The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (11 page)

This sally brought a further round of applause and hurrahs.

‘So, what we thought was a betrothal is nothing less than a wedding feast,’ said Danglars.

‘Not so,’ said Dantès. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be missing
anything. Tomorrow morning, I leave for Paris: four days to travel there, four days to return and a day to carry out my errand conscientiously. On March the first I shall be back; on March the second, then, we shall have the real wedding feast.’

The prospect of a second meal increased the level of hilarity to such a point that Old Dantès, who had complained of the silence at the start of the dinner, was now making futile efforts, in the midst of the general hubbub, to propose a toast to the prosperity of the happy couple.

Dantès guessed what was in his father’s mind and replied with a smile full of filial love. Mercédès had started to watch the time on the cuckoo clock in the room, and she made a sign to Edmond.

Around the table reigned the noisy merriment and freedom of manners that, among people of the lower orders, are common accompaniments to the end of a meal. Those who were dissatisfied with their places had got up from the table and gone to find new neighbours. Everyone had started to speak at once, and no one was bothering to listen to what the person next to him was saying, but was concerned only with his own thoughts.

Fernand’s pallor was almost reflected on the cheeks of Danglars; as for Fernand himself, all life appeared to have left him and he was like one of the damned in a lake of fire. He had been among the first to get up and was striding backwards and forwards across the room, trying to block his ears to the sound of songs and clinking glasses.

Caderousse went over to him, just as Danglars, whom he had apparently been trying to avoid, caught up with him in a corner of the room.

‘I must say,’ Caderousse remarked, the last remnants of the hatred which Dantès’ unexpected good fortune had sowed in his mind having succumbed to Dantès’ joviality and, above all, to Père Pamphile’s excellent wine. ‘Dantès is a good fellow and when I see him like this beside his fiancée I feel that it would have been a pity to play the unkind trick on him that you were plotting yesterday.’

‘Well, then,’ Danglars replied, ‘you can see that the matter went no further. Poor Monsieur Fernand was so upset that, at first, I felt sorry for him; but now that he has made up his mind to accept the situation, to the point of allowing himself to become his rival’s best man, there is nothing more to be said.’

Caderousse looked at Fernand. He was deathly pale.

‘The sacrifice is all the greater,’ Danglars went on, ‘as the girl is so decidedly pretty. Dammit! My future captain is a lucky dog: I wish I could be in his shoes for just half a day.’

‘Shall we go?’ Mercédès said softly. ‘It is striking two and we are expected at a quarter past.’

‘Yes, yes, let’s go,’ Dantès exclaimed, leaping to his feet.

‘Let’s go!’ all the guests repeated in unison.

At that moment Danglars, who had not taken his eyes off Fernand where he was sitting on the window-ledge, saw him look up frantically, rise as though with a convulsive start, then fall back on to his seat in the casement. At almost the same moment a dull sound echoed through the stairway, the sound of heavy footsteps and confused voices, mingled with the clanking of weapons, which rose above the exclamations of the guests (loud though these were) and instantly attracted everybody’s attention, creating an uneasy hush.

The sounds drew closer. Three knocks sounded on the door, and all those in the room looked at their neighbours in astonishment.

‘Open, in the name of the law!’ cried a voice, in a resounding tone. No one answered. At once the door flew open and a commissioner of police,
¹
wearing his sash, strode into the room, followed by four armed soldiers under the command of a corporal.

Uneasiness gave way to terror.

‘What is wrong?’ the shipowner asked, going over to the commissioner, whom he knew. ‘Monsieur, there must undoubtedly be some mistake.’

‘If there is a mistake, Monsieur Morrel,’ the commissioner replied, ‘you may be sure that it will soon be put right. In the meanwhile, I have a warrant here; and though I do it with regret, I must fulfil my duty. Which of you gentlemen is Edmond Dantès?’

All eyes turned towards the young man who, preserving his dignity despite his astonishment, stepped forward and said: ‘I am, Monsieur. What do you want with me?’

‘Edmond Dantès,’ the commissioner said, ‘I arrest you in the name of the law.’

‘Arrest me!’ Edmond said, paling slightly. ‘Why are you arresting me?’

