned upon being received
enthusiastically by the husband.

"By the female side, I believe?" said the procurator,
maliciously.

Porthos did not feel the ridicule of this, and took it for a
piece of simplicity, at which he laughed in his large
mustache. Mme. Coquenard, who knew that a simple-minded
procurator was a very rare variety in the species, smiled a
little, and colored a great deal.

M. Coquenard had, since the arrival of Porthos, frequently
cast his eyes with great uneasiness upon a large chest
placed in front of his oak desk. Porthos comprehended that
this chest, although it did not correspond in shape with
that which he had seen in his dreams, must be the blessed
coffer, and he congratulated himself that the reality was
several feet higher than the dream.

M. Coquenard did not carry his genealogical investigations
any further; but withdrawing his anxious look from the chest
and fixing it upon Porthos, he contented himself with saying,
"Monsieur our cousin will do us the favor of dining with us
once before his departure for the campaign, will he not,
Madame Coquenard?"

This time Porthos received the blow right in his stomach,
and felt it. It appeared likewise that Mme. Coquenard was
not less affected by it on her part, for she added, "My
cousin will not return if he finds that we do not treat him
kindly; but otherwise he has so little time to pass in Paris,
and consequently to spare to us, that we must entreat him to
give us every instant he can call his own previous to his
departure."

"Oh, my legs, my poor legs! where are you?" murmured
Coquenard, and he tried to smile.

This succor, which came to Porthos at the moment in which he
was attacked in his gastronomic hopes, inspired much
gratitude in the Musketeer toward the procurator's wife.

The hour of dinner soon arrived. They passed into the eating
room--a large dark room situated opposite the kitchen.

The clerks, who, as it appeared, had smelled unusual perfumes
in the house, were of military punctuality, and held their
stools in hand quite ready to sit down. Their jaws moved
preliminarily with fearful threatenings.

"Indeed!" thought Porthos, casting a glance at the three hungry
clerks--for the errand boy, as might be expected, was not
admitted to the honors of the magisterial table, "in my
cousin's place, I would not keep such gourmands! They look
like shipwrecked sailors who have not eaten for six weeks."

M. Coquenard entered, pushed along upon his armchair with
casters by Mme. Coquenard, whom Porthos assisted in rolling
her husband up to the table. He had scarcely entered when
he began to agitate his nose and his jaws after the example
of his clerks.

"Oh, oh!" said he; "here is a soup which is rather
inviting."

"What the devil can they smell so extraordinary in this
soup?" said Porthos, at the sight of a pale liquid, abundant
but entirely free from meat, on the surface of which a few
crusts swam about as rare as the islands of an archipelago.

Mme. Coquenard smiled, and upon a sign from her everyone
eagerly took his seat.

M. Coquenard was served first, then Porthos. Afterward Mme.
Coquenard filled her own plate, and distributed the crusts
without soup to the impatient clerks. At this moment the
door of the dining room unclosed with a creak, and Porthos
perceived through the half-open flap the little clerk who,
not being allowed to take part in the feast, ate his dry
bread in the passage with the double odor of the dining room
and kitchen.

After the soup the maid brought a boiled fowl--a piece of
magnificence which caused the eyes of the diners to dilate
in such a manner that they seemed ready to burst.

"One may see that you love your family, Madame Coquenard,"
said the procurator, with a smile that was almost tragic.
"You are certainly treating your cousin very handsomely!"

The poor fowl was thin, and covered with one of those thick,
bristly skins through which the teeth cannot penetrate with
all their efforts. The fowl must have been sought for a
long time on the perch, to which it had retired to die of
old age.

"The devil!" thought Porthos, "this is poor work. I respect
old age, but I don't much like it boiled or roasted."

And he looked round to see if anybody partook of his
opinion; but on the contrary, he saw nothing but eager eyes
which were devouring, in anticipation, that sublime fowl
which was the object of his contempt.

Mme. Coquenard drew the dish toward her, skillfully detached
the two great black feet, which she placed upon her
husband's plate, cut off the neck, which with the head she
put on one side for herself, raised the wing for Porthos,
and then returned the bird otherwise intact to the servant
who had brought it in, who disappeared with it before the
Musketeer had time to examine the variations which
disappointment produces upon faces, according to the
characters and temperaments of those who experience it.

In the place of the fowl a dish of haricot beans made its
appearance--an enormous dish in which some bones of mutton
that at first sight one might have believed to have some
meat on them pretended to show themselves.

But the clerks were not the dupes of this deceit, and their
lugubrious looks settled down into resigned countenances.

