The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas [robert munsch read aloud .txt] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” replied d’Artagnan; “but it seems to me that you are tolerably familiar with coats of arms—a certain embroidered handkerchief, for instance, to which I owe the honor of your acquaintance?”
This time Aramis was not angry, but assumed the most modest air and replied in a friendly tone, “My dear friend, do not forget that I wish to belong to the Church, and that I avoid all mundane opportunities. The handkerchief you saw had not been given to me, but it had been forgotten and left at my house by one of my friends. I was obliged to pick it up in order not to compromise him and the lady he loves. As for myself, I neither have, nor desire to have, a mistress, following in that respect the very judicious example of Athos, who has none any more than I have.”
“But what the devil! You are not a priest, you are a Musketeer!”
“A Musketeer for a time, my friend, as the cardinal says, a Musketeer against my will, but a churchman at heart, believe me. Athos and Porthos dragged me into this to occupy me. I had, at the moment of being ordained, a little difficulty with—But that would not interest you, and I am taking up your valuable time.”
“Not at all; it interests me very much,” cried d’Artagnan; “and at this moment I have absolutely nothing to do.”
“Yes, but I have my breviary to repeat,” answered Aramis; “then some verses to compose, which Madame d’Aiguillon begged of me. Then I must go to the Rue St. Honoré in order to purchase some rouge for Madame de Chevreuse. So you see, my dear friend, that if you are not in a hurry, I am very much in a hurry.”
Aramis held out his hand in a cordial manner to his young companion, and took leave of him.
Notwithstanding all the pains he took, d’Artagnan was unable to learn any more concerning his three new-made friends. He formed, therefore, the resolution of believing for the present all that was said of their past, hoping for more certain and extended revelations in the future. In the meanwhile, he looked upon Athos as an Achilles, Porthos as an Ajax, and Aramis as a Joseph.
As to the rest, the life of the four young friends was joyous enough. Athos played, and that as a rule unfortunately. Nevertheless, he never borrowed a sou of his companions, although his purse was ever at their service; and when he had played upon honor, he always awakened his creditor by six o’clock the next morning to pay the debt of the preceding evening.
Porthos had his fits. On the days when he won he was insolent and ostentatious; if he lost, he disappeared completely for several days, after which he reappeared with a pale face and thinner person, but with money in his purse.
As to Aramis, he never played. He was the worst Musketeer and the most unconvivial companion imaginable. He had always something or other to do. Sometimes in the midst of dinner, when everyone, under the attraction of wine and in the warmth of conversation, believed they had two or three hours longer to enjoy themselves at table, Aramis looked at his watch, arose with a bland smile, and took leave of the company, to go, as he said, to consult a casuist with whom he had an appointment. At other times he would return home to write a treatise, and requested his friends not to disturb him.
At this Athos would smile, with his charming, melancholy smile, which so became his noble countenance, and Porthos would drink, swearing that Aramis would never be anything but a village curé.
Planchet, d’Artagnan’s valet, supported his good fortune nobly. He received thirty sous per day, and for a month he returned to his lodgings gay as a chaffinch, and affable toward his master. When the wind of adversity began to blow upon the housekeeping of the Rue des Fossoyeurs—that is to say, when the forty pistoles of King Louis XIII were consumed or nearly so—he commenced complaints which Athos thought nauseous, Porthos indecent, and Aramis ridiculous. Athos counseled d’Artagnan to dismiss the fellow; Porthos was of the opinion that he should give him a good thrashing first; and Aramis contended that a master should never attend to anything but the civilities paid to him.
“This is all very easy for you to say,” replied d’Artagnan, “for you, Athos, who live like a dumb man with Grimaud, who forbid him to speak, and consequently never exchange ill words with him; for you, Porthos, who carry matters in such a magnificent style, and are a god to your valet, Mousqueton; and for you, Aramis, who, always abstracted by your theological studies, inspire your servant, Bazin, a mild, religious man, with a profound respect; but for me, who am without any settled means and without resources—for me, who am neither a Musketeer nor even a Guardsman, what am I to do to inspire either the affection, the terror, or the respect in Planchet?”
“This is serious,” answered the three friends; “it is a family affair. It is with valets as with wives, they must be placed at once upon the footing in which you wish them to remain. Reflect upon it.”
D’Artagnan did reflect, and resolved to thrash Planchet provisionally; which he did with the conscientiousness that d’Artagnan carried into everything. After having well beaten him, he forbade him to leave his service without his permission. “For,” added he, “the future cannot fail to mend; I inevitably look for better times. Your fortune is therefore made if you remain with me, and I am too good a master to allow you to miss such a chance by granting you the dismissal you require.”
This manner of acting roused much respect for d’Artagnan’s policy among the Musketeers. Planchet was equally seized with admiration, and said no more about going away.
The life of the four young men had become fraternal. D’Artagnan, who had no settled habits of his own, as he came from his province into the midst of a world quite new to him, fell easily into the habits of his friends.
