The Modern Library Children's Classics

by Kenneth Grahame

  “Yet you persist in supporting that thesis, my son?”

  “I feel called upon to support that thesis and no other. I shall therefore continue to work on it tomorrow, Father, and I hope you will be satisfied with the corrections I shall bring to it, thanks to your advice.”

  “Work slowly and diligently,” the Curé counseled. “I am sure we are leaving you in the best possible frame of mind to carry you successfully along the path you have chosen.”

  “Yes, the ground of the Lord is richly sown,” said the Jesuit. “We need not fear lest one portion of the seed fall upon stone or another upon the highway nor lest the birds of Heaven have eaten of the rest, aves coeli comederant illam!”

  D’Artagnan, at the end of his tether, muttered: “God choke, stifle and plague you with your Latin!”

  “Farewell, my son,” said the Curé. “I shall come back tomorrow.”

  “Farewell until tomorrow, my rash young friend,” said the Jesuit. “You give promise of becoming a light of the Church; God grant that this light prove not to be a consuming fire.”

  For over an hour D’Artagnan had been gnawing furiously at his nails; now he was down to the quick. The two men in black rose stiffly, bowed ceremoniously to Aramis and D’Artagnan, and moved toward the door. Bazin, who had been standing by, overhearing the entire controversy with pious jubilation, sped forward toward them, picked up the breviary the Curé had left on a chair and the missal the Jesuit had forgotten, and ushered the clerics out with much respectful consideration. Aramis accompanied his guests to the foot of the stairs, then rejoined D’Artagnan who was still lost in thought.

  Left alone at last the two friends were lost in an embarrassed silence; one or the other must perforce break it and D’Artagnan appeared set upon leaving this honor to his comrade. Aramis therefore broke the ice.

  “As you see,” he volunteered, “I have reverted to my original ideas.”

  “So I perceive, Aramis; Grace has indeed visited you in all its power, if I may quote your clerical friend.”

  “My plans of retirement were formed long since, as you know. Indeed I mentioned them to you, did I not?”

  “True, but I thought you were joking.”

  “Joking about anything as serious as that?”

  “Well, we certainly joke about death.”

  “Yes, D’Artagnan, but we are wrong because death is the gateway to salvation or ruin.”

  “Granted, my dear Aramis, but pray spare me theologics; you must surely have had enough of them for one day. As for me I have just forgotten practically all the small Latin I ever learned. Also I happen to have had no food since ten o’clock this morning and I confess I am devilishly hungry.”

  “We will dine shortly, my friend. Only I must remind you that it is Friday, so I cannot eat meat or witness the eating of it. If you can put up with my humble dinner, you are indeed welcome. We are having tetragons—”

  “Tetragons? What do you mean? I thought tetragons had something to do with geometry?”

  “No, I mean simply spinach, to which we will add some eggs. Incidentally this is a serious infraction of the rules because eggs are actually meat, for out of them come your chickens.”

  “It scarcely sounds like succulent fare, my dear Aramis, but I will put up with it for the sake of your company.”

  “I appreciate your sacrifice, my dear fellow. It may not benefit your body but it will surely benefit your soul.”

  D’Artagnan then questioned Aramis about his intention to take up Holy Orders. What would their friends say about it, and how would Monsieur de Tréville take it? D’Artagnan suggested that many people might look upon Aramis as a deserter. His friend replied that he was not about to enter the Church but rather to re-enter it. He had forsaken the Church for the World; he had acted against his sincerest principles by donning the uniform of a musketeer. Surely D’Artagnan must know all this.

  “I?” D’Artagnan asked in amazement. “I know nothing whatever about it, Aramis.”

  “Well, the Scriptures say ‘Confess yourselves to one another’—James, V, 16—and so I will confess myself to you, my friend.”

  “And I, being a decent sort of fellow, will grant you absolution beforehand.”

  “Do not make light of holy things, my friend.”

  “No offense meant, my dear fellow. Fire away, I am listening!”

