“Well, Monsieur, I went to see the Governor. He told me that I had got exactly what I deserved and that it would teach me not to insult noble and honorable gentlemen who sought lodging in my hostelry.”
Again D’Artagnan laughed uncontrollably at the landlord’s woebegone expression.
“What has happened since?” he asked.
“Since then, begging your pardon, we have been leading the most miserable existence imaginable. All our supplies are in that cellar: our choicest wines in bottles, other wines in casks, our beer, our spices, our bacon, our sausages! As we are not permitted to go down there, we are compelled to refuse food and drink to our clients. Our inn is losing customers and money every day. Another week with your friend in the cellar and I shall be a ruined man.”
“Which you richly deserve, you scoundrel. Could you not tell by our looks that we were people of quality and not coiners?”
“Ay, Monsieur, all too true! But hark! there he goes, off into a rage again!”
“Somebody probably disturbed him,” D’Artagnan suggested.
“But I can’t help it, Monsieur. Two English gentlemen have just arrived.”
“What of that?”
“Well, the English are fond of good wine, as you well know, and these two gentlemen ordered my best. My wife probably requested permission of your friend to enter the cellar and as usual it was probably refused. Ah, God, listen! What a hullabaloo! Has all Hell broken loose in my respectable inn?”
D’Artagnan heard an uproar rising from the cellar and, preceded by the host who wrung his hands and followed by Planchet who kept his musketoon ready for action, he headed toward the theatre of operations.
The two English gentlemen were exasperated; they had ridden hard and long and were dying of hunger and thirst.
“But this is an outrage!” one of them cried in excellent French, though with a foreign accent.
“How dare this lunatic prevent these good people from getting their own wine out of their own cellar!” the other demanded.
“Let us break in!”
“Yes, and if he gets too wild, we’ll kill the fellow!”
“Just one moment, gentlemen,” D’Artagnan cautioned, drawing his pistols from his belt. “Nobody is to be killed, if you please!”
“Come on, gentlemen, try to get in!” Athos challenged calmly from the other side of the door. “Let one of these sham ogres put his face in here and we shall see what we shall see!”
Brave as they appeared, the Englishmen looked at each other hesitatingly. It was as though the cellar housed some very real and ravenous ogre, a giant hero of popular legend into whose cavern no man ventured with impunity.
There was a moment of silence, after which the Englishmen determined not to give in. After all, their pride was at stake, and to withdraw would be humiliating. The angrier of the pair went down the six steps leading to the cellar door and kicked it furiously.
“Planchet,” D’Artagnan ordered, cocking his pistols, “I will handle the one up here, you answer for the one kicking at the door.”
The Englishmen turned. “Gentlemen, you asked for a fight, did you not? Well, I promise you a hot one.”
“God in Heaven!” cried Athos cavernously from the lower darkness. “It is D’Artagnan I think. Yes, that voice is unmistakable.”
“Right you are, Athos, here I am, friend!” the Gascon shouted.
“Good, D’Artagnan, we will give these trespassers a little exercise, eh?”
The Englishmen had drawn their swords but they found themselves caught between two fires. Again they hesitated. But, as before, their pride prevailed. A further kicking split the door from top to bottom.
“Take cover, D’Artagnan,” Athos warned crisply. “I am about to fire!”
But D’Artagnan knew better. Here was a case for common sense and D’Artagnan’s common sense never abandoned him.
“Gentlemen,” he shouted, “pray think what you are about! As for you, Athos, patience! Gentlemen, you are courting trouble, and if you persist we will riddle you from crown to toe. My lackey and I have three shots apiece for you and the cellar can produce as many. Should you survive, we have our swords and I promise you we know something of swordplay. Allow me to settle your problem, gentlemen, and my own. Presently you shall have all you want to drink, I assure you.”
“If there’s any wine left,” Athos jeered.
A cold sweat broke over the landlord’s face and, judging by his wriggling, doubtless trickled down his spine.
“If there’s any wine left,” he echoed dully.
“There must be plenty down there,” D’Artagnan said. “Never you worry, landlord, two men cannot have drunk your cellar dry. Gentlemen, sheathe your swords if you will.”
