"Come, come, M. Planchet."
"Why, I am not like you, monsieur," said Planchet. "I don"t pa.s.s my life in thinking."
"You do wrong, then."
"I mean in boring myself to death. We have but a very short time to live--why not make the best of it?"
"You are an Epicurean philosopher, I begin to think, Planchet."
"Why not? My hand is still as steady as ever; I can write, and can weigh out my sugar and spices; my foot is firm; I can dance and walk about; my stomach has its teeth still, for I eat and digest very well; my heart is not quite hardened. Well, monsieur?"
"Well, what, Planchet?"
"Why, you see--" said the grocer, rubbing his hands together.
D"Artagnan crossed one leg over the other, and said, "Planchet, my friend, I am unnerved with extreme surprise; for you are revealing yourself to me under a perfectly new light."
Planchet, flattered in the highest degree by this remark, continued to rub his hands very hard together. "Ah, ah," he said, "because I happen to be only slow, you think me, perhaps, a positive fool."
"Very good, Planchet; very well reasoned."
"Follow my idea, monsieur, if you please. I said to myself," continued Planchet, "that, without enjoyment, there is no happiness on this earth."
"Quite true, what you say, Planchet," interrupted D"Artagnan.
"At all events, if we cannot obtain pleasure--for pleasure is not so common a thing, after all--let us, at least, get consolations of some kind or another."
"And so you console yourself?"
"Exactly so."
"Tell me how you console yourself."
"I put on a buckler for the purpose of confronting _ennui_. I place my time at the direction of patience; and on the very eve of feeling I am going to get bored, I amuse myself."
"And you don"t find any difficulty in that?"
"None."
"And you found it out quite by yourself?"
"Quite so."
"It is miraculous."
"What do you say?"
"I say, that your philosophy is not to be matched in the Christian or pagan world, in modern days or in antiquity!"
"You think so?--follow my example, then."
"It is a very tempting one."
"Do as I do."
"I could not wish for anything better; but all minds are not of the same stamp; and it might possibly happen that if I were required to amuse myself in the manner you do, I should bore myself horribly."
"Bah! at least try first."
"Well, tell me what you do."
"Have you observed that I leave home occasionally?"
"Yes."
"In any particular way?"
"Periodically."
"That"s the very thing. You have noticed it, then?"
"My dear Planchet, you must understand that when people see each other every day, and one of the two absents himself, the other misses him. Do you not feel the want of my society when I am in the country?"
"Prodigiously; that is to say, I feel like a body without a soul."
"That being understood then, proceed."
"What are the periods when I absent myself?"
"On the fifteenth and thirtieth of every month."
"And I remain away?"
"Sometimes two, sometimes three, and sometimes four days at a time."
"Have you ever given it a thought, why I was absent?"
"To look after your debts, I suppose."
"And when I returned, how did you think I looked, as far as my face was concerned?"
"Exceedingly self-satisfied."
"You admit, you say, that I always look satisfied. And what have you attributed my satisfaction to?"
"That your business was going on very well; that your purchases of rice, prunes, raw sugar, dried apples, pears, and treacle were advantageous.
You were always very picturesque in your notions and ideas, Planchet; and I was not in the slightest degree surprised to find you had selected grocery as an occupation, which is of all trades the most varied, and the very pleasantest, as far as the character is concerned; inasmuch as one handles so many natural and perfumed productions."