The Modern Library Children's Classics

by Kenneth Grahame

  “The Devil you say! Magnificent beasts, they are!”

  “I am very glad you like them.”

  “Only the King could have made you such a present.”

  “It could hardly have been the Cardinal. But never mind where they came from, Aramis; just remember that one of them is yours.”

  “I choose the one that ginger-headed stable boy over there is pacing.”

  “It is yours for the asking, Aramis.”

  “Praise God, this is enough to banish all my pain; I could ride that horse with thirty bullets inside me. Bless my soul, look at those handsome stirrups! Ho, Bazin, come here at once!” A dull and dispirited Bazin shuffled in. “Polish up my sword, prepare my hat, brush my cloak, and load my pistols instantly!”

  “Your last order is unnecessary,” D’Artagnan broke in. “There are loaded pistols in the holsters.” Bazin sighed. “Come, Bazin, do not take things amiss. People may gain the Kingdom of Heaven under all sorts of conditions! Paradise is not reserved exclusively for clerics.”

  “Alas, Monsieur, my master was already such a skilled theologian,” Bazin sighed, tears in his eyes. “He might have become a bishop or even a cardinal.”

  D’Artagnan suggested that the unhappy Bazin reflect for a moment. What did it profit a man to take up Holy Orders? It did not shelter him from war; His Eminence the Cardinal was himself about to campaign with a helmet on his head and a pike in his fist. There was also Monsieur de Nogaret de La Valette. What of him? He, too, was a cardinal and how often had his lackey had to prepare lint to dress His Eminence’s wounds?

  “True, all too true,” Bazin groaned; “we live in a topsy-turvy world.”

  As they reached the stables Aramis became more alert. As his horse was led up:

  “Hold my stirrups, Bazin,” he commanded and sprang into the saddle with his usual agility and grace. But after a series of vaults and curvets, the noble animal had bested his noble master and Aramis, grown very pale, swayed in the saddle. D’Artagnan, foreseeing such a possibility, had kept his eye on him; at just the right moment he caught up with the horse, stood by and received a fainting Aramis in his arms. With Bazin’s help he escorted Aramis to his chamber.

  “You were too weak and it is better so,” he told his friend. “Be sure to take good care of yourself. I will go alone in search of Athos.”

  “You are a man of iron and brass,” Aramis whispered.

  “No, I am lucky, that is all. But tell me what you expect to do while I am gone. What about glosses in re the fingers, vide Benediction? No nonsense, eh?”

  Aramis smiled.

  “I shall write poetry,” he said.

  “Good, my friend; verses fragrant with the perfume of the gay chambermaid who attends upon Madame de Chevreuse. Incidentally you might teach Bazin the laws of prosody; he would surely find them consoling. As for the horse, ride him from time to time every day; it will help restore you.”

  “Never you worry, D’Artagnan, I shall be ready to follow you the moment you return.”

  Whereupon they parted and D’Artagnan, having charged Bazin and the mistress of the inn to take the best possible care of Aramis, trotted off along the road to Amiens. Several problems assailed him. How was he to find Athos, if find him he could? And in what state? He had left his friend in a very critical condition; Athos might very easily have been killed. Here was a gloomy prospect but one he must face. As he rode on, the silent Planchet by his side, he felt lost in perplexity. Now he frowned angrily, now he sighed in desperation; but he was sure of one thing, he would exert vengeance if vengeance were called for.

  Of all D’Artagnan’s friends, Athos was the eldest and therefore the most remote from him, apparently, in tastes and interests. Yet of all his friends it was Athos he preferred.

