The Count of Monte Cristo

“How?”

“Yes,” continued Caderousse, “and in this way: after five-and-twenty years of labour, after having acquired a most honourable name in the trade of Marseilles, M. Morrel is utterly ruined. He has lost five ships in two years, has suffered by the bankruptcy of three large houses, and his only hope now is in that very Pharaon which poor Dantès commanded, and which is expected from the Indies with a cargo of cochineal and indigo. If this ship founders like the others, he is a ruined man.”

“And has the unfortunate man wife or children?” inquired the abbé.

“Yes, he has a wife, who in all this behaved like an angel; he has a daughter, who was about to marry the man she loved, but whose family now will not allow him to wed the daughter of a ruined man; he has besides a son, a lieutenant in the army, and, as you may suppose, all this, instead of soothing, doubles his grief. If he were alone in the world, he would blow out his brains, and there would be an end.”

“Horrible!” ejaculated the priest.

“And it is thus Heaven recompenses virtue, sir,” added Caderousse. “You see, I, who never did a bad action but that I have told you of, I am in destitution: after having seen my poor wife die of a fever, unable to do anything in the world for her, I shall die of hunger as old Dantès did whilst Fernand and Danglars are rolling in wealth.”

“How is that?”

“Because all their malpractices have turned to luck, while honest men have been reduced to misery.”

“What has become of Danglars, the instigator, and therefore the most guilty?”

“What has become of him? why he left Marseilles, and was taken, on the recommendation of M. Morrel, who did not know his crime, as cashier into a Spanish bank. During the war with Spain, he was employed in the commissariat of the French army, and made a fortune; then with that money he speculated in the funds and trebled or quadrupled his capital; and, having first married his banker’s daughter, who left him a widower, he has married a second time, a widow, a Madame de Nargonne, daughter of M. de Servieux, the king’s chamberlain, who is in high favour at court. He is a millionaire, and they have made him a count, and now he is Le Comte Danglars, with a hotel in the Rue de Mont Blanc, with ten horses in his stables, six footmen in his antechamber, and I know not how many hundreds of thousands in his strong box.”

“Ah!” said the abbé, with a peculiar tone, “he is happy.”

“Happy! who can answer for that? Happiness or unhappiness is the secret known but to oneself, and the walls—walls have ears, but no tongue—but if a large fortune produces happiness, Danglars is happy.”

“And Fernand?”

“Fernand! why that is another history.”

“But how could a poor Catalan fisher-boy, without education and resources, make a fortune? I confess this staggers me.”

“And it has staggered everybody; there must have been in his life some strange secret no one knows.”

“But then, by what visible steps has he attained this high fortune or high position?”

“Both, sir; he has both fortune and position, both.”

“This must be impossible.”

“It would seem so, but listen and you will understand.

“Some days before the return of the emperor, Fernand was drawn in the conscription. The Bourbons left him quietly enough at the Catalans, but Napoleon returned, and extraordinary muster was determined on, and Fernand was compelled to join. I went, too, but as I was older than Fernand, and had just married my poor wife, I was only sent to the coast. Fernand was enrolled in the active troop, went to the frontier with his regiment, and was at the battle of Ligny. The night after that battle, he was sentry at the door of a general, who carried on a secret correspondence with the enemy. That same night the general was to go over to the English. He proposed to Fernand to accompany him; Fernand agreed to do so, deserted his post and followed the general.

“That which would have brought Fernand to a court-martial if Napoleon remained on the throne, served for his recommendation to the Bourbons. He returned to France with the epaulette of sub-lieutenant, and as the protection of the general, who is in the highest favour, was accorded to him, he was a captain in 1823 during the Spanish war, that is to say, at the time when Danglars made his early speculations. Fernand was a Spaniard, and being sent to Spain to ascertain the feeling of his fellow-countrymen, found Danglars there, became on very intimate terms with him, procured his general support from the royalists of the capital and the provinces, received promises and made pledges on his own part, guided his regiment by paths known to himself alone in gorges of the mountains kept by the royalists, and, in fact, rendered such services in this brief campaign, that after the taking of Trocadero he was made colonel, and received the title of count and the cross of an officer of the Legion of Honour.”

“Destiny! destiny !” murmured the abbé.

“Yes, but listen, this was not all. The war with Spain being ended, Fernand’s career was checked by the long peace which seemed likely to endure throughout Europe. Greece only had risen against Turkey, and had begun her war of independence; all eyes were turned towards Athens—it was the fashion to pity and support the Greeks. The French government, without protecting them openly, as you know, tolerated partial migrations. Fernand sought and obtained leave to go and serve in Greece, still having his name kept in the ranks of the army. Some time after, it was stated that the Comte de Morcerf, this was the name he bore, had entered the service of Ali Pacha, with the rank of instructor-general. Ali Pacha was killed, as you know, but before he died he recompensed the services of Fernand, by leaving him a considerable sum, with which he returned to France, when his rank of lieutenant-general was confirmed.”