Mme. Coquenard distributed this dish to the young men with
the moderation of a good housewife.

The time for wine came. M. Coquenard poured from a very
small stone bottle the third of a glass for each of the
young men, served himself in about the same proportion, and
passed the bottle to Porthos and Mme. Coquenard.

The young men filled up their third of a glass with water;
then, when they had drunk half the glass, they filled it up
again, and continued to do so. This brought them, by the
end of the repast, to swallowing a drink which from the
color of the ruby had passed to that of a pale topaz.

Porthos ate his wing of the fowl timidly, and shuddered when
he felt the knee of the procurator's wife under the table,
as it came in search of his. He also drank half a glass of
this sparingly served wine, and found it to be nothing but
that horrible Montreuil--the terror of all expert palates.

M. Coquenard saw him swallowing this wine undiluted, and
sighed deeply.

"Will you eat any of these beans, Cousin Porthos?" said Mme.
Coquenard, in that tone which says, "Take my advice, don't
touch them."

"Devil take me if I taste one of them!" murmured Porthos to
himself, and then said aloud, "Thank you, my cousin, I am no
longer hungry."

There was silence. Porthos could hardly keep his
countenance.

The procurator repeated several times, "Ah, Madame
Coquenard! Accept my compliments; your dinner has been a
real feast. Lord, how I have eaten!"

M. Coquenard had eaten his soup, the black feet of the fowl,
and the only mutton bone on which there was the least
appearance of meat.

Porthos fancied they were mystifying him, and began to curl
his mustache and knit his eyebrows; but the knee of Mme.
Coquenard gently advised him to be patient.

This silence and this interruption in serving, which were
unintelligible to Porthos, had, on the contrary, a terrible
meaning for the clerks. Upon a look from the procurator,
accompanied by a smile from Mme. Coquenard, they arose
slowly from the table, folded their napkins more slowly
still, bowed, and retired.

"Go, young men! go and promote digestion by working," said
the procurator, gravely.

The clerks gone, Mme. Coquenard rose and took from a buffet
a piece of cheese, some preserved quinces, and a cake which
she had herself made of almonds and honey.

M. Coquenard knit his eyebrows because there were too many
good things. Porthos bit his lips because he saw not the
wherewithal to dine. He looked to see if the dish of beans
was still there; the dish of beans had disappeared.

"A positive feast!" cried M. Coquenard, turning about in his
chair, "a real feast, EPULCE EPULORUM. Lucullus dines with
Lucullus."

Porthos looked at the bottle, which was near him, and hoped
that with wine, bread, and cheese, he might make a dinner;
but wine was wanting, the bottle was empty. M. and Mme.
Coquenard did not seem to observe it.

"This is fine!" said Porthos to himself; "I am prettily
caught!"

He passed his tongue over a spoonful of preserves, and stuck
his teeth into the sticky pastry of Mme. Coquenard.

"Now," said he, "the sacrifice is consummated! Ah! if I had
not the hope of peeping with Madame Coquenard into her
husband's chest!"

M. Coquenard, after the luxuries of such a repast, which he
called an excess, felt the want of a siesta. Porthos began
to hope that the thing would take place at the present
sitting, and in that same locality; but the procurator would
listen to nothing, he would be taken to his room, and was
not satisfied till he was close to his chest, upon the edge
of which, for still greater precaution, he placed his feet.

The procurator's wife took Porthos into an adjoining room,
and they began to lay the basis of a reconciliation.

"You can come and dine three times a week," said Mme.
Coquenard.

"Thanks, madame!" said Porthos, "but I don't like to abuse
your kindness; besides, I must think of my outfit!"

"That's true," said the procurator's wife, groaning, "that
unfortunate outfit!"

"Alas, yes," said Porthos, "it is so."

"But of what, then, does the equipment of your company
consist, Monsieur Porthos?"

"Oh, of many things!" said Porthos. "The Musketeers are, as
you know, picked soldiers, and they require many things
useless to the Guardsmen or the Swiss."

"But yet, detail them to me."

"Why, they may amount to--", said Porthos, who preferred
discussing the total to taking them one by one.

The procurator's wife waited tremblingly.

"To how much?" said she. "I hope it does not exceed--" She
stopped; speech failed her.

"Oh, no," said Porthos, "it does not exceed two thousand
five hundred livres! I even think that with economy I could
manage it with two thousand livres."

"Good God!" cried she, "two thousand livres! Why, that is a
fortune!"

Porthos made a most significant grimace; Mme. Coquenard
understood it.

