A Procurator’s Dinner — The Three Musketeers

The duel does not make Porthos forget the procurator's dinner. Mousqueton brushes him for an hour. He walks to the Rue aux Ours thinking of a locked coffer in the wall and of family meals after years of inns. At the door his hope dips: a dark, ill-smelling passage, a nailed door like the Grand Châtelet. Three clerks and a half stare. Madame Coquenard has watched since noon and cries that he is her cousin. The clerks laugh at the name until Porthos turns. The kitchen shows no feast. Monsieur Coquenard, dry and seventy-six, receives him with resignation. Firm on his legs, he would have refused the kinship. He keeps looking at a large chest by his desk. Porthos decides that chest is the dream, only taller. The old man limits him to dinner once before the campaign. Madame Coquenard begs for every spare hour. The husband murmurs about his legs.

Dinner is a pale soup with a few crusts, then a thin boiled fowl so old the skin will not yield. She gives the husband the black feet, keeps the neck, and lifts one wing for Porthos. The rest of the bird leaves the room. Haricot beans follow with mutton bones that only pretend to have meat. The clerks get a third of a glass of wine and water it to pale topaz. Porthos finds the wine is poor Montreuil and feels her knee under the table. He refuses the beans. The clerks are smiled out to work. Cheese, quince preserve, and a sticky almond cake appear. The bottle is empty. Monsieur Coquenard calls it a feast of Lucullus, then takes his siesta with his feet on the chest.

In the next room she offers dinner three times a week. He names the outfit. She groans at two thousand livres, then offers a horse through her relatives, a mule with feathers for Mousqueton, and an empty valise. He wants the valise filled. They settle at eight hundred livres, plus the horse and the mule. She tries to keep him with tender glances. He cites the king's service and goes home hungry and in a bad humour.