Chapter 3.00: Chapter 3. The Catalans

Chapter 3. The Catalans

Beyond a bare,
weather-worn wall, about a hundred paces from the spot where the two friends
sat looking and listening as they drank their wine, was the village of the
Catalans. Long ago this mysterious colony quitted Spain, and settled on the
tongue of land on which it is to this day. Whence it came no one knew, and it
spoke an unknown tongue. One of its chiefs, who understood Provençal, begged
the commune of Marseilles to give them this bare and barren promontory, where,
like the sailors of old, they had run their boats ashore. The request was
granted; and three months afterwards, around the twelve or fifteen small
vessels which had brought these gypsies of the sea, a small village sprang up.
This village, constructed in a singular and picturesque manner, half Moorish,
half Spanish, still remains, and is inhabited by descendants of the first
comers, who speak the language of their fathers. For three or four centuries
they have remained upon this small promontory, on which they had settled like a
flight of seabirds, without mixing with the Marseillaise population,
intermarrying, and preserving their original customs and the costume of their
mother-country as they have preserved its language.

Our readers will follow us along the only street of this little village, and
enter with us one of the houses, which is sunburned to the beautiful dead-leaf
color peculiar to the buildings of the country, and within coated with
whitewash, like a Spanish posada. A young and beautiful girl, with hair as
black as jet, her eyes as velvety as the gazelle’s, was leaning with her back
against the wainscot, rubbing in her slender delicately moulded fingers a bunch
of heath blossoms, the flowers of which she was picking off and strewing on the
floor; her arms, bare to the elbow, brown, and modelled after those of the
Arlesian Venus, moved with a kind of restless impatience, and she tapped the
earth with her arched and supple foot, so as to display the pure and full shape
of her well-turned leg, in its red cotton, gray and blue clocked, stocking. At
three paces from her, seated in a chair which he balanced on two legs, leaning
his elbow on an old worm-eaten table, was a tall young man of twenty, or
two-and-twenty, who was looking at her with an air in which vexation and
uneasiness were mingled. He questioned her with his eyes, but the firm and
steady gaze of the young girl controlled his look.

“You see, Mercédès,”
said the young man, “here is Easter come round again; tell
me, is this the moment for a wedding?”

“I have answered you a hundred times, Fernand, and really you must be very
stupid to ask me again.”

“Well, repeat it,—repeat it, I beg of you, that I may at last believe it! Tell
me for the hundredth time that you refuse my love, which had your mother’s
sanction. Make me understand once for all that you are trifling with my
happiness, that my life or death are nothing to you. Ah, to have dreamed for
ten years of being your husband, Mercédès, and to lose that hope, which was the
only stay of my existence!”

“At least it was not I who ever encouraged you in that hope, Fernand,”
replied
Mercédès; “you cannot reproach me with the slightest coquetry. I have always
said to you, ‘I love you as a brother; but do not ask from me more than
sisterly affection, for my heart is another’s.’ Is not this true, Fernand?”

“Yes, that is very true, Mercédès,”
replied the young man, “Yes, you have been
cruelly frank with me; but do you forget that it is among the Catalans a sacred
law to intermarry?”

“You mistake, Fernand; it is not a law, but merely a custom, and, I pray of
you, do not cite this custom in your favor. You are included in the
conscription, Fernand, and are only at liberty on sufferance, liable at any
moment to be called upon to take up arms. Once a soldier, what would you do
with me, a poor orphan, forlorn, without fortune, with nothing but a
half-ruined hut and a few ragged nets, the miserable inheritance left by my
father to my mother, and by my mother to me? She has been dead a year, and you
know, Fernand, I have subsisted almost entirely on public charity. Sometimes
you pretend I am useful to you, and that is an excuse to share with me the
produce of your fishing, and I accept it, Fernand, because you are the son of
my father’s brother, because we were brought up together, and still more
because it would give you so much pain if I refuse. But I feel very deeply that
this fish which I go and sell, and with the produce of which I buy the flax I
spin,—I feel very keenly, Fernand, that this is charity.”

“And if it were, Mercédès, poor and lone as you are, you suit me as well as the
daughter of the first shipowner or the richest banker of Marseilles! What do
such as we desire but a good wife and careful housekeeper, and where can I look
for these better than in you?”

“Fernand,”
answered Mercédès, shaking her head, “a woman becomes a bad manager,
and who shall say she will remain an honest woman, when she loves another man
better than her husband? Rest content with my friendship, for I say once more
that is all I can promise, and I will promise no more than I can bestow.”

“I understand,”
replied Fernand, “you can endure your own wretchedness
patiently, but you are afraid to share mine. Well, Mercédès, beloved by you, I
would tempt fortune; you would bring me good luck, and I should become rich. I
could extend my occupation as a fisherman, might get a place as clerk in a
warehouse, and become in time a dealer myself.”

“You could do no such thing, Fernand; you are a soldier, and if you remain at
the Catalans it is because there is no war; so remain a fisherman, and
contented with my friendship, as I cannot give you more.”

“Well, I will do better, Mercédès. I will be a sailor; instead of the costume
of our fathers, which you despise, I will wear a varnished hat, a striped
shirt, and a blue jacket, with an anchor on the buttons. Would not that dress
please you?”

“What do you mean?”
asked Mercédès, with an angry glance,—“what do you mean? I
do not understand you?”

