XXVI. L'auberge du pont du Gard.

XXVI

The Inn of the Pont du Gard.

Those who, like myself, have traversed on foot the South of France may have noticed, between Bellegarde and Beaucaire, about halfway from the village to the town, but nevertheless nearer to Beaucaire than to Bellegarde, a small inn where, hanging upon a sheet of tin that creaks at the slightest wind, is a grotesque representation of the Pont du Gard. This little inn, taking the course of the Rhône as a guide, is situated on the left side of the road, with its back turned to the river; it is accompanied by what in Languedoc is called a garden: that is to say, the side opposite to that which opens its door to travelers looks out upon an enclosure where creep a few stunted olive trees and some wild fig trees whose leaves are silvered by the dust; among them grow, as the only vegetables, garlic, peppers, and shallots; finally, at one of its corners, like a forgotten sentinel, a great umbrella pine lifts melancholically its flexible stem, while its crest, spread out like a fan, cracks beneath a sun of thirty degrees.

All these trees, great and small, bend naturally in the direction taken by the mistral, one of the three scourges of Provence; the other two, as is known or as is not known, being the Durance and the Parliament.

Here and there, in the surrounding plain, which resembles a great lake of dust, vegetate a few stalks of wheat which the horticulturists of the country raise doubtless out of curiosity, and each of which serves as a perch for a cicada that pursues with its shrill and monotonous song the travelers strayed in this Thebaid.

For some seven or eight years past, this little inn had been kept by a man and a woman having for all domestics a chambermaid called Trinette and a stable boy answering to the name of Pacaud; a double assistance which, moreover, sufficed amply for the needs of the service, since a canal dug from Beaucaire to Aigues-Mortes had victoriously substituted boats for accelerated carting, and the coach for the diligence.

This canal, as if to render still more acute the regrets of the unhappy innkeeper whom it was ruining, passed between the Rhône that feeds it and the road that it exhausts, at about a hundred paces from the inn of which we have just given a short but faithful description.

The hotel-keeper who kept this little inn might have been a man of forty to forty-five years, tall, lean, and nervous, a veritable meridional type, with his sunken and brilliant eyes, his aquiline nose, and his teeth white as those of a carnivorous animal. His hair, which seemed, despite the first breath of age, unable to decide to whiten, was, as well as his beard, which he wore in a collar, thick, crisp, and scarcely sprinkled with a few white hairs. His complexion, naturally swarthy, had further covered itself with a new layer of bistre through the habit the poor devil had contracted of remaining from morning till night on the threshold of his door, to see if, either on foot or by carriage, some customer did not come to him: an expectation almost always deceived, and during which he opposed to the devouring ardor of the sun no other preservative for his face than a red handkerchief tied upon his head, in the manner of Spanish muleteers. This man was our former acquaintance, Gaspard Caderousse.

His wife, on the contrary, who, by her maiden name, was called Madeleine Radelle, was a pale, thin, and sickly woman; born in the environs of Arles, she had, while preserving the primitive traces of the traditional beauty of her compatriots, seen her face slowly dilapidate in the almost continual access of one of those low fevers so common among the populations neighboring the ponds of Aigues-Mortes and the marshes of the Camargue. She therefore remained almost always seated and shivering at the back of her room situated on the first floor, either stretched in an armchair or leaning against her bed, while her husband mounted guard at the door in his habitual fashion: a guard which he prolonged the more willingly in that each time he found himself again with his sour half, she pursued him with her eternal complaints against fate, complaints to which her husband usually replied only with these philosophical words:

“Be silent, Carconte! it is God who wills it thus.”

This nickname came from the fact that Madeleine Radelle was born in the village of La Carconte, situated between Salon and Lambesc. Now, following a custom of the country, which wills that one designate people almost always by a surname instead of designating them by a name, her husband had substituted this appellation for that of Madeleine, too sweet and too euphonious perhaps for his rough speech.

