“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 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 soulless tramp, tramp, tramp of a hundred and fifty thousand foot-passengers.”

“But living,” said Porthos; “living, remember that.”