word, `Place Royale!’ let us put our swords into our left
hands and shake hands with the right, even in the very lust
and music of the hottest carnage.”
“You speak charmingly,” said Porthos.
“And are the first of men!” added D’Artagnan. “You excel us
all.”
Athos smiled with ineffable pleasure.
“‘Tis then all settled. Gentlemen, your hands; are we not
pretty good Christians?”
“Egad!” said D’Artagnan, “by Heaven! yes.”
“We should be so on this occasion, if only to be faithful to
our oath,” said Aramis.
“Ah, I’m ready to do what you will,” cried Porthos; “even to
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swear by Mahomet. Devil take me if I’ve ever been so happy
as at this moment.”
And he wiped his eyes, still moist.
“Has not one of you a cross?” asked Athos.
Aramis smiled and drew from his vest a cross of diamonds,
which was hung around his neck by a chain of pearls. “Here
is one,” he said.
“Well,” resumed Athos, “swear on this cross, which, in spite
of its magnificent material, is still a cross; swear to be
united in spite of everything, and forever, and may this
oath bind us to each other, and even, also, our descendants!
Does this oath satisfy you?”
“Yes,” said they all, with one accord.
“Ah, traitor!” muttered D’Artagnan, leaning toward Aramis
and whispering in his ear, “you have made us swear on the
crucifix of a Frondeuse.”
29
The Ferry across the Oise.
We hope that the reader has not quite forgotten the young
traveler whom we left on the road to Flanders.
In losing sight of his guardian, whom he had quitted, gazing
after him in front of the royal basilican, Raoul spurred on
his horse, in order not only to escape from his own
melancholy reflections, but also to hide from Olivain the
emotion his face might betray.
One hour’s rapid progress, however, sufficed to disperse the
gloomy fancies that had clouded the young man’s bright
anticipations; and the hitherto unfelt pleasure of freedom
— a pleasure which is sweet even to those who have never
known dependence — seemed to Raoul to gild not only Heaven
and earth, but especially that blue but dim horizon of life
we call the future.
Nevertheless, after several attempts at conversation with
Olivain he foresaw that many days passed thus would prove
exceedingly dull; and the count’s agreeable voice, his
gentle and persuasive eloquence, recurred to his mind at the
various towns through which they journeyed and about which
he had no longer any one to give him those interesting
details which he would have drawn from Athos, the most
amusing and the best informed of guides. Another
recollection contributed also to sadden Raoul: on their
arrival at Sonores he had perceived, hidden behind a screen
of poplars, a little chateau which so vividly recalled that
of La Valliere to his mind that he halted for nearly ten
minutes to gaze at it, and resumed his journey with a sigh
too abstracted even to reply to Olivain’s respectful inquiry
about the cause of so much fixed attention. The aspect of
external objects is often a mysterious guide communicating
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with the fibres of memory, which in spite of us will arouse
them at times; this thread, like that of Ariadne, when once
unraveled will conduct one through a labyrinth of thought,
in which one loses one’s self in endeavoring to follow that
phantom of the past which is called recollection.
Now the sight of this chateau had taken Raoul back fifty
leagues westward and had caused him to review his life from
the moment when he had taken leave of little Louise to that
in which he had seen her for the first time; and every
branch of oak, every gilded weathercock on roof of slates,
reminded him that, instead of returning to the friends of
his childhood, every instant estranged him further and that
perhaps he had even left them forever.
With a full heart and burning head he desired Olivain to
lead on the horses to a wayside inn, which he observed
within gunshot range, a little in advance of the place they