The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 3. The Catalans-2

hurry that you have no time to pass the time of day with your friends?”

“Particularly when they have still a full bottle before them,” added

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!”

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.