The Count of Monte Cristo
Danglars. Fernand looked at them both with a stupefied air, but did not
say a word.
“He seems besotted,” said Danglars, pushing Caderousse with his knee.
“Are we mistaken, and is Dantès triumphant in spite of all we have
believed?”
“Why, we must inquire into that,” was Caderousse’s reply; and turning
towards the young man, said, “Well, Catalan, can’t you make up your
mind?”
Fernand wiped away the perspiration steaming from his brow, and slowly
entered the arbor, whose shade seemed to restore somewhat of calmness
to his senses, and whose coolness somewhat of refreshment to his
exhausted body.
“Good-day,” said he. “You called me, didn’t you?” And he fell, rather
than sat down, on one of the seats which surrounded the table.
“I called you because you were running like a madman, and I was afraid
you would throw yourself into the sea,” said Caderousse, laughing.
“Why, when a man has friends, they are not only to offer him a glass of
wine, but, moreover, to prevent his swallowing three or four pints of
water unnecessarily!”
Fernand gave a groan, which resembled a sob, and dropped his head into
his hands, his elbows leaning on the table.
“Well, Fernand, I must say,” said Caderousse, beginning the
conversation, with that brutality of the common people in which
curiosity destroys all diplomacy, “you look uncommonly like a rejected
lover;” and he burst into a hoarse laugh.
“Bah!” said Danglars, “a lad of his make was not born to be unhappy in
love. You are laughing at him, Caderousse.”
“No,” he replied, “only hark how he sighs! Come, come, Fernand,” said
Caderousse, “hold up your head, and answer us. It’s not polite not to
reply to friends who ask news of your health.”
“My health is well enough,” said Fernand, clenching his hands without
raising his head.
“Ah, you see, Danglars,” said Caderousse, winking at his friend, “this
is how it is; Fernand, whom you see here, is a good and brave Catalan,
one of the best fishermen in Marseilles, and he is in love with a very
fine girl, named Mercédès; but it appears, unfortunately, that the fine
girl is in love with the mate of the _Pharaon_; and as the _Pharaon_
arrived today—why, you understand!”
“No; I do not understand,” said Danglars.
“Poor Fernand has been dismissed,” continued Caderousse.
“Well, and what then?” said Fernand, lifting up his head, and looking
at Caderousse like a man who looks for someone on whom to vent his
anger; “Mercédès is not accountable to any person, is she? Is she not
free to love whomsoever she will?”
“Oh, if you take it in that sense,” said Caderousse, “it is another
thing. But I thought you were a Catalan, and they told me the Catalans
were not men to allow themselves to be supplanted by a rival. It was
even told me that Fernand, especially, was terrible in his vengeance.”
Fernand smiled piteously. “A lover is never terrible,” he said.
“Poor fellow!” remarked Danglars, affecting to pity the young man from
the bottom of his heart. “Why, you see, he did not expect to see Dantès
return so suddenly—he thought he was dead, perhaps; or perchance
faithless! These things always come on us more severely when they come
suddenly.”
“Ah, _ma foi_, under any circumstances!” said Caderousse, who drank as
he spoke, and on whom the fumes of the wine began to take
effect,—“under any circumstances Fernand is not the only person put out
by the fortunate arrival of Dantès; is he, Danglars?”
“No, you are right—and I should say that would bring him ill-luck.”
“Well, never mind,” answered Caderousse, pouring out a glass of wine
for Fernand, and filling his own for the eighth or ninth time, while
Danglars had merely sipped his. “Never mind—in the meantime he marries
Mercédès—the lovely Mercédès—at least he returns to do that.”
During this time Danglars fixed his piercing glance on the young man,
on whose heart Caderousse’s words fell like molten lead.
“And when is the wedding to be?” he asked.
“Oh, it is not yet fixed!” murmured Fernand.
“No, but it will be,” said Caderousse, “as surely as Dantès will be
captain of the _Pharaon_—eh, Danglars?”
Danglars shuddered at this unexpected attack, and turned to Caderousse,
whose countenance he scrutinized, to try and detect whether the blow
was premeditated; but he read nothing but envy in a countenance already
rendered brutal and stupid by drunkenness.
“Well,” said he, filling the glasses, “let us drink to Captain Edmond
Dantès, husband of the beautiful Catalane!”
Caderousse raised his glass to his mouth with unsteady hand, and
swallowed the contents at a gulp. Fernand dashed his on the ground.
“Eh, eh, eh!” stammered Caderousse. “What do I see down there by the
wall, in the direction of the Catalans? Look, Fernand, your eyes are
better than mine. I believe I see double. You know wine is a deceiver;
but I should say it was two lovers walking side by side, and hand in
hand. Heaven forgive me, they do not know that we can see them, and
they are actually embracing!”
Danglars did not lose one pang that Fernand endured.
“Do you know them, Fernand?” he said.
“Yes,” was the reply, in a low voice. “It is Edmond and Mercédès!”
“Ah, see there, now!” said Caderousse; “and I did not recognize them!
Hallo, Dantès! hello, lovely damsel! Come this way, and let us know
when the wedding is to be, for Fernand here is so obstinate he will not
tell us.”
“Hold your tongue, will you?” said Danglars, pretending to restrain
Caderousse, who, with the tenacity of drunkards, leaned out of the
arbor. “Try to stand upright, and let the lovers make love without
interruption. See, look at Fernand, and follow his example; he is
well-behaved!”
