L. La famille Morrel.

L

The Morrel Family.

The count reached No. 7, Rue Meslay, in a few minutes.

The house was white, cheerful-looking, and fronted by a courtyard in which two small flower beds held rather fine blooms.

In the porter who opened the gate for him, the count recognized old Coclès. But as the latter—it will be remembered—had but one eye, and as during the last nine years that eye had considerably weakened, Coclès did not recognize the count.

Carriages, in order to stop before the entrance, had to turn so as to avoid a little jet of water springing from a rockwork basin, a magnificence that had aroused much jealousy in the neighborhood, and which was the reason the house was called the _Petit-Versailles_.

Needless to say that in the basin swam a host of red and yellow fish.

The house, raised above a floor of kitchens and cellars, had, besides the ground floor, two full stories and an attic; the young people had bought it with its outbuildings, which consisted of a huge workshop, two pavilions at the end of a garden, and the garden itself. Emmanuel, at a glance, had seen in this arrangement a little speculation to be made; he had reserved for himself the house, half the garden, and had drawn a line—that is to say, he had built a wall between himself and the workshops, which he had let on lease with the pavilions and the portion of garden pertaining to them; so that he found himself lodged for a fairly moderate sum, and as well shut in as the most meticulous owner of a hotel in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.

The dining room was of oak, the drawing room of mahogany and blue velvet; the bedroom of citron wood and green damask; there was besides a study for Emmanuel, who did not study, and a music room for Julie, who was not a musician.

The whole second floor was devoted to Maximilien: there was there an exact repetition of his sister's apartments, only the dining room had been converted into a billiard room where he brought his friends.

He was himself supervising the grooming of his horse, and smoking his cigar at the entrance to the garden, when the count's carriage stopped at the door.

Coclès opened the door, as we have said, and Baptistin, leaping from his seat, asked if M. and Mme Herbault and M. Maximilien Morrel were visible to the Count of Monte Cristo.

"For the Count of Monte Cristo!" cried Morrel, throwing away his cigar and springing toward his visitor: "I should think we are visible to him! Ah! thank you, a hundred times thank you, Count, for not having forgotten your promise."

And the young officer shook the count's hand so cordially that the latter could not mistake the frankness of the demonstration, and he saw plainly that he had been awaited with impatience and received with eagerness.

"Come, come," said Maximilien, "I want to serve as your introducer; a man like you should not be announced by a servant. My sister is in her garden, breaking off faded roses; my brother-in-law is reading his two newspapers, _La Presse_ and _the Débats_, six paces from her, for wherever one sees Mme Herbault, one has but to look within a radius of four meters, and there is M. Emmanuel, and vice versa, as they say at the École Polytechnique."

The sound of steps made a young woman of twenty to twenty-five raise her head, clad in a silk dressing gown, and examining with particular care a musk rose.

This woman was our little Julie, become, as the agent of Thomson and French had predicted, Mme Emmanuel Herbault.

She gave a cry on seeing a stranger. Maximilien began to laugh.

"Do not disturb yourself, sister," said he; "the count has been in Paris only two or three days, but he already knows what a rentière of the Marais is, and if he does not, you will teach him.

"Ah! sir," said Julie, "to bring you thus is a betrayal of my brother, who has not the slightest coquetry for his poor sister.... Penelon!... Penelon!..."

An old man who was digging a bed of Bengal roses stuck his spade in the earth and approached, cap in hand, hiding as best he could a quid of tobacco thrust for the moment into the depths of his cheeks. A few white locks silvered his still thick hair, while his bronzed complexion and his bold, lively eye announced the old sailor, browned by the sun of the equator and tanned by the breath of tempests.

"I believe you called me, Mademoiselle Julie," said he; "here I am."

Penelon had kept the habit of calling his master's daughter Mlle Julie, and had never been able to adopt that of calling her Mme Herbault.

"Penelon," said Julie, "go and tell M. Emmanuel of the good visit we are having, while M. Maximilien shows the gentleman to the drawing room."

Then turning toward Monte Cristo:

"You will allow me to run away for a minute, will you not, sir?"

And without waiting for the count's assent, she darted behind a clump and gained the house by a side path.

"Ah, my dear M. Morrel," said Monte Cristo, "I perceive with regret that I am causing a revolution in your family."

