"Yes, my dear father," replied Edmond, smiling at his father's
astonishment at the excessive honor paid to his son.
"And why did you refuse, my son?" inquired the old man.
"That I might the sooner see you again, my dear father," replied the
young man. "I was most anxious to see you."
"But it must have vexed M. Morrel, good, worthy man," said Caderousse.
"And when you are looking forward to be captain, it was wrong to annoy
the owner."
"But I explained to him the cause of my refusal," replied Dantes, "and I
hope he fully understood it."
"Yes, but to be captain one must do a little flattery to one's patrons."
"I hope to be captain without that," said Dantes.
"So much the better--so much the better! Nothing will give greater
pleasure to all your old friends; and I know one down there behind the
Saint Nicolas citadel who will not be sorry to hear it."
"Mercedes?" said the old man.
"Yes, my dear father, and with your permission, now I have seen you, and
know you are well and have all you require, I will ask your consent to
go and pay a visit to the Catalans."
"Go, my dear boy," said old Dantes: "and heaven bless you in your wife,
as it has blessed me in my son!"
"His wife!" said Caderousse; "why, how fast you go on, father Dantes;
she is not his wife yet, as it seems to me."
"So, but according to all probability she soon will be," replied Edmond.
"Yes--yes," said Caderousse; "but you were right to return as soon as
possible, my boy."
"And why?"
"Because Mercedes is a very fine girl, and fine girls never lack
followers; she particularly has them by dozens."
"Really?" answered Edmond, with a smile which had in it traces of slight
uneasiness.
"Ah, yes," continued Caderousse, "and capital offers, too; but you know,
you will be captain, and who could refuse you then?"
"Meaning to say," replied Dantes, with a smile which but ill-concealed
his trouble, "that if I were not a captain"--
"Eh--eh!" said Caderousse, shaking his head.
"Come, come," said the sailor, "I have a better opinion than you of
women in general, and of Mercedes in particular; and I am certain that,
captain or not, she will remain ever faithful to me."
"So much the better--so much the better," said Caderousse. "When one
is going to be married, there is nothing like implicit confidence; but
never mind that, my boy,--go and announce your arrival, and let her know
all your hopes and prospects."
"I will go directly," was Edmond's reply; and, embracing his father, and
nodding to Caderousse, he left the apartment.
Caderousse lingered for a moment, then taking leave of old Dantes, he
went downstairs to rejoin Danglars, who awaited him at the corner of the
Rue Senac.
"Well," said Danglars, "did you see him?"
"I have just left him," answered Caderousse.
"Did he allude to his hope of being captain?"
"He spoke of it as a thing already decided."
"Indeed!" said Danglars, "he is in too much hurry, it appears to me."
"Why, it seems M. Morrel has promised him the thing."
"So that he is quite elated about it?"
"Why, yes, he is actually insolent over the matter--has already offered
me his patronage, as if he were a grand personage, and proffered me a
loan of money, as though he were a banker."
"Which you refused?"
"Most assuredly; although I might easily have accepted it, for it was
I who put into his hands the first silver he ever earned; but now M.
Dantes has no longer any occasion for assistance--he is about to become
a captain."
"Pooh!" said Danglars, "he is not one yet."
"Ma foi, it will be as well if he is not," answered Caderousse; "for if
he should be, there will be really no speaking to him."
"If we choose," replied Danglars, "he will remain what he is; and
perhaps become even less than he is."
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing--I was speaking to myself. And is he still in love with the
Catalane?"
"Over head and ears; but, unless I am much mistaken, there will be a
storm in that quarter."
"Explain yourself."
"Why should I?"
"It is more important than you think, perhaps. You do not like Dantes?"
"I never like upstarts."
"Then tell me all you know about the Catalane."
"I know nothing for certain; only I have seen things which induce me to
believe, as I told you, that the future captain will find some annoyance
in the vicinity of the Vieilles Infirmeries."
"What have you seen?--come, tell me!"
"Well, every time I have seen Mercedes come into the city she has
been accompanied by a tall, strapping, black-eyed Catalan, with a red
complexion, brown skin, and fierce air, whom she calls cousin."
"Really; and you think this cousin pays her attentions?"
"I only suppose so. What else can a strapping chap of twenty-one mean
with a fine wench of seventeen?"
"And you say that Dantes has gone to the Catalans?"
"He went before I came down."
"Let us go the same way; we will stop at La Reserve, and we can drink a
glass of La Malgue, whilst we wait for news."
"Come along," said Caderousse; "but you pay the score."
"Of course," replied Danglars; and going quickly to the designated
place, they called for a bottle of wine, and two glasses.
Pere Pamphile had seen Dantes pass not ten minutes before; and assured
that he was at the Catalans, they sat down under the budding foliage
of the planes and sycamores, in the branches of which the birds were
singing their welcome to one of the first days of spring.
Chapter 3. The Catalans.
Beyond a bare, weather-worn wall, about a hundred paces from the spot
where the two friends sat looking and listening as they drank their
wine, was the village of the Catalans. Long ago this mysterious colony
quitted Spain, and settled on the tongue of land on which it is to this
day. Whence it came no one knew, and it spoke an unknown tongue. One of
its chiefs, who understood Provencal, begged the commune of Marseilles
to give them this bare and barren promontory, where, like the sailors of
old, they had run their boats ashore. The request was granted; and three
months afterwards, around the twelve or fifteen small vessels which
had brought these gypsies of the sea, a small village sprang up. This
village, constructed in a singular and picturesque manner, half Moorish,
half Spanish, still remains, and is inhabited by descendants of the
first comers, who speak the language of their fathers. For three or four
centuries they have remained upon this small promontory, on which
they had settled like a flight of seabirds, without mixing with the
Marseillaise population, intermarrying, and preserving their original
customs and the costume of their mother-country as they have preserved
its language.