  D’Artagnan admired the man’s noble bearing, his unmistakable distinction … he admired the occasional flashes of grandeur which burst from out the modest shadows in which he usually chose to remain … he admired the unfailing serenity and equanimity which made of Athos the best of companions … he admired his forced, somewhat mordant gaiety, which was always both gentle and wise … he admired his courage, which might have seemed rash, had it not sprung from the rarest self-control … and finally, he admired Athos most because he felt drawn toward him more through respect than through friendship.…

  Monsieur de Tréville, for instance, was a great nobleman, a gallant man and a finished courtier, yet when in the mood for it Athos had nothing to suffer by comparison with the Captain of Musketeers. Pondering over the immense superiority Athos enjoyed, D’Artagnan recalled many facets of his friend’s personality: Athos, of medium height but built in such flawless proportions … Athos who more than once, when wrestling with Porthos, a giant whose physical strength was proverbial, had felled him … Athos, with his finely chiseled features, his proud stance of head, his glittering eyes and his aristocratic nose … Athos, with his chin so like that of Brutus … Athos, alive with the high indefinable gifts of grandeur and grace … Athos, who never looked after his hands yet they were the envy of Aramis who cultivated his with the extensive aid of almond paste and perfumed oils … Athos, whose voice was at once incisive and mellow … Athos, who inevitably lurked modestly and obscurely in the background, yet who possessed a compendious knowledge of the world, an easy familiarity with the ways of the most brilliant society, and the air of a thoroughbred, did he but lift his little finger.…

  Was a meal being enjoyed, then Athos presided better than any other, seating his or his host’s guests scrupulously according to their rank, whether they were born to it or had achieved it themselves. There was no detail of heraldry or procedure which he did not have at his fingertips: he knew thoroughly all the noble families of the kingdom, their genealogy, their marriages, their arms, their mottoes and the origins of these. Etiquette possessed no smallest detail with which he was not conversant. He was familiar with all the rights the great landowners enjoyed, he was profoundly versed in the arts of venery and falconry and one day, during a discussion of the subject, he had amazed even King Louis XIII, who was a past master in such matters.

  Like all the great nobles of that period, he rode, fenced and shot to perfection. What is more, his education had been so little neglected that even with regard to scholastic studies—which were so direly neglected by the gentlemen of his times—he could afford to smile at the scraps of Latin which Aramis served up and which Porthos pretended to understand. Several times indeed, to the vast astonishment of his friends, when Aramis had allowed some error to escape him, it was Athos who replaced a verb in its right tense and a noun in its appropriate case. Best of all in him was his unassailable probity in an age when soldiers compounded so easily with their religion and consciences, lovers with the rigorous delicacy of our own period, and the poor with God’s Seventh Commandment. Truly, this Athos was a very extraordinary man.

  And yet, despite his rare nature, his noble fibre and his unique essence, Athos could occasionally be seen sinking insensibly into the welter of material life much as old men sink into physical and moral imbecility. Athos in his hours of privation—and they were not infrequent—would lose all trace of his brilliance and it was as though a star had suddenly been snuffed out. On such occasions the demigod having vanished, Athos was scarcely a human being. His head lowered, his eyes glazed, his speech lumbering and thick, he would gaze dully for hours at a time at his bottle or glass, or at Grimaud, who, accustomed to obey him by signs, read his every wish and promptly fulfilled it. If the four friends happened to assemble at such a time, the sole contribution Athos made to the conversation was a laconic, effortful comment. To make up for his obstinate silence, Athos alone drank to the capacity of four heavy drinkers without betraying his bibacity save by a more accentuated frown and a deeper melancholy.

  D’Artagnan, ever curious about any problem, had often sought to account for this phenomenon but to no avail; how and why Athos lapsed into such stagnation he had failed to ascertain, shrewdly thou
gh he observed his friend. Athos never received any letters nor indulged in any activity of which all his friends were not fully aware. Wine could not be held primarily responsible for his dejection; on the contrary, he drank only in order to combat it—alas! in vain. Gambling was not responsible for his atrabilious state, for, unlike Porthos who commented on the vagaries of Chance with songs or curses, Athos, gambling, remained impassive, winner or loser. One night at the Musketeers’ Club he won six thousand pistoles, then promptly lost all his winnings, then mortgaged his gold-embroidered dress belt and then recouped all without turning a hair. Indeed he emerged from the ordeal one hundred louis to the good, without ever having raised or lowered his handsome dark eyebrows one whit, without his hands losing their pearly hue or betraying the slightest tremor, and without his conversation, which had been particularly agreeable that evening, ceasing one moment to be so. Finally his depression did not spring, as so often happens with our English neighbors, from the climate; Athos was gloomier than ever toward the finest season of the year, the months of June and July being particularly difficult for him.

