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Books
The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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Twenty Years Later 22 at Prostate Health
without courage to
pursue a career in which he could only distinguish himself
on condition that each of his three companions should endow
him with one of the gifts each had received from Heaven.
Notwithstanding his commission in the musketeers, DArtagnan
felt completely solitary. For a time the delightful
remembrance of Madame Bonancieux left on his character a
certain poetic tinge, perishable indeed; for like all other
recollections in this world, these impressions were, by
degrees, effaced. A garrison life is fatal even to the most
aristocratic organization; and imperceptibly, DArtagnan,
always in the camp, always on horseback, always in garrison,
became (I know not how in the present age one would express
it) a typical trooper. His early refinement of character was
not only not lost, it grew even greater than ever; but it
was now applied to the little, instead of to the great
things of life -- to the martial condition of the soldier --
comprised under the head of a good lodging, a rich table, a
congenial hostess. These important advantages DArtagnan
found to his own taste in the Rue Tiquetonne at the sign of
the Roe.
From the time DArtagnan took quarters in that hotel, the
mistress of the house, a pretty and fresh looking Flemish
woman, twenty-five or twenty-six years old, had been
singularly interested in him; and after certain love
passages, much obstructed by an inconvenient husband to whom
a dozen times DArtagnan had made a pretence of passing a
sword through his body, that husband had disappeared one
fine morning, after furtively selling certain choice lots of
wine, carrying away with him money and jewels. He was
thought to be dead; his wife, especially, who cherished the
pleasing idea that she was a widow, stoutly maintained that
death had taken him. Therefore, after the connection had
continued three years, carefully fostered by DArtagnan, who
found his bed and his mistress more agreeable every year,
each doing credit to the other, the mistress conceived the
extraordinary desire of becoming a wife and proposed to
DArtagnan that he should marry her.
"Ah, fie!" DArtagnan replied. "Bigamy, my dear! Come now,
you dont really wish it?"
"But he is dead; I am sure of it."
"He was a very contrary fellow and might come back on
purpose to have us hanged."
"All right; if he comes back you will kill him, you are so
skillful and so brave."
"Peste! my darling! another way of getting hanged."
"So you refuse my request?"
"To be sure I do -- furiously!"
The pretty landlady was desolate. She would have taken
DArtagnan not only as her husband, but as her God, he was
so handsome and had so fierce a mustache.
Then along toward the fourth year came the expedition of
Franche-Comte. DArtagnan was assigned to it and made his
preparations to depart. There were then great griefs, tears
without end and solemn promises to remain faithful -- all of
course on the part of the hostess. DArtagnan was too grand
to promise anything; he purposed only to do all that he
could to increase the glory of his name.
As to that, we know DArtagnans courage; he exposed himself
freely to danger and while charging at the head of his
company he received a ball through the chest which laid him
prostrate on the field of battle. He had been seen falling
from his horse and had not been seen to rise; every one,
therefore, believed him to be dead, especially those to whom
his death would give promotion. One believes readily what he
wishes to believe. Now in the army, from the
division-generals who desire the death of the
general-in-chief, to the soldiers who desire the death of
the corporals, all desire some ones death.
But DArtagnan was not a man to let himself be killed like
that. After he had remained through the heat of the day
unconscious on the battle-field, the cool freshness of the
night brought him to himself. He gained a village, knocked
at the door of the finest house and was received as the
wounded are always and everywhere received in France. He was
petted, tended, cured; and one fine morning, in better
health than ever before, he set out for France. Once in
France he turned his course toward Paris, and reaching Paris
went straight to Rue Tiquetonne.
But DArtagnan found in his chamber the personal equipment
of a man, complete, except for the sword, arranged along the
wall.
"He has returned," said he. "So much the worse, and so much
the better!"
It need not be said that DArtagnan was still thinking of
the husband. He made inquiries and discovered that the
servants were new and
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