Louise de la Valliere. Dumas Alexandre
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rewards you; and that is the only policy I have to do with.”
“And the only one I will have to do with either,” said Porthos, holding out his hand to D’Artagnan.
But D’Artagnan knew Porthos’s grasp; he knew that, once imprisoned within the baron’s five fingers, no hand ever left it without being half-crushed. He therefore held out, not his hand, but his fist, and Porthos did not even perceive the difference. The servants talked a little with each other in an undertone, and whispered a few words, which D’Artagnan understood, but which he took very good care not to let Porthos understand. “Our friend,” he said to himself, “was really and truly Aramis’s prisoner. Let us now see what the result will be of the liberation of the captive.”
Chapter IV. The Rat and the Cheese
D’Artagnan and Porthos returned on foot, as D’Artagnan had set out. When D’Artagnan, as he entered the shop of the Pilon d’Or, announced to Planchet that M. du Vallon would be one of the privileged travelers, and as the plume in Porthos’s hat made the wooden candles suspended over the front jingle together, a melancholy presentiment seemed to eclipse the delight Planchet had promised himself for the morrow. But the grocer had a heart of gold, ever mindful of the good old times – a trait that carries youth into old age. So Planchet, notwithstanding a sort of internal shiver, checked as soon as experienced, received Porthos with respect, mingled with the tenderest cordiality. Porthos, who was a little cold and stiff in his manners at first, on account of the social difference existing at that period between a baron and a grocer, soon began to soften when he perceived so much good-feeling and so many kind attentions in Planchet. He was particularly touched by the liberty which was permitted him to plunge his great palms into the boxes of dried fruits and preserves, into the sacks of nuts and almonds, and into the drawers full of sweetmeats. So that, notwithstanding Planchet’s pressing invitations to go upstairs to the entresol, he chose as his favorite seat, during the evening which he had to spend at Planchet’s house, the shop itself, where his fingers could always fish up whatever his nose detected. The delicious figs from Provence, filberts from the forest, Tours plums, were subjects of his uninterrupted attention for five consecutive hours. His teeth, like millstones, cracked heaps of nuts, the shells of which were scattered all over the floor, where they were trampled by every one who went in and out of the shop; Porthos pulled from the stalk with his lips, at one mouthful, bunches of the rich Muscatel raisins with their beautiful bloom, half a pound of which passed at one gulp from his mouth to his stomach. In one of the corners of the shop, Planchet’s assistants, huddled together, looked at each other without venturing to open their lips. They did not know who Porthos was, for they had never seen him before. The race of those Titans who had worn the cuirasses of Hugh Capet, Philip Augustus, and Francis I. had already begun to disappear. They could hardly help thinking he might be the ogre of the fairy tale, who was going to turn the whole contents of Planchet’s shop into his insatiable stomach, and that, too, without in the slightest degree displacing the barrels and chests that were in it. Cracking, munching, chewing, nibbling, sucking, and swallowing, Porthos occasionally said to the grocer:
“You do a very good business here, friend Planchet.”
“He will very soon have none at all to do, if this sort of thing continues,” grumbled the foreman, who had Planchet’s word that he should be his successor. In the midst of his despair, he approached Porthos, who blocked up the whole of the passage leading from the back shop to the shop itself. He hoped that Porthos would rise and that this movement would distract his devouring ideas.
“What do you want, my man?” asked Porthos, affably.
“I should like to pass you, monsieur, if it is not troubling you too much.”
“Very well,” said Porthos, “it does not trouble me in the least.”
At the same moment he took hold of the young fellow by the waistband, lifted him off the ground, and placed him very gently on the other side, smiling all the while with the same affable expression. As soon as Porthos had placed him on the ground, the lad’s legs so shook under him that he fell back upon some sacks of corks. But noticing the giant’s gentleness of manner, he ventured again, and said:
“Ah, monsieur! pray be careful.”
“What about?” inquired Porthos.
“You are positively putting a fiery furnace into your body.”
“How is that, my good fellow?”
“All those things are very heating to the system!”
“Which?”
“Raisins, nuts, and almonds.”
“Yes; but if raisins, nuts, and almonds are heating – ”
“There is no doubt at all of it, monsieur.”
“Honey is very cooling,” said Porthos, stretching out his hand toward a small barrel of honey which was open, and he plunged the scoop with which the wants of the customers were supplied into it, and swallowed a good half-pound at one gulp.
“I must trouble you for some water now, my man,” said Porthos.
“In a pail, monsieur?” asked the lad, simply.
“No, in a water-bottle; that will be quite enough;” and raising the bottle to his mouth, as a trumpeter does his trumpet, he emptied the bottle at a single draught.
Planchet was agitated in every fibre of propriety and self-esteem. However, a worthy representative of the hospitality which prevailed in early days, he feigned to be talking very earnestly with D’Artagnan, and incessantly repeated: – “Ah! monsieur, what a happiness! what an honor!”
“What time shall we have supper, Planchet?” inquired Porthos, “I feel hungry.”
The foreman clasped his hands together. The two others got under the counters, fearing Porthos might have a taste for human flesh.
“We shall only take a sort of snack here,” said D’Artagnan; “and when we get to Planchet’s country-seat, we will have supper.”
“Ah, ah! so we are going to your country-house, Planchet,” said Porthos; “so much the better.”
“You overwhelm me, monsieur le baron.”
The “monsieur le baron” had a great effect upon the men, who detected a personage of the highest quality in an appetite of that kind. This title, too, reassured them. They had never heard that an ogre was ever called “monsieur le baron”.
“I will take a few biscuits to eat on the road,” said Porthos, carelessly; and he emptied a whole jar of aniseed biscuits into the huge pocket of his doublet.
“My shop is saved!” exclaimed Planchet.
“Yes, as the cheese was,” whispered the foreman.
“What cheese?”
“The Dutch cheese, inside which a rat had made his way, and we found only the rind left.”
Planchet looked all round his shop, and observing the different articles which had escaped Porthos’s teeth, he found the comparison somewhat exaggerated. The foreman, who remarked what was passing in his master’s mind, said, “Take care; he is not gone yet.”
“Have you any fruit here?” said Porthos, as he went upstairs to the entresol, where it had just been announced that some refreshment was prepared.
“Alas!” thought the grocer, addressing a look at D’Artagnan full of entreaty, which the latter half understood.
As soon as they had finished eating they set off. It was late when the three riders, who had left Paris about six in the evening, arrived at Fontainebleau. The journey passed very agreeably. Porthos took a fancy to Planchet’s society, because the latter was very respectful in his manners, and seemed delighted to talk to him about his meadows, his woods, and his rabbit-warrens. Porthos had all the taste and pride of a landed proprietor. When D’Artagnan saw his two companions in earnest conversation, he took the opposite side of the road, and letting his bridle drop upon his horse’s neck, separated himself from the whole world, as he had done from