of a man, complete, except for the sword, arranged along the
wall.
“He has returned,” said he. “So much the worse, and so much
the better!”
It need not be said that D’Artagnan was still thinking of
the husband. He made inquiries and discovered that the
servants were new and that the mistress had gone for a walk.
“Alone?” asked D’Artagnan.
“With monsieur.”
“Monsieur has returned, then?”
“Of course,” naively replied the servant.
“If I had any money,” said D’Artagnan to himself, “I would
go away; but I have none. I must stay and follow the advice
of my hostess, while thwarting the conjugal designs of this
inopportune apparition.”
He had just completed this monologue — which proves that in
momentous circumstances nothing is more natural than the
monologue — when the servant-maid, watching at the door,
suddenly cried out:
“Ah! see! here is madame returning with monsieur.”
D’Artagnan looked out and at the corner of Rue Montmartre
saw the hostess coming along hanging to the arm of an
enormous Swiss, who tiptoed in his walk with a magnificent
air which pleasantly reminded him of his old friend Porthos.
“Is that monsieur?” said D’Artagnan to himself. “Oh! oh! he
has grown a good deal, it seems to me.” And he sat down in
the hall, choosing a conspicuous place.
The hostess, as she entered, saw D’Artagnan and uttered a
little cry, whereupon D’Artagnan, judging that he had been
Page 46
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
recognized, rose, ran to her and embraced her tenderly. The
Swiss, with an air of stupefaction, looked at the hostess,
who turned pale.
“Ah, it is you, monsieur! What do you want of me?” she
asked, in great distress.
“Is monsieur your cousin? Is monsieur your brother?” said
D’Artagnan, not in the slightest degree embarrassed in the
role he was playing. And without waiting for her reply he
threw himself into the arms of the Helvetian, who received
him with great coldness.
“Who is that man?” he asked.
The hostess replied only by gasps.
“Who is that Swiss?” asked D’Artagnan.
“Monsieur is going to marry me,” replied the hostess,
between two gasps.
“Your husband, then, is at last dead?”
“How does that concern you?” replied the Swiss.
“It concerns me much,” said D’Artagnan, “since you cannot
marry madame without my consent and since —- ”
“And since?” asked the Swiss.
“And since — I do not give it,” said the musketeer.
The Swiss became as purple as a peony. He wore his elegant
uniform, D’Artagnan was wrapped in a sort of gray cloak; the
Swiss was six feet high, D’Artagnan was hardly more than
five; the Swiss considered himself on his own ground and
regarded D’Artagnan as an intruder.
“Will you go away from here?” demanded the Swiss, stamping
violently, like a man who begins to be seriously angry.
“I? By no means!” said D’Artagnan.
“Some one must go for help,” said a lad, who could not
comprehend that this little man should make a stand against
that other man, who was so large.
D’Artagnan, with a sudden accession of wrath, seized the lad
by the ear and led him apart, with the injunction:
“Stay you where you are and don’t you stir, or I will pull
this ear off. As for you, illustrious descendant of William
Tell, you will straightway get together your clothes which
are in my room and which annoy me, and go out quickly to
another lodging.”
The Swiss began to laugh boisterously. “I go out?” he said.
“And why?”
“Ah, very well!” said D’Artagnan; “I see that you understand
French. Come then, and take a turn with me and I will
explain.”
Page 47
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
The hostess, who knew D’Artagnan’s skill with the sword,
began to weep and tear her hair. D’Artagnan turned toward
her, saying, “Then send him away, madame.”
“Pooh!” said the Swiss, who had needed a little time to take
in D’Artagnan’s proposal, “pooh! who are you, in the first
place, to ask me to take a turn with you?”
“I am lieutenant in his majesty’s musketeers,” said
D’Artagnan, “and consequently your superior in everything;
only, as the question now is not of rank, but of quarters —