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Books
The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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Twenty Years Later 23 at Prostate Health
that the mistress had gone for a walk.
"Alone?" asked DArtagnan.
"With monsieur."
"Monsieur has returned, then?"
"Of course," naively replied the servant.
"If I had any money," said DArtagnan to himself, "I would
go away; but I have none. I must stay and follow the advice
of my hostess, while thwarting the conjugal designs of this
inopportune apparition."
He had just completed this monologue -- which proves that in
momentous circumstances nothing is more natural than the
monologue -- when the servant-maid, watching at the door,
suddenly cried out:
"Ah! see! here is madame returning with monsieur."
DArtagnan looked out and at the corner of Rue Montmartre
saw the hostess coming along hanging to the arm of an
enormous Swiss, who tiptoed in his walk with a magnificent
air which pleasantly reminded him of his old friend Porthos.
"Is that monsieur?" said DArtagnan to himself. "Oh! oh! he
has grown a good deal, it seems to me." And he sat down in
the hall, choosing a conspicuous place.
The hostess, as she entered, saw DArtagnan and uttered a
little cry, whereupon DArtagnan, judging that he had been
recognized, rose, ran to her and embraced her tenderly. The
Swiss, with an air of stupefaction, looked at the hostess,
who turned pale.
"Ah, it is you, monsieur! What do you want of me?" she
asked, in great distress.
"Is monsieur your cousin? Is monsieur your brother?" said
DArtagnan, not in the slightest degree embarrassed in the
role he was playing. And without waiting for her reply he
threw himself into the arms of the Helvetian, who received
him with great coldness.
"Who is that man?" he asked.
The hostess replied only by gasps.
"Who is that Swiss?" asked DArtagnan.
"Monsieur is going to marry me," replied the hostess,
between two gasps.
"Your husband, then, is at last dead?"
"How does that concern you?" replied the Swiss.
"It concerns me much," said DArtagnan, "since you cannot
marry madame without my consent and since ---- "
"And since?" asked the Swiss.
"And since -- I do not give it," said the musketeer.
The Swiss became as purple as a peony. He wore his elegant
uniform, DArtagnan was wrapped in a sort of gray cloak; the
Swiss was six feet high, DArtagnan was hardly more than
five; the Swiss considered himself on his own ground and
regarded DArtagnan as an intruder.
"Will you go away from here?" demanded the Swiss, stamping
violently, like a man who begins to be seriously angry.
"I? By no means!" said DArtagnan.
"Some one must go for help," said a lad, who could not
comprehend that this little man should make a stand against
that other man, who was so large.
DArtagnan, with a sudden accession of wrath, seized the lad
by the ear and led him apart, with the injunction:
"Stay you where you are and dont you stir, or I will pull
this ear off. As for you, illustrious descendant of William
Tell, you will straightway get together your clothes which
are in my room and which annoy me, and go out quickly to
another lodging."
The Swiss began to laugh boisterously. "I go out?" he said.
"And why?"
"Ah, very well!" said DArtagnan; "I see that you understand
French. Come then, and take a turn with me and I will
explain."
The hostess, who knew DArtagnans skill with the sword,
began to weep and tear her hair. DArtagnan turned toward
her, saying, "Then send him away, madame."
"Pooh!" said the Swiss, who had needed a little time to take
in DArtagnans proposal, "pooh! who are you, in the first
place, to ask me to take a turn with you?"
"I am lieutenant in his majestys musketeers," said
DArtagnan, "and consequently your superior in everything;
only, as the question now is not of rank, but of quarters --
you know the custom -- come and seek for yours; the first to
return will recover his chamber."
DArtagnan led away the Swiss in spite of lamentations on
the part of the hostess, who in reality found her heart
inclining toward her former lover, though she would not have
been sorry to give a lesson to that haughty musketeer who
had affronted her by the refusal of her hand.
It was night when the two adversaries reached the field of
battle. DArtagnan politely begged the Swiss to yield to him
the disputed chamber; the Swiss refused by shaking his head,
and drew his sword.
"Then you will lie here," said DArtagnan. "It is a wretched
bed, but that is not my fault, and it is you who have chosen
it." With these words he drew in his turn and crossed swords
with his adversary.
He had to contend against a
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