The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (52 page)

As he was at the door of the study, he heard that of the apartment open and turned around to see his father. Instead of going directly
up to his study, M. Morrel had gone into his room, from which he was only now emerging.

He gave a cry of surprise on seeing Maximilien. He did not know that the young man had returned. He stayed motionless on the spot, clasping something hidden under his frock-coat with his left arm. Maximilien quickly came down the stairs and embraced his father but suddenly started back, leaving only his right hand resting on his father’s chest.

‘Father,’ he said, deathly pale, ‘why have you a pair of pistols under your coat?’

‘This is what I feared!’ said Morrel.

‘Father, father! In heaven’s name!’ the young man exclaimed. ‘What are these weapons for?’

‘Maximilien,’ Morrel replied, looking directly at his son, ‘you are a man, and a man of honour. Come with me and I shall tell you.’

Morrel walked with a firm step up to his study while Maximilien followed him, his knees trembling.

Morrel opened the door and closed it behind his son. Then he crossed the antechamber, went into the office, placed his pistols on a corner of the table and pointed to the open register. Here was a precise summary of the situation. In half an hour Morrel would have to pay two hundred and eighty-seven thousand five hundred francs.

His total assets amounted to fifteen thousand, two hundred and fifty-seven francs.

‘Read it,’ he said.

The young man read and for a moment appeared to be crushed. Morrel said nothing: what was there to say that would add anything to the inexorable verdict of the figures?

‘Father, have you done everything,’ the young man said, after a moment’s pause, ‘to stave off this misfortune?’

‘Yes,’ said Morrel.

‘You are expecting no funds to be paid in?’

‘None.’

‘You have exhausted every possible resource?’

‘Every one.’

‘And in half an hour,’ Maximilien said in a dull voice, ‘your name will be dishonoured.’

‘Blood washes away dishonour,’ said Morrel.

‘You are right, father. I take your meaning.’ Then, stretching his hand out towards the pistols: ‘There is one for you and one for me. Thank you!’

Morrel clasped his hand.

‘Your mother… your sister… who will feed them?’

The young man’s body shook from head to toe.

‘Father,’ he said, ‘are you asking me to live?’

‘Yes, I tell you to. It is your duty. Your mind is calm and strong, Maximilien. You are no ordinary man. I am not ordering you, I am not instructing you, I am just saying: consider your situation as if you were an outsider looking at it, and judge for yourself.’

The young man thought for a moment, then an expression of sublime resignation passed across his eyes. But, with a slow, sad gesture, he took off his epaulettes, the marks of his rank.

‘Very well,’ he said, offering Morrel his hand. ‘Die in peace, father! I shall live!’

Morrel made as if to throw himself at his son’s feet. Maximilien drew his father to him, and for a moment these two noble hearts beat, one against the other.

‘You know it is not my fault?’ said Morrel.

Maximilien smiled.

‘I do know, father that you are the most honest man I have ever met.’

‘Very well, there is nothing more to say. Now go back to your mother and your sister.’

‘Father, give me your blessing!’ The young man knelt.

Morrel grasped his son’s head between both hands, drew him to him and, kissing him over and over, said: ‘Oh, yes, yes! I bless you in my name and in the name of three generations of men of impeccable reputation; listen to what they are saying in my voice: the edifice which misfortune has destroyed, Providence can rebuild. When they see me dead in this manner, even the most inexorable will take pity on you. Perhaps you will be given the time that has been refused me. Try to ensure that the word infamy is not spoken. Go to work, young man, struggle eagerly and bravely: live, you, your mother and your sister, on the basic minimum so that, day by day, the wealth of those in whose debt I am should grow and bear fruit in your hands. Consider that a fine day is coming, a great day, the solemn day when the bankruptcy will be discharged, the day when, in this same office, you will say: “My father died because he
could not do what I am doing today; but he died with calm and peace of mind, because he knew as he died that I would do it.” ’

‘Oh, father, father!’ cried the young man. ‘If only you could live!’

