The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre DumasЧитать онлайн книгу.
“But he knows it all now,” interrupted Caderousse; “they say the dead know everything.”
There was a brief silence; the abbé 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 Dantès.”
“And what part did he play in this sad drama?” inquired the abbé.
“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 Dantès’ 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 then 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 abbé, “is M. Morrel still alive?”
“Yes,” replied Caderousse.
“In this case,” replied the abbé, “he should be rich, happy.”
Caderousse smiled bitterly.
“Yes, happy as myself,” said he.
“What! M. Morrel unhappy!” exclaimed the abbé.
“He is reduced almost to the last extremity,—nay, he is almost at the point of dishonour.”
“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,”