Nothing makes time pass more quickly or more shortens a journey than a thought which absorbs in itself all the faculties of the organization of him who thinks.  External existence then resembles a sleep of which this thought is the dream.  By its influence, time has no longer measure, space has no longer distance.  We depart from one place, and arrive at another, that is all.  Of the interval passed, nothing remains in the memory but a vague mist in which a thousand confused images of trees, mountains, and landscapes are lost.  It was as a prey to this hallucination that d’Artagnan traveled, at whatever pace his horse pleased, the six or eight leagues that separated Chantilly from Crevecoeur, without his being able to remember on his arrival in the village any of the things he had passed or met with on the road.

There only his memory returned to him.  He shook his head, perceived the cabaret at which he had left Aramis, and putting his horse to the trot, he shortly pulled up at the door.

This time it was not a host but a hostess who received him. d’Artagnan was a physiognomist.  His eye took in at a glance the plump, cheerful countenance of the mistress of the place, and he at once perceived there was no occasion for dissembling with her, or of fearing anything from one blessed with such a joyous physiognomy.

“My good dame,” asked d’Artagnan, “can you tell me what has become of one of my friends, whom we were obliged to leave here about a dozen days ago?”

“A handsome young man, three- or four-and-twenty years old, mild, amiable, and well made?”

“That is he—­wounded in the shoulder.”

“Just so.  Well, monsieur, he is still here.”

“Ah, pardieu!  My dear dame,” said d’Artagnan, springing from his horse, and throwing the bridle to Planchet, “you restore me to life; where is this dear Aramis?  Let me embrace him, I am in a hurry to see him again.”

“Pardon, monsieur, but I doubt whether he can see you at this moment.”

“Why so?  Has he a lady with him?”

“Jesus!  What do you mean by that?  Poor lad!  No, monsieur, he has not a lady with him.”

“With whom is he, then?”

“With the curate of Montdidier and the superior of the Jesuits of Amiens.”

“Good heavens!” cried d’Artagnan, “is the poor fellow worse, then?”

“No, monsieur, quite the contrary; but after his illness grace touched him, and he determined to take orders.”

“That’s it!” said d’Artagnan, “I had forgotten that he was only a Musketeer for a time.”

“Monsieur still insists upon seeing him?”

“More than ever.”

“Well, monsieur has only to take the right-hand staircase in the courtyard, and knock at Number Five on the second floor.”

D’Artagnan walked quickly in the direction indicated, and found one of those exterior staircases that are still to be seen in the yards of our old-fashioned taverns.  But there was no getting at the place of sojourn of the future abbe; the defiles of the chamber of Aramis were as well guarded as the gardens of Armida.  Bazin was stationed in the corridor, and barred his passage with the more intrepidity that, after many years of trial, Bazin found himself near a result of which he had ever been ambitious.