They rose about eight o’clock in the winter, about six in summer, and went to take the countersign and see how things went on at M. de Tréville’s. D’Artagnan, although he was not a Musketeer, performed the duty of one with remarkable punctuality. He went on guard because he always kept company with whoever of his friends was on duty. He was well known at the Hôtel of the Musketeers, where everyone considered him a good comrade. M. de Tréville, who had appreciated him at the first glance and who bore him a real affection, never ceased recommending him to the king.
On their side, the three Musketeers were much attached to their young comrade. The friendship which united these four men, and the need they felt of seeing another three or four times a day, whether for dueling, business, or pleasure, caused them to be continually running after one another like shadows; and the Inseparables were constantly to be met with seeking one another, from the Luxembourg to the Place St. Sulpice, or from the Rue du Vieux-Colombier to the Luxembourg.
In the meanwhile the promises of M. de Tréville went on prosperously. One fine morning the king commanded M. de Chevalier Dessessart to admit d’Artagnan as a cadet in his company of Guards. D’Artagnan, with a sigh, donned his uniform, which he would have exchanged for that of a Musketeer at the expense of ten years of his existence. But M. de Tréville promised this favor after a novitiate of two years—a novitiate which might besides be abridged if an opportunity should present itself for d’Artagnan to render the king any signal service, or to distinguish himself by some brilliant action. Upon this promise d’Artagnan withdrew, and the next day he began service.
Then it became the turn of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis to mount guard with d’Artagnan when he was on duty. The company of M. le Chevalier Dessessart thus received four instead of one when it admitted d’Artagnan.
CONCERNING A COURT INTRIGUE
In the meantime, the forty pistoles of King Louis XIII, like all other things of this world, after having had a beginning had an end, and after this end our four companions began to be somewhat embarrassed. At first, Athos supported the association for a time with his own means.
Porthos succeeded him; and thanks to one of those disappearances to which he was accustomed, he was able to provide for the wants of all for a fortnight. At last it became Aramis’s turn, who performed it with a good grace and who succeeded—as he said, by selling some theological books—in procuring a few pistoles.
Then, as they had been accustomed to do, they had recourse to M. de Tréville, who made some advances on their pay; but these advances could not go far with three Musketeers who were already much in arrears and a Guardsman who as yet had no pay at all.
At length when they found they were likely to be really in want, they got together, as a last effort, eight or ten pistoles, with which Porthos went to the gaming table. Unfortunately he was in a bad vein; he lost all, together with twenty-five pistoles for which he had given his word.
Then the inconvenience became distress. The hungry friends, followed by their lackeys, were seen haunting the quays and Guard rooms, picking up among their friends abroad all the dinners they could meet with; for according to the advice of Aramis, it was prudent to sow repasts right and left in prosperity, in order to reap a few in time of need.
Athos was invited four times, and each time took his friends and their lackeys with him. Porthos had six occasions, and contrived in the same manner that his friends should partake of them; Aramis had eight of them. He was a man, as must have been already perceived, who made but little noise, and yet was much sought after.
As to d’Artagnan, who as yet knew nobody in the capital, he only found one chocolate breakfast at the house of a priest of his own province, and one dinner at the house of a cornet of the Guards. He took his army to the priest’s, where they devoured as much provision as would have lasted him for two months, and to the cornet’s, who performed wonders; but as Planchet said, “People do not eat at once for all time, even when they eat a good deal.”
D’Artagnan thus felt himself humiliated in having only procured one meal and a half for his companions—as the breakfast at the priest’s could only be counted as half a repast—in return for the feasts which Athos, Porthos, and Aramis had procured him. He fancied himself a burden to the society, forgetting in his perfectly juvenile good faith that he had fed this society for a month; and he set his mind actively to work. He reflected that this coalition of four young, brave, enterprising, and active men ought to have some other object than swaggering walks, fencing lessons, and practical jokes, more or less witty.
In fact, four men such as they were—four men devoted to one another, from their purses to their lives; four men always supporting one another, never yielding, executing singly or together the resolutions formed in common; four arms threatening the four cardinal points, or turning toward a single point—must inevitably, either subterraneously, in open day, by mining, in the trench, by cunning, or by force, open themselves a way toward the object they wished to attain, however well it might be defended, or however distant it may seem. The only thing that astonished d’Artagnan was that his friends had never thought of this.
He was thinking by himself, and even seriously racking his brain to find a direction for this single force four times multiplied, with which he did not doubt, as with the lever for which Archimedes sought, they should succeed in moving the world, when someone tapped gently at his door. D’Artagnan awakened Planchet and ordered him to open it.
From this phrase, “d’Artagnan awakened Planchet,” the reader must not suppose it was night, or that day was hardly come. No, it had just struck four. Planchet, two hours before, had asked his master for some dinner, and he had answered him with the proverb, “He who sleeps, dines.” And Planchet dined by sleeping.
A man was introduced of simple mien, who had the appearance of a tradesman. Planchet, by way of dessert, would have liked to hear the conversation; but the citizen declared to d’Artagnan that, what he had to say being important and confidential, he desired to be left alone with him.
D’Artagnan dismissed Planchet, and requested
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