‘If I live, everything will change. Concern will change to doubt, pity to implacability. If I live, I shall be no more than a man who failed to keep his word, who could not live up to his promises – in short, a bankrupt. But think: if I die, Maximilien, my body will be that of an unfortunate but honest man. If I live, my best friends will shun my house; if I die, all Marseille will follow me, weeping, to my final rest. If I live, you will be ashamed of my name; if I die, you can hold up your head and say: “I am the son of a man who killed himself because, for the first time, he was obliged to break his word.” ’

The young man groaned, but he appeared resigned. This was the second time that certainty had descended, not on his heart, but on his mind.

‘And now,’ Morrel said, ‘leave me and try to keep the women away from here.’

‘Do you not wish to see my sister?’ Maximilien asked.

The young man saw a vague last hope in this meeting, which is why he suggested it. M. Morrel shook his head, saying: ‘I saw her and said farewell this morning.’

‘Don’t you have any particular requests for me, father?’ Maximilien asked in a strained voice.

‘I do, my son, a sacred request.’

‘Tell me, father.’

‘The firm of Thomson and French is the only one which, out of humanity, perhaps out of self-interest – but it is not for me to read into the hearts of men – took pity on me. Its representative is the man who in ten minutes will come here to cash a bill for two hundred and eighty-seven thousand five hundred francs, and he – I won’t say he granted me, but he offered me three months’ grace. Let this firm be repaid first of all, my son; let this man be sacred to you.’

‘Yes, father,’ said Maximilien.

‘And now, once more, adieu,’ said Morrel. ‘Go now, I need to be alone. You will find my will in the writing-table in my bedroom.’

The young man stayed, not moving, feeling the wish to do so but not the power to carry out the wish.

‘Listen, Maximilien,’ said his father. ‘Suppose I were a soldier
like you, and I had received an order to capture a redoubt and you knew that I would be killed in doing so, wouldn’t you say to me what you said a short while ago: “Go on, father, because you will be dishonoured if you stay, and death is better than shame”?’

‘Yes,’ said the young man. ‘Yes, yes.’ And, clasping his father in his arms with a convulsive movement, he said: ‘Farewell, father!’ and dashed out of the study.

When his son had left, Morrel remained for a moment standing, staring at the door. Then he reached out his hand, found the rope of a bell-pull and rang. A moment later Coclès appeared.

He was no longer the same man. These three days of certainty had broken him. This thought: the House of Morrel could not meet its obligations, bent him closer to the ground than the weight of another twenty years on his back.

‘My dear Coclès,’ said Morrel, in an indescribable tone of voice. ‘Please remain in the antechamber. When the gentleman who was here three months ago – you know, the representative of Thomson and French – when he arrives, you will announce him.’

Coclès said nothing. He nodded, went into the antechamber and waited.

Morrel fell back into his chair. His eyes turned to the clock. He had seven minutes left, no more. The hand was turning at an incredible speed: he even thought he could see it move.

It is impossible to say what was going on in these final moments in the mind of this man who, still young, perhaps as the result of misguided reasoning, however persuasive it might be, was about to separate himself from all that he loved in the world and leave this existence, which offered him all the joys of family life. In order to gain some idea of it, one would need to see his forehead bathed in sweat, but resigned; his eyes wet with tears, yet raised heavenwards.

The hand moved on, the pistols were loaded. He reached out, took one of them and murmured his daughter’s name.

After that he put down the fatal weapon, took a pen and wrote a few words. He felt that he had still not said a sufficient farewell to his dear child.

Then he turned back to the clock. The time could no longer be counted in minutes, but in seconds.

He picked up the weapons again, his mouth half open and his eyes on the hands of the clock. Then he shuddered at the noise he himself made in cocking the gun.

At that moment a colder sweat broke out on his brow and a more terrible agony gripped his heart.