‘I have no idea of that, Monsieur, but you will be informed of it in your first interrogation.’

M. Morrel realized that there was no sense in trying to argue in the circumstances: a commissioner wearing his sash is no longer a
man but a statue of the law, cold, deaf and dumb. But the old man rushed over to the officer: it is impossible, in some situations, to reason with the heart of a parent.

He begged and prayed: prayers and tears were ineffectual, but his despair was so great that the commissioner was moved by it.

‘My dear sir,’ he said, ‘calm yourself. Perhaps your son has forgotten some formality to do with the Customs or the health authorities; and, as likely as not, when he has given them the information they require, he will be released.’

‘Well, I never! What does this mean?’ Caderousse asked Danglars quizzically, while Danglars feigned surprise.

‘How can I tell?’ he replied. ‘Like you, I can see what is happening, but I am at a loss to understand it.’

Caderousse looked around for Fernand, but he had vanished. At that moment, the whole of the previous evening’s events flashed before his eyes with terrifying clarity. It was as though the catastrophe had lifted the veil that drunkenness had cast over his memory of the day before.

‘Oh! Oh!’ he exclaimed hoarsely. ‘Can this be a consequence of the joke you were speaking about yesterday, Danglars? If that is the case, damnation take the perpetrator, for it is a cruel one.’

‘Nothing of the sort!’ muttered Danglars. ‘Far from it: you know very well that I tore up the paper.’

‘That you did not,’ said Caderousse. ‘You merely threw it into a corner.’

‘Hold your tongue. You were drunk, you saw nothing.’

‘Where is Fernand?’ Caderousse asked.

‘How do I know?’ replied Danglars. ‘About his business, no doubt. But instead of worrying about that, why don’t we go and comfort these poor people.’

While this conversation was taking place, Dantès had in effect been shaking the hands of all his friends, with a smile to each, and relinquished himself into captivity, saying: ‘Stay calm. The mistake will doubtless be explained and it is quite probable that I shall not even go as far as the prison.’

‘Certainly not, I guarantee it,’ Danglars said, coming across at that moment to the group, as he had indicated.

Dantès went down the stairs, following the commissioner of police, with the soldiers surrounding him. A carriage, its door wide open, was waiting outside. He got in. Two soldiers and the
commissioner got up behind him, the door closed and the carriage set out on the road back to Marseille.

‘Farewell, Dantès! Farewell, Edmond!’ cried Mercédès, leaning across the balustrade.

The prisoner heard this last cry, wrung like a sob from his fiancée’s tormented heart. He leant out of the carriage window and called: ‘Goodbye, Mercédès!’ as he disappeared round one corner of the Fort Saint-Nicholas.

‘Wait for me here,’ said the shipowner. ‘I shall take the first carriage I can find, hurry to Marseille and bring the news back to you.’

‘Yes!’ everyone cried. ‘Go on, and come quickly back.’

After this double departure there was a dreadful moment of stunned silence among all who remained behind. For a time, the old man and Mercédès stayed apart, each immured in grief. But at length their eyes met. Each recognized the other as a victim stricken by the same blow and they fell into each other’s arms.

Meanwhile Fernand returned, poured himself a glass of water, drank it and sat down on a chair. By chance, this happened to be next to the chair into which Mercédès sank when she parted from the old man’s embrace. Fernand instinctively moved his own chair away.

‘He’s the one,’ Caderousse told Danglars, not having taken his eyes off the Catalan.

‘I doubt it,’ Danglars replied. ‘He was not clever enough. In any case, let whoever is responsible take the blame.’

‘You are forgetting the person who advised him.’

‘Pah! If one were to be held to account for every remark one lets fall…’

‘Yes, when it falls point downwards.’

Everyone else, meanwhile, had been discussing every angle of Dantès’ arrest.

‘And you, Danglars?’ someone asked. ‘What do you think about what has happened?’

‘My view is that he must have brought back some packets of prohibited goods.’

‘But if that was the case, you should know about it, Danglars, since you were the ship’s supercargo.’

