"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 less 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 trampling 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 see a few dead."