They filled the shop, the chambers, and the court, even.
D’Artagnan called Raoul’s attention to this concourse,
adding: “The fellow will have no excuse for not paying his
rent. Look at those drinkers, Raoul, one would say they were
jolly companions. Mordioux! why, there is no room anywhere!”
D’Artagnan, however, contrived to catch hold of the master
by the corner of his apron, and to make himself known to
him.
“Ah, monsieur le chevalier,” said the cabaretier, half
distracted, “one minute if you please. I have here a hundred
mad devils turning my cellar upside down.”
“The cellar, if you like, but not the money-box.”
“Oh, monsieur, your thirty-seven and a half pistoles are all
counted out ready for you, upstairs in my chamber, but there
are in that chamber thirty customers, who are sucking the
staves of a little barrel of Oporto which I tapped for them
this very morning. Give me a minute, — only a minute.”
“So be it; so be it.”
“I will go,” said Raoul, in a low voice, to D’Artagnan;
“this hilarity is vile!”
“Monsieur,” replied D’Artagnan, sternly, “you will please to
remain where you are. The soldier ought to familiarize
himself with all kinds of spectacles. There are in the eye,
when it is young, fibers which we must learn how to harden;
and we are not truly generous and good save from the moment
when the eye has become hardened, and the heart remains
tender. Besides, my little Raoul, would you leave me alone
here? That would be very wrong of you. Look, there is yonder
in the lower court a tree, and under the shade of that tree
we shall breathe more freely than in this hot atmosphere of
spilt wine.”
From the spot on which they had placed themselves the two
new guests of the Image-de-Notre-Dame heard the
ever-increasing hubbub of the tide of people, and lost
neither a cry nor a gesture of the drinkers, at tables in
the cabaret, or disseminated in the chambers. If D’Artagnan
had wished to place himself as a vidette for an expedition,
he could not have succeeded better. The tree under which he
and Raoul were seated covered them with its already thick
foliage; it was a low, thick chestnut-tree, with inclined
branches, that cast their shade over a table so dilapidated
the drinkers had abandoned it. We said that from this post
D’Artagnan saw everything. He observed the goings and
comings of the waiters; the arrival of fresh drinkers; the
welcome, sometimes friendly, sometimes hostile, given to the
newcomers by others already installed. He observed all this
to amuse himself, for the thirty-seven and a half pistoles
were a long time coming. Raoul recalled his attention to it.
“Monsieur,” said he, “you do not hurry your tenant, and the
condemned will soon be here. There will then be such a press
we shall not be able to get out.”
Page 359
Dumas, Alexandre – Ten Years Later
“You are right,” said the musketeer; “Hola! oh! somebody
there! Mordioux!” But it was in vain he cried and knocked
upon the wreck of the old table, which fell to pieces
beneath his fist; nobody came.
D’Artagnan was preparing to go and seek the cabaretier
himself, to force him to a definite explanation, when the
door of the court in which he was with Raoul, a door which
communicated with the garden situated at the back, opened,
and a man dressed as a cavalier, with his sword in the
sheath, but not at his belt, crossed the court without
closing the door; and having cast an oblique glance at
D’Artagnan and his companion, directed his course towards
the cabaret itself, looking about in all directions with his
eyes capable of piercing walls of consciences. “Humph!” said
D’Artagnan, “my tenants are communicating. That, no doubt,
now, is some amateur in hanging matters.” At the same moment
the cries and disturbance in the upper chambers ceased.
Silence, under such circumstances, surprises more than a
twofold increase of noise. D’Artagnan wished to see what was
the cause of this sudden silence. He then perceived that
this man, dressed as a cavalier, had just entered the
principal chamber, and was haranguing the tipplers, who all