Chapter 4. Conspiracy
Danglars followed Edmond and Mercédès with his eyes until the two loversdisappeared behind one of the angles of Fort Saint Nicolas; then,turning round, he perceived Fernand, who had fallen, pale and trembling,into his chair, while Caderousse stammered out the words of a drinking-song.
“Well, my dear sir,” said Danglars to Fernand, “here is a marriage whichdoes not appear to make everybody happy.”
“It drives me to despair,” said Fernand.
“Do you, then, love Mercédès?”
“I adore her!”
“For long?”
“As long as I have known her—always.”
“And you sit there, tearing your hair, instead of seeking to remedy yourcondition; I did not think that was the way of your people.”
“What would you have me do?” said Fernand.
“How do I know? Is it my affair? I am not in love with MademoiselleMercédès; but for you—in the words of the gospel, seek, and you shallfind.”
“I have found already.”
“What?”
“I would stab the man, but the woman told me that if any misfortunehappened to her betrothed, she would kill herself.”
“Pooh! Women say those things, but never do them.”
“You do not know Mercédès; what she threatens she will do.”
“Idiot!” muttered Danglars; “whether she kill herself or not, whatmatter, provided Dantès is not captain?”
“Before Mercédès should die,” replied Fernand, with the accents ofunshaken resolution, “I would die myself!”
“That’s what I call love!” said Caderousse with a voice more tipsy thanever. “That’s love, or I don’t know what love is.”
“Come,” said Danglars, “you appear to me a good sort of fellow, and hangme, I should like to help you, but——”
“Yes,” said Caderousse, “but how?”
“My dear fellow,” replied Danglars, “you are three parts drunk; finishthe bottle, and you will be completely so. Drink then, and do not meddlewith what we are discussing, for that requires all one’s wit and cooljudgment.”
“I—drunk!” said Caderousse; “well that’s a good one! I could drink fourmore such bottles; they are no bigger than cologne flasks. PèrePamphile, more wine!”
And Caderousse rattled his glass upon the table.
“You were saying, sir——” said Fernand, awaiting with great anxiety theend of this interrupted remark.
“What was I saying? I forget. This drunken Caderousse has made me losethe thread of my sentence.”
“Drunk, if you like; so much the worse for those who fear wine, for itis because they have bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor willextract from their hearts;” and Caderousse began to sing the two lastlines of a song very popular at the time:
‘Tous les méchants sont buveurs d’eau; C’est bien prouvé par ledéluge.’1 “You said, sir, you would like to help me, but——”
“Yes; but I added, to help you it would be sufficient that Dantès didnot marry her you love; and the marriage may easily be thwarted,methinks, and yet Dantès need not die.”
“Death alone can separate them,” remarked Fernand.
“You talk like a noodle, my friend,” said Caderousse; “and here isDanglars, who is a wide-awake, clever, deep fellow, who will prove toyou that you are wrong. Prove it, Danglars. I have answered for you. Saythere is no need why Dantès should die; it would, indeed, be a pity heshould. Dantès is a good fellow; I like Dantès. Dantès, your health.”
Fernand rose impatiently. “Let him run on,” said Danglars, restrainingthe young man; “drunk as he is, he is not much out in what he says.Absence severs as well as death, and if the walls of a prison werebetween Edmond and Mercédès they would be as effectually separated as ifhe lay under a tombstone.”
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“Yes; but one gets out of prison,” said Caderousse, who, with what sensewas left him, listened eagerly to the conversation, “and when one getsout and one’s name is Edmond Dantès, one seeks revenge——”
“What matters that?” muttered Fernand.
“And why, I should like to know,” persisted Caderousse, “should they putDantès in prison? he has neither robbed, nor killed, nor murdered.”
“Hold your tongue!” said Danglars.
“I won’t hold my tongue!” replied Caderousse; “I say I want to know whythey should put Dantès in prison; I like Dantès; Dantès, your health!”and he swallowed another glass of wine.