  “Well, I had been at the seminary ever since the age of nine and I was within three days of my twentieth birthday. All was settled; I was certain of becoming an abbé and my life was marked out quite definitely. Then one evening as I was visiting a house which I frequented with much pleasure—one is young after all, and the flesh is weak!—an officer who was jealous of me because I used to read the Lives of the Saints to the mistress of the house, chanced to enter suddenly without being announced. That evening I had translated an episode concerning Judith; I had just read my verses to the lady, who was loud in her praise and, leaning on my shoulder, was reading them a second time. Her position, which I must admit was somewhat intimate, wounded the officer’s feelings. He said nothing at the time, but when I left he followed me out and caught up with me.

  “ ‘Monsieur l’Abbé,’ he said, ‘do you care for canings?’

  “ ‘I cannot say, Monsieur,’ I replied, ‘no one has ever dared give me one.’

  “ ‘Well, then, listen to me, Monsieur l’Abbé: if you ever return to the house where I met you this evening, I shall give you a sound drubbing.’

  “I think I must have been frightened; at any rate I turned very pale, I felt my knees giving way, I sought for some reply, but, finding none, I kept silent. The officer was awaiting my reply but, seeing it so slow in coming, he burst into laughter, turned on his heel, and went back into the house.

  “I returned to the seminary.

  “Now I am a gentleman born and I am hot-blooded, as you may have noticed, my dear D’Artagnan; the insult was a terrible one, and though none but I knew of it, I felt it alive, stirring and festering in the depths of my heart. Accordingly I informed my superiors that I did not feel sufficiently prepared to be ordained and at my request the ceremony was postponed for a year.

  “I promptly sought out the best fencing master in Paris, arranged to take lessons from him every day for a whole year and I never missed a single one. Then on the first anniversary of the day I was insulted, I hung my cassock on a peg, assumed the costume of a cavalier and attended a ball given by a lady of my acquaintance which I knew my man was to attend. It was in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, quite close to La Force.

  “My officer was there as I had expected; I went up to him as he was singing a love song and ogling a lady. I interrupted him in the middle of the second verse.

  “ ‘Monsieur,’ I asked, ‘do you still object to my returning to a certain house in the Rue Payenne? And do you still intend to cane me if I choose to disobey you?’

  “He looked at me with considerable astonishment and said:

  “ ‘Monsieur, what is your business with me? I am sure we have never met’

  “ ‘I am the little abbé who reads the Lives of the Saints and translates Judith into verse,’ I informed him.

  “ ‘Ah, yes, yes, yes, I remember now,’ the officer replied in a jeering tone, ‘well, what do you want of me?’

  “ ‘I would like you to take a little turn with me outside.’

  “ ‘Tomorrow morning, if you wish, and with the greatest pleasure.’

  “ ‘No, not tomorrow morning but immediately, if you please!’

  “ ‘If you absolutely insist—’

  “ ‘I do.’ ”

  “ ‘Come along then,’ the officer said. ‘As for you, ladies, pray do not disturb yourselves. Just allow me enough time to kill this gentleman and I will return to finish the last verse of our song.’

  “We went out. I took him to the Rue Payenne, to exactly the same spot where a year before, hour for hour, he had paid me the compliment I mentioned. It was a magnificent moonlit night. We drew
our swords and at the first pass I killed him outright.”

  “The devil!” D’Artagnan exclaimed.

  “Now as the ladies did not see their singer return,” Aramis continued, “and as he was found in the Rue Payenne with a great sword wound through his body, it was supposed that I had done him this favor. The matter obviously created some scandal and I had perforce to renounce the cassock, temporarily at least. Athos, whose acquaintance I made at that period, and Porthos, who had shown me several effective tricks of fencing beyond those my master taught me, both prevailed upon me to solicit the uniform of a musketeer. The King had been very fond of my father who fell at the siege of Arras; my request was granted and here I am now. But you can readily understand how the time has come for me to return to the bosom of the Holy Church.”

  “But why today rather than yesterday or tomorrow, Aramis? What has happened to you today to give you such sorry ideas?”

  “This wound, my dear D’Artagnan, has come to me as a warning from Heaven.”

  “Your wound! Nonsense! Your wound is just about healed and I swear it is not your wound that gives you the greatest pain at this moment!”

