The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (45 page)

‘Ah, Monsieur,’ said Caderousse, ‘it’s not that either Mercédès the Catalan or Monsieur Morrel abandoned him, but the poor old man had taken a profound antipathy to Fernand, the very person,’ he added, smiling ironically, ‘that Dantès told you was one of his friends.’

‘He was not?’ asked the abbé.

‘Gaspard, Gaspard!’ the woman muttered from the top of the stairs. ‘Mind what you say!’

Caderousse made an impatient gesture and, with no other reply to the woman who had interrupted him, told the abbé: ‘Can anyone be the friend of a man whose wife he covets? Dantès, who had a heart of gold, called all those people his friends… Poor Edmond! After all, it is better that he knew nothing, he would have found it too hard to forgive them on his deathbed. Whatever anyone says,’ Caderousse concluded, with a kind of rough poetry in his speech, ‘I am still more afraid of a dead man’s curse than of a living man’s hatred.’

‘Idiot!’ said La Carconte.

‘Do you know what Fernand did to harm Dantès, then?’ asked the abbé.

‘Indeed I do.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Gaspard, you can do as you wish, you are the master here,’ said his wife. ‘But if you take my advice, you’ll say nothing.’

‘This time, I think you may be right, woman,’ said Caderousse.

‘So, you don’t want to tell me?’ the abbé continued.

‘What is the use? If the lad was alive and if he came to me to tell him, once and for all, who were his friends and who his enemies, then I might do it. But he is dead and gone, so you say; he can feel hatred no longer, nor can he take revenge. Let’s draw the blind on all this.’

‘So, you want me to give these people, who you tell me are unworthy and false friends, a gift that was meant to reward their fidelity?’

‘That’s true, you’re right,’ said Caderousse. ‘In any case, what would poor Edmond’s bequest be to them now? A drop of water in the ocean.’

‘Apart from which, those people could crush you with a flick of the hand,’ said his wife.

‘What do you mean? Have they become rich and powerful then?’

‘Don’t you know what happened to them?’

‘No. Tell me.’

Caderousse seemed to reflect for a short time. Then he said: ‘No, in fact the story is too long.’

‘You are quite at liberty to keep it to yourself,’ the abbé said, with an air of the most profound indifference. ‘If so, I shall respect any reservations you may have. Indeed, you are showing yourself to be a truly generous man, so let’s say no more about it. The duty that I have to carry out is a mere formality: I shall sell the diamond.’

He took it out of his pocket, opened the box and displayed the shining stone before Caderousse’s eyes.

‘Come and see it, wife!’ the innkeeper said, his voice breaking.

‘A diamond!’ said La Carconte, getting up and walking quite resolutely down the stairs. ‘What is this diamond then?’

‘Didn’t you hear? It’s a diamond that the boy left us: first of all to his father, then to his three friends: Fernand, Danglars and myself, and to his wife Mercédès. It’s worth fifty thousand francs.’

‘Ah! What a lovely thing!’ she exclaimed.

‘So, one-fifth of the amount belongs to us?’ Caderousse asked.

‘Yes, Monsieur. Plus Dantès’ father’s share, which I feel I have the right to divide among the four of you.’

‘But why among four?’ asked La Carconte.

‘Because the four of you were Edmond’s friends.’

‘Traitors are not friends,’ the woman muttered grimly.

‘Yes, just so,’ said Caderousse. ‘I was only saying as much. It’s almost blasphemy, almost sacrilegious to reward treachery, or even crime.’

‘That’s what you wanted,’ the abbé continued calmly, putting the diamond back into his cassock pocket. ‘Now, give me the address of Edmond’s friends, so that I can carry out his last wishes.’

Sweat was pouring down Caderousse’s forehead. He saw the abbé get up and go towards the door, as if to make sure that his horse was waiting, before coming back.

Caderousse and his wife exchanged an indescribable look.

‘The diamond would belong to us alone,’ Caderousse said.