However, despite this pretended resignation to the decrees of Providence, let it not be believed that our innkeeper did not feel profoundly the state of misery to which this miserable canal of Beaucaire had reduced him, and that he was invulnerable to the incessant complaints with which his wife pursued him. He was, like all Meridionals, a sober man and without great needs, but vain as to outward things; also, in the time of his prosperity, he let pass neither a ferrade nor a procession of the tarasque without showing himself there with Carconte, he in that picturesque costume of the men of the Midi which holds at once of the Catalan and the Andalusian; she in that charming dress of the women of Arles which seems borrowed from Greece and Arabia; but little by little, watch-chains, necklaces, thousand-colored sashes, embroidered bodices, velvet jackets, elegant clocked stockings, party-colored gaiters, shoes with silver buckles had disappeared, and Gaspard Caderousse, unable to show himself at the height of his past splendor, had renounced for himself and for his wife all those worldly pompoms, of which he heard, while secretly gnawing his heart, the joyous noises resound even to this poor inn, which he continued to keep much more as a shelter than as a speculation.

Caderousse had therefore remained, as was his habit, a part of the morning before the door, casting his melancholy gaze from a small bare lawn, where some hens pecked, to the two extremities of the deserted road which plunged on one side toward the south and on the other toward the north, when suddenly the shrill voice of his wife forced him to quit his post; he re-entered grumbling and mounted to the first floor, nevertheless leaving the door wide open as if to invite travelers not to forget him in passing.

At the moment when Caderousse re-entered, the high road of which we have spoken, and which his glances traversed, was as naked and as solitary as the desert at noon; it stretched, white and infinite, between two rows of lean trees, and one understood perfectly that no traveler, free to choose another hour of the day, would hazard himself in this frightful Sahara.

However, despite all probabilities, had he remained at his post, Caderousse might have seen appear, from the direction of Bellegarde, a rider and a horse coming at that honest and friendly pace which indicates the best relations between horse and rider; the horse was a gelding, walking agreeably at the amble; the rider was a priest clothed in black and covered with a three-cornered hat, despite the devouring heat of the sun then at its noon; they both went only at a very reasonable trot.

Arrived before the door, the group stopped: it would have been difficult to decide whether it was the horse that stopped the man or the man that stopped the horse; but in any case the rider dismounted, and, drawing the animal by the bridle, he went to attach it to the turnstile of a dilapidated shutter which held only by one hinge; then advancing toward the door, wiping with a red cotton handkerchief his forehead streaming with sweat, the priest knocked three times upon the threshold, with the ferrule of the cane he held in his hand.

Immediately, a large black dog rose and made a few steps barking and showing his white and sharp teeth; a double hostile demonstration which proved how little accustomed he was to society.

Immediately, a heavy step shook the wooden staircase creeping along the wall, and which was descended, bending and backward, the host of the poor lodging at whose door the priest stood.

“Here I am!” said Caderousse, quite astonished; “here I am! will you be silent, Margottin! Do not be afraid, sir, he barks but does not bite. You wish for wine, do you not? for it makes a rascally heat.... Ah! pardon,” interrupted Caderousse, seeing what sort of traveler he had to deal with, “I did not know whom I had the honor to receive; what do you desire, what do you ask, Mr. Abbé? I am at your orders.”

The priest looked at this man for two or three seconds with a strange attention; he even seemed to seek to draw upon himself the attention of the innkeeper; then, seeing that the features of the latter expressed no other sentiment than the surprise of receiving no answer, he judged that it was time to put an end to this surprise, and said with a very pronounced Italian accent:

“Are you not Monsieur Caderousse?”

“Yes, sir,” said the host, perhaps still more astonished at the question than he had been at the silence; “I am indeed; Gaspard Caderousse, at your service.”

“Gaspard Caderousse... yes, I believe that is the Christian name and surname; you formerly lived in the Allées de Meilhan, did you not? on the fourth floor?”

