Chapter 51 - Page 2

Porthos, do you know?"

"Monsieur," cried Raoul, pressing D'Artagnan's hand, "I entreat you in
the name of the friendship you vowed my father!"

"The deuce take it, you are really ill - from curiosity."

"No, it is not from curiosity, it is from love."

"Good. Another big word. If you were really in love, my dear Raoul, you
would be very different."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you were really so deeply in love that I could believe I
was addressing myself to your heart - but it is impossible."

"I tell you I love Louise to distraction."

D'Artagnan could read to the very bottom of the young man's heart.

"Impossible, I tell you," he said. "You are like all young men; you are
not in love, you are out of your senses."

"Well! suppose it were only that?"

"No sensible man ever succeeded in making much of a brain when the head
was turned. I have completely lost my senses in the same way a hundred
times in my life. You would listen to me, but you would not hear me! you
would hear, but you would not understand me; you would understand, but
you would not obey me."

"Oh! try, try."

"I go far. Even if I were unfortunate enough to know something, and
foolish enough to communicate it to you - You are my friend, you say?"

"Indeed, yes."

"Very good. I should quarrel with you. You would never forgive me for
having destroyed your illusion, as people say in love affairs."

"Monsieur d'Artagnan, you know all; and yet you plunge me in perplexity
and despair, in death itself."

"There, there now."

"I never complain, as you know; but as Heaven and my father would never
forgive me for blowing out my brains, I will go and get the first person
I meet to give me the information which you withhold; I will tell him he
lies, and - "

"And you would kill him. And a fine affair that would be. So much the
better. What should I care? Kill any one you please, my boy, if it
gives you any pleasure. It is exactly like a man with a toothache, who
keeps on saying, "Oh! what torture I am suffering. I could bite a piece
of iron in half.' My answer always is, 'Bite, my friend, bite; the tooth
will remain all the same.'"

"I shall not kill any one, monsieur," said Raoul, gloomily.

"Yes, yes! you now assume a different tone: instead of killing, you will
get killed yourself, I suppose you mean? Very fine, indeed! How much I
should regret you! Of course I should go about all day, saying, 'Ah!
what a fine stupid fellow that Bragelonne was! as great a stupid as I
ever met with. I have passed my whole life almost in teaching him how to
hold and use his sword properly, and the silly fellow has got himself
spitted like a