‘Do you think so?’ his wife replied.

‘A man of the cloth would not try to deceive us.’

‘As you wish. I am having nothing to do with it.’

She returned, shivering, to the staircase. Her teeth were chattering, despite the burning heat of the day. On the top step she paused and said: ‘Think about it, Gaspard!’

‘I’ve made up my mind,’ said Caderousse.

La Carconte went back to her room with a sigh. The ceiling creaked under her feet until she reached her armchair and let herself fall heavily into it.

‘What have you decided to do?’ asked the abbé.

‘To tell you everything.’

‘Quite honestly, I think that’s best,’ said the priest. ‘Not that I want to know anything that you want to hide from me; but if you can help me to distribute the bequest in accordance with the wishes of the departed, that will be best.’

‘I hope so,’ Caderousse replied, his cheeks flushed with greed and expectation.

‘I am listening,’ said the abbé.

‘One moment,’ said Caderousse. ‘We might be interrupted at the most interesting point, which would be a pity. In any case, it’s better that no one knows you have been here.’ He went across to the door of the inn and closed it, putting the bolt across it as an extra precaution.

Meanwhile the abbé had chosen a place from which he could listen in comfort. He was sitting in a corner, in such a way as to be in shadow, while the light fell full on the face of whoever was opposite him. His head bowed, his hands folded – or, rather, clasped together – he prepared to give all his attention to the story.

Caderousse drew up a stool and sat down opposite the abbé.

‘Remember, I’m not forcing you,’ said the quavering voice of La Carconte, as if she had observed the setting of this scene through the floor of the room above.

‘Agreed, agreed,’ said Caderousse. ‘Say no more about it. I take full responsibility.’

And he began his tale.

‘Before we start, Monsieur,’ said Caderousse, ‘I must beg you to promise me one thing.’

‘Which is?’

‘Which is that, if you should ever make any use of the information I am about to give you, no one should ever know that it came from me, because the men I am about to speak of are rich and powerful; if they were merely to touch me with the tip of a finger, they would shatter me like glass.’

‘Have no fear, my friend,’ said the abbé. ‘I am a priest and confessions die in my heart. Remember that we have no other purpose than to carry out the wishes of our friend in a proper manner, so speak frankly, but without animosity; tell the truth, and the whole truth. I do not know and probably never shall know the people about whom you are to speak. In any case, I am Italian and not French. I belong to God and not to men: I am going to return to my monastery, having left it only to carry out the last wishes of a dying man.’

This positive promise seemed to reassure Caderousse slightly.

‘Well, in that case,’ he said, ‘I want to tell you the truth – I might even say, I am obliged to tell you about those whom poor Edmond considered his sincere and devoted friends.’

‘Let us start with his father, if you would,’ the abbé said. ‘Edmond spoke a great deal to me about the old man, to whom he was most deeply attached.’

‘It is a sad story,’ said Caderousse, shaking his head. ‘You probably know how it started.’

‘Yes, Edmond told me what happened up to the moment of his arrest, in a little cabaret near Marseille.’

‘La Réserve! Good Lord, yes! I can see the whole thing as if it were yesterday.’

‘Was the occasion not his betrothal feast?’

‘Yes: a meal that started in merriment and ended in sorrow. A police commissioner came in, followed by four soldiers, and Dantès was arrested.’

‘From this point onwards I know nothing,’ said the priest. ‘Dantès
himself only knew whatever concerned him directly, because he never again saw any of the five people I mentioned to you or heard any news of them.’

‘Well, once Dantès had been taken into custody, Monsieur Morrel went to discover what had happened to him, and the news was not good. The old man went back home alone, wept as he folded up his best suit, spent the rest of the day pacing backwards and forwards in his room and did not go to bed that night: I was living directly below and I could hear him walking around from dusk till dawn. I must tell you that I did not sleep, either, because the poor father’s grief was so painful to me that each of his steps crashed against my heart as if he had really stamped his foot on my chest.

