The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (top books to read .TXT) 📗

into whose cavern nobody could force their way with impunity.

There was a moment of silence; but at length the two Englishmen felt ashamed to draw back, and the angrier one descended the five or six steps which led to the cellar, and gave a kick against the door enough to split a wall.

“Planchet,” said d’Artagnan, cocking his pistols, “I will take charge of the one at the top; you look to the one below. Ah, gentlemen, you want battle; and you shall have it.”

“Good God!” cried the hollow voice of Athos, “I can hear d’Artagnan, I think.”

“Yes,” cried d’Artagnan, raising his voice in turn, “I am here, my friend.”

“Ah, good, then,” replied Athos, “we will teach them, these door breakers!”

The gentlemen had drawn their swords, but they found themselves taken between two fires. They still hesitated an instant; but, as before, pride prevailed, and a second kick split the door from bottom to top.

“Stand on one side, d’Artagnan, stand on one side,” cried Athos. “I am going to fire!”

“Gentlemen,” exclaimed d’Artagnan, whom reflection never abandoned, “gentlemen, think of what you are about. Patience, Athos! You are running your heads into a very silly affair; you will be riddled. My lackey and I will have three shots at you, and you will get as many from the cellar. You will then have our swords, with which, I can assure you, my friend and I can play tolerably well. Let me conduct your business and my own. You shall soon have something to drink; I give you my word.”

“If there is any left,” grumbled the jeering voice of Athos.

The host felt a cold sweat creep down his back.

“How! ‘If there is any left!’” murmured he.

“What the devil! There must be plenty left,” replied d’Artagnan. “Be satisfied of that; these two cannot have drunk all the cellar. Gentlemen, return your swords to their scabbards.”

“Well, provided you replace your pistols in your belt.”

“Willingly.”

And d’Artagnan set the example. Then, turning toward Planchet, he made him a sign to uncock his musketoon.

The Englishmen, convinced of these peaceful proceedings, sheathed their swords grumblingly. The history of Athos’s imprisonment was then related to them; and as they were really gentlemen, they pronounced the host in the wrong.

“Now, gentlemen,” said d’Artagnan, “go up to your room again; and in ten minutes, I will answer for it, you shall have all you desire.”

The Englishmen bowed and went upstairs.

“Now I am alone, my dear Athos,” said d’Artagnan; “open the door, I beg of you.”

“Instantly,” said Athos.

Then was heard a great noise of fagots being removed and of the groaning of posts; these were the counterscarps and bastions of Athos, which the besieged himself demolished.

An instant after, the broken door was removed, and the pale face of Athos appeared, who with a rapid glance took a survey of the surroundings.

D’Artagnan threw himself on his neck and embraced him tenderly. He then tried to draw him from his moist abode, but to his surprise he perceived that Athos staggered.

“You are wounded,” said he.

“I! Not at all. I am dead drunk, that’s all, and never did a man more strongly set about getting so. By the Lord, my good host! I must at least have drunk for my part a hundred and fifty bottles.”

“Mercy!” cried the host, “if the lackey has drunk only half as much as the master, I am a ruined man.”

“Grimaud is a well-bred lackey. He would never think of faring in the same manner as his master; he only drank from the cask. Hark! I don’t think he put the faucet in again. Do you hear it? It is running now.”

D’Artagnan burst into a laugh which changed the shiver of the host into a burning fever.

In the meantime, Grimaud appeared in his turn behind his master, with the musketoon on his shoulder, and his head shaking. Like one of those drunken satyrs in the pictures of Rubens. He was moistened before and behind with a greasy liquid which the host recognized as his best olive oil.

The four crossed the public room and proceeded to take possession of the best apartment in the house, which d’Artagnan occupied with authority.

In the meantime the host and his wife hurried down with lamps into the cellar, which had so long been interdicted to them and where a frightful spectacle awaited them.

Beyond the fortifications through which Athos had made a breach in order to get out, and which were composed of fagots, planks, and empty casks, heaped up according to all the rules of the strategic art, they found, swimming in puddles of oil and wine, the bones and fragments of all the hams they had eaten; while a heap of broken bottles filled the whole left-hand corner of the cellar, and a tun, the cock of which was left running, was yielding, by this means, the last drop of its blood. “The image of devastation and death,” as the ancient poet says, “reigned as over a field of battle.”

Of fifty large sausages, suspended from the joists, scarcely ten remained.

Then the lamentations of the host and hostess pierced the vault of the cellar. D’Artagnan himself was moved by them. Athos did not even turn his head.

To grief succeeded rage. The host armed himself with a spit, and rushed into the chamber occupied by the two friends.

“Some wine!” said Athos, on perceiving the host.

“Some wine!” cried the stupefied host, “some wine? Why you have drunk more than a hundred pistoles’ worth! I am a ruined man, lost, destroyed!”

“Bah,” said Athos, “we were always dry.”

“If you had been contented with drinking, well and good; but you have broken all the bottles.”

“You pushed me upon a heap which rolled down. That was your fault.”

“All my oil is lost!”

“Oil is a sovereign balm for wounds; and my poor Grimaud here was obliged to dress those you had inflicted on him.”

“All my sausages are gnawed!”

“There is an enormous quantity of rats in that cellar.”

“You shall pay me for all this,” cried the exasperated host.

“Triple ass!” said Athos, rising; but he sank down again immediately. He had tried his strength to the utmost. D’Artagnan came to his relief with his whip in his hand.

The host drew back and burst into tears.

“This will teach you,” said d’Artagnan, “to treat the guests God sends you in a more courteous fashion.”

“God? Say the devil!”