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Danglars saw in the muddled look of the tailor the progress of hisintoxication, and turning towards Fernand, said, “Well, you understandthere is no need to kill him.”
“Certainly not, if, as you said just now, you have the means of havingDantès arrested. Have you that means?”
“It is to be found for the searching. But why should I meddle in thematter? it is no affair of mine.”
“I know not why you meddle,” said Fernand, seizing his arm; “but this Iknow, you have some motive of personal hatred against Dantès, for he whohimself hates is never mistaken in the sentiments of others.”
“I! motives of hatred against Dantès? None, on my word! I saw you wereunhappy, and your unhappiness interested me; that’s all; but since youbelieve I act for my own account, adieu, my dear friend, get out of theaffair as best you may;” and Danglars rose as if he meant to depart.
“No, no,” said Fernand, restraining him, “stay! It is of very littleconsequence to me at the end of the matter whether you have any angryfeeling or not against Dantès. I hate him! I confess it openly. Do youfind the means, I will execute it, provided it is not to kill the man,for Mercédès has declared she will kill herself if Dantès is killed.”
Caderousse, who had let his head drop on the table, now raised it, andlooking at Fernand with his dull and fishy eyes, he said, “Kill Dantès!who talks of killing Dantès? I won’t have him killed—I won’t! He’s myfriend, and this morning offered to share his money with me, as I sharedmine with him. I won’t have Dantès killed—I won’t!”
“And who has said a word about killing him, muddlehead?” repliedDanglars. “We were merely joking; drink to his health,” he added,filling Caderousse’s glass, “and do not interfere with us.”
“Yes, yes, Dantès’ good health!” said Caderousse, emptying his glass,“here’s to his health! his health—hurrah!”
“But the means—the means?” said Fernand.
“Have you not hit upon any?” asked Danglars.
“No!—you undertook to do so.”
“True,” replied Danglars; “the French have the superiority over theSpaniards, that the Spaniards ruminate, while the French invent.”
“Do you invent, then,” said Fernand impatiently.
“Waiter,” said Danglars, “pen, ink, and paper.”
“Pen, ink, and paper,” muttered Fernand.
“Yes; I am a supercargo; pen, ink, and paper are my tools, and withoutmy tools I am fit for nothing.”
“Pen, ink, and paper, then,” called Fernand loudly.
“There’s what you want on that table,” said the waiter.
“Bring them here.” The waiter did as he was desired.
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“When one thinks,” said Caderousse, letting his hand drop on the paper,“there is here wherewithal to kill a man more sure than if we waited atthe corner of a wood to assassinate him! I have always had more dread ofa pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper, than of a sword orpistol.”
“The fellow is not so drunk as he appears to be,” said Danglars. “Givehim some more wine, Fernand.” Fernand filled Caderousse’s glass, who,like the confirmed toper he was, lifted his hand from the paper andseized the glass.
The Catalan watched him until Caderousse, almost overcome by this freshassault on his senses, rested, or rather dropped, his glass upon thetable.
“Well!” resumed the Catalan, as he saw the final glimmer of Caderousse’sreason vanishin
g before the last glass of wine.
“Well, then, I should say, for instance,” resumed Danglars, “that ifafter a voyage such as Dantès has just made, in which he touched at theIsland of Elba, someone were to denounce him to the king’s procureur asa Bonapartist agent——”
“I will denounce him!” exclaimed the young man hastily.
“Yes, but they will make you then sign your declaration, and confrontyou with him you have denounced; I will supply you with the means ofsupporting your accusation, for I know the fact well. But Dantès cannotremain forever in prison, and one day or other he will leave it, and theday when he comes out, woe betide him who was the cause of hisincarceration!”
“Oh, I should wish nothing better than that he would come and seek aquarrel with me.”
“Yes, and Mercédès! Mercédès, who will detest you if you have only themisfortune to scratch the skin of her dearly beloved Edmond!”