“Agreed, Monsieur, if you return your pistols to their holsters.”
“Certainly, with the greatest of pleasure, gentlemen.” Whereupon, setting the example, D’Artagnan obeyed the injunction and, turning to Planchet, motioned to him to uncock his musketoon.
Convinced by this gesture, the Englishmen, grumbling, returned their swords to their scabbards. D’Artagnan then told how Athos had come to be imprisoned in the cellar and the Englishmen, gentlemen both, agreed that the innkeeper was at fault.
“And now, Milords, go back to your apartment; I warrant you that within ten minutes you shall have all the wine you care to order.”
The Englishmen bowed in appreciation and withdrew.
“We’re alone now,” D’Artagnan called. “Do please open the door, Athos.”
“Certainly, right away!”
A great sound of shuffling, a creaking of logs and a groaning of beams ensued, as the beleaguered Athos in person dismantled his bastions and counterscarps. A few seconds later the broken door parted and Athos poked his pallid face between the split panels to survey the situation. They embraced heartily. Then as D’Artagnan sought to drag his friend from his damp quarters he realized that Athos was reeling and tottering.
“Were you wounded?” he asked anxiously.
“No, no, no, no, no, my dear fellow, I’m dead drunk, that’s all, drunk as David’s sow! Never a man made a better job of getting royally and imperially drunk as your friend Athos. Praise God and bless my landlord, I must have personally and individually downed at least one hundred and fifty bottles. I have enjoyed your hospitality, my dear host,” he added, bowing to the innkeeper.
“God help us, Monsieur, if your lackey has drunk one half of that, then I am a ruined man and might as well close shop.”
“Come, landlord,” Athos protested, “Grimaud is a well-bred and seasoned lackey. He would not have taken upon himself to drink of the same vintages as I. No, my friend Grimaud drank only from the cask. Incidentally, I think he neglected to fasten the bung.”
D’Artagnan burst into peals of laughter that changed the landlord’s chills into a burning fever. Suddenly Grimaud appeared behind his master, his musketoon on his shoulder and his head vacillating like some tipsy satyr portrayed by Rubens. He was soaked front and back in a fatty liquid that the innkeeper recognized as his choicest olive oil.
In single file, Athos, D’Artagnan, Grimaud, the innkeeper and his wife proceeded across the public room and went upstairs to the best apartment in the inn, commandeered by D’Artagnan. Mine host and his wife hurried to the cellar, armed with lamps, to take a rapid inventory of their stock. Finding their own property accessible at long last, they faced a hideous spectacle.
Beyond the barricade which Athos had shattered in order to emerge—fagots, planks, kindling wood, logs, beams and empty barrels massed according to the most elaborate arts of obsidional strategy—there were great puddles of olive oil here and deep pools of wine there, over which swam a flotsam and jetsam which, on closer scrutiny, turned out to be the bones of hams consumed. The entire left corner of the cellar revealed a pyramid of empty bottles. A little further along, a barrel, minus its spigot, was spilling the last drops of its crimson blood. Here, as over a battlefield, to quote
the bard of antiquity, were destruction and death. Out of fifty long saveloy sausages which once hung from the rafters, only ten remained.
Mine host groaned, mine hostess gasped, then host and hostess screamed to high heaven. So loud were their plaints that, piercing the cellar vault, they actually reached D’Artagnan’s ears. He was much moved but Athos did not even turn his head to listen.
In the cellar a species of fury followed upon amazement and rage. The host, seizing a spit, rushed to the room our friends occupied.
“Wine ho, landlord!” Athos ordered as the innkeeper made his appearance.
“Wine!” the landlord bawled unable to believe his ears. “Why, you have already drunk more than one hundred pistoles’ worth of it. God have mercy upon my soul, I am lost, ruined, destroyed, bankrupt and undone.”
“What will you, we were thirsty!” said Athos.
“Ah, God, Monsieur, if only you had been content to drink! Why did you have to smash my bottles?”
“You yourself edged me into a heap of bottles which collapsed when I leaned against them. You have only yourself to blame.”
“But I have lost all the oil in my cellar.”
