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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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The Three Musketeers 55 at Prostate Health
the Rue des Fossoyeurs, and finding nobody there but
his other two companions perhaps, they would not be able to
conceive what all this meant. This mystery required an
explanation; at least, so dArtagnan declared to himself.
He likewise thought this was an opportunity for talking about
pretty little Mme. Bonacieux, of whom his head, if not his heart,
was already full. We must never look for discretion in first
love. First love is accompanied by such excessive joy that
unless the joy be allowed to overflow, it will stifle you.
Paris for two hours past had been dark, and seemed a desert.
Eleven oclock sounded from all the clocks of the Faubourg St.
Germain. It was delightful weather. DArtagnan was passing
along a lane on the spot where the Rue dAssas is now situated,
breathing the balmy emanations which were borne upon the wind
from the Rue de Vaugirard, and which arose from the gardens
refreshed by the dews of evening and the breeze of night. From a
distance resounded, deadened, however, by good shutters, the
songs of the tipplers, enjoying themselves in the cabarets
scattered along the plain. Arrived at the end of the lane,
dArtagnan turned to the left. The house in which Aramis dwelt
was situated between the Rue Cassette and the Rue Servandoni.
DArtagnan had just passed the Rue Cassette, and already
perceived the door of his friends house, shaded by a mass of
sycamores and clematis which formed a vast arch opposite the
front of it, when he perceived something like a shadow issuing
from the Rue Servandoni. This something was enveloped in a
cloak, and dArtagnan at first believed it was a man; but by the
smallness of the form, the hesitation of the walk, and the
indecision of the step, he soon discovered that it was a woman.
Further, this woman, as if not certain of the house she was
seeking, lifted up her eyes to look around her, stopped, went
backward, and then returned again. DArtagnan was perplexed.
"Shall I go and offer her my services?" thought he. "By her step
she must be young; perhaps she is pretty. Oh, yes! But a woman
who wanders in the streets at this hour only ventures out to meet
her lover. If I should disturb a rendezvous, that would not be
the best means of commencing an acquaintance."
Meantime the young woman continued to advance, counting the
houses and windows. This was neither long nor difficult. There
were but three hotels in this part of the street; and only two
windows looking toward the road, one of which was in a pavilion
parallel to that which Aramis occupied, the other belonging to
Aramis himself.
"PARIDIEU!" said dArtagnan to himself, to whose mind the niece
of the theologian reverted, "PARDIEU, it would be droll if this
belated dove should be in search of our friends house. But on
my soul, it looks so. Ah, my dear Aramis, this time I shall find
you out." And dArtagnan, making himself as small as he could,
concealed himself in the darkest side of the street near a stone
bench placed at the back of a niche.
The young woman continued to advance; and in addition to the
lightness of her step, which had betrayed her, she emitted a
little cough which denoted a sweet voice. DArtagnan believed
this cough to be a signal.
Nevertheless, whether the cough had been answered by a similar
signal which had fixed the irresolution of the nocturnal seeker,
or whether without this aid she saw that she had arrived at the
end of her journey, she resolutely drew near to Aramiss shutter,
and tapped, at three equal intervals, with her bent finger.
"This is all very fine, dear Aramis," murmured dArtagnan.
"Ah, Monsieur Hypocrite, I understand how you study theology."
The three blows were scarcely struck, when the inside blind was
opened and a light appeared through the panes of the outside
shutter.
"Ah, ah!" said the listener, "not through doors, but through
windows! Ah, this visit was expected. We shall see the windows
open, and the lady enter by escalade. Very pretty!"
But to the great astonishment of dArtagnan, the shutter remained
closed. Still more, the light which had shone for an instant
disappeared, and all was again in obscurity.
DArtagnan thought this could not last long, and continued to
look with all his eyes and listen with all his ears.
He was right; at the end of some
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