  “What should it be then?” asked Aramis, blushing.

  “Another wound, Aramis, the wound in your heart, a deeper and bloodier wound inflicted by a woman.”

  In spite of himself a flame sparkled in the eyes of Aramis.

  “Come, do not speak of such things,” he declared, masking his emotion under a feigned indifference. “What? I, Aramis, to think of such things and suffer the pangs of love! Vanitas vanitatum, O Vanity of Vanities! So you think I have lost my head—let alone my heart—eh? And for whom? For some gay chambermaid or inviting doxy I may have met in a garrison town? Faugh, you disgust me!”

  “Forgive me, Aramis, but I thought you aspired to something nobler than chambermaids and doxies?”

  “I, aspire to something higher? I, a poor musketeer, a beggar, a mere anonymous cipher who abominates slavery and finds himself very much of a misfit in a sorry makeshift world?”

  D’Artagnan wagged his head dubiously.

  “Dust am I and to dust I return,” Aramis went on with increasing melancholy. “Life is replete with humiliations and sorrows; all the threads that bind it to happiness break one by one in the hollow of a man’s hand. And that is truest of the golden threads!” Aramis passed from dejection to a certain bitterness: “My dear D’Artagnan,” he begged, “believe me, if you have any wounds, then make sure to conceal them. Silence is the last of the joys vouchsafed the unhappy. Beware of ever giving anyone an inkling of what you suffer, for the curious suck our tears as flies suck the blood of a wounded heart.”

  It was D’Artagnan’s turn to heave a deep sigh.

  “Alas, dear Aramis, it is my own story you are relating.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, a woman I loved—a woman I adored—has just been taken away from me by force. I do not know where she is; I cannot guess where her abductors have lodged her. Is she in prison? Is she dead? I know nothing of it.”

  “At least you have the consolation of knowing that she did not leave you of her own free will,” Aramis pointed out. “At least you can be sure that if you have no news of her, it is because she is held incommunicado. While I—”

  “While you—? What?”

  “Nothing, my friend, nothing!”

  “And so you are renouncing the world forever, eh? Your decision is irrevocable and the die is cast.”

  “Forever and ever. Today you are my friend D’Artagnan; tomorrow you will be no more to me than a shadow, or even less, for you will have ceased to exist for me. As for the world, it is but a sepulchre, no more, no less.”

  “Damn it, all that you say is really very sad.”

  “What would you have me say? My vocation commands, I can but obey.” D’Artagnan smiled but made no answer. Aramis continued, “Yet, while I still am of this earth, I should wish to speak of you and of our friends.”

  “I too should wish to speak of you, Aramis. Unfortunately you are so utterly detached from everything: Love, you spurn as a snare and a delusion, your friends are shadows, and the world is a sepulchre.”

  “You will find this out for yourself some day,” Aramis sighed.

  “Well, then, let us drop the subject,” D’Artagnan proposed. “I am perfectly willing to burn this letter I have here.”

  “A letter?”

  “A letter which doubtless reports some new infidelity on the part of your chambermaid or doxy.”

  “What letter?” Aramis asked eagerly.

  “A letter which was delivered at your lodgings in your absence and which I picked up there.”

  “A letter from whom?”

  “Oh, from some heartbroken servant wench or some despondent light-of-love in a garrison town. It might even come from no less a personage than the chambermaid of the Duchesse de Chevreuse. I can easily imagine the soubrette having to return to Tours with the Duchess and, to appear smart, pilfering some of her mistress’s scented note paper and sealing her letter with a duchess’s coronet.”

  “What in the world—?”

  “Confound it, I think I must have lost that letter,” D’Artagnan said maliciously as he pretended to search for it. “But no matter! Happily the world is a sepulchre, men and consequently women are but shadows, and love is a lure which you spurn.”

  “D’Artagnan, D’Artagnan, please! You are killing me! Put me out of my misery!”

  “Well, here is the letter at last!” D’Artagnan said blithely. “I don’t know how I could have misplaced it.”

  Aramis sprang up, seized the letter and proceeded to read or rather to devour it, his face radiant.