  For the present he seemed to have no worries; when anybody spoke of the future, he merely shrugged his shoulders. His secret, then, was concerned with the past, as D’Artagnan had vaguely heard from one musketeer or another.

  The mystery which surrounded his entire person served to heighten people’s interest in this man whose eyes and whose mouth, even in moments of abject drunkenness, had never revealed anything about himself, however insidiously he had been questioned.

  “Alas!” D’Artagnan said. “Poor Athos may well be dead at this moment, and dead by my fault! It was I who dragged him into this business, of which he knew neither the origin nor the outcome, and from which he had nothing to gain.”

  “There’s something else too,” Planchet replied. “We must remember that we probably owe our lives to him, Monsieur. It was Monsieur Athos who warned us to get away and after he had emptied his two pistols, what a terrible clatter he made with his sword! You would have thought that twenty men, or rather twenty furious devils, were falling upon him.”

  The lackey’s comment redoubled D’Artagnan’s eagerness to ascertain what fate had befallen Athos. Our Gascon spurred on his horse though it needed no goading, for he was already galloping smartly and making excellent time. By about eleven o’clock in the morning, Amiens loomed up before them; a half-hour later they drew up before the accursed inn.

  The perfidy of the landlord rankling in D’Artagnan’s heart, he had more than once planned a dire vengeance which offered him some consolation in mere anticipation of it. His hat drawn low over his eyes, his left hand on the pommel of his sword, his right hand cracking his whip against his leg, he strode forward resolutely. The host advanced, bowing, to meet him.

  “Do you recognize me?” D’Artagnan asked sharply.

  “No, Monsieur, I have not that honor,” the host replied very humbly, his eyes dazzled by the brilliant style in which D’Artagnan traveled.

  “What? You mean to say you don’t know me?”

  “No, I do not, Monsieur.”

  “Well, let me refresh your memory. About a fortnight ago, more or less, you had the audacity to accuse a gentleman of passing counterfeit money. What has become of this gentleman?”

  The host paled before D’Artagnan’s threatening manner and Planchet’s immediate adoption of the same.

  “Ah, Monsieur, pray don’t mention the matter,” he cried in the most lachrymose tone, “ah, God! I have paid dearly for that mistake, unhappy wretch that I am!”

  “But the gentleman, I say, the gentleman, what has become of him?”

  “I implore you to deign to listen to me, Monsieur, and to be merciful. I beg you to do me the favor of being seated.”

  D’Artagnan, mute with anger and anxiety, took a seat, stern and com-minatory as a veteran judge. Planchet stood proudly at attention close to his master’s armchair.

  “This is what happened, Monsieur,” the landlord went on tremulously. “I will tell you all, for now I do recognize you. You are the gentleman who left when I had that unfortunate difference with the gentleman you mentioned.”

  “I am indeed. So you see you have little mercy to expect if you do not tell me the whole truth!”

  “Be good enough to hear me, I beg you, and you shall hear it in every tragic detail.”

  “I am listening.”

  “I was warned by the authorities that a notorious counterfeiter would arrive at my inn with several companions disguised as guards of musketeers. I was supplied with an accurate description of your physical appearance, my noble gentlemen, of your horses, your lackeys and all the rest.”

  “Go on, go on!” D’Artagnan urged impatiently, knowing immediately from what source so exact an identification came.

  “The authorities sent me a reinforcement of six men and, acting upon their strict orders, I took all measures necessary to secure the persons of the alleged coiners.”

  “Again!” D’Artagnan exclaimed, his blood boiling at the ugly word.

  “Forgive me for mentioning such things, Monsieur, but they form my excuse. The authorities had terrified me and you know that an innkeeper must keep in with the authorities.”

  “But where is the gentleman? What has happened to him? Is he dead? Is he alive?”