“I mean, Mercédès, that you are thus harsh and cruel with me, because you are
expecting someone who is thus attired; but perhaps he whom you await is
inconstant, or if he is not, the sea is so to him.”

“Fernand,”
cried Mercédès, “I believed you were good-hearted, and I was
mistaken! Fernand, you are wicked to call to your aid jealousy and the anger of
God! Yes, I will not deny it, I do await, and I do love him of whom you speak;
and, if he does not return, instead of accusing him of the inconstancy which
you insinuate, I will tell you that he died loving me and me only.” The young
girl made a gesture of rage. “I understand you, Fernand; you would be revenged
on him because I do not love you; you would cross your Catalan knife with his
dirk. What end would that answer? To lose you my friendship if he were
conquered, and see that friendship changed into hate if you were victor.
Believe me, to seek a quarrel with a man is a bad method of pleasing the woman
who loves that man. No, Fernand, you will not thus give way to evil thoughts.
Unable to have me for your wife, you will content yourself with having me for
your friend and sister; and besides,” she added, her eyes troubled and
moistened with tears, “wait, wait, Fernand; you said just now that the sea was
treacherous, and he has been gone four months, and during these four months
there have been some terrible storms.”

Fernand made no reply, nor did he attempt to check the tears which flowed down
the cheeks of Mercédès, although for each of these tears he would have shed his
heart’s blood; but these tears flowed for another. He arose, paced a while up
and down the hut, and then, suddenly stopping before Mercédès, with his eyes
glowing and his hands clenched,—“Say, Mercédès,” he said, “once for all, is
this your final determination?”

“I love Edmond Dantès,”
the young girl calmly replied, “and none but Edmond
shall ever be my husband.”

“And you will always love him?”

“As long as I live.”

Fernand let fall his head like a defeated man, heaved a sigh that was like a
groan, and then suddenly looking her full in the face, with clenched teeth and
expanded nostrils, said,—“But if he is dead——”

“If he is dead, I shall die too.”

“If he has forgotten you——”

“Mercédès!”
called a joyous voice from without,—“Mercédès!”

“Ah,”
exclaimed the young girl, blushing with delight, and fairly leaping in
excess of love, “you see he has not forgotten me, for here he is!” And rushing
towards the door, she opened it, saying, “Here, Edmond, here I am!”

Fernand, pale and trembling, drew back, like a traveller at the sight of a
serpent, and fell into a chair beside him. Edmond and Mercédès were clasped in
each other’s arms. The burning Marseilles sun, which shot into the room through
the open door, covered them with a flood of light. At first they saw nothing
around them. Their intense happiness isolated them from all the rest of the
world, and they only spoke in broken words, which are the tokens of a joy so
extreme that they seem rather the expression of sorrow. Suddenly Edmond saw the
gloomy, pale, and threatening countenance of Fernand, as it was defined in the
shadow. By a movement for which he could scarcely account to himself, the young
Catalan placed his hand on the knife at his belt.

“Ah, your pardon,”
said Dantès, frowning in his turn; “I did not perceive that
there were three of us.” Then, turning to Mercédès, he inquired, “Who is this
gentleman?”

“One who will be your best friend, Dantès, for he is my friend, my cousin, my
brother; it is Fernand—the man whom, after you, Edmond, I love the best in the
world. Do you not remember him?”

“Yes!”
said Dantès, and without relinquishing Mercédès’ hand clasped in one of
his own, he extended the other to the Catalan with a cordial air. But Fernand,
instead of responding to this amiable gesture, remained mute and trembling.
Edmond then cast his eyes scrutinizingly at the agitated and embarrassed
Mercédès, and then again on the gloomy and menacing Fernand. This look told him
all, and his anger waxed hot.

“I did not know, when I came with such haste to you, that I was to meet an
enemy here.”

“An enemy!”
cried Mercédès, with an angry look at her cousin. “An enemy in my
house, do you say, Edmond! If I believed that, I would place my arm under yours
and go with you to Marseilles, leaving the house to return to it no more.”

Fernand’s eye darted lightning. “And should any misfortune occur to you, dear
Edmond,” she continued with the same calmness which proved to Fernand that the
young girl had read the very innermost depths of his sinister thought, “if
misfortune should occur to you, I would ascend the highest point of the Cape de
Morgiou and cast myself headlong from it.”

Fernand became deadly pale. “But you are deceived, Edmond,” she continued. “You
have no enemy here—there is no one but Fernand, my brother, who will grasp your
hand as a devoted friend.”

And at these words the young girl fixed her imperious look on the Catalan, who,
as if fascinated by it, came slowly towards Edmond, and offered him his hand.
His hatred, like a powerless though furious wave, was broken against the strong
ascendancy which Mercédès exercised over him. Scarcely, however, had he touched
Edmond’s hand when he felt he had done all he could do, and rushed hastily out
of the house.

“Oh,”
he exclaimed, running furiously and tearing his hair—“Oh, who will
deliver me from this man? Wretched—wretched that I am!”

“Hallo, Catalan! Hallo, Fernand! Where are you running to?”
exclaimed a voice.

The young man stopped suddenly, looked around him, and perceived Caderousse
sitting at table with Danglars, under an arbor.

“Well”, said Caderousse, “why don’t you come? Are you really in such a 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.