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Books
The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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Twenty Years Later 36 at Prostate Health
it. You will
do much better to open the window and let down some bread, a
chicken and a bottle of wine to your friend Planchet, who
has been this last hour killing himself clapping his hands."
Planchet, in fact, had bedded and fed his horses, and then
coming back under the window had repeated two or three times
the signal agreed upon.
Bazin obeyed, fastened to the end of a cord the three
articles designated and let them down to Planchet, who then
went satisfied to his shed.
"Now to supper," said Aramis.
The two friends sat down and Aramis began to cut up fowls,
partridges and hams with admirable skill.
"The deuce!" cried DArtagnan; "do you live in this way
always?"
"Yes, pretty well. The coadjutor has given me dispensations
from fasting on the jours maigres, on account of my health;
then I have engaged as my cook the cook who lived with
Lafollone -- you know the man I mean? -- the friend of the
cardinal, and the famous epicure whose grace after dinner
used to be, `Good Lord, do me the favor to cause me to
digest what I have eaten."
"Nevertheless he died of indigestion, in spite of his
grace," said DArtagnan.
"What can you expect?" replied Aramis, in a tone of
resignation. "Every man thats born must fulfil his
destiny."
"If it be not an indelicate question," resumed DArtagnan,
"have you grown rich?"
"Oh, Heaven! no. I make about twelve thousand francs a year,
without counting a little benefice of a thousand crowns the
prince gave me."
"And how do you make your twelve thousand francs? By your
poems?"
"No, I have given up poetry, except now and then to write a
drinking song, some gay sonnet or some innocent epigram; I
compose sermons, my friend."
"What! sermons? Do you preach them?"
"No; I sell them to those of my cloth who wish to become
great orators."
"Ah, indeed! and you have not been tempted by the hopes of
reputation yourself?"
"I should, my dear DArtagnan, have been so, but nature said
`No. When I am in the pulpit, if by chance a pretty woman
looks at me, I look at her again: if she smiles, I smile
too. Then I speak at random; instead of preaching about the
torments of hell I talk of the joys of Paradise. An event
took place in the Church of St. Louis au Marais. A gentleman
laughed in my face. I stopped short to tell him that he was
a fool; the congregation went out to get stones to stone me
with, but whilst they were away I found means to conciliate
the priests who were present, so that my foe was pelted
instead of me. Tis true that he came the next morning to my
house, thinking that he had to do with an abbe -- like all
other abbes."
"And what was the end of the affair?"
"We met in the Place Royale -- Egad! you know about it."
"Was I not your second?" cried DArtagnan.
"You were; you know how I settled the matter."
"Did he die?"
"I dont know. But, at all events, I gave him absolution in
articulo mortis. Tis enough to kill the body, without
killing the soul."
Bazin made a despairing sign which meant that while perhaps
he approved the moral he altogether disapproved the tone in
which it was uttered.
"Bazin, my friend," said Aramis, "you dont seem to be aware
that I can see you in that mirror, and you forget that once
for all I have forbidden all signs of approbation or
disapprobation. You will do me the favor to bring us some
Spanish wine and then to withdraw. Besides, my friend
DArtagnan has something to say to me privately, have you
not, DArtagnan?"
DArtagnan nodded his head and Bazin retired, after placing
on the table the Spanish wine.
The two friends, left alone, remained silent, face to face.
Aramis seemed to await a comfortable digestion; DArtagnan,
to be preparing his exordium. Each of them, when the other
was not looking, hazarded a sly glance. It was Aramis who
broke the silence.
"What are you thinking of, DArtagnan?" he began.
"I was thinking, my dear old friend, that when you were a
musketeer you turned your thoughts incessantly to the
church, and now that you are an abbe you are perpetually
longing to be once more a musketeer."
"Tis true; man, as you know," said Aramis, "is a strange
animal, made up of contradictions. Since I became an abbe I
dream of nothing but battles."
"That is apparent in your surroundings; you have rapiers
here of every form and to suit the most exacting taste. Do
you
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