I confess I had my fears, in the state in which politics then were, and I held my tongue.It was cowardly, I confess, but it was not criminal.""I understand -- you allowed matters to take their course, that was all.""Yes, sir," answered Caderousse; "and remorse preys on me night and day.I often ask pardon of God, I swear to you, because this action, the only one with which I have seriously to reproach myself in all my life, is no doubt the cause of my abject condition.I am expiating a moment of selfishness, and so I always say to La Carconte, when she complains, `Hold your tongue, woman; it is the will of God.'" And Caderousse bowed his head with every sign of real repentance.
"Well, sir," said the abbe, "you have spoken unreservedly;and thus to accuse yourself is to deserve pardon.""Unfortunately, Edmond is dead, and has not pardoned me.""He did not know," said the abbe.
"But he knows it all now," interrupted Caderousse; "they say the dead know everything." There was a brief silence; the abbe 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 Dantes.""And what part did he play in this sad drama?" inquired the abbe.
"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 Dantes' father, and offered to receive him in his own house; and the night or two before his death, as Ihave already said, he left his purse on the mantelpiece, with which they paid the old man's debts, and buried him decently; and so 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 abbe, "is M.Morrel still alive?""Yes," replied Caderousse.
"In that case," replied the abbe, "he should be rich, happy."Caderousse smiled bitterly."Yes, happy as myself," said he.
"What! M.Morrel unhappy?" exclaimed the abbe.
"He is reduced almost to the last extremity -- nay, he is almost at the point of dishonor.""How?"
"Yes," continued Caderousse, "so it is; after five and twenty years of labor, after having acquired a most honorable 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 Dantes 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 abbe.
"Yes, he has a wife, who through everything has 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 lessening, only augments his sorrows.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 -- am in destitution, with my poor wife dying of fever before my very eyes, and I unable to do anything in the world for her; I shall die of hunger, as old Dantes did, while Fernand and Danglars are rolling in wealth.""How is that?"
"Because their deeds have brought them good fortune, 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 favor at court.He is a millionaire, and they have made him a baron, and now he is the Baron Danglars, with a fine residence in the Rue de Mont-Blanc, with ten horses in his stables, six footmen in his ante-chamber, and I know not how many millions in his strongbox.""Ah!" said the abbe, in a peculiar tone, "he is happy.""Happy? Who can answer for that? Happiness or unhappiness is the secret known but to one's self and the walls -- walls have ears but no tongue; but if a large fortune produces happiness, Danglars is happy.""And Fernand?"
"Fernand? Why, much the same story."
"But how could a poor Catalan fisher-boy, without education or resources, make a fortune? I confess this staggers me.""And it has staggered everybody.There must have been in his life some strange secret that 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 drafted.