"But he knows it all now," interrupted Caderousse; "they say the dead
know everything." There was a brief silence; the abbe rose and paced up
and down pensively, and then resumed his seat. "You have two or three
times mentioned a M. Morrel," he said; "who was he?"
"The owner of the Pharaon and patron of Dantes."
"And what part did he play in this sad drama?" inquired the abbe.
"The part of an honest man, full of courage and real regard. Twenty
times he interceded for Edmond. When the emperor returned, he wrote,
implored, threatened, and so energetically, that on the second
restoration he was persecuted as a Bonapartist. Ten times, as I told
you, he came to see Dantes' father, and offered to receive him in his
own house; and the night or two before his death, as I have already
said, he left his purse on the mantelpiece, with which they paid the old
man's debts, and buried him decently; and so Edmond's father died, as
he had lived, without doing harm to any one. I have the purse still by
me--a large one, made of red silk."
"And," asked the abbe, "is M. Morrel still alive?"
"Yes," replied Caderousse.
"In that case," replied the abbe, "he should be rich, happy."
Caderousse smiled bitterly. "Yes, happy as myself," said he.
"What! M. Morrel unhappy?" exclaimed the abbe.
"He is reduced almost to the last extremity--nay, he is almost at the
point of dishonor."
"How?"
"Yes," continued Caderousse, "so it is; after five and twenty years
of labor, after having acquired a most honorable 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 Dantes 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 abbe.
"Yes, he has a wife, who through everything has 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 lessening, only augments his sorrows. 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--am in
destitution, with my poor wife dying of fever before my very eyes, and
I unable to do anything in the world for her; I shall die of hunger, as
old Dantes did, while Fernand and Danglars are rolling in wealth."
"How is that?"
"Because their deeds have brought them good fortune, 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 favor at court.
He is a millionaire, and they have made him a baron, and now he is the
Baron Danglars, with a fine residence in the Rue de Mont-Blanc, with ten
horses in his stables, six footmen in his ante-chamber, and I know not
how many millions in his strongbox."
"Ah!" said the abbe, in a peculiar tone, "he is happy."
"Happy? Who can answer for that? Happiness or unhappiness is the secret
known but to one's self and the walls--walls have ears but no tongue;
but if a large fortune produces happiness, Danglars is happy."
"And Fernand?"
"Fernand? Why, much the same story."
"But how could a poor Catalan fisher-boy, without education or
resources, make a fortune? I confess this staggers me."
"And it has staggered everybody. There must have been in his life some
strange secret that 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 drafted. The Bourbons left him
quietly enough at the Catalans, but Napoleon returned, a special levy
was made, 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.
Fernand would have been court-martialed if Napoleon had remained on
the throne, but his action was rewarded by the Bourbons. He returned to
France with the epaulet of sub-lieutenant, and as the protection of
the general, who is in the highest favor, 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, got on very intimate terms with him, won over the
support of the royalists at the capital and in the provinces, received
promises and made pledges on his own part, guided his regiment by paths
known to himself alone through the mountain gorges which were held
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
Honor."
"Destiny! destiny!" murmured the abbe.
"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, gave countenance to
volunteer assistance. Fernand sought and obtained leave to go and serve
in Greece, still having his name kept on the army roll. Some time after,
it was stated that the Comte de Morcerf (this was the name he bore) had
entered the service of Ali Pasha with the rank of instructor-general.
Ali Pasha 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 he was gazetted lieutenant-general."
"So that now?"--inquired the abbe.
"So that now," continued Caderousse, "he owns a magnificent house--No.
27, Rue du Helder, Paris." The abbe opened his mouth, hesitated for
a moment, then, making an effort at self-control, he said, "And
Mercedes--they tell me that she has disappeared?"
"Disappeared," said Caderousse, "yes, as the sun disappears, to rise the
next day with still more splendor."
"Has she made a fortune also?" inquired the abbe, with an ironical
smile.
"Mercedes is at this moment one of the greatest ladies in Paris,"
replied Caderousse.
"Go on," said the abbe; "it seems as if I were listening to the story of
a dream. But I have seen things so extraordinary, that what you tell me
seems less astonishing than it otherwise might."
"Mercedes 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 elder Dantes. In the midst of her
despair, a new affliction 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 Mercedes remained alone. Three months
passed and still she wept--no news of Edmond, no news of Fernand, no
companionship save that of an old man who was dying with despair. One
evening, after a day of accustomed vigil at the angle of two roads
leading to Marseilles from the Catalans, she returned to her home
more depressed than ever. Suddenly she heard a step she knew, turned
anxiously around, the door opened, and Fernand, dressed in the uniform
of a sub-lieutenant, stood before her. It was not the one she wished for
most, but it seemed as if a part of her past life had returned to her.
Mercedes 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 Mercedes' heart; that other was absent, had
disappeared, perhaps was dead. At this last thought Mercedes burst into
a flood of tears, and wrung her hands in agony; but the thought, 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 Dantes
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,
Mercedes, 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 of 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 Mercedes; at the
second he reminded her that he loved her. Mercedes begged for six months
more in which to await and mourn for Edmond."
"So that," said the abbe, 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 bride-grooms."
"Well, Mercedes was married," proceeded Caderousse; "but although in the
eyes of the world she appeared calm, she nearly fainted as she passed
La Reserve, where, eighteen months before, the betrothal had been
celebrated with him whom she might have known she still loved had she
looked to 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 unpleasant possibilities associated with
the Catalans, and eight days after the wedding they left Marseilles."
"Did you ever see Mercedes again?" inquired the priest.
"Yes, during the Spanish war, at Perpignan, where Fernand had left her;
she was attending to the education of her son." The abbe started. "Her
son?" said he.
"Yes," replied Caderousse, "little Albert."
"But, then, to be able to instruct her child," continued the abbe, "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? Mercedes 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 was already waxing great, and she developed 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 in order to alleviate the
weight on her heart. But now her position in life is assured," continued
Caderousse; "no doubt fortune and honors have comforted her; she is
rich, a countess, and yet"--Caderousse paused.
"And yet what?" asked the abbe.
"Yet, I am sure, she is not happy," said Caderousse.
"What makes you believe this?"
"Why, when I found myself utterly destitute, I thought my old friends
would, perhaps, assist me. So I went to Danglars, who would not even
receive me. I called on Fernand, who sent me a hundred francs by his
valet-de-chambre."
"Then you did not see either of them?"
"No, but Madame de Morcerf saw me."
"How was that?"
"As I went away a purse fell at my feet--it contained five and twenty
louis; I raised my head quickly, and saw Mercedes, who at once shut the
blind."
"And M. de Villefort?" asked the abbe.
"Oh, he never was a friend of mine, I did not know him, and I had
nothing to ask of him."
"Do you not know what became of him, and the share he had in Edmond's
misfortunes?"
"No; I only know that some time after Edmond's arrest, he married
Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran, and soon after left Marseilles; no doubt
