“My brave Mousqueton,” resumed D’Artagnan, “pardon me, but I
was so absorbed in your charming recital that I have
forgotten the principal object of our conversation, which
was to learn what M. le Vicaire-General d’Herblay could have
to write to your master about.”
“That is true, monsieur,” said Mousqueton; “the pleasures
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have misled us. Well, monsieur, this is the whole affair.”
“I am all attention, Mousqueton.”
“On Wednesday —- ”
“The day of the rustic pleasures?”
“Yes — a letter arrived; he received it from my hands. I
had recognized the writing.”
“Well?”
“Monseigneur read it and cried out, `Quick, my horses! my
arms!'”
“Oh, good Lord! then it was for some duel?” said D’Artagnan.
“No, monsieur, there were only these words: `Dear Porthos,
set out, if you would wish to arrive before the Equinox. I
expect you.'”
“Mordioux!” said D’Artagnan, thoughtfully, “that was
pressing, apparently.”
“I think so; therefore,” continued Mousqueton, “monseigneur
set out the very same day with his secretary, in order to
endeavor to arrive in time.”
“And did he arrive in time?”
“I hope so. Monseigneur, who is hasty, as you know,
monsieur, repeated incessantly, `Tonno Dieu! What can this
mean? The Equinox? Never mind, a fellow must be well mounted
to arrive before I do.'”
“And you think Porthos will have arrived first, do you?”
asked D’Artagnan.
“I am sure of it. This Equinox, however rich he may be, has
certainly no horses so good as monseigneur’s.”
D’Artagnan repressed his inclination to laugh, because the
brevity of Aramis’s letter gave rise to reflection. He
followed Mousqueton, or rather Mousqueton’s chariot, to the
castle. He sat down to a sumptuous table, of which they did
him the honors as to a king. But he could draw nothing from
Mousqueton, — the faithful servant seemed to shed tears at
will, but that was all.
D’Artagnan, after a night passed in an excellent bed,
reflected much upon the meaning of Aramis’s letter; puzzled
himself as to the relation of the Equinox with the affairs
of Porthos; and being unable to make anything out unless it
concerned some amour of the bishop’s, for which it was
necessary that the days and nights should be equal,
D’Artagnan left Pierrefonds as he had left Melun, as he had
left the chateau of the Comte de la Fere. It was not,
however, without a melancholy, which might in good sooth
pass for one of the most dismal of D’Artagnan’s moods. His
head cast down, his eyes fixed, he suffered his legs to hang
on each side of his horse, and said to himself, in that
vague sort of reverie which ascends sometimes to the
sublimest eloquence:
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“No more friends! no more future! no more anything! My
energies are broken like the bonds of our ancient
friendship. Oh, old age is coming, cold and inexorable; it
envelops in its funereal crape all that was brilliant, all
that was embalming in my youth; then it throws that sweet
burthen on its shoulders and carries it away with the rest
into the fathomless gulf of death.”
A shudder crept through the heart of the Gascon, so brave
and so strong against all the misfortunes of life; and
during some moments the clouds appeared black to him, the
earth slippery and full of pits as that of cemeteries.
“Whither am I going?” said he to himself. “What am I going
to do! Alone, quite alone — without family, without
friends! Bah!” cried he all at once. And he clapped spurs to
his horse, who, having found nothing melancholy in the heavy
oats of Pierrefonds profited by this permission to show his
gayety in a gallop which absorbed two leagues. “To Paris!”
said D’Artagnan to himself. And on the morrow he alighted in
Paris. He had devoted six days to this journey.
CHAPTER 19
What D’Artagnan went to Paris for
The lieutenant dismounted before a shop in the Rue des
Lombards, at the sign of the Pilon d’Or. A man of good
appearance, wearing a white apron, and stroking his gray
mustache with a large hand, uttered a cry of joy on