‘That may be so, but the supercargo doesn’t know about any goods unless they are declared to him. I know that we were carrying
cotton, that’s all, and that we took the cargo on at Alexandria, from Monsieur Pastret, and at Smyrna, from Monsieur Pascal. Don’t expect me to know anything more than that.’

‘Yes, I remember now,’ Dantès’ poor father muttered, clutching at this straw. ‘He told me yesterday that he had brought me a cask of coffee and one of tobacco.’

‘You see,’ said Danglars. ‘That’s it: while we were away, the Customs must have gone on board the
Pharaon
and discovered the contraband.’

Mercédès did not believe any of this; and, having up to then contained her distress, she burst into a fit of sobbing.

‘Come, come! Don’t lose hope,’ Old Dantès said, though without really knowing what he was saying.

‘Hope!’ Danglars repeated.

‘Hope,’ Fernand tried to mutter. But the word stuck in his throat, his lips trembled and no sound emerged from them.

‘Gentlemen!’ cried one of the guests, who had been keeping watch from the balcony. ‘Gentlemen, a carriage! Ah, it’s Monsieur Morrel! Come now, he must surely be bringing good news.’

Mercédès and the old man ran out to greet the shipowner, who met them at the door. M. Morrel’s face was pale.

‘Well?’ they all cried at once.

‘Well, my friends,’ the shipowner replied, shaking his head. ‘The matter is more serious than we thought.’

‘But, Monsieur!’ cried Mercédès. ‘He is innocent!’

‘I believe him to be so,’ M. Morrel replied, ‘but he is accused…’

‘What is he accused of?’ Old Dantès asked.

‘Of being an agent of Bonaparte.’

Those readers who lived through the period in which this story takes place will recall what a dreadful accusation it was that M. Morrel had just pronounced in those days.

Mercédès gave a cry, and the old man sank into a chair.

‘So,’ Caderousse muttered. ‘You lied to me, Danglars: the trick was played after all. But I do not intend to let this old man and this young woman die of grief, and I shall tell them everything.’

‘Hold your tongue, wretch!’ Danglars exclaimed, grasping Caderousse’s hand. ‘Otherwise I can’t answer for what may happen to you. How do you know that Dantès is not in fact guilty? The ship did call in at the island of Elba, he landed there and stayed a day in Porto Ferrajo. If he has been found with some compromising
letter on his person, anyone who takes his part will look like an accomplice.’

Caderousse was rapidly informed of the full strength of this argument by the dictates of self-interest, and he looked at Danglars with an expression deadened by fear and grief. Having just taken one step forward, he proceeded to take two back.

‘So, let’s wait and see,’ he muttered.

‘Yes, we’ll wait,’ Danglars answered. ‘If he is innocent, he will be freed; if he is guilty, there is no sense in compromising oneself for the sake of a conspirator.’

‘Let’s go, then. I can’t stay here any longer.’

‘Yes, come on,’ said Danglars, delighted at having someone to accompany him out of the room. ‘Come, we shall let them extricate themselves as best they may.’

They left; and Fernand, resuming his former role in support of the young woman, took Mercédès’ hand and led her back to Les Catalans. For their part, Dantès’ friends took the old man, in a state of near-collapse, back to the Allées de Meilhan.

The news that Dantès had just been arrested as a Bonapartist agent soon spread through Marseille.

‘Would you have believed it, my dear Danglars?’ M. Morrel said, catching up with his supercargo and Caderousse (for he was also heading for town as fast as he could, to have some first-hand news of Edmond from the crown prosecutor, M. de Villefort, who was a slight acquaintance of his). ‘Would you believe it?’

‘Well, now, Monsieur!’ Danglars replied. ‘I told you that Dantès put into Elba, for no apparent reason, and that this call seemed suspicious to me.’

‘But did you tell anyone else of your suspicions?’

‘I was careful not to do any such thing,’ Danglars assured him, lowering his voice. ‘You know very well that, on account of your uncle, Monsieur Policar Morrel, who served under you-know-whom and makes no secret of his feelings, you are suspected of hankering after the old regime. I would have been afraid I might harm Dantès and also yourself. There are some things that a subordinate has a duty to tell the owner, and to keep well hidden from anyone else.’