Our readers will follow us along the only street of this little village,
and enter with us one of the houses, which is sunburned to the beautiful
dead-leaf color peculiar to the buildings of the country, and within
coated with whitewash, like a Spanish posada. A young and beautiful
girl, with hair as black as jet, her eyes as velvety as the gazelle's,
was leaning with her back against the wainscot, rubbing in her slender
delicately moulded fingers a bunch of heath blossoms, the flowers of
which she was picking off and strewing on the floor; her arms, bare to
the elbow, brown, and modelled after those of the Arlesian Venus, moved
with a kind of restless impatience, and she tapped the earth with her
arched and supple foot, so as to display the pure and full shape of her
well-turned leg, in its red cotton, gray and blue clocked, stocking. At
three paces from her, seated in a chair which he balanced on two legs,
leaning his elbow on an old worm-eaten table, was a tall young man of
twenty, or two-and-twenty, who was looking at her with an air in which
vexation and uneasiness were mingled. He questioned her with his eyes,
but the firm and steady gaze of the young girl controlled his look.
"You see, Mercedes," said the young man, "here is Easter come round
again; tell me, is this the moment for a wedding?"
"I have answered you a hundred times, Fernand, and really you must be
very stupid to ask me again."
"Well, repeat it,--repeat it, I beg of you, that I may at last believe
it! Tell me for the hundredth time that you refuse my love, which had
your mother's sanction. Make me understand once for all that you are
trifling with my happiness, that my life or death are nothing to you.
Ah, to have dreamed for ten years of being your husband, Mercedes, and
to lose that hope, which was the only stay of my existence!"
"At least it was not I who ever encouraged you in that hope, Fernand,"
replied Mercedes; "you cannot reproach me with the slightest coquetry.
I have always said to you, 'I love you as a brother; but do not ask from
me more than sisterly affection, for my heart is another's.' Is not this
true, Fernand?"
"Yes, that is very true, Mercedes," replied the young man, "Yes, you
have been cruelly frank with me; but do you forget that it is among the
Catalans a sacred law to intermarry?"
"You mistake, Fernand; it is not a law, but merely a custom, and, I pray
of you, do not cite this custom in your favor. You are included in the
conscription, Fernand, and are only at liberty on sufferance, liable at
any moment to be called upon to take up arms. Once a soldier, what would
you do with me, a poor orphan, forlorn, without fortune, with nothing
but a half-ruined hut and a few ragged nets, the miserable inheritance
left by my father to my mother, and by my mother to me? She has been
dead a year, and you know, Fernand, I have subsisted almost entirely on
public charity. Sometimes you pretend I am useful to you, and that is
an excuse to share with me the produce of your fishing, and I accept it,
Fernand, because you are the son of my father's brother, because we were
brought up together, and still more because it would give you so much
pain if I refuse. But I feel very deeply that this fish which I go and
sell, and with the produce of which I buy the flax I spin,--I feel very
keenly, Fernand, that this is charity."
"And if it were, Mercedes, poor and lone as you are, you suit me as
well as the daughter of the first shipowner or the richest banker
of Marseilles! What do such as we desire but a good wife and careful
housekeeper, and where can I look for these better than in you?"
"Fernand," answered Mercedes, shaking her head, "a woman becomes a bad
manager, and who shall say she will remain an honest woman, when
she loves another man better than her husband? Rest content with my
friendship, for I say once more that is all I can promise, and I will
promise no more than I can bestow."
"I understand," replied Fernand, "you can endure your own wretchedness
patiently, but you are afraid to share mine. Well, Mercedes, beloved by
you, I would tempt fortune; you would bring me good luck, and I should
become rich. I could extend my occupation as a fisherman, might get a
place as clerk in a warehouse, and become in time a dealer myself."
"You could do no such thing, Fernand; you are a soldier, and if you
remain at the Catalans it is because there is no war; so remain a
fisherman, and contented with my friendship, as I cannot give you more."
"Well, I will do better, Mercedes. I will be a sailor; instead of the
costume of our fathers, which you despise, I will wear a varnished hat,
a striped shirt, and a blue jacket, with an anchor on the buttons. Would
not that dress please you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Mercedes, with an angry glance,--"what do you
mean? I do not understand you?"
"I mean, Mercedes, that you are thus harsh and cruel with me, because
you are expecting some one who is thus attired; but perhaps he whom you
await is inconstant, or if he is not, the sea is so to him."
"Fernand," cried Mercedes, "I believed you were good-hearted, and I was
mistaken! Fernand, you are wicked to call to your aid jealousy and the
anger of God! Yes, I will not deny it, I do await, and I do love him of
whom you speak; and, if he does not return, instead of accusing him of
the inconstancy which you insinuate, I will tell you that he died loving
me and me only." The young girl made a gesture of rage. "I understand
you, Fernand; you would be revenged on him because I do not love you;
you would cross your Catalan knife with his dirk. What end would that
answer? To lose you my friendship if he were conquered, and see that
friendship changed into hate if you were victor. Believe me, to seek a
quarrel with a man is a bad method of pleasing the woman who loves that
man. No, Fernand, you will not thus give way to evil thoughts. Unable to
have me for your wife, you will content yourself with having me for
your friend and sister; and besides," she added, her eyes troubled and
moistened with tears, "wait, wait, Fernand; you said just now that the
sea was treacherous, and he has been gone four months, and during these
four months there have been some terrible storms."
Fernand made no reply, nor did he attempt to check the tears which
flowed down the cheeks of Mercedes, although for each of these tears he
would have shed his heart's blood; but these tears flowed for another.
He arose, paced a while up and down the hut, and then, suddenly stopping
before Mercedes, with his eyes glowing and his hands clinched,--"Say,
