Three Musketeers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (59 page)

“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,
epulœ epulorum.
Lucullus dines with Lucullus.”
^al

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 livers! 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. Molière had not written his scene in “L’Avare” then. Mme. Coquenard was in the dilemma of Harpagan.
^am

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.

M
eantime, 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.