0051m
Fernand, probably excited beyond bearing, pricked by Danglars, as the
bull is by the bandilleros, was about to rush out; for he had risen
from his seat, and seemed to be collecting himself to dash headlong
upon his rival, when Mercédès, smiling and graceful, lifted up her
lovely head, and looked at them with her clear and bright eyes. At this
Fernand recollected her threat of dying if Edmond died, and dropped
again heavily on his seat. Danglars looked at the two men, one after
the other, the one brutalized by liquor, the other overwhelmed with
love.
“I shall get nothing from these fools,” he muttered; “and I am very
much afraid of being here between a drunkard and a coward. Here’s an
envious fellow making himself boozy on wine when he ought to be nursing
his wrath, and here is a fool who sees the woman he loves stolen from
under his nose and takes on like a big baby. Yet this Catalan has eyes
that glisten like those of the vengeful Spaniards, Sicilians, and
Calabrians, and the other has fists big enough to crush an ox at one
blow. Unquestionably, Edmond’s star is in the ascendant, and he will
marry the splendid girl—he will be captain, too, and laugh at us all,
unless”—a sinister smile passed over Danglars’ lips—“unless I take a
hand in the affair,” he added.
“Hallo!” continued Caderousse, half-rising, and with his fist on the
table, “hallo, Edmond! do you not see your friends, or are you too
proud to speak to them?”
“No, my dear fellow!” replied Dantès, “I am not proud, but I am happy,
and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.”
“Ah, very well, that’s an explanation!” said Caderousse. “How do you
do, Madame Dantès?”
Mercédès courtesied gravely, and said—“That is not my name, and in my
country it bodes ill fortune, they say, to call a young girl by the
name of her betrothed before he becomes her husband. So call me
Mercédès, if you please.”
“We must excuse our worthy neighbor, Caderousse,” said Dantès, “he is
so easily mistaken.”
“So, then, the wedding is to take place immediately, M. Dantès,” said
Danglars, bowing to the young couple.
“As soon as possible, M. Danglars; today all preliminaries will be
arranged at my father’s, and tomorrow, or next day at latest, the
wedding festival here at La Réserve. My friends will be there, I hope;
that is to say, you are invited, M. Danglars, and you, Caderousse.”
“And Fernand,” said Caderousse with a chuckle; “Fernand, too, is
invited!”
“My wife’s brother is my brother,” said Edmond; “and we, Mercédès and
I, should be very sorry if he were absent at such a time.”
Fernand opened his mouth to reply, but his voice died on his lips, and
he could not utter a word.
“Today the preliminaries, tomorrow or next day the ceremony! You are in
a hurry, captain!”
“Danglars,” said Edmond, smiling, “I will say to you as Mercédès said
just now to Caderousse, ‘Do not give me a title which does not belong
to me’; that may bring me bad luck.”
“Your pardon,” replied Danglars, “I merely said you seemed in a hurry,
and we have lots of time; the _Pharaon_ cannot be under weigh again in
less than three months.”
“We are always in a hurry to be happy, M. Danglars; for when we have
suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good
fortune. But it is not selfishness alone that makes me thus in haste; I
must go to Paris.”
“Ah, really?—to Paris! and will it be the first time you have ever been
there, Dantès?”
“Yes.”
“Have you business there?”
“Not of my own; the last commission of poor Captain Leclere; you know
to what I allude, Danglars—it is sacred. Besides, I shall only take the
time to go and return.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Danglars, and then in a low tone, he
added, “To Paris, no doubt to deliver the letter which the grand
marshal gave him. Ah, this letter gives me an idea—a capital idea! Ah;
Dantès, my friend, you are not yet registered number one on board the
good ship _Pharaon_;” then turning towards Edmond, who was walking
away, “A pleasant journey,” he cried.
“Thank you,” said Edmond with a friendly nod, and the two lovers
continued on their way, as calm and joyous as if they were the very
elect of heaven.
Chapter 4. Conspiracy
Danglars followed Edmond and Mercédès with his eyes until the two
lovers disappeared behind one of the angles of Fort Saint Nicolas;
then, turning round, he perceived Fernand, who had fallen, pale and
trembling, into his chair, while Caderousse stammered out the words of
a drinking-song.
“Well, my dear sir,” said Danglars to Fernand, “here is a marriage
which does not appear to make everybody happy.”
“It drives me to despair,” said Fernand.
“Do you, then, love Mercédès?”
“I adore her!”
“For long?”
“As long as I have known her—always.”
“And you sit there, tearing your hair, instead of seeking to remedy
your condition; I did not think that was the way of your people.”
“What would you have me do?” said Fernand.
“How do I know? Is it my affair? I am not in love with Mademoiselle
Mercédès; but for you—in the words of the gospel, seek, and you shall
find.”
“I have found already.”
“What?”
“I would stab the man, but the woman told me that if any misfortune
happened to her betrothed, she would kill herself.”
“Pooh! Women say those things, but never do them.”
“You do not know Mercédès; what she threatens she will do.”
“Idiot!” muttered Danglars; “whether she kill herself or not, what
matter, provided Dantès is not captain?”
“Before Mercédès should die,” replied Fernand, with the accents of
unshaken resolution, “I would die myself!”
“That’s what I call love!” said Caderousse with a voice more tipsy than
ever. “That’s love, or I don’t know what love is.”
“Come,” said Danglars, “you appear to me a good sort of fellow, and
hang me, I should like to help you, but——”
“Yes,” said Caderousse, “but how?”
“My dear fellow,” replied Danglars, “you are three parts drunk; finish
the bottle, and you will be completely so. Drink then, and do not
meddle with what we are discussing, for that requires all one’s wit and
cool judgment.”