The Count of Monte Cristo (The Wild and Wanton Edition) Read online

  Our readers will follow us along the only street of this little village, and enter with us one of the houses, which is sunburned to the beautiful dead-leaf color peculiar to the buildings of the country, and within coated with whitewash, like a Spanish posada. A young and beautiful girl, with hair as black as jet, her eyes as velvety as the gazelle’s, was leaning with her back against the wainscot, 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 modeled 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 its red cotton, gray and blue clocked, stocking. At three paces from her, seated in a chair which he balanced on two legs, leaning his elbow on an old worm-eaten table, was a tall young man of twenty, or two-and-twenty, who was looking at her with an air in which vexation and uneasiness were mingled. He questioned her with his eyes, but the firm and steady gaze of the young girl controlled his look.

  “You see, Mercedes,” said the young man, “here is Easter come round again; tell me, is this the moment for a wedding?”

  “I have answered you a hundred times, Fernand, and really you must be very stupid to ask me again.”

  “Well, repeat it, — repeat it, I beg of you, that I may at last believe it! Tell me for the hundredth time that you refuse my love, which had your mother’s sanction. Make me understand once for all that you are trifling with my happiness, that my life or death is nothing to you. Ah, to have dreamed for ten years of being your husband, Mercedes, and to lose that hope, which was the only stay of my existence!”

  “At least it was not I who ever encouraged you in that hope, Fernand,” replied Mercedes; “you cannot reproach me with the slightest coquetry. I have always said to you, ‘I love you as a brother; but do not ask from me more than sisterly affection, for my heart is another’s.’ Is not this true, Fernand?”

  “Yes, that is very true, Mercedes,” replied the young man, “Yes, you have been cruelly frank with me; but do you forget that it is among the Catalans a sacred law to intermarry?”

  “You mistake, Fernand; it is not a law, but merely a custom, and, I pray of you, do not cite this custom in your favor. You are included in the conscription, Fernand, and are only at liberty on sufferance, liable at any moment to be called upon to take up arms. Once a soldier, what would you do with me, a poor orphan, forlorn, without fortune, 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 fishing, and I accept it, Fernand, because you are the son of my father’s brother, because we were brought up together, and still more because it would give you so much pain if I refuse. But I feel very deeply that this fish which I go and sell, and with the produce of which I buy the flax I spin, — I feel very keenly, Fernand, that this is charity.”

  “And if it were, Mercedes, poor and lone as you are, you suit me as well as the daughter of the first ship-owner or the richest banker of Marseilles! What do such as we desire but a good wife and careful housekeeper, and where can I look for these better than in you?”

  “Fernand,” answered Mercedes, shaking her head, “a woman becomes a bad manager, and who shall say she will remain an honest woman, when she loves another man better than her husband? Rest content with my friendship, for I say once more that is all I can promise, and I will promise no more than I can bestow.”

  “I understand,” replied Fernand, “you can endure your own wretchedness patiently, but you are afraid to share mine. Well, Mercedes, beloved by you, I would tempt fortune; you would bring me good luck, and I should become rich. I could extend my occupation as a fisherman, might get a place as clerk in a warehouse, and become in time a dealer myself.”

  “You could do no such thing, Fernand; you are a soldier, and if you remain at the Catalans it is because there is no war; so remain a fisherman, and contented with my friendship, as I cannot give you more.”

  “Well, I will do better, Mercedes. I will be a sailor; instead of the costume of our fathers, which you despise, I will wear a varnished hat, a striped shirt, and a blue jacket, with an anchor 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 someone 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 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 traveler 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 wh
o 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 this amiable gesture, remained mute and trembling. Edmond then cast his eyes scrutinizing 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.

  Dantes watched the fellow run from the premises and, turning to Mercedes, gave her an enquiring look.

  “Are you quite certain Fernand is a friend and not my enemy?”

  “My love, I am. He has been a friend, a brother, and my cousin. Nothing more has passed between us.”

  “Then I will say no more of it.” Edmond lifted Mercedes, twirling her in a circle; her feminine giggles brought joy to his heart. Being apart this three months had been nothing short of living hell. Once her feet touched the ground again no words need be spoken. Pulling Mercedes into the circle of his arms, he kissed the lips only dreams had shown him and took pleasure in the way her hand burrowed into the hair at the nape of his neck.

  “Edmond,” Mercedes whispered. “I don’t want to wait. We will marry soon and I want to be yours, completely, right now.” They both stared into each other’s eyes; the depth of emotion each felt for the other was all consuming like a sandstorm that sweeps across the desert.

  “Mercedes, nothing would make me happier than to have you right this minute; are you certain of your decision?”

  “I have never been more positive of anything in life before now.”

  Edmond had known one woman before Mercedes, his occupation giving him cause to see many beautiful women but none compared to the ethereal quality of Mercedes’ luminance.

  He pressed his lips down to hers another time, attempting to rein in his ardor, to be a gentleman, but even with warnings dinging like bells in his mind, Mercedes’ soft gentle curves along his body suspended those thoughts.

  “Edmond, please.”

