“Life, Monsieur,” said Planchet, laughing, “is capital which a man ought to invest as sensibly as he possibly can.”
“And you get very good interest for yours,” said Porthos, with a burst of laughter like a peal of thunder.
Planchet turned to his housekeeper. “You have before you,” he said to her, “the two gentlemen who influenced the greatest, gayest, grandest portion of my life. I have spoken to you about them both very frequently.”
“And about two others as well,” said the lady, with a very decided Flemish accent.
“Madame is Dutch?” inquired d’Artagnan. Porthos curled his mustache, a circumstance which was not lost upon d’Artagnan, who noticed everything.
“I am from Antwerp,” said the lady.
“And her name is Madame Gechter,” said Planchet.
“You should not call her Madame,” said d’Artagnan.
“Why not?” asked Planchet.
“Because it would make her seem older every time you call her so.”
“Well, I call her Trüchen.”
“And a very pretty name too,” said Porthos.
“Trüchen,” said Planchet, “came to me from Flanders with her virtue and two thousand florins. She ran away from a brute of a husband who was in the habit of beating her. Being myself a Picard born, I was always very fond of the Artesian women, and it is only a step from Artois to Flanders; she came crying bitterly to her godfather, my predecessor in the Rue des Lombards; she placed her two thousand florins in my establishment, which I have turned to very good account, and which have brought her in ten thousand.”
“Bravo, Planchet.”
“She is free and well off; she has a cow, a maid servant and old Célestin at her orders; she mends my linen, knits my winter stockings; she only sees me every fortnight, and seems to make herself in all things tolerably happy.
“And indeed, gentlemen, I am very happy and comfortable,” said Trüchen, with perfect ingenuousness.
Porthos began to curl the other side of his mustache. The deuce
, thought d’Artagnan, can Porthos have any intentions in that quarter?
In the meantime Trüchen had set her cook to work, had laid the table for two more, and covered it with every possible delicacy that could convert a light supper into a substantial meal, a meal into a regular feast. Fresh butter, salt beef, anchovies, tunny, a shopful of Planchet’s commodities, fowls, vegetables, salad, fish from the pond and the river, game from the forest—all the produce, in fact, of the province. Moreover, Planchet returned from the cellar, laden with ten bottles of wine, the glass of which could hardly be seen for the thick coating of dust which covered them. Porthos’s heart began to expand as he said, “I am hungry,” and he sat himself beside Madame Trüchen, whom he looked at in the most killing manner. D’Artagnan seated himself on the other side of her, while Planchet, discreetly and full of delight, took his seat opposite.
“Do not trouble yourselves,” he said, “if Trüchen should leave the table now and then during supper; for she will have to look after your bedrooms.”
In fact, the housekeeper made her escape quite frequently, and they could hear, on the first floor above them, the creaking of the wooden bedsteads and the rolling of the castors on the floor. While this was going on, the three men, Porthos especially, ate and drank gloriously—it was wonderful to see them. The ten full bottles were ten empty ones by the time Trüchen returned with the cheese. D’Artagnan still preserved his dignity and self-possession, but Porthos had lost a portion of his; and the mirth soon began to grow somewhat uproarious. D’Artagnan recommended a new descent into the cellar, and, as Planchet no longer walked with the steadiness of a well-trained foot-soldier, the captain of the Musketeers proposed to accompany him. They set off, humming songs wild enough to frighten anybody who might be listening. Trüchen remained behind at table with Porthos. While the two wine-bibbers were looking behind the firewood for what they wanted, a sharp report was heard like the impact of a pair of lips on a lady’s cheek.
Porthos fancies himself at La Rochelle
, thought d’Artagnan, as they returned freighted with bottles. Planchet was singing so loudly that he was incapable of noticing anything. D’Artagnan, whom nothing ever escaped, remarked how much redder Trüchen’s left cheek was than her right. Porthos was sitting on Trüchen’s left, and was curling with both his hands both sides of his mustache at once, and Trüchen was looking at him with a most bewitching smile. The sparkling wine of Anjou very soon produced a remarkable effect upon the three companions. D’Artagnan had hardly strength enough left to take a candlestick to light Planchet up his own staircase. Planchet was pulling Porthos along, who was following Trüchen, who was herself jovial enough. It was d’Artagnan who found out the rooms and the beds. Porthos threw himself into the one destined for him, after his friend had undressed him. D’Artagnan got into his own bed, saying to himself, Mordioux! I had made up my mind never to touch that light-colored wine, which brings my early camp days back again. Fie! fie! if my musketeers were only to see their captain in such a state.
And drawing the curtains of his bed, he added, Fortunately enough, though, they will not see me.
“The country is very amusing,” said Porthos, stretching out his legs, which passed through the wooden footboard, and made a tremendous crash, of which, however, no one in the house was capable of taking the slightest notice. By two o’clock in the morning everyone was fast asleep.
146
Showing What Could Be Seen from Planchet’s House
The next morning found the three heroes sleeping soundly. Trüchen had closed the outside blinds to keep the first rays of the sun from the leaden-lidded eyes of her guests, like a kind, good housekeeper. It was still perfectly dark, then, beneath Porthos’s curtains and under Planchet’s