"I wished to know the detail," said she, "because, having
many relatives in business, I was almost sure of obtaining
things at a hundred per cent less than you would pay
yourself."

"Ah, ah!" said Porthos, "that is what you meant to say!"

"Yes, dear Monsieur Porthos. Thus, for instance, don't you
in the first place want a horse?"

"Yes, a horse."

"Well, then! I can just suit you."

"Ah!" said Porthos, brightening, "that's well as regards my
horse; but I must have the appointments complete, as they
include objects which a Musketeer alone can purchase, and
which will not amount, besides, to more than three hundred
livres."

"Three hundred livres? Then put down three hundred livres,"
said the procurator's wife, with a sigh.

Porthos smiled. It may be remembered that he had the saddle
which came from Buckingham. These three hundred livres he
reckoned upon putting snugly into his pocket.

"Then," continued he, "there is a horse for my lackey, and
my valise. As to my arms, it is useless to trouble you
about them; I have them."

"A horse for your lackey?" resumed the procurator's wife,
hesitatingly; "but that is doing things in lordly style, my
friend."

"Ah, madame!" said Porthos, haughtily; "do you take me for a
beggar?"

"No; I only thought that a pretty mule makes sometimes as
good an appearance as a horse, and it seemed to me that by
getting a pretty mule for Mousqueton--"

"Well, agreed for a pretty mule," said Porthos; "you are
right, I have seen very great Spanish nobles whose whole
suite were mounted on mules. But then you understand,
Madame Coquenard, a mule with feathers and bells."

"Be satisfied," said the procurator's wife.

"There remains the valise," added Porthos.

"Oh, don't let that disturb you," cried Mme. Coquenard. "My
husband has five or six valises; you shall choose the best.
There is one in particular which he prefers in his journeys,
large enough to hold all the world."

"Your valise is then empty?" asked Porthos, with simplicity.

"Certainly it is empty," replied the procurator's wife, in
real innocence.

"Ah, but the valise I want," cried Porthos, "is a well-
filled one, my dear."

Madame uttered fresh sighs. Moliere had not written his
scene in "L'Avare" then. Mme. Coquenard was in the dilemma
of Harpagan.

Finally, the rest of the equipment was successively debated
in the same manner; and the result of the sitting was that
the procurator's wife should give eight hundred livres in
money, and should furnish the horse and the mule which
should have the honor of carrying Porthos and Mousqueton to
glory.

These conditions being agreed to, Porthos took leave of Mme.
Coquenard. The latter wished to detain him by darting
certain tender glances; but Porthos urged the commands of
duty, and the procurator's wife was obliged to give place to
the king.

The Musketeer returned home hungry and in bad humor.

33 SOUBRETTE AND MISTRESS

Meantime, as we have said, despite the cries of his
conscience and the wise counsels of Athos, d'Artagnan became
hourly more in love with Milady. Thus he never failed to
pay his diurnal court to her; and the self-satisfied Gascon
was convinced that sooner or later she could not fail to
respond.

One day, when he arrived with his head in the air, and as
light at heart as a man who awaits a shower of gold, he
found the SOUBRETTE under the gateway of the hotel; but this
time the pretty Kitty was not contented with touching him as
he passed, she took him gently by the hand.

"Good!" thought d'Artagnan, "She is charged with some
message for me from her mistress; she is about to appoint
some rendezvous of which she had not courage to speak." And
he looked down at the pretty girl with the most triumphant
air imaginable.

"I wish to say three words to you, Monsieur Chevalier,"
stammered the SOUBRETTE.

"Speak, my child, speak," said d'Artagnan; "I listen."

"Here? Impossible! That which I have to say is too long,
and above all, too secret."

"Well, what is to be done?"

"If Monsieur Chevalier would follow me?" said Kitty,
timidly.

"Where you please, my dear child."

"Come, then."

And Kitty, who had not let go the hand of d'Artagnan, led
him up a little dark, winding staircase, and after ascending
about fifteen steps, opened a door.

"Come in here, Monsieur Chevalier," said she; "here we shall
be alone, and can talk."

"And whose room is this, my dear child?"

"It is mine, Monsieur Chevalier; it communicates with my
mistress's by that door. But you need not fear. She will
not hear what we say; she never goes to bed before
midnight."

D'Artagnan cast a glance around him. The little apartment
was charming for its taste and neatness; but in spite of
himself, his eyes were directed to that door which Kitty
said led to Milady's chamber.

Kitty guessed what was passing in the mind of the young man,
and heaved a deep sigh.