Chapter 6 - Page 2

pushed open
the outside blinds.

"Hollo! what is that out yonder?" said Porthos.

"The forest," said Planchet. "It is the horizon, - a thick line of
green, which is yellow in the spring, green in the summer, red in the
autumn, and white in the winter."

"All very well, but it is like a curtain, which prevents one seeing a
greater distance."

"Yes," said Planchet; "still, one can see, at all events, everything that
intervenes."

"Ah, the open country," said Porthos. "But what is that I see out there,
- crosses and stones?"

"Ah, that is the cemetery," exclaimed D'Artagnan.

"Precisely," said Planchet; "I assure you it is very curious. Hardly a
day passes that some one is not buried there; for Fontainebleau is by no
means an inconsiderable place. Sometimes we see young girls clothed in
white carrying banners; at others, some of the town-council, or rich
citizens, with choristers and all the parish authorities; and then, too,
we see some of the officers of the king's household."

"I should not like that," said Porthos.

"There is not much amusement in it, at all events," said D'Artagnan.

"I assure you it encourages religious thoughts," replied Planchet.

"Oh, I don't deny that."

"But," continued Planchet, "we must all die one day or another, and I
once met with a maxim somewhere which I have remembered, that the thought
of death is a thought that will do us all good."

"I am far from saying the contrary," said Porthos.

"But," objected D'Artagnan, "the thought of green fields, flowers,
rivers, blue horizons, extensive and boundless plains, is no likely to do
us good."

"If I had any, I should be far from rejecting them," said Planchet; "but
possessing only this little cemetery, full of flowers, so moss-grown,
shady, and quiet, I am contented with it, and I think of those who live
in town, in the Rue des Lombards, for instance, and who have to listen to
the rumbling of a couple of thousand vehicles every day, and to the
soulless tramp, tramp, tramp of a hundred and fifty thousand foot-
passengers."

"But living," said Porthos; "living, remember that."

"That is exactly the reason," said Planchet, timidly, "why I feel it does
me good to contemplate a few dead."

"Upon my word," said D'Artagnan, "that fellow Planchet is born a
philosopher as well as a grocer."

"Monsieur," said Planchet, "I am one of those good-humored sort of men
whom Heaven created for the purpose of living a certain span of days, and
of considering all good they meet with during their transitory stay on
earth."

D'Artagnan sat down close to the window, and as there seemed to be
something substantial in Planchet's