"See, see," said Maximilien, laughing, "do you see yonder the husband who, for his part, is going to exchange his jacket for a frock coat? Oh! it is that you are known in the Rue Meslay; you were announced, I assure you.

"You seem to have there, sir, a happy family," said the count, answering his own thought.

"Oh yes, I warrant you, Count, what would you have? they lack nothing to be happy: they are young, they are gay, they love each other, and with their twenty-five thousand livres income they fancy—they who have nevertheless skirted such immense fortunes—they fancy themselves possessed of the wealth of the Rothschilds.

"It is little, however, twenty-five thousand livres income," said Monte Cristo with a sweetness so suave that it penetrated Maximilien's heart like the voice of a tender father; "but they will not stop there, our young people; they will in their turn become millionaires. Your brother-in-law is a lawyer... a physician?..."

"He was a merchant, Count, and had taken over my poor father's house. M. Morrel died leaving a fortune of five hundred thousand francs; I had half and my sister the other, for we were but two children. Her husband, who had married her with no other patrimony than his noble probity, his first-rate intelligence, and his spotless reputation, wished to possess as much as his wife. He worked until he had amassed two hundred fifty thousand francs; six years sufficed. It was, I swear to you, Count, a touching spectacle, that of those two such industrious, such united children, destined by their capacity for the highest fortune, and who, having wished to change nothing in the habits of the paternal house, took six years to do what innovators would have done in two or three; so Marseille still rings with the praise that could not be refused to so much courageous self-denial. At last, one day, Emmanuel came to his wife, who was finishing the payment of the installment.

"'Julie,' said he, 'here is the last roll of a hundred francs that Coclès has just given me and which completes the two hundred fifty thousand francs we fixed as the limit of our gains. Will you be content with this little, with which we must henceforth be satisfied? Listen, the house does a million's worth of business a year, and can bring in forty thousand francs profit. We will sell, if we wish, the clientele, three hundred thousand francs in an hour, for here is a letter from M. Delaunay, who offers them to us in exchange for our stock, which he wishes to unite with his own. See what you think should be done.'

"'My friend,' said my sister, 'the house of Morrel can be kept only by a Morrel. To save forever from the bad chances of fortune the name of our father, is not that well worth three hundred thousand francs?'

"'I thought so,' replied Emmanuel; 'but I wished to have your advice.'

"'Well, friend, there it is. All our receipts are in, all our bills are paid; we can draw a line under the account of this fortnight and close our counters; let us draw that line and close them.' Which was done instantly. It was three o'clock: at a quarter past three a client presented himself to insure the passage of two ships; it was a profit of fifteen thousand francs in cash.

"'Sir,' said Emmanuel, 'be so good as to address yourself for this insurance to our colleague M. Delaunay. As for us, we have quit business.'

"'And since when?' asked the astonished client.

"'Since a quarter of an hour.'

"And that, sir," continued Maximilien, smiling, "is how my sister and brother-in-law have but twenty-five thousand livres income."

Maximilien had scarcely finished his narration, during which the count's heart had dilated more and more, when Emmanuel reappeared, restored with a hat and a frock coat.

He bowed as a man who knows the quality of the visitor; then, after having the count make the tour of the little flowered enclosure, he led him back toward the house.

The drawing room was already perfumed with flowers held with difficulty in an immense Japanese vase with natural handles. Julie, suitably dressed and coquettishly coiffed (she had accomplished this feat in ten minutes), presented herself to receive the count at his entrance.

One heard the chattering of the birds of a neighboring aviary; the branches of the false ebonies and the pink acacias came to border with their clusters the blue velvet curtains: everything in this charming little retreat breathed calm, from the song of the bird to the smile of the masters.

The count, since his entrance into the house, had already imbibed this happiness; so he remained silent, dreamy, forgetting that he was expected to resume the conversation interrupted after the first compliments.

He perceived this silence, which had become almost improper, and tearing himself with effort from his reverie:

"Madame," said he at last, "pardon me an emotion which must astonish you, accustomed as you are to this peace and this happiness that I encounter here; but for me it is so new a thing, satisfaction on a human face, that I do not tire of looking at you and your husband."

"We are very happy indeed, sir," replied Julie; "but we were long in suffering, and few have bought their happiness as dearly as we."

Curiosity was painted on the count's features.

