herself to my little ways and understand my little wishes.”
“So you are free now, and rich?”
“Alas!” groaned Porthos, “I am a widower and have forty
thousand francs a year. Let us go to breakfast.”
“I shall be happy to do so; the morning air has made me
hungry.”
“Yes,” said Porthos; “my air is excellent.”
They went into the chateau; there was nothing but gilding,
high and low; the cornices were gilt, the mouldings were
gilt, the legs and arms of the chairs were gilt. A table,
ready set out, awaited them.
“You see,” said Porthos, “this is my usual style.”
“Devil take me!” answered D’Artagnan, “I wish you joy of it.
The king has nothing like it.”
“No,” answered Porthos, “I hear it said that he is very
badly fed by the cardinal, Monsieur de Mazarin. Taste this
cutlet, my dear D’Artagnan; ’tis off one of my sheep.”
“You have very tender mutton and I wish you joy of it.” said
D’Artagnan.
“Yes, the sheep are fed in my meadows, which are excellent
pasture.”
“Give me another cutlet.”
“No, try this hare, which I had killed yesterday in one of
my warrens.”
“Zounds! what a flavor!” cried D’Artagnan; “ah! they are fed
on thyme only, your hares.”
“And how do you like my wine?” asked Porthos; “it is
pleasant, isn’t it?”
“Capital!”
“It is nothing, however, but a wine of the country.”
“Really?”
“Yes, a small declivity to the south, yonder on my hill,
gives me twenty hogsheads.”
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“Quite a vineyard, hey?”
Porthos sighed for the fifth time — D’Artagnan had counted
his sighs. He became curious to solve the problem.
“Well now,” he said, “it seems, my dear friend, that
something vexes you; you are ill, perhaps? That health,
which —- ”
“Excellent, my dear friend; better than ever. I could kill
an ox with a blow of my fist.”
“Well, then, family affairs, perhaps?”
“Family! I have, happily, only myself in the world to care
for.”
“But what makes you sigh?”
“My dear fellow,” replied Porthos, “to be candid with you, I
am not happy.”
“You are not happy, Porthos? You who have chateau, meadows,
mountains, woods — you who have forty thousand francs a
year — you — are — not — happy?”
“My dear friend, all those things I have, but I am a hermit
in the midst of superfluity.”
“Surrounded, I suppose, only by clodhoppers, with whom you
could not associate.”
Porthos turned rather pale and drank off a large glass of
wine.
“No; but just think, there are paltry country squires who
have all some title or another and pretend to go back as far
as Charlemagne, or at least to Hugh Capet. When I first came
here; being the last comer, it was for me to make the first
advances. I made them, but you know, my dear friend, Madame
du Vallon —- ”
Porthos, in pronouncing these words, seemed to gulp down
something.
“Madame du Vallon was of doubtful gentility. She had, in her
first marriage — I don’t think, D’Artagnan, I am telling
you anything new — married a lawyer; they thought that
`nauseous;’ you can understand that’s a word bad enough to
make one kill thirty thousand men. I have killed two, which
has made people hold their tongues, but has not made me
their friend. So that I have no society; I live alone; I am
sick of it — my mind preys on itself.”
D’Artagnan smiled. He now saw where the breastplate was
weak, and prepared the blow.
“But now,” he said, “that you are a widower, your wife’s
connection cannot injure you.”
“Yes, but understand me; not being of a race of historic
fame, like the De Courcys, who were content to be plain
sirs, or the Rohans, who didn’t wish to be dukes, all these
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people, who are all either vicomtes or comtes go before me
at church in all the ceremonies, and I can say nothing to
them. Ah! If I only were a —- ”
“A baron, don’t you mean?” cried D’Artagnan, finishing his
friend’s sentence.