“We went out. I took him to the Rue Payenne, to exactly the same spot where, a year before, at the very same hour, he had paid me the compliment I have related to you. It was a superb moonlight night. We immediately drew, and at the first pass I laid him stark dead.”
“The devil!” cried d’Artagnan.
“Now,” continued Aramis, “as the ladies did not see the singer come back, and as he was found in the Rue Payenne with a great sword wound through his body, it was supposed that I had accommodated him thus; and the matter created some scandal which obliged me to renounce the cassock for a time. Athos, whose acquaintance I made about that period, and Porthos, who had in addition to my lessons taught me some effective tricks of fence, prevailed upon me to solicit the uniform of a Musketeer. The king entertained great regard for my father, who had fallen at the siege of Arras, and the uniform was granted. You may understand that the moment has come for me to re-enter the bosom of the Church.”
“And why today, rather than yesterday or tomorrow? What has happened to you today, to raise all these melancholy ideas?”
“This wound, my dear d’Artagnan, has been a warning to me from heaven.”
“This wound? Bah, it is now nearly healed, and I am sure it is not that which gives you the most pain.”
“What, then?” said Aramis, blushing.
“You have one at heart, Aramis, one deeper and more painful–a wound made by a woman.”
The eye of Aramis kindled in spite of himself.
“Ah,” said he, dissembling his emotion under a feigned carelessness, “do not talk of such things, and suffer love pains? VANITAS VANITATUM! According to your idea, then, my brain is turned. And for whom-for some GRISETTE, some chambermaid with whom I have trifled in some garrison? Fie!”
“Pardon, my dear Aramis, but I thought you carried your eyes higher.”
“Higher? And who am I, to nourish such ambition? A poor Musketeer, a beggar, an unknown-who hates slavery, and finds himself ill-placed in the world.”
“Aramis, Aramis!” cried d’Artagnan, looking at his friend with an air of doubt.
“Dust I am, and to dust I return. Life is full of humiliations and sorrows,” continued he, becoming still more melancholy; “all the ties which attach him to life break in the hand of man, particularly the golden ties. Oh, my dear d’Artagnan,” resumed Aramis, giving to his voice a slight tone of bitterness, “trust me! Conceal your wounds when you have any; silence is the last joy of the unhappy. Beware of giving anyone the clue to your griefs; the curious suck our tears as flies suck the blood of a wounded hart.”
“Alas, my dear Aramis,” said d’Artagnan, in his turn heaving a profound sigh, “that is my story you are relating!”
“How?”
“Yes; a woman whom I love, whom I adore, has just been torn from me by force. I do not know where she is or whither they have conducted her. She is perhaps a prisoner; she is perhaps dead!”
“Yes, but you have at least this consolation, that you can say to yourself she has not quit you voluntarily, that if you learn no news of her, it is because all communication with you in interdicted; while I–”
“Well?”
“Nothing,” replied Aramis, “nothing.”
“So you renounce the world, then, forever; that is a settled thing–a resolution registered!”
“Forever! You are my friend today; tomorrow you will be no more to me than a shadow, or rather, even, you will no longer exist. As for the world, it is a sepulcher and nothing else.”
“The devil! All this is very sad which you tell me.”
“What will you? My vocation commands me; it carries me away.”
D’Artagnan smiled, but made no answer.
Aramis continued, “And yet, while I do belong to the earth, I wish to speak of you–of our friends.”
“And on my part,” said d’Artagnan, “I wished to speak of you, but I find you so completely detached from everything! To love you cry, ‘Fie! Friends are shadows! The world is a sepulcher!'”
“Alas, you will find it so yourself,” said Aramis, with a sigh.