“Oil is a sovereign balm for wounds, landlord. My poor lackey Grimaud had to treat the wounds you inflicted upon him.”
“My sausages are all eaten up.”
“I dare say there are plenty of rats in your cellar.”
“You shall pay for all this,” the innkeeper cried in exasperation.
“Oh, you simple fool, you double ass and you triple knave—” Athos rose to his feet, swayed and then subsided, for he had taxed his strength to the utmost. D’Artagnan, riding crop in hand, came to his friend’s rescue.
The host, drawing back, burst into tears.
“Perhaps this will teach you to act more courteously toward the guests God sends your way,” D’Artagnan said sternly.
“God?” the innkeeper sighed. “You mean the Devil, Monsieur.”
“Look here, landlord, if you persist in annoying us I vow the three of us will barricade ourselves in your cellar merely to see whether the damages are as great as you claim.”
“Ay, gentlemen, begging your pardon, I am in the wrong, I admit. But every error finds its forgiveness in the bosom of God! You are noblemen and I but a poor innkeeper. Surely you will have pity on me.”
“If you go on in that strain,” Athos said, “you will break my heart. Already tears are about to flow from my eyes as the wine flowed from the casks in your cellar. We are not the devils we seem, my good man; come, stand up closer and let us talk all this over quietly.”
The landlord approached gingerly.
“Come, my good host, you have nothing to fear.”
“Thank you, Monsieur.”
“Listen, my good man,” Athos continued, “while I recall what happened. As I was about to settle my score, I laid down my purse on the table.”
“Ay, Monsieur.”
“There were sixty pistoles in that purse.”
“Ay, Monsieur.”
“Where is the money?”
“I deposited it at the City Registrar’s; it was supposedly counterfeit money, was it not?”
“Very well, produce my purse and you can keep the money that was in it.”
“Surely Monsieur knows that the authorities never relinquish anything they lay their hands on. Had your money been counterfeit, there might be a chance; but as luck would have it, your coins were sound.”
“Well, my good friend, all that is your problem! It does not concern me personally, the more so since I have not a sou.”
D’Artagnan came to the rescue:
“How much is that horse worth?” D’Artagnan asked.
“Monsieur’s horse is in the stable,” the landlord put in eagerly.
“How much is that horse worth?” D’Artagnan asked.
“Fifty pistoles at most,” the landlord answered shrewdly.
“It is worth eighty,” D’Artagnan insisted. “Keep it, host, and let us forget the whole matter.”
“What!” Athos objected. “You are selling my horse? my trusty Bajazet? And pray how shall I manage in the forthcoming campaign? Do you expect me to ride pickaback on Grimaud?”
“No, Athos, I have brought you another horse to take the place of your Bajazet.”
“And a magnificent animal it is, too, Monsieur!” the landlord commented.
“Very good,” Athos drawled. “Now that I have a younger and handsomer mount, keep the old one, landlord, and fetch us up some wine.”
“What wine do you desire?” the host smirked, his serenity and cheer once again in the ascendant.
“Some of that wine at the very back of your cellar, my good man, just next to the laths. There are twenty-five bottles of it left; all the rest were broken when I fell backwards. Bring up six of them, host.”
“The man is a cask, a vat, a tun!” the innkeeper mused. “If he stays here another fortnight and pays for what he drinks, I shall catch up on my losses and even start making a profit again.”
“Don’t forget to take up four bottles of the same to the two English gentlemen,” D’Artagnan ordered, as the host disappeared.
“Now that we are alone, my dear D’Artagnan,” Athos said as soon as the door closed, “what about Porthos and Aramis? Tell me what has been going on; I am hungry for news.”
D’Artagnan told his friend how he had found Porthos in bed with a sprained knee and Aramis cheek by jowl over a doctoral table with a brace of theologians. Just as he finished the landlord reappeared with six bottles and a ham which, fortunately for him, had not been stored in the cellar.
“Your news is good,” Athos said as he filled his glass and D’Artagnan’s. “So much for Porthos and Aramis. But you, my friend, what of you, what happened to you personally? You look anything but happy.”
