The Man in the Iron Mask. Александр ДюмаЧитать онлайн книгу.
much so that I am now bigger than the baron. Would you believe it, monsieur?”
“Parbleu! it seems to me that is quite evident.”
“Do you see, stupid?” said Porthos, “that is quite evident!”
“Be still, my dear Porthos,” resumed D’Artagnan, becoming slightly impatient, “I don’t understand why your clothes should not fit you, because Mouston has grown stouter.”
“I am going to explain it,” said Porthos. “You remember having related to me the story of the Roman general Antony, who had always seven wild boars kept roasting, each cooked up to a different point; so that he might be able to have his dinner at any time of the day he chose to ask for it. Well, then, I resolved, as at any time I might be invited to court to spend a week, I resolved to have always seven suits ready for the occasion.”
“Capitally reasoned, Porthos—only a man must have a fortune like yours to gratify such whims. Without counting the time lost in being measured, the fashions are always changing.”
“That is exactly the point,” said Porthos, “in regard to which I flattered myself I had hit on a very ingenious device.”
“Tell me what it is; for I don’t doubt your genius.”
“You remember what Mouston once was, then?”
“Yes; when he used to call himself Mousqueton.”
“And you remember, too, the period when he began to grow fatter?”
“No, not exactly. I beg your pardon, my good Mouston.”
“Oh! you are not in fault, monsieur,” said Mouston, graciously. “You were in Paris, and as for us, we were at Pierrefonds.”
“Well, well, my dear Porthos; there was a time when Mouston began to grow fat. Is that what you wished to say?”
“Yes, my friend; and I greatly rejoice over the period.”
“Indeed, I believe you do,” exclaimed D’Artagnan.
“You understand,” continued Porthos, “what a world of trouble it spared for me.”
“No, I don’t—by any means.”
“Look here, my friend. In the first place, as you have said, to be measured is a loss of time, even though it occur only once a fortnight. And then, one may be travelling; and then you wish to have seven suits always with you. In short, I have a horror of letting any one take my measure. Confound it! either one is a nobleman or not. To be scrutinized and scanned by a fellow who completely analyzes you, by inch and line—’tis degrading! Here, they find you too hollow; there, too prominent. They recognize your strong and weak points. See, now, when we leave the measurer’s hands, we are like those strongholds whose angles and different thicknesses have been ascertained by a spy.”
“In truth, my dear Porthos, you possess ideas entirely original.”
“Ah! you see when a man is an engineer—”
“And has fortified Belle-Isle—’tis natural, my friend.”
“Well, I had an idea, which would doubtless have proved a good one, but for Mouston’s carelessness.”
D’Artagnan glanced at Mouston, who replied by a slight movement of his body, as if to say, “You will see whether I am at all to blame in all this.”
“I congratulated myself, then,” resumed Porthos, “at seeing Mouston get fat; and I did all I could, by means of substantial feeding, to make him stout—always in the hope that he would come to equal myself in girth, and could then be measured in my stead.”
“Ah!” cried D’Artagnan. “I see—that spared you both time and humiliation.”
“Consider my joy when, after a year and a half’s judicious feeding—for I used to feed him up myself—the fellow—”
“Oh! I lent a good hand myself, monsieur,” said Mouston, humbly.
“That’s true. Consider my joy when, one morning, I perceived Mouston was obliged to squeeze in, as I once did myself, to get through the little secret door that those fools of architects had made in the chamber of the late Madame du Vallon, in the chateau of Pierrefonds. And, by the way, about that door, my friend, I should like to ask you, who know everything, why these wretches of architects, who ought to have the compasses run into them, just to remind them, came to make doorways through which nobody but thin people can pass?”
“Oh, those doors,” answered D’Artagnan, “were meant for gallants, and they have generally slight and slender figures.”
“Madame du Vallon had no gallant!” answered Porthos, majestically.
“Perfectly true, my friend,” resumed D’Artagnan; “but the architects were probably making their calculations on a basis of the probability of your marrying again.”
“Ah! that is possible,” said Porthos. “And now I have received an explanation of how it is that doorways are made too narrow, let us return to the subject of Mouston’s fatness. But see how the two things apply to each other. I have always noticed that people’s ideas run parallel. And so, observe this phenomenon, D’Artagnan. I was talking to you of Mouston, who is fat, and it led us on to Madame du Vallon—”
“Who was thin?”
“Hum! Is it not marvelous?”
“My dear friend, a savant of my acquaintance, M. Costar, has made the same observation as you have, and he calls the process by some Greek name which I forget.”
“What! my remark is not then original?” cried Porthos, astounded. “I thought I was the discoverer.”
“My friend, the fact was known before Aristotle’s days—that is to say, nearly two thousand years ago.”
“Well, well, ’tis no less true,” said Porthos, delighted at the idea of having jumped to a conclusion so closely in agreement with the greatest sages of antiquity.
“Wonderfully—but suppose we return to Mouston. It seems to me, we have left him fattening under our very eyes.”
“Yes, monsieur,” said Mouston.
“Well,” said Porthos, “Mouston fattened so well, that he gratified all my hopes, by reaching my standard; a fact of which I was well able to convince myself, by seeing the rascal, one day, in a waistcoat of mine, which he had turned into a coat—a waistcoat, the mere embroidery of which was worth a hundred pistoles.”
“’Twas only to try it on, monsieur,” said Mouston.
“From that moment I determined to put Mouston in communication with my tailors, and to have him measured instead of myself.”
“A capital idea, Porthos; but Mouston is a foot and a half shorter than you.”
“Exactly! They measured him down to the ground, and the end of the skirt came just below my knee.”
“What a marvelous man you are, Porthos! Such a thing could happen only to you.”
“Ah! yes; pay your compliments; you have ample grounds to go upon. It was exactly at that time—that is to say, nearly two years and a half ago—that I set out for Belle-Isle, instructing Mouston (so as always to have, in every event, a pattern of every fashion) to have a coat made for himself every month.”
“And did Mouston neglect complying with your instructions? Ah! that was anything but right, Mouston.”
“No, monsieur, quite the contrary; quite the contrary!”
“No, he never forgot to have his coats made; but he forgot to inform me that he had got stouter!”
“But it was not my fault, monsieur! your tailor never told me.”
“And this to such an extent,