M. Coquenard did not carry his genealogical investigations any further; but withdrawing his anxious look from the chest and fixing it upon Porthos, he contented himself with saying, “Monsieur our cousin will do us the favor of dining with us once before his departure for the campaign, will he not, Madame Coquenard?”
This time Porthos received the blow right in his stomach, and felt it. It appeared likewise that Mme. Coquenard was not less affected by it on her part, for she added, “My cousin will not return if he finds that we do not treat him kindly; but otherwise he has so little time to pass in Paris, and consequently to spare to us, that we must entreat him to give us every instant he can call his own previous to his departure.”
“Oh, my legs, my poor legs! where are you?” murmured Coquenard, and he tried to smile.
This succor, which came to Porthos at the moment in which he was attacked in his gastronomic hopes, inspired much gratitude in the Musketeer toward the procurator’s wife.
The hour of dinner soon arrived. They passed into the eating room–a large dark room situated opposite the kitchen.
The clerks, who, as it appeared, had smelled unusual perfumes in the house, were of military punctuality, and held their stools in hand quite ready to sit down. Their jaws moved preliminarily with fearful threatenings.
“Indeed!” thought Porthos, casting a glance at the three hungry clerks–for the errand boy, as might be expected, was not admitted to the honors of the magisterial table, “in my cousin’s place, I would not keep such gourmands! They look like shipwrecked sailors who have not eaten for six weeks.”
M. Coquenard entered, pushed along upon his armchair with casters by Mme. Coquenard, whom Porthos assisted in rolling her husband up to the table. He had scarcely entered when he began to agitate his nose and his jaws after the example of his clerks.
“Oh, oh!” said he; “here is a soup which is rather inviting.”
“What the devil can they smell so extraordinary in this soup?” said Porthos, at the sight of a pale liquid, abundant but entirely free from meat, on the surface of which a few crusts swam about as rare as the islands of an archipelago.
Mme. Coquenard smiled, and upon a sign from her everyone eagerly took his seat.
M. Coquenard was served first, then Porthos. Afterward Mme. Coquenard filled her own plate, and distributed the crusts without soup to the impatient clerks. At this moment the door of the dining room unclosed with a creak, and Porthos perceived through the half-open flap the little clerk who, not being allowed to take part in the feast, ate his dry bread in the passage with the double odor of the dining room and kitchen.
After the soup the maid brought a boiled fowl–a piece of magnificence which caused the eyes of the diners to dilate in such a manner that they seemed ready to burst.
“One may see that you love your family, Madame Coquenard,” said the procurator, with a smile that was almost tragic. “You are certainly treating your cousin very handsomely!”
The poor fowl was thin, and covered with one of those thick, bristly skins through which the teeth cannot penetrate with all their efforts. The fowl must have been sought for a long time on the perch, to which it had retired to die of old age.
“The devil!” thought Porthos, “this is poor work. I respect old age, but I don’t much like it boiled or roasted.”
And he looked round to see if anybody partook of his opinion; but on the contrary, he saw nothing but eager eyes which were devouring, in anticipation, that sublime fowl which was the object of his contempt.
Mme. Coquenard drew the dish toward her, skillfully detached the two great black feet, which she placed upon her husband’s plate, cut off the neck, which with the head she put on one side for herself, raised the wing for Porthos, and then returned the bird otherwise intact to the servant who had brought it in, who disappeared with it before the Musketeer had time to examine the variations which disappointment produces upon faces, according to the characters and temperaments of those who experience it.