“Indeed, yes.”
“Very good. I should quarrel with you. You would never forgive me for having destroyed your illusion, as people say of love-affairs.”
“M. d’Artagnan, you know all; and yet you plunge me in perplexity, in despair, in death.”
“There, there!”
“I never complain, as you know; but as Heaven and my father would never forgive me for blowing out my brains, I will go and get the first person I meet to give me the information which you withhold; I will tell him he lies, and-”
“And you will kill him? A fine affair that would be! So much the better. What should I care for it? Kill my boy, kill, if it can give you any pleasure. It is exactly like a man with the toothache, who keeps on saying, ‘Oh, what torture I am suffering! I could bite iron.’ My answer always is, ‘Bite, my friend, bite; the tooth will remain all the same.'”
“I shall not kill any one, Monsieur,” said Raoul, gloomily.
“Yes, yes; you fellows of to-day put on those airs. Instead of killing, you will get killed yourself, I suppose you mean? Very fine indeed! How much I should regret you! I should say all day long: ‘Ah! what a high-flown simpleton that Bragelonne was,- doubly an ingrate! I have passed my whole life almost in teaching him how to hold his sword properly, and the silly fellow has got himself spitted like a lark.’ Go, then, Raoul, go and get yourself disposed of, if you like. I don’t know who taught you logic; but, God damn me,- as the English say,- whoever it was, Monsieur, has stolen your father’s money.”
Raoul buried his face in his hands, murmuring, “No, no; I have not a single friend in the world!”
“Oh, bah!” said d’Artagnan.
“I meet with nothing but raillery or indifference.”
“Idle fancies, Monsieur! I do not laugh at you, although I am a Gascon. And as for being indifferent, if I were so I should have sent you to all the devils a quarter of an hour ago; for you would sadden a man who was wild with joy, and would kill one who was sad. How now, young man! Do you wish me to disgust you with the girl to whom you are attached, and to teach you to execrate women, who are the honor and happiness of human life?”
“Oh, tell me, Monsieur, and I will bless you!”
“Do you think, my dear fellow, that I can have crammed into my brain all that business about the carpenter and the painter and the staircase and the portrait, and a hundred other tales to sleep over?”
“A carpenter! what do you mean?”
“Upon my word, I don’t know. Some one told me there was a carpenter who made an opening through a floor.”
“In La Valliere’s room?”
“Oh, I don’t know where!”
“In the King’s apartment, perhaps?”
“Of course! If it were in the King’s apartment, I should tell you, I suppose.”
“In whose room, then?”
“I have told you for the last hour that I know nothing of the whole affair.”
“But the painter, then,- the portrait?”
“It seems that the King wished to have the portrait of one of the ladies belonging to the court.”
“La Valliere’s?”
“Why, you seem to have only that name in your mouth! Who spoke to you of La Valliere?”
“If it be not her portrait, then, why do you suppose it would concern me?”
“I do not suppose it will concern you. But you ask me all sorts of questions, and I answer you; you wish to know the current scandal, and I tell you. Make the best you can of it!”
Raoul struck his forehead with his hand, in utter despair. “It will kill me! he said.
“So you have said already.”
“Yes, you’re right”; and he made a step or two as if he were going to leave.
“Where are you going?”
“To find some one who will tell me the truth.”
“Who is that?”
“A woman.”
“Mademoiselle de la Valliere herself, I suppose you mean?” said d’Artagnan, with a smile. “Ah, a famous idea that! You wish to be consoled by some one, and you will be so at once. She will tell you nothing ill of herself, of course. So be off!”