‘The next day, Mercédès came to Marseille to beg Monsieur de Villefort’s protection. She obtained nothing from him, but at the same time she went to see the old man. When she found him so sad and depressed, and learned that he had not been to bed that night or eaten since the day before, she wanted him to go with her so that she could take care of him, but the old man would never agree to it.

‘ “No,” he used to say, “I shall never leave the house, because I am the person that my poor child loves above everything; and, if he comes out of prison, I am the one he will come to see first. What would he say if I was not there, waiting for him?”

‘I could hear all this from the landing, because I would have liked Mercédès to persuade the old man to go with her: I could not get a moment’s rest with his footsteps resounding day after day above my head.’

‘But did you not go up to console the old man yourself?’ the priest asked.

‘Ah, Monsieur,’ said Caderousse, ‘you can only console those who wish to be consoled, and he didn’t. In any case, I don’t know why, but it seemed to me that he felt some disgust at the sight of me. Even so, one night when I could hear him sobbing, I could bear it no longer, so I went up. When I reached the door, he had stopped sobbing and was praying. I can’t tell you, Monsieur, what eloquent words and what heart-rending pleas he found for his prayer: it was more than piety, it was more than grief. I’m no pious hypocrite myself, and I don’t like the Jesuits, and that day I thought: it’s as well, after all, that I am alone and the Good Lord never gave me
any children, because if I was a father and I felt the same sorrow as that poor old man, I wouldn’t be able to find all the words that he had for the Good Lord, either in my memory or in my heart, so I would go straight away and throw myself into the sea, to avoid suffering any longer.’

‘Unhappy father!’ the priest muttered.

‘Day by day, he lived more alone and more isolated. Often, Monsieur Morrel and Mercédès came to see him, but his door was shut and, even though I was quite sure he was at home, he would not answer. One day when, exceptionally, he had invited Mercédès in and the poor girl, who was in despair herself, was trying to comfort him, he told her: “Believe me, my dear, he’s dead. Instead of us waiting for him, he is waiting for us; I am happy to think that, being older than you, I shall be the first to see him again.”

‘However good-hearted one is, you understand, one eventually stops seeing people who depress you, so in the end Old Dantès was all alone. From time to time, from then on, I would see only strangers going up to his room, then coming down again with some packet under their coats. I soon guessed what the packets were: he was gradually selling everything he had in order to stay alive. Finally he came to the end of his miserable possessions. He owed three lots of rent and the landlord threatened to evict him. He begged for another week, which he was allowed – I know all this because the landlord would come in to see me after leaving him.

‘The first three days, I heard him walking around as usual, then on the fourth the sounds stopped. I ventured to go up: the door was locked but through the keyhole I could see him, looking so pale and haggard that I thought he must be really ill; so I sent for Monsieur Morrel and went to see Mercédès. They both hurried round. Monsieur Morrel brought a doctor who diagnosed gastroenteritis and prescribed a diet. I was there, Monsieur, and I shall never forget the old man’s smile when he heard that prescription. From then on, he opened his door: he had an excuse for not eating, since the doctor had put him on a diet.’

The abbé gave a sort of groan.

‘You are interested in this story, I think, Monsieur?’ said Caderousse.

‘Yes,’ the abbé replied. ‘It is touching.’

‘Mercédès came back. She found him so changed that once more she wanted to take him to her home. This was also Monsieur
Morrel’s advice, and he wanted to take him there by force; but the old man protested so loudly that they were afraid. Mercédès remained at his bedside and Monsieur Morrel went away, indicating to the Catalan that he was leaving a purse on the mantelpiece. But, with the doctor’s prescription to back him up, the old man refused to take anything. Finally, after nine days of despair and abstinence, he died, cursing those who were the cause of his misfortune and telling Mercédès: “If ever you see my Edmond again, tell him that I died with a blessing for him.” ’

The abbé got up, walked twice round the room and brought a trembling hand up to his dry throat.