  “Patience, Monsieur, I am coming to that. You know what happened and—” here the host paused, adding with an astuteness which was not lost upon D’Artagnan, “and your precipitate departure seemed to authorize what occurred. The gentleman, your friend, defended himself desperately. Unfortunately for him, through some silly misunderstanding, his valet had quarreled with the six officers who were disguised as stable boys—”

  “Ah, you scoundrel, all of you were in the plot. I don’t know what stops me from exterminating the whole pack of you.”

  “Oh no, Monsieur, God bless me, there was no plot at all and we were not in agreement, as you shall see! Your friend—pray forgive me for not calling him by the noble name which he doubtless bears but I do not know it—your friend put two officers out of action with his two shots. Then he retreated, covering his retreat with his sword and thus accounted for one of my men and for myself. He did not wound us, he stunned us with a blow of the flat side of the blade.”

  “For God’s sake, will you have done, you villain!” D’Artagnan shouted. “Tell me what happened to Athos?”

  “Well, Monsieur, he retreated as I told you, sword in hand, fighting every inch of the way, till he backed up above the stairway leading to the cellar. The door happened to be open, your gentleman appropriated the key, stepped back, slammed the door behind him and by God! he locked himself in. As the authorities knew where to lay hands on him, they left him there, free to do as he willed.”

  “I see,” D’Artagnan said wryly. “As you did not wish to slaughter him, you decided to make him your prisoner instead.”

  “Our prisoner, Monsieur! God help us, he imprisoned himself, I swear it! And he had done a pretty job of work: one man killed on the spot, two men badly wounded, and plenty of damage to the house. The casualties were carried away by their comrades and to this day I have heard nothing whatever about them. For my part, Monsieur, as soon as I came to my senses, I called upon Monsieur the Governor, told him all that had happened and asked him what to do with the prisoner. But the Governor was flabbergasted; he assured me he had no idea of what I was talking about: the orders I had mentioned did not come from him, he said, and if I had the stupidity or impertinence to mention his name in connection with this brawl, he would have me promptly hanged. It seems I had made a mistake, Monsieur: I had helped arrest an innocent gentleman while the coiners escaped.”

  “But Athos, you imbecile, what of Athos?” D’Artagnan stormed, his indignation fanned by the cynicism of the authorities. “What happened to him?”

  “By your leave, as I was anxious to right the wrongs I had done the prisoner, I betook myself straightway to the cellar to set the gent
leman free. But Heaven preserve us, Monsieur, that gentleman was no longer a man, he was a forty-power demon! When I suggested he was free, he insisted it was nothing but an ambush; he would leave the cellar, he said, only upon his own conditions. Of course I fully realized what a scrape I was in for having dared to lay hands on one of His Majesty’s musketeers; so I told the gentleman very humbly that I would accept anything he proposed.”

  “Get on, man, get on!”

  “ ‘First,’ the gentleman said, ‘I want my valet sent down here fully armed.’ ”

  “We hastened to comply with this order, for as Monsieur can well understand we wished to do all your friend desired. Monsieur Grimaud—he told us his name though he is mum as the grave—Monsieur Grimaud was therefore carried down to the cellar, wounded though he was. Then his master, having admitted him, barricaded the door again, and ordered us to stay where we belonged.”

  “But where is he, where is Athos?”

  “In the cellar, Monsieur.”

  “What, you wretch! You have been keeping him in the cellar all this time?”

  “Merciful Heaven, no, Monsieur! I keep him in my cellar? Oh, you have no idea of what he is up to! If only you could persuade him to leave and come up for air, I would be grateful to you for the rest of my days, I would adore you as I adore my patron saint.”

  “So he is in your cellar? I shall find him there?”

  “No doubt about it, Monsieur; he insisted on staying there. We pass him down some bread at the end of a pitchfork every day through a vent; but, wellaway! it is not bread and meat that he absorbs most. Once I tried to go down with two of my servants but he flew into a towering rage; I heard the gentleman priming his pistols and the lackey cocking his musketoon. When I asked what they purposed, the gentleman replied that they had forty bullets to fire and would not hesitate to fire them to the last one if we so much as attempted to set foot in the cellar.”

  D’Artagnan smiled.