“My dear Bazin, you ought to perceive,” said D’Artagnan, “from the place in which you find me, that I am greatly changed in everything. Age produces good sense, and, as I doubt not but that your master is on the road to salvation, I want you to tell me where he is, that he may help me to mine.”
“Rather say, to take him back with you into the world. Fortunately, I don’t know where he is.”
“How!” cried D’Artagnan; “you don’t know where Aramis is?”
“Formerly,” replied Bazin, “Aramis was his name of perdition. By Aramis is meant Simara, which is the name of a demon. Happily for him he has ceased to bear that name.”
“And therefore,” said D’Artagnan, resolved to be patient to the end, “it is not Aramis I seek, but the Abbé d’Herblay. Come, my dear Bazin, tell me where he is.”
“Didn’t you hear me tell you, Monsieur d’Artagnan, that I don’t know where he is?”
“Yes, certainly; but to that I answer that it is impossible.”
“It is, nevertheless, the truth, monsieur—the pure truth, the truth of the good God.”
D’Artagnan saw clearly that he would get nothing out of this man, who was evidently telling a falsehood in his pretended ignorance of the abode of Aramis, but whose lies were bold and decided.
“Well, Bazin,” said D’Artagnan, “since you do not know where your master lives, let us speak of it no more; let us part good friends. Accept this half-pistole to drink to my health.”