“Ah, my dear Athos, I am the unhappiest of us all!”
“You unhappy, my good D’Artagnan. Come, how are you unhappy? Tell me.”
“I shall tell you later.”
“Later? Why later? Because you think I am drunk, D’Artagnan? Mark my words, D’Artagnan, and remember this: my ideas are never so clear as when I am in wine. Speak up, then, I am hanging on your every word.”
D’Artagnan related his adventure with Madame Bonacieux as Athos listened in complete silence; then, when D’Artagnan was done:
“All these things are but trifles,” he commented, “mere trifles!”
“I know that is your favorite expression, Athos; you dismiss the most harrowing events as mere trifles. That comes very ill from you who have never been in love.”
Athos, who had been staring down at the table, suddenly drew himself up; his dull vacant glaze lighted up for an instant, then turned listless and glassy as before.
“True,” he admitted quietly, “true! I have never been in love.”
“Therefore my-dear-friend-with-the-heart-of-stone, I beg you to acknowledge that you are wrong to be so hard upon those of us who are tender-hearted.”
“A tender heart means a broken heart; tenderness spells despair.”
“What do you mean, Athos?”
“I mean that love is a lottery and the winning ticket brings but death. Believe me, you are very fortunate to be on the losing side, my dear D’Artagnan. And if I have any advice to give you it is this: always lose in the lottery of love!”
“She seemed to love me so dearly!”
“She seemed to, eh?”
“No, she did love me.”
“What an infant you are! No man ever lived but believed his mistress loved him desperately and no man but discovered that he had been gulled and duped.”
“No man save you, Athos, who never had a mistress.”
“True, true!” Athos repeated after a moment’s silence. “I never had a mistress.” He cleared his throat. “Ah, well, let’s drink!”
“Philosopher as you are, remote from our human sentimentalities, pray instruct and sustain me. I want to know why l
ove’s course never runs smoothly. And above all, I crave consolation.”
“Consolation for what?”
“For my deep misfortune, Athos.”
“Your unhappiness is laughable!” Athos shrugged his shoulders.
“Not to me, Athos!”
“I dare say not.” Athos looked up at D’Artagnan. “I wonder what you would say if I were to tell you a real love story?”
“One which happened to you?”
“Or to a friend of mine, ay. What matter?”
“Tell me your story, Athos, please.”
“Let us drink instead. Drinking is better than story-telling.”
“They are not mutually exclusive. Drink up and talk away, Athos!”
“Right! Not a bad idea!” Athos drained his glass then refilled it. “The two pastimes go together very well.”
“Fire away then, Athos, I am all attention.”
Athos collected himself and as he did so D’Artagnan perceived that he grew pale apace. He was at that stage of intoxication where your vulgar topers fall asleep, but he, of course, remained upright and awake and seemed to be dreaming aloud. There was something frightening in this somnambulism of drunkenness.
“You insist on hearing my story?”
“I do indeed, Athos, pray go ahead!”
“Very well then, you shall have your wish. I shall tell you everything exactly as it happened. Here goes!” Drawing a deep breath, he launched into his narrative:
“One of my friends,” he began, then with a melancholy smile he interrupted his story: “Please to observe this happened to one of my friends not to me—” and, resuming: “One of my friends, a count in my native province—Berry, that is—a man as nobly born as a Dandolo or a Montmorency, once fell in love. He was twenty-five, the girl sixteen and beautiful beyond description. There was an ardor and a spirit in her which, piercing through the ingenuousness of her age, stamped her more of a poet than a woman. She was not of the type that pleases and attracts, she intoxicated and enraptured any man who came within a mile of her. She lived in a small straggling township with her brother who was a curé. Nobody knew where they came from but seeing how beautiful she was and how pious her brother, nobody ever inquired. Rumor had it that they were well born. My friend, the hero of this tale, was the seigneur of the country. He might easily have seduced her or if he preferred taken her by force, for his power was unlimited. Who, indeed, would have come to the help of two strangers, two persons utterly unknown, come from God knows where? Unfortunately he was an honorable man; he married her, fool, idiot, imbecile that he was!”
The Modern Library Children's Classics Page 92
