The Count of Monte Cristo

ong 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

anner, 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 whi

, 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 i

n, "here is Easter come round again; te

mes, Fernand, and really you must

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

reproach me with the slightest coquetry. I have always said to you, 'I love you as a brother; but do

"Yes, you have been cruelly frank with me; but do you forg

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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 fish

of the first shipowner or the richest banker of Marseilles! What do such as we desire but

will remain an honest woman, when she loves another man better than her husband? Rest content with my f

Well, Mercédès, beloved by you, I would tempt fortune; you would bring me good luck, and I should become rich. I coul

remain at the Catalans it is because there is no war; so remain a fi

our fathers, which you despise, I will wear a varnished hat, a striped shirt, a

, with an angry glance, —"what do

se you are expecting someone who is thus attired; but perhaps he wh

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, F

uld 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

girl calmly replied, "and none bu

ill always

ng as

as like a groan, and then suddenly looking her full in the face, wi

ead, I shal

s forgott

joyous voice from w

in excess of love, "you see he has not forgotten me, for here he is!" And

vered 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 expr

I did not perceive that there were three of us." Then, t

my cousin, my brother; it is Fernand—the man whom, after you,

air. But Fernand, instead of responding to this amiable gesture, remained mute and trembling. Edmond then cast his eyes scrutinizingly at

with such haste to you, that

house, do you say, Edmond! If I believed that, I would place my arm under yo

lmness which proved to Fernand that the young girl had read the very innermost depths of his sinister thought, "if mis

he continued. "You have no enemy here—there is no one but Fern

ffered him his hand. His hatred, like a powerless though furious wave, was broken against the strong ascendancy which Mercédès exercised

tearing his hair—"Oh, who will deliver me f

rnand! where are you runni

ound him, and perceived Caderousse sittin

re you really in such a hurry that you have no

fore them, " added Danglars. Fernand looked at them

rousse with his knee. "Are we mistaken, and is Da

e's reply; and turning towards the young man, sa

ered the arbor, whose shade seemed to restore somewhat of calmness to his

you?" And he fell, rather than sat down, on

the sea, " said Caderousse, laughing. "Why, when a man has friends, they are not only to offer him

a sob, and dropped his head into his h

that brutality of the common people in which curiosity destroys all diplomacy,

ke was not born to be unhappy in love.

d, " said Caderousse, "hold up your head, and answer us. It's

said Fernand, clenching his h

brave Catalan, one of the best fishermen in Marseilles, and he is in love with a very fine girl, named Mercédès; but it appears,

understand, "

een dismissed, " co

sse like a man who looks for someone on whom to vent his anger; "Mercédès is not

were a Catalan, and they told me the Catalans were not men to allow themselves to be supplan

sly. "A lover is neve

"Why, you see, he did not expect to see Dantès return so suddenly—he thought he was dead, perhap

n whom the fumes of the wine began to take effect, —"under any circumstances Fernand

I should say that wou

ling his own for the eighth or ninth time, while Danglars had merely sipped his. "Never mi

ng glance on the young man, on whose heart

he wedding to

yet fixed!" mur

sse, "as surely as Dantès will be c

ance he scrutinized, to try and detect whether the blow was premeditated; but he read

"let us drink to Captain Edmond Dantè

h unsteady hand, and swallowed the contents

our eyes are better than mine. I believe I see double. You know wine is a deceiver; but I should say it was two lovers walkin

lose one pang tha

them, Ferna

in a low voice. "It i

lo, Dantès! hello, lovely damsel! Come this way, and let us know when the

tenacity of drunkards, leaned out of the arbor. "Try to stand upright, and let the lovers make

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elf 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 t

o 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 on

his fist on the table, "hallo, Edmond! do you not see

I am not proud, but I am happy, and hap

lanation!" said Caderousse. "

ry it bodes ill fortune, they say, to call a young girl by the name of her

ghbor, Caderousse, " said Dant

ace immediately, M. Dantès, " said D

, and tomorrow, or next day at latest, the wedding festival here at La Réserve. My friends

rousse with a chuckle; "F

mond; "and we, Mercédès and I, should be ve

y, but his voice died on his lip

rrow or next day the ceremony!

rcédès said just now to Caderousse, 'Do not give me a title

emed in a hurry, and we have lots of time; the Pharaon

ed a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune. But

ll it be the first time you h

es

u busine

lere; you know to what I allude, Danglars—it is sacred.

e grand marshal gave him. Ah, this letter gives me an idea—a capital idea! Ah; Dantès, my friend, you are not yet registered n

the two lovers continued on their way, as calm an