  He didn’t respond to her cry, only lifted her slight weight easily and carried her to the small palette she kept off in a corner of her modest home.

  “Make love to me, Edmond. I burn with need for you.”

  Laying her down on the fresh sun-bleached linen was so simple. She started to remove her dress and Edmond reached behind, helping with the stays. Even with the warm air, gooseflesh branched across her skin in small rounds as her breasts became exposed. Edmond exhaled at the first sight of the dusky pink nipples. Stunned at her enchanting beauty, he met her eyes once more.

  “Mercedes. Once we do this, there is no going back; you will be my wife and bear my children. This is what I want and have always wanted. I need to be assuaged that it is absolutely what you want.”

  “I have wanted nothing more since the moment we met.” She cupped his face in her delicate fingers, drawing him down along her body as she lay back on the palette. Edmond moved in haste, removing his clothing so his skin could finally lie alongside hers.

  When she started to tremble he became quickly disconcerted. “My love, why do you tremble?”

  “It is nothing. I am simply a bit anxious I suppose.” She smoothed a hand down an errant strand of his hair.

  “If you want to stop, simply say the words.”

  “Nothing in the world could induce me to use them. Please, Edmond.”

  Her body was like the air of the open ocean in the middle of summer, hot and sweet as he melded their bodies together. She clutched his shoulders in a tight grip, and he felt her maidenhead part as he entered her. Allowing her time to adjust to him, he waited until the whites of her fingers eased.

  “I can still stop this,” Edmond whispered.

  “No; the pain has passed, please, continue.”

  Edmond wanted nothing more than for Mercedes to remember this time between them sweetly. He did as the young women he met before had shown him and reached between them, circling the tiny bud at the top of her sex. Her eyes flashed wide, and he understood for the first time what it meant to love and be loved completely. His person reflected in her eyes, the sweet passion building between them as he slid himself in and out of her wet flesh.

  “Edmond.” She sighed his name. A flush crept up her neck and into her cheeks; with each stroke he moved inside of her she held on to him tighter, trying to maintain composure in a situation devoid of it.

  “Let go my love; I will catch you,” Edmond told her, his hand gripping hers, allowing her an anchor to hold on to. The sound she emitted upon reaching her completion was the most glorious Edmond had ever heard, and he reveled in it as he found his own release inside her body. “My love, my beautiful betrothed. I could not imagine a life without you and hope never to have to.”

  A glistening sweat shone across her brow from their exertions but she seemed not concerned. “Never will you have to,” Mercedes told him as she stroked her hand down his sun-tanned cheek.

  He dropped his head on her shoulder and stayed there as the sun cast shadows around Mercedes’ home. When it was time to dress, the whole world tumbled back to them both, reminding them of its existence.

  “We must go visit my father; he is as anxious to see you as he was to see me.” Edmond helped her dress and retied the stays in the back with trembling fingers. Even with the glorious glow of their lovemaking around them, he could not help but feel a sense of foreboding, an ominous cloud even he could not shake.

  “Are you well, Edmond?” Mercedes inquired as they exited her home into the afternoon air.

  “Of course. You will soon be my bride; a man could want for nothing else.”

  They strolled hand in hand through the streets en route to visit Edmond’s father, stopping only to share a few brief kisses in the shadow of an alleyway off a pub. No one was afoot, and those small kisses bolstered their spirits, reminding them of the intimate moment they had shared previously.

  • • •

  “Oh,” Fernand 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?”

  “Particularly when they have still a full bottle before them,” added Danglars. Fernand looked at them both with a stupefied air, but did not s
ay a word.

  “He seems besotted,” said Danglars, pushing Caderousse with his knee. “Are we mistaken, and is Dantes triumphant in spite of all we have believed?”

  “Why, we must inquire into that,” was Caderousse’s reply; and turning towards the young man, said, “Well, Catalan, can’t you make up your mind?”

  Fernand wiped away the perspiration steaming from his brow, and slowly entered the arbor, whose shade seemed to restore somewhat of calmness to his senses, and whose coolness somewhat of refreshment to his exhausted body.

  “Good-day,” said he. “You called me, didn’t you?” And he fell, rather than sat down, on one of the seats which surrounded the table.

  “I called you because you were running like a madman, and I was afraid you would throw yourself into the sea,” said Caderousse, laughing. “Why, when a man has friends, they are not only to offer him a glass of wine, but, moreover, to prevent his swallowing three or four pints of water unnecessarily!”

  Fernand gave a groan, which resembled a sob, and dropped his head into his hands, his elbows leaning on the table.

  “Well, Fernand, I must say,” said Caderousse, beginning the conversation, with that brutality of the common people in which curiosity destroys all diplomacy, “you look uncommonly like a rejected lover;” and he burst into a hoarse laugh.

  “Bah!” said Danglars, “a lad of his make was not born to be unhappy in love. You are laughing at him, Caderousse.”

  “No,” he replied, “only hark how he sighs! Come, come, Fernand,” said Caderousse, “hold up your head, and answer us. It’s not polite not to reply to friends who ask news of your health.”

  “My health is well enough,” said Fernand, clinching his hands without raising his head.