"Oh! it is a whole family history, as Château-Renaud told you the other day," resumed Maximilien; "for you, Count, accustomed to seeing illustrious misfortunes and splendid joys, there would be little interest in this domestic picture. Yet we have, as Julie just told you, suffered very acute pains, though they were confined within this little frame....

"And God poured out for you, as he does for all, consolation upon suffering?" asked Monte Cristo.

"Yes, Count," said Julie; "we may say so, for he has done for us what he does only for his elect; he has sent us one of his angels."

A red flush mounted to the count's cheeks, and he coughed to find a means of disguising his emotion by raising his handkerchief to his mouth.

"Those born in a cradle of purple and who have never desired anything," said Emmanuel, "know not what is the happiness of living; just as those know not the worth of a clear sky who have never entrusted their life to the mercy of four planks cast upon a raging sea."

Monte Cristo rose, and, without replying—for from the tremor of his voice one might have recognized the emotion agitating him—he began to walk step by step through the drawing room.

"Our magnificence makes you smile, Count," said Maximilien, who followed Monte Cristo with his eyes.

"No, no," answered Monte Cristo, very pale and compressing with one hand the beatings of his heart, while with the other he showed the young man a crystal globe under which a silk purse rested preciously laid upon a cushion of black velvet. "I was only asking myself what use is this purse, which, on one side, contains a paper, it seems to me, and on the other a rather fine diamond."

Maximilien assumed a grave air and replied:

"This, Count, is the most precious of our family treasures.

"Indeed, this diamond is rather fine," rejoined Monte Cristo.

"Oh! my brother does not speak to you of the price of the stone, though it is valued at a hundred thousand francs, Count; he only wishes to tell you that the objects contained in this purse are the relics of the angel of whom we spoke to you just now."

"That is what I cannot understand, and yet what I ought not ask, madame," replied Monte Cristo, bowing; "pardon me, I did not mean to be indiscreet."

"Indiscreet, do you say? Oh! on the contrary, Count, how happy you make us by offering us an occasion to dwell on this subject! If we hid like a secret the beautiful action recalled by this purse, we would not expose it thus to view. Oh! we should like to be able to publish it throughout the universe, so that a thrill from our unknown benefactor might reveal his presence.

"Ah! indeed!" made Monte Cristo in a stifled voice.

"Sir," said Maximilien, lifting the crystal globe and religiously kissing the silk purse, "this has touched the hand of a man by whom my father was saved from death, we from ruin, and our name from shame; of a man thanks to whom we, poor children vowed to misery and tears, can hear today people extol our happiness. This letter—and Maximilien drawing a note from the purse presented it to the count—this letter was written by him on a day when my father had taken a very desperate resolution, and this diamond was given as dowry to my sister by this generous unknown."

Monte Cristo opened the letter and read it with an indefinable expression of happiness; it was the note our readers know, addressed to Julie and signed Sinbad the Sailor.

"Unknown, you say? So the man who did you this service remained unknown to you?"

"Yes, sir, never have we had the happiness of clasping his hand; yet not for lack of having asked God for this favor," replied Maximilien; "but there has been in all this adventure a mysterious direction that we cannot yet comprehend; all was conducted by an invisible hand, powerful as that of an enchanter."

"Oh!" said Julie, "I have not yet lost all hope of kissing one day that hand as I kiss the purse it has touched. Four years ago, Penelon was at Trieste: Penelon, Count, is that brave sailor you saw with a spade in his hand, and who, from foreman, has made himself gardener. Penelon, being then at Trieste, saw on the quay an Englishman who was about to embark on a yacht, and he recognized him who came to my father's on the 5th of June, 1829, and who wrote me this note on the 5th of September. It was surely the same, according to him, but he dared not speak to him."

"An Englishman!" made Monte Cristo, dreamy and anxious at every glance of Julie; "an Englishman, you say?"

"Yes," resumed Maximilien, "an Englishman who presented himself to us as agent of the house of Thomson and French, of Rome. That is why, when you said the other day at M. de Morcerf's that Messrs. Thomson and French were your bankers, you saw me start. For heaven's sake, sir, this took place, as we told you, in 1829; did you know this Englishman?"

"But did you not also tell me that the house of Thomson and French constantly denied having rendered you this service?"

"Yes."

"Then would not this Englishman be a man who, grateful to your father for some good deed he had himself forgotten, had taken this pretext to do him a service?"

"Everything is supposable, sir, in such a circumstance, even a miracle."

