tell me is still in your hands." Caderousse, more and more
astonished, went toward a large oaken cupboard, opened it, and gave
the abbe a long purse of faded red silk, round which were two
copper runners that had once been gilt. The abbe took it, and in
return gave Caderousse the diamond.
"Oh, you are a man of God, sir," cried Caderousse; "for no one
knew that Edmond had given you this diamond, and you might have
kept it."
"Which," said the abbe to himself, "you would have done." The
abbe rose, took his hat and gloves. "Well," he said, "all you have
told me is perfectly true, then, and I may believe it in every
particular."
"See, sir," replied Caderousse, "in this corner is a crucifix in
holy wood — here on this shelf is my wife's testament; open this
book, and I will swear upon it with my hand on the crucifix. I will
swear to you by my soul's salvation, my faith as a Christian, I
have told everything to you as it occurred, and as the recording
angel will tell it to the ear of God at the day of the last
judgment!"
"'Tis well," said the abbe, convinced by his manner and tone
that Caderousse spoke the truth. "'Tis well, and may this money
profit you! Adieu; I go far from men who thus so bitterly injure
each other." The abbe with difficulty got away from the
enthusiastic thanks of Caderousse, opened the door himself, got out
and mounted his horse, once more saluted the innkeeper, who kept
uttering his loud farewells, and then returned by the road he had
travelled in coming. When Caderousse turned around, he saw behind
him La Carconte, paler and trembling more than ever. "Is, then, all
that I have heard really true?" she inquired.
"What? That he has given the diamond to us only?" inquired
Caderousse, half bewildered with joy; "yes, nothing more true! See,
here it is." The woman gazed at it a moment, and then said, in a
gloomy voice, "Suppose it's false?" Caderousse started and turned
pale. "False!" he muttered. "False! Why should that man give me a
false diamond?"pale. "False!" he muttered. "False! Why should that man give me a
false diamond?"
"To get your secret without paying for it, you blockhead!"
Caderousse remained for a moment aghast under the weight of such
an idea. "Oh!" he said, taking up his hat, which he placed on the
red handkerchief tied round his head, "we will soon find out."
"In what way?"
"Why, the fair is on at Beaucaire, there are always jewellers
from Paris there, and I will show it to them. Look after the house,
wife, and I shall be back in two hours," and Caderousse left the
house in haste, and ran rapidly in the direction opposite to that
which the priest had taken. "Fifty thousand francs!" muttered La
Carconte when left alone; "it is a large sum of money, but it is
not a fortune."Any one who had quitted Marseilles a few years previously, well
acquainted with the interior of Morrel's warehouse, and had
returned at this date, would have found a great change. Instead of
that air of life, of comfort, and of happiness that permeates a
flourishing and prosperous business establishment — instead of
merry faces at the windows, busy clerks hurrying to and fro in the
long corridors — instead of the court filled with bales of goods,
re-echoing with the cries and the jokes of porters, one would have
immediately perceived all aspect of sadness and gloom. Out of all
the numerous clerks that used to fill the deserted corridor and the
empty office, but two remained. One was a young man of three or
four and twenty, who was in love with M. Morrel's daughter, and had
remained with him in spite of the efforts of his friends to induce
him to withdraw; the other was an old one-eyed cashier, called
"Cocles," or "Cock-eye," a nickname given him by the young men who
used to throng this vast now almost deserted bee-hive, and which
had so completely replaced his real name that he would not, in all
probability, have replied to any one who addressed him by it.
Cocles remained in M. Morrel's service, and a most singular
change had taken place in his position; he had at the same time
risen to the rank of cashier, and sunk to the rank of a servant. He
was, however, the same Cocles, good, patient, devoted, but
inflexible on the subject of arithmetic, the only point on which he
would have stood firm against the world, even against M. Morrel;
and strong in the multiplication-table, which he had at his
fingers' ends, no matter what scheme or what trap was laid to catch
him. In the midst of the disasters that befell the house, Cocles
was the only one unmoved. But this did not arise from a want of
affection; on the contrary, from a firm conviction. Like the rats
that one by one forsake the doomed ship even before the vessel
weighs anchor, so all the numerous clerks had by degrees desertedweighs anchor, so all the numerous clerks had by degrees deserted
the office and the warehouse. Cocles had seen them go without
thinking of inquiring the cause of their departure. Everything was
as we have said, a question of arithmetic to Cocles, and during
twenty years he had always seen all payments made with such
exactitude, that it seemed as impossible to him that the house
should stop payment, as it would to a miller that the river that
had so long turned his mill should cease to flow.
Nothing had as yet occurred to shake Cocles' belief; the last
month's payment had been made with the most scrupulous exactitude;
Cocles had detected an overbalance of fourteen sous in his cash,
and the same evening he had brought them to M. Morrel, who, with a
melancholy smile, threw them into an almost empty drawer, saying:
—
"Thanks, Cocles; you are the pearl of cashiers."
Cocles went away perfectly happy, for this eulogium of M.
Morrel, himself the pearl of the honest men of Marseilles,
flattered him more than a present of fifty crowns. But since the
end of the month M. Morrel had passed many an anxious hour. In
order to meet the payments then due; he had collected all his
resources, and, fearing lest the report of his distress should get
bruited abroad at Marseilles when he was known to be reduced to
such an extremity, he went to the Beaucaire fair to sell his wife's
and daughter's jewels and a portion of his plate. By this means the
end of the month was passed, but his resources were now exhausted.
Credit, owing to the reports afloat, was no longer to be had; and
to meet the one hundred thousand francs due on the 10th of the
present month, and the one hundred thousand francs due on the 15th
of the next month to M. de Boville, M. Morrel had, in reality, no
hope but the return of the Pharaon, of whose departure he had
learnt from a vessel which had weighed anchor at the same time, and
which had already arrived in harbor. But this vessel which, like
the Pharaon, came from Calcutta, had been in for a fortnight, while