“So that now———”? inquired the abbé.

“So that now,” continued Caderousse, “he possesses a magnificent hotel, No. 27 Rue du Helder, Paris.”

The abbé opened his mouth, remained for a moment like a man who hesitates, then making an effort over himself, he said:

“And Mercédès, they tell me that she has disappeared?”

“Disappeared,” said Caderousse, “yes, as the sun disappears, to rise the next day with still more splendour.”

“Has she made a fortune also?” inquired the abbé, with an ironical smile.

“Mercédès is at this moment one of the greatest ladies in Paris,” replied Caderousse.

“Go on,” said the abbé, “it seems as if I were hearing the recital of a dream. But I have seen things so extraordinary, that those you mention to me seem less astonishing.”

“Mercédès was at first in the deepest despair at the blow which deprived her of Edmond. I have told you of her attempts to propitiate M. de Villefort, her devotion to the father of Dantès. In the midst of her despair, a fresh trouble overtook her; this was the departure of Fernand, of Fernand whose crime she did not know, and whom she regarded as her brother. Fernand went, and Mercédès remained alone. Three months passed and found her all tears; no news of Edmond, no news of Fernand, nothing before her but an old man who was dying with despair. One evening, after having been seated, as was her custom, all day at the angle of two roads that lead to Marseilles from the Catalans, she returned to her home more depressed than ever; neither her lover nor her friend returned by either of these roads, and she had no intelligence of one or the other. Suddenly she heard a step she knew, turned round anxiously; the door opened, and Fernand, dressed in the uniform of a sublieutenant, stood before her. It was not the half of that she bewailed, but it was a portion of her past life that returned to her.

“Mercédès seized Fernand’s hands with a transport, which he took for love, but which was only joy at being no longer alone in the world, and seeing at last a friend after long hours of solitary sorrow. And then, it must be confessed, Fernand had never been hated, he was only not precisely loved. Another possessed all Mercédès’ heart; that other was absent, had disappeared, perhaps was dead. At this last idea Mercédès burst into a flood of tears, and wrung her hands in agony: but this idea, which she had always repelled before, when it was suggested to her by another, came now in full force upon her mind; and then too, old Dantès incessantly said to her, ‘Our Edmond is dead; if he were not he would return to us.’ The old man died, as I have told you; had he lived, Mercédès, perchance, had not become the wife of another, for he would have been there to reproach her infidelity. Fernand saw this, and when he learned the old man’s death he returned. He was now a lieutenant. At his first coming he had not said a word of love to Mercédès, at the second he reminded her that he loved her. Mercédès begged for six months more to expect and bewail Edmond.”

“So that,” said the abbé, with a bitter smile, “that makes eighteen months in all; what more could the most devoted lover desire?”

Then he murmured the words of the English poet:

“‘Frailty, thy name is woman.’”

“Six months afterwards,” continued Caderousse, “the marriage took place in the church of Accoules.”

“The very church in which she was to have married Edmond,” murmured the priest; “there was only a change of bridegroom.”

“Well, Mercédès was married,” proceeded Caderousse, “but although in the eyes of the world she appeared calm, she nearly fainted as she passed La Réserve, where, eighteen months before, the betrothal had been celebrated with him whom she would have seen she still loved had she looked at the bottom of her heart. Fernand, more happy, but not more at his ease,—for I saw at this time he was in constant dread of Edmond’s return,—Fernand was very anxious to get his wife away and to depart himself. There were too many dangers and recollections associated with the Catalans, and eight days after the wedding they left Marseilles.”

“Did you ever see Mercédès again?” inquired the priest.

“Yes, during the war of Spain at Perpignan, where Fernand had left her; she was attending to the education of her son.”

The abbé started.

“Her son?” said he.

“Yes,” replied Caderousse, “little Albert.”

“But, then, to be able to instruct her child,” continued the abbé, “she must have received an education herself. I understood from Edmond that she was the daughter of a simple fisherman, beautiful but uneducated.”

“Oh!” replied Caderousse, “did he know so little of his lovely betrothed? Mercédès might have been a queen, sir, if the crown were to be placed on the heads of the loveliest and most intelligent. Fernand’s fortune already became greater, and she became greater with his growing fortune. She learned drawing, music, everything. Besides, I believe, between ourselves, she did this in order to distract her mind, that she might forget; and she only filled her head thus in order to alleviate the weight on her heart. But now everything must be told,” continued Caderousse; “no doubt, fortune and honours have comforted her. She is rich, a countess, and yet———”

Caderousse paused.

“Yet what?” asked the abbé.

“Yet, I am sure, she is not happy,” said Caderousse.