“That is it.”

“And you exercised there the profession of tailor?”

“Yes, but the business has turned out badly: it is so hot in that rogue of a Marseilles that one will finish, I believe, by no longer dressing there at all. But as to heat, will you not refresh yourself, Mr. Abbé?”

“Yes indeed, give me a bottle of your best wine, and we will resume the conversation, if you please, where we leave it.”

“As you please, Mr. Abbé,” said Caderousse.

And not to lose this occasion of disposing of one of the last bottles of Cahors wine that remained to him, Caderousse hastened to lift a trapdoor made in the very flooring of that sort of ground-floor room which served at once as parlor and kitchen.

When at the end of five minutes he reappeared, he found the abbé seated upon a stool, his elbow leaning on a long table, while Margottin, who seemed to have made his peace with him on hearing that, contrary to habit, this singular traveler was about to take something, stretched upon his thigh his lean neck and his languorous eye.

“Are you alone?” asked the abbé of his host, while the latter placed before him the bottle and a glass.

“Oh! my God! yes! alone or nearly, Mr. Abbé; for I have my wife who can help me in nothing, seeing that she is always ill, poor Carconte.”

“Ah! you are married!” said the priest with a sort of interest, and casting around him a glance which seemed to estimate at its slight value the meager furniture of the poor household.

“You find that I am not rich, do you not, Mr. Abbé?” said Caderousse sighing; “but what would you have! it is not enough to be an honest man to prosper in this world.”

The abbé fixed upon him a piercing gaze.

“Yes, an honest man; of that I may boast, sir,” said the host, sustaining the gaze of the abbé, one hand upon his breast and nodding his head up and down; “and, in our epoch, every one cannot say as much.”

“So much the better if that of which you boast is true,” said the abbé; “for sooner or later, I have the firm conviction, the honest man is rewarded and the wicked punished.”

“It is your profession to say that, Mr. Abbé; it is your profession to say that,” replied Caderousse with a bitter expression; “after that, one is free not to believe what you say.”

“You are wrong to speak thus, sir,” said the abbé, “for perhaps I am going to be myself for you, presently, a proof of what I advance.”

“What do you mean?” asked Caderousse with an astonished air.

“I mean that I must assure myself before all else whether you are the one with whom I have to deal.”

“What proofs do you wish me to give you?”

“Did you know, in 1814 or 1815, a sailor called Dantès?”

“Dantès!... if I knew him, poor Edmond! I should think so! he was even one of my best friends!” cried Caderousse, upon whose face a purple redness spread, while the clear and assured eye of the abbé seemed to dilate to cover entirely him whom he interrogated.

“Yes, I believe indeed that he was called Edmond.”

“If he was called Edmond, the little fellow! I should think so! as true as I am called, I, Gaspard Caderousse. And what has become of him, sir, poor Edmond?” continued the innkeeper; “would you have known him? does he still live? is he free? is he happy?”

“He died a prisoner, more despairing and more miserable than the convicts who drag their chain at the galleys of Toulon.”

A deathlike pallor succeeded upon the face of Caderousse to the redness which had at first seized it. He turned round, and the abbé saw him wipe a tear with a corner of the red handkerchief which served him as a head-covering.

“Poor little fellow!” murmured Caderousse. “Well, there is yet another proof of what I told you, Mr. Abbé, that the Good God was good only for the wicked. Ah!” continued Caderousse, with that colorful language of the men of the Midi, “the world goes from bad to worse; would that there might fall from heaven two days of powder and one hour of fire, and that all were ended!”

“You seem to have loved that boy with all your heart, sir,” asked the abbé.

“Yes, I loved him well,” said Caderousse, “though I have to reproach myself with having for an instant envied his happiness. But since then, I swear to you, faith of Caderousse, I have greatly pitied his unhappy fate.”

There was an instant of silence during which the fixed gaze of the abbé ceased not for an instant to interrogate the mobile physiognomy of the innkeeper.