"What was his name?" asked Monte Cristo.

"He left no other name," answered Julie, looking at the count with deep attention, "than the name he signed at the bottom of the note: Sinbad the Sailor."

"Which is not a name evidently, but a pseudonym."

Then, as Julie looked at him still more attentively and tried to catch on the wing and gather some notes of his voice:

"Let us see," he continued, "is he not a man about my height, a little taller perhaps, a little thinner, imprisoned in a high cravat, buttoned, corseted, belted, and always pencil in hand?"

"Oh! but you know him then?" cried Julie, her eyes sparkling with joy.

"No," said Monte Cristo; "I only suppose. I knew a Lord Wilmore who scattered thus traits of generosity."

"Without making himself known!"

"He was a bizarre man who did not believe in gratitude."

"Oh!" cried Julie with a sublime accent and joining her hands, "what then does he believe in, the unhappy man!"

"He did not believe in it, at least at the time I knew him," said Monte Cristo, whom this voice issuing from the depth of the soul had moved to the last fiber; "but since that time perhaps he has had some proof that gratitude exists."

"And you know this man, sir?" asked Emmanuel.

"Oh! if you know him, sir," cried Julie, "tell, tell, can you lead us to him, show him to us, tell us where he is? Come, Maximilien, come, Emmanuel, if we ever found him again, he would have to believe in the memory of the heart."

Monte Cristo felt two tears roll in his eyes; he took a few more steps in the drawing room.

"For heaven's sake, sir," said Maximilien, "if you know anything of this man, tell us what you know of him!"

"Alas!" said Monte Cristo, compressing the emotion of his voice, "if it is Lord Wilmore your benefactor, I much fear you will never find him again. I left him two or three years ago at Palermo and he was setting out for the most fabulous countries; so that I very much doubt he will ever return."

"Ah! sir, you are cruel!" cried Julie with fright.

And tears came to the young woman's eyes.

"Madame," said Monte Cristo gravely, devouring with his gaze the two liquid pearls that rolled down Julie's cheeks, "if Lord Wilmore had seen what I have just seen here, he would still love life, for the tears you shed would reconcile him with the human race."

And he held out his hand to Julie, who gave him hers, borne along as she was by the count's look and accent.

"But this Lord Wilmore," said she, clinging to a last hope, "he had a country, a family, relatives, he was known at least? Could we not...?"

"Oh! seek not, madame," said the count; "build not sweet chimeras upon this word that escaped me. No, Lord Wilmore is probably not the man you seek: he was my friend, I knew all his secrets, he would have told me that one.

"And he told you nothing of it?" cried Julie.

"Nothing."

"Never a word that might have made you suppose?..."

"Never."

"Yet you named him at once."

"Ah! you know... in such a case, one supposes."

"My sister, my sister," said Maximilien, coming to the count's aid, "the gentleman is right. Recall what our good father so often told us: 'It is not an Englishman who did us this happiness.'"

Monte Cristo started.

"Your father told you... M. Morrel?..." resumed he quickly.

"My father, sir, saw in this deed a miracle. My father believed in a benefactor risen from the tomb for us. Oh! that touching superstition, sir, and how, while not myself believing in it, I was far from wishing to destroy this belief in his noble heart! So how many times did he dream of it, pronouncing softly a name of a very dear friend, a name of a lost friend; and when he was near death, when the approach of eternity had given his spirit something of the illumination of the tomb, this thought, which until then had been but a doubt, became a conviction, and the last words he uttered in dying were these: 'Maximilien, it was Edmond Dantès!'"

The count's pallor, which had been increasing for some seconds, became frightful at these words. All his blood had just rushed to his heart; he could not speak; he drew out his watch as if he had forgotten the hour, took his hat, presented to Mme Herbault a brusque and embarrassed compliment, and shaking the hands of Emmanuel and Maximilien:

"Madame," said he, "permit me to come sometimes to pay my respects. I love your house, and I am grateful to you for your welcome, for this is the first time I have forgotten myself for many years."

And he went out with great strides.

"That is a singular man, this Count of Monte Cristo," said Emmanuel.

"Yes," replied Maximilien; "but I believe he has an excellent heart, and I am sure he loves us."

"And I!" said Julie, "his voice went to my heart, and two or three times it seemed to me that it was not the first time I heard him."}

“Stories of the world, in your language.”