  “I dare say the gay chambermaid has a cheery style!” D’Artagnan observed nonchalantly.

  “Oh, thank you, D’Artagnan, thank you!” Aramis cried in a delirium of joy. “She was forced to return to Tours … she is not unfaithful to me … she loves me still.… Come, my dear friend, let me embrace you. I am overwhelmed with sheer, rapturous happiness.”

  In their animal exuberance the pair began to dance around the venerable volume of Saint Chrysostom, which presently fell to the floor. The pages of the thesis were close to the toes of the dancers, so what should they do but trample them underfoot or kick them like so many footballs? At that moment Bazin entered with omelette and spinach.

  “Away with you, wretch!” Aramis shouted, flinging his theological cap in the lackey’s face. “Go back where you came from. And for God’s sake, remove those ghastly greens and those putrid eggs instanter! Order a well-larded hare, a fat capon, a leg of mutton rich with garlic and at least four bottles of the best old Burgundy!”

  Bazin, completely at a loss to explain his master’s sudden change of mood, gaped helplessly at him; in his surprise, he allowed the omelette to slip into the spinach and the spinach to plop on to the floor.

  “Now is the moment for you to consecrate your existence to the King of Kings,” D’Artagnan exalted. “If you would honor him, I remember a phrase: Non inutile desiderium oblatione!”

  “To the Devil with you and your Latin! Let us drink, my dear D’Artagnan, let us drink aplenty while the wine is fresh, let us drink mightily and, whilst we do, tell me about what is happening in the civilized world.”

  XXVII

  OF ATHOS AND OF HIS WIFE

  Having told Aramis everything that had occurred since their departure from the capital, having downed a dinner which dispelled his fatigue, having seen all thought of a thesis vanish from the mind of Aramis, and having delighted in the musketeer’s high spirits:

  “Now all that remains for us to do is to find out what has happened to Athos,” D’Artagnan said with pardonable satisfaction.

  “Do you think he has come to grief?” Aramis asked. “Surely not Athos, who is so cool, so brave and such an expert swordsman?”

  “True, Aramis, no one values his skill and his courage more than I. But I prefer to think of his blade
clanging against the steel of gentlemen than against the staves of varlets. I am afraid he has been struck down by a rabble of churls; those fellows strike hard with their cudgels and they do not stop when they draw blood! That is why I confess I would like to set off as soon as possible.”

  “I will do my best to accompany you, D’Artagnan. But I must say I scarcely feel up to riding horseback very vigorously. Only yesterday I tried using that scourge you see hanging on the wall and I was in too much pain to continue that pious discipline of flagellation.”

  “Well, Aramis, who ever heard of anyone trying to cure a gunshot wound by whipping himself with a scourge, however consecrated? But of course you were ill and illness makes a man light-headed indeed, so I forgive you for your excesses.”

  “When do you mean to set out?”

  “Tomorrow at daybreak. Rest as soundly as you can tonight; tomorrow if you are fit, we will ride off together.”

  “Good night then and until tomorrow!” Aramis said. “Your nerves may be of iron, but you could do with a bit of rest yourself, D’Artagnan.”

  Next morning when D’Artagnan called on Aramis he found his friend at the window.

  “What on earth are you staring at?” he asked.

  “Upon my word I was admiring those three magnificent horses which the stable boys are grooming. What a princely joy to ride on such steeds!”

  “Well, my dear Aramis, that joy will be yours, for one of them belongs to you.”

  “Either stop joking this early in the morning, my friend, or tell me which horse is mine?”

  “Whichever of the three you choose, Aramis; I myself have no preference.”

  “What about that sumptuous caparison?” Aramis inquired skeptically. “I suppose it is also mine.”

  “Of course!”

  “Come, D’Artagnan, you are fooling …”

  “No, I have ceased to fool ever since you decided to give up speaking Latin and reverted to French.”

  “Do you mean to say that those gilded holsters, that velvet horsecloth and that saddle studded with silver are mine too?”

  “They are as much your own as that steed pawing the ground belongs to me and the one prancing belongs to Athos.”