on the buttons. Would not that dress please you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Mercedes, with an angry glance, —
"what do you mean? I do not understand you?"
"I mean, Mercedes, that you are thus harsh and cruel with me,
because you are expecting some one 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 Mercedes, "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 Mercedes, 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 Mercedes, with his eyes glowing
and his hands clinched, — "Say, Mercedes," he said, "once for all,
is this your final determination?"
"I love Edmond Dantes," the young girl calmly replied, "and noneis this your final determination?"
"I love Edmond Dantes," 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 clinched teeth and expanded nostrils, said, — "But if he
is dead" —
"If he is dead, I shall die too."
"If he has forgotten you" —
"Mercedes!" called a joyous voice from without, —
"Mercedes!"
"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
Mercedes 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 Dantes, frowning in his turn; "I did not
perceive that there were three of us." Then, turning to Mercedes,
he inquired, "Who is this gentleman?"
"One who will be your best friend, Dantes, 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 Dantes, and without relinquishing Mercedes hand
clasped in one of his own, he extended the other to the Catalan
with a cordial air. But Fernand, instead of responding to thiswith 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 Mercedes, 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 Mercedes, 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 Morgion 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
Mercedes exercised over him. Scarcely, however, had he touched
Edmond's hand than 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?"