“And you knew him, the poor little fellow?” continued Caderousse.

“I was called to his deathbed to offer him the last succors of religion,” answered the abbé.

“And of what did he die?” asked Caderousse in a strangled voice.

“And of what does one die in prison when one dies there at thirty years, if not of the prison itself?”

Caderousse wiped the sweat which flowed from his brow.

“What is strange in all this,” resumed the abbé, “is that Dantès, upon his deathbed, upon the Christ whose feet he kissed, always swore to me that he ignored the true cause of his captivity.”

“It is true, it is true,” murmured Caderousse; “he could not know it; no, Mr. Abbé, he did not lie, the poor little fellow.”

“Which is what made him charge me with clearing up his misfortune which he had never been able to clear up himself, and of rehabilitating his memory, if that memory had received some stain.”

And the gaze of the abbé, becoming more and more fixed, devoured the almost somber expression which appeared upon the face of Caderousse.

“A rich Englishman,” continued the abbé, “his companion in misfortune, and who left prison at the second Restoration, was possessor of a diamond of great value. On leaving prison, he wished to leave Dantès, who, in an illness he had had, had nursed him like a brother, a testimony of his gratitude by leaving him this diamond.

“Dantès, instead of using it to seduce his jailers, who besides might take it and betray him afterward, always preserved it preciously for the case where he should leave prison; for if he left prison, his fortune was assured by the sole sale of this diamond.”

“It was then, as you say, a diamond of great value?” asked Caderousse with ardent eyes.

“All is relative,” resumed the abbé; “of great value for Edmond; this diamond was estimated at fifty thousand francs.”

“Fifty thousand francs!” said Caderousse; “but was it then as big as a walnut?”

“No, not quite,” said the abbé; “but you are going to judge of it yourself, for I have it about me.”

Caderousse seemed to search beneath the garments of the abbé for the deposit of which he spoke.

The abbé drew from his pocket a small box of black shagreen, opened it, and made shine before the dazzled eyes of Caderousse the sparkling marvel mounted upon a ring of admirable workmanship.

“And that is worth fifty thousand francs?”

“Without the setting, which is itself of a certain price,” said the abbé.

And he closed the case, and put back into his pocket the diamond which continued to sparkle in the depths of Caderousse’s thought.

“But how do you come to have this diamond in your possession, Mr. Abbé?” asked Caderousse. “Has Edmond then made you his heir?”

“No, but his executor testamentary. ‘I had three good friends and a betrothed,’ he said to me; ‘all four, I am sure, regret me bitterly: one of these good friends was called Caderousse.’”

Caderousse trembled.

“—The other,” continued the abbé without seeming to perceive the emotion of Caderousse, “the other was called Danglars; the third, has he added, although my rival, loved me also.”

A diabolical smile lighted the features of Caderousse, who made a movement to interrupt the abbé.

“Wait,” said the abbé, “let me finish, and if you have some observation to make to me, you shall make it presently. ‘The other, although my rival, loved me also and was called Fernand; as to my betrothed her name was...’ I no longer recall the name of the betrothed,” said the abbé.

“Mercédès,” said Caderousse.

“Ah! yes, that is it,” resumed the abbé with a stifled sigh, “Mercédès.”

“Well?” asked Caderousse.

“Give me a carafe of water,” said the abbé.

Caderousse hastened to obey.

The abbé filled the glass and drank a few swallows.

“Where were we?” asked he, placing his glass upon the table.

“The betrothed was called Mercédès.”

“Yes, that is it. ‘You will go to Marseilles...’ It is always Dantès who speaks, do you understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“’You will sell this diamond, you will make five shares and you will divide them among these good friends, the only beings who have loved me upon earth!’”

“How five shares?” said Caderousse; “you have named to me but four persons.”

“Because the fifth is dead, as I have been told.... The fifth was the father of Dantès.”