“My dear friend,” said d’Artagnan, “if you annoy us in this manner we will all four go and shut ourselves up in your cellar, and we will see if the mischief is as great as you say.”

“Oh, gentlemen,” said the host, “I have been wrong. I confess it, but pardon to every sin! You are gentlemen, and I am a poor innkeeper. You will have pity on me.”

“Ah, if you speak in that way,” said Athos, “you will break my heart, and the tears will flow from my eyes as the wine flowed from the cask. We are not such devils as we appear to be. Come hither, and let us talk.”

The host approached with hesitation.

“Come hither, I say, and don’t be afraid,” continued Athos. “At the very moment when I was about to pay you, I had placed my purse on the table.”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“That purse contained sixty pistoles; where is it?”

“Deposited with the justice; they said it was bad money.”

“Very well; get me my purse back and keep the sixty pistoles.”

“But Monseigneur knows very well that justice never lets go that which it once lays hold of. If it were bad money, there might be some hopes; but unfortunately, those were all good pieces.”

“Manage the matter as well as you can, my good man; it does not concern me, the more so as I have not a livre left.”

“Come,” said d’Artagnan, “let us inquire further. Athos’s horse, where is that?”

“In the stable.”

“How much is it worth?”

“Fifty pistoles at most.”

“It’s worth eighty. Take it, and there ends the matter.”

“What,” cried Athos, “are you selling my horse—my Bajazet? And pray upon what shall I make my campaign; upon Grimaud?”

“I have brought you another,” said d’Artagnan.

“Another?”

“And a magnificent one!” cried the host.

“Well, since there is another finer and younger, why, you may take the old one; and let us drink.”

“What?” asked the host, quite cheerful again.

“Some of that at the bottom, near the laths. There are twenty-five bottles of it left; all the rest were broken by my fall. Bring six of them.”

“Why, this man is a cask!” said the host, aside. “If he only remains here a fortnight, and pays for what he drinks, I shall soon re-establish my business.”

“And don’t forget,” said d’Artagnan, “to bring up four bottles of the same sort for the two English gentlemen.”

“And now,” said Athos, “while they bring the wine, tell me, d’Artagnan, what has become of the others, come!”

D’Artagnan related how he had found Porthos in bed with a strained knee, and Aramis at a table between two theologians. As he finished, the host entered with the wine ordered and a ham which, fortunately for him, had been left out of the cellar.

“That’s well!” said Athos, filling his glass and that of his friend; “here’s to Porthos and Aramis! But you, d’Artagnan, what is the matter with you, and what has happened to you personally? You have a sad air.”

“Alas,” said d’Artagnan, “it is because I am the most unfortunate.”

“Tell me.”

“Presently,” said d’Artagnan.

“Presently! And why presently? Because you think I am drunk? D’Artagnan, remember this! My ideas are never so clear as when I have had plenty of wine. Speak, then, I am all ears.”

D’Artagnan related his adventure with Mme. Bonacieux. Athos listened to him without a frown; and when he had finished, said, “Trifles, only trifles!” That was his favorite word.

“You always say trifles, my dear Athos!” said d’Artagnan, “and that come very ill from you, who have never loved.”

The drink-deadened eye of Athos flashed out, but only for a moment; it became as dull and vacant as before.

“That’s true,” said he, quietly, “for my part I have never loved.”

“Acknowledge, then, you stony heart,” said d’Artagnan, “that you are wrong to be so hard upon us tender hearts.”

“Tender hearts! Pierced hearts!” said Athos.

“What do you say?”

“I say that love is a lottery in which he who wins, wins death! You are very fortunate to have lost, believe me, my dear d’Artagnan. And if I have any counsel to give, it is, always lose!”

“She seemed to love me so!”

“She seemed, did she?”

“Oh, she did love me!”

“You child, why, there is not a man who has not believed, as you do, that his mistress loved him, and there lives not a man who has not been deceived by his mistress.”

“Except you, Athos, who never had one.”

“That’s true,” said Athos, after a moment’s silence, “that’s true! I never had one! Let us drink!”

“But then, philosopher that you are,” said d’Artagnan, “instruct me, support me. I stand in need of being taught and consoled.”

“Consoled for what?”

“For my misfortune.”

“Your misfortune is laughable,” said Athos, shrugging his shoulders; “I should like to know what you would say if I were to relate to you a real tale of love!”

“Which has happened to you?”

“Or one of my friends, what matters?”

“Tell it, Athos, tell it.”

“Better if I drink.”

“Drink and relate, then.”

“Not a bad idea!” said Athos, emptying and refilling his glass. “The two things agree marvelously well.”

“I am all attention,” said d’Artagnan.

Athos collected himself, and in proportion as he did so, d’Artagnan saw that he became pale. He was at that period of intoxication in which vulgar drinkers fall on the floor and go to sleep. He kept himself upright and dreamed, without sleeping. This somnambulism of drunkenness had something frightful in it.

“You particularly wish it?” asked he.

“I pray for it,” said d’Artagnan.

“Be it then as you desire. One of my friends—one of my friends, please to observe, not myself,” said Athos, interrupting himself with a melancholy smile, “one of the counts of my province—that is to say, of Berry—noble as a Dandolo or a Montmorency, at twenty-five years of age fell in love with a girl of sixteen, beautiful as fancy can paint. Through the ingenuousness of her age beamed an ardent mind, not of the woman, but of the poet. She did not please; she intoxicated. She lived in a small town with her brother, who was a curate. Both had recently come into the country. They came nobody knew whence; but when seeing her so lovely and her brother so pious, nobody thought of asking whence they came. They were said, however, to be of good extraction. My friend, who was seigneur of the country, might have seduced her, or taken her by force, at his will—for he was master. Who would have come