“True!” said Fernand.
“No, no,” continued Danglars; “if we resolve on such a step, it would bemuch better to take, as I now do, this pen, dip it into this ink, andwrite with the left hand (that the writing may not be recognized) thedenunciation we propose.” And Danglars, uniting practice with theory,wrote with his left hand, and in a writing reversed from his usualstyle, and totally unlike it, the following lines, which he handed toFernand, and which Fernand read in an undertone:
“The honorable, the king’s attorney, is informed by a friend of thethrone and religion, that one Edmond Dantès, mate of the ship Pharaon,arrived this morning from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples andPorto-Ferrajo, has been intrusted by Murat with a letter for theusurper, and by the usurper with a letter for the Bonapartist committeein Paris. Proof of this crime will be found on arresting him, for theletter will be found upon him, or at his father’s, or in his cabin onboard the Pharaon.”
“Very good,” resumed Danglars; “now your revenge looks like commonsense, for in no way can it revert to yourself, and the matter will thuswork its own way; there is nothing to do now but fold the letter as I amdoing, and write upon it, ‘To the king’s attorney,’ and that’s allsettled.” And Danglars wrote the address as he spoke.
“Yes, and that’s all settled!” exclaimed Caderousse, who, by a lasteffort of intellect, had followed the reading of the letter, andinstinctively comprehended all the misery which such a denunciation mustentail. “Yes, and that’s all settled; only it will be an infamousshame;” and he stretched out his hand to reach the letter.
“Yes,” said Danglars, taking it from beyond his reach; “and as what Isay and do is merely in jest, and I, amongst the first and foremost,should be sorry if anything happened to Dantès—the worthy Dantès—lookhere!” And taking the letter, he squeezed it up in his hands and threwit into a corner of the arbor.
“All right!” said Caderousse. “Dantès is my friend, and I won’t have himill-used.”
“And who thinks of using him ill? Certainly neither I nor Fernand,” saidDanglars, rising and looking at the young man, who still remainedseated, but whose eye was fixed on the denunciatory sheet of paper flunginto the corner.
“In this case,” replied Caderousse, “let’s have some more wine. I wishto drink to the health of Edmond and the lovely Mercédès.”
“You have had too much already, drunkard,” said Danglars; “and if youcontinue, you will be compelled to sleep here, because unable to standon your legs.”
“I?” said Caderousse, rising with all the offended dignity of a drunkenman, “I can’t keep on my legs? Why, I’ll wager I can go up into thebelfry of the Accoules, and without staggering, too!”
“Done!” said Danglars, “I’ll take your bet; but tomorrow—today it istime to return. Give me your arm, and let us go.”
“Very well, let us go,” said Caderousse; “but I don’t want your arm atall. Come, Fernand, won’t you return to Marseilles with us?”
“No,” said Fernand; “I shall return to the Catalans.”
“You’re wrong. Come with us to Marseilles—come along.”
“I will not.”
“What do you mean? you will not? Well, just as you like, my prince;there’s liberty for all the world. Come along, Danglars, and let theyoung gentleman return to the Catalans if he chooses.”
Danglars took advantage of Caderousse’s temper at the moment, to takehim off towards Marseilles by the Porte Saint-Victor, staggering as hewent.
When they had advanced about twenty yards, Danglars looked back and sawFernand stoop, pick up the crumpled paper, and putting it into hispocket then rush out of the arbor towards Pillon.
“Well,” said Caderousse, “why, what a lie he told! He said he was goingto the Catalans, and he is going to the city. Hallo, Fernand! You arecoming, my boy!”
“Oh, you don’t see straight,” said Danglars; “he’s gone right by theroad to the Vieilles Infirmeries.”
“Well,” said Caderousse, “I should have sworn that he turned to theright—how treacherous wine is!”
“Come, come,” said Danglars to himself, “now the thing is at work and itwill effect its purpose unassisted.”