“Alas! yes,” said Caderousse, moved by the passions which clashed within him; “alas! yes, the poor man, he is dead.”

“I learned this event at Marseilles,” answered the abbé, making an effort to appear indifferent, “but it is so long since this death happened that I could gather no detail.... Would you know anything of the end of this old man, you?”

“Eh! who can know that better than I?... I lived door to door with the good man.... Eh! my God! yes: scarcely a year after the disappearance of his son, he died, the poor old man!”

“But, of what did he die?”

“The doctors named his disease... a gastro-enteritis, I believe; those who knew him said he died of grief... and I, who almost saw him die, I say he died...”

Caderousse stopped. “Died of what?” resumed the priest anxiously.

“Why, died of hunger!”

“Of hunger!” cried the abbé, bounding upon his stool; “of hunger! the vilest animals do not die of hunger! the dogs who wander in the streets find a compassionate hand that throws them a piece of bread; and a man, a Christian, died of hunger in the midst of other men who call themselves Christians like him! Impossible! oh! it is impossible!”

“I have said what I have said,” resumed Caderousse.

“And you are wrong,” said a voice on the staircase; “what are you meddling with?”

The two men turned round, and saw through the bars of the railing the sickly head of Carconte; she had dragged herself thither and was listening to the conversation, seated on the last step, her head resting upon her knees.

“What are you meddling with yourself, woman?” said Caderousse. “Mr. asks for information, politeness requires that I give it to him.”

“Yes, but prudence requires that you refuse it. Who tells you with what intention they wish to make you speak, imbecile?”

“With an excellent one, madame, I answer for it,” said the abbé. “Your husband then has nothing to fear, provided he answers frankly.”

“Nothing to fear, yes! one begins with fine promises, then one contents oneself, afterward, with saying that one has nothing to fear; then one goes away without holding anything of what one said, and one fine morning misfortune falls upon poor folks without their knowing whence it comes.”

“Be tranquil, good woman, misfortune will not come to you from my side, I answer for it.”

Carconte grumbled a few words that could not be heard, let fall again upon her knees her head an instant raised, and continued to tremble with fever, leaving her husband free to continue the conversation, but placed so as not to lose a word of it.

During this time, the abbé had drunk a few swallows of water and recovered himself.

“But,” resumed he, “was this unhappy old man then so abandoned by every one, that he died of such a death?”

“Oh! sir,” resumed Caderousse, “it is not that Mercédès the Catalan, nor M. Morrel, abandoned him; but the poor old man had taken a profound antipathy for Fernand, that same one,” continued Caderousse with an ironical smile, “whom Dantès told you was among his friends.”

“Was he then not so?” said the abbé.

“Gaspard! Gaspard!” murmured the wife from the top of her staircase; “take care what you are going to say.”

Caderousse made a movement of impatience, and without granting other response to her who interrupted him:

“Can one be the friend of him whose wife one covets?” he answered the abbé. “Dantès, who was a heart of gold, called all those people his friends.... Poor Edmond!... In fact, it is better that he knew nothing; he would have had too much pain in pardoning them at the moment of death.... And, whatever may be said,” continued Caderousse in his language which was not without a sort of rude poetry, “I have still more fear of the curse of the dead than of the hatred of the living.”

“Imbecile!” said Carconte.

“Do you then know,” continued the abbé, “what Fernand did against Dantès?”

“If I know it, I should think so.”

“Speak then.”

“Gaspard, do as you will, you are master,” said the woman; “but if you believed me, you would say nothing.”

“This time, I believe you are right, woman,” said Caderousse.

“Thus, you will say nothing?” resumed the abbé.

“What good would it do? If the little fellow were living and came to me to know once and for all his friends and his enemies, I do not say; but he is under ground, as you have told me, he can no longer have hatred, he can no longer avenge himself. Let us extinguish all that.”

“You wish then,” said the abbé, “that I give to these people, whom you give out as unworthy and false friends, a reward destined for fidelity?”