He heard the door to the stairway creak on its hinges.

The door of his study opened.

The clock was about to strike eleven.

Morrel did not turn around. He was waiting for Coclès to say: ‘The representative of Thomson and French…’

He put the gun to his mouth…

Suddenly he heard a cry: it was his daughter’s voice.

He turned around and saw Julie. The gun dropped from his hand.

‘Father!’ the girl cried, breathless and almost fainting with joy. ‘Saved! You are saved!’

And she flung herself into his arms, brandishing in one hand a red silk purse.

‘Saved, child! What do you mean?’

‘Yes, saved! Look, look!’

Morrel took the purse and shivered, because he vaguely recalled it as something that had once belonged to him.

In one side was the bill for two hundred and eighty-seven thousand five hundred francs. The bill was acquitted.

In the other side was a diamond the size of a hazelnut, with these words written on a small piece of parchment: ‘Julie’s dowry’.

Morrel wiped his brow. He thought he was dreaming.

At that moment the clock struck eleven. It struck for him as if each blow of the hammer was striking on his very heart.

‘Come now, my child,’ he said. ‘Explain this: where did you find this purse?’

‘In a house in the Allées de Meilhan, at number fifteen, on the mantelpiece of a poor little room on the fifth floor.’

‘But this purse does not belong to you!’ he cried.

Julie handed her father the letter she had received that morning.

‘And you went to this house alone?’ he said, after reading it.

‘Emmanuel came with me, father. He agreed to wait for me on the corner of the Rue du Musée. But the strange thing is that, when I came back, he was no longer there.’

‘Monsieur Morrel!’ cried a voice on the stairs. ‘Monsieur Morrel!’

‘That’s his voice,’ said Julie.

At the same moment Emmanuel came in, his face contorted with joy and emotion.

‘The
Pharaon
!’ he shouted. ‘The
Pharaon
!’

‘What is this? The
Pharaon?
Are you mad, Emmanuel? You know very well that she is lost.’

‘The
Pharaon
, Monsieur! They have signalled the
Pharaon
. She is coming into port.’

Morrel slumped backwards into his chair, drained of all strength, his mind refusing to accept this succession of incredible… unheard of… fabulous events.

Then his son came in, exclaiming: ‘Father, why did you say the
Pharaon
was lost? The lookout has announced its arrival and it is sailing into port.’

‘My friends,’ said Morrel, ‘if this is so, we must believe in a divine miracle. It is impossible, impossible!’

But what was real, but no less incredible, was the purse that he held in his hands, the bill of exchange acquitted and this splendid diamond.

‘Oh, Monsieur!’ said Coclès. ‘What does it mean? The
Pharaon
?’

‘Come on, children,’ said Morrel, getting up, ‘let us go and see; and God have pity on us if this is a false rumour.’

They went down. Mme Morrel was waiting on the stairs; the poor woman had not dared to come up.

In a moment they were on the Canebière.

There was a large crowd in the port, and it parted to make way for Morrel. Every voice was crying: ‘The
Pharaon
! The
Pharaon
!’ And, indeed, something wonderful, unimaginable: off the Tour Saint-Jean, a ship with these words in white letters inscribed on its prow: ‘
Pharaon
(Morrel and Son of Marseille)’, exactly like the other
Pharaon
, laden like the other with cochineal and indigo, was lowering its anchor and furling its sails. On deck, Captain Gaumard was giving orders and Master Penelon was waving to M. Morrel.

There could be no further doubt: the evidence of his senses was supported by ten thousand witnesses.

As Morrel and his son were embracing on the jetty, to the applause of the whole town which had come to see this extraordinary event, a man, his face half covered by a black beard, who had been hiding behind a sentry box and observing the scene with obvious emotion, muttered the following words: ‘Be happy, noble heart. Be blessed for all the good you have done and will yet do. Let my gratitude remain hidden in the shadows like your good deeds.’