“It is true, you are right,” said Caderousse. “Besides, what would the legacy of poor Edmond be for them now? a drop of water falling into the sea!”

“Not to mention that these people may crush you with a gesture,” said the woman.

“How so? these people have then become rich and powerful?”

“Then you do not know their history?”

“No, tell it to me.”

Caderousse seemed to reflect an instant.

“No, in truth,” said he, “that would be too long.”

“Free to you to be silent, my friend,” said the abbé with the accent of the most profound indifference; “and I respect your scruples; moreover what you do there is of a truly good man: let us then speak of it no more. With what was I charged? With a simple formality. I shall therefore sell this diamond.”

And he drew the diamond from his pocket, opened the case, and made it shine before the dazzled eyes of Caderousse.

“Come see, woman!” said the latter in a raucous voice.

“A diamond!” said Carconte, rising and descending with a rather firm step the staircase; “what is this diamond?”

“Have you not heard, woman?” said Caderousse; “it is a diamond that the little fellow has bequeathed us: to his father first, to his three friends Fernand, Danglars, and me, and to Mercédès his betrothed. The diamond is worth fifty thousand francs.”

“Oh! the beautiful jewel!” said she.

“The fifth of this sum belongs to us then?” said Caderousse.

“Yes, sir,” answered the abbé, “plus the share of the father of Dantès, which I believe myself authorized to divide among you four.”

“And why among us four?” asked Carconte.

“Because you were the four friends of Edmond.”

“Friends are not those who betray!” murmured in her turn the woman sullenly.

“Yes, yes,” said Caderousse; “and that is what I said: it is almost a profanation, almost a sacrilege, to reward treason, perhaps crime.”

“It is you who will have wished it,” resumed tranquilly the abbé, replacing the diamond in the pocket of his soutane; “now give me the address of the friends of Edmond, so that I may execute his last wishes.”

The sweat flowed in heavy drops from the brow of Caderousse; he saw the abbé rise, direct himself toward the door, as if to cast an advisory glance at his horse, and return.

Caderousse and his wife looked at each other with an indescribable expression.

“The diamond would be for us entire,” said Caderousse.

“Do you believe it?” replied the woman.

“A man of the Church would not wish to deceive us.”

“Do as you will,” said the woman; “as for me, I meddle not in it.”

And she took again the path of the staircase, all shivering; her teeth chattered, despite the ardent heat that prevailed.

Upon the last step, she stopped an instant.

“Reflect well, Gaspard!” said she.

“I am decided,” said Caderousse.

Carconte re-entered her chamber with a sigh; one heard the ceiling creak beneath her steps until she had rejoined her armchair, where she fell seated heavily.

“To what are you decided?” asked the abbé.

“To tell you all,” answered the former.

“I believe, in truth, that that is the best to do,” said the priest; “not that I care to know the things you might wish to hide from me; but, after all, you may lead me to distribute the legacy according to the wishes of the testator, that will be better.”

“I hope so,” answered Caderousse, his cheeks inflamed by the redness of hope and cupidity.

“I listen to you,” said the abbé.

“Wait,” resumed Caderousse; “one might interrupt us at the most interesting point, and that would be disagreeable; besides, it is useless that any one should know that you have come here.”

And he went to the door of his inn and closed it, upon which, by way of further precaution, he put the night-bar.

During this time, the abbé had chosen his place to listen at his ease; he had seated himself in a corner, so as to remain in the shadow, while the light should fall full upon the face of his interlocutor. As for him, his head inclined, his hands joined or rather clenched, he prepared to listen with all his ears.

Caderousse drew near a stool and sat facing him.

“Remember that I push you to nothing!” said the trembling voice of Carconte, as if, through the flooring, she could see the scene which was preparing.

“That is well, that is well,” said Caderousse; “let us speak of it no more; I take all upon myself.”

And he began.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”