LXVI. Projets de mariage.

LXVI

Marriage Plans.

The day after that scene, at the hour Debray was accustomed to choose for paying a little visit to Mme Danglars on his way to his office, his cab did not appear in the courtyard.

At that hour, that is to say about half-past twelve, Mme Danglars called for her carriage and went out.

Danglars, stationed behind a curtain, had watched for this departure, which he expected. He gave orders that he should be informed immediately upon madame's return; but at two o'clock she had not come home.

At two o'clock he called for his horses, went to the Chamber, and had himself entered on the list to speak against the budget.

From twelve to two, Danglars had remained in his study, opening his dispatches, growing gloomier and gloomier, heaping figure upon figure, and among other visitors receiving Major Cavalcanti, who, always as blue, as stiff, and as punctual, presented himself at the hour announced the day before to conclude his business with the banker.

On leaving the Chamber, Danglars, who had given violent signs of agitation during the session and who above all had been more bitter than ever against the ministry, got back into his carriage and ordered the coachman to drive him to No. 30, Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

Monte Cristo was at home; only he was with someone, and he begged Danglars to wait a moment in the drawing room.

While the banker waited, the door opened, and he saw enter a man dressed as an abbé, who, instead of waiting like him, more familiar than he, no doubt, in the house, bowed to him, went into the inner apartments, and disappeared.

An instant after, the door by which the priest had entered opened again, and Monte Cristo appeared.

"Pardon me, dear baron," said he, "but one of my good friends, the Abbé Busoni, whom you may have seen pass, has just arrived in Paris; it was a long time since we had been separated, and I had not the heart to leave him at once. I hope that, in favor of the motive, you will excuse my having made you wait."

"Why, of course," said Danglars, "it is perfectly natural; it is I who came at a bad time, and I will withdraw."

"Not at all; on the contrary, sit down. But, good heavens! what is the matter with you? You look quite worried; really, you frighten me. A melancholy capitalist is like a comet, he always forebodes some great misfortune to the world."

"I have, my dear sir," said Danglars, "that ill luck has been upon me for several days, and that I hear nothing but disastrous news."

"Ah! my God!" said Monte Cristo, "have you had a relapse on the Bourse?"

"No, I am cured of that, for a few days at least; it is simply a matter for me of a bankruptcy at Trieste."

"Indeed? Is your bankrupt by any chance Jacopo Manfredi?"

"Exactly! Just think of a man who, for I know not how long, had done eight or nine hundred thousand francs' worth of business a year with me. Never a failure, never a delay; a fellow who paid like a prince—who pays. I advance a million with him, and behold my devil of a Jacopo Manfredi stops payment!"

"Indeed?"

"It is an unheard-of fatality. I draw on him for six hundred thousand livres, which come back to me unpaid, and besides I am still holder of four hundred thousand francs in bills of exchange signed by him and payable at the end of the month at his correspondent's in Paris. It is the 30th; I send to collect; ah! yes, indeed, the correspondent has disappeared. With my Spanish affair, that makes a pretty end of the month for me."

"But is your Spanish affair really a loss?"

"Certainly, seven hundred thousand francs out of my cash box, nothing less."

"How the deuce did you make such a school of it, you an old wolf of the Exchange?"

"Eh! it is my wife's fault. She dreamed that Don Carlos had returned to Spain; she believes in dreams. It is magnetism, she says, and when she dreams a thing, that thing, she asserts, must infallibly come to pass. On her conviction, I allow her to play: she has her purse and her broker: she plays and she loses. It is true it is not my money, but hers, that she plays. However, no matter, you will understand that when seven hundred thousand francs go out of the wife's pocket, the husband always notices it a little. What! you did not know that? But the thing made an enormous noise."

"Yes, I had heard it spoken of, but I was ignorant of the details; then, I am more than ignorant of all these Bourse affairs."

"You do not play, then?"

"I! and how do you expect me to play? I, who already have so much trouble settling my income, should be forced, besides my steward, to take on also a clerk and a cashier. But, about Spain, it seems to me that the baroness had not altogether dreamed the story of Don Carlos's return. Did not the newspapers say something of it?"

"Then you believe in the newspapers, do you?"

"I, not in the least; but it seems to me that that honest _Messager_ was an exception to the rule, and that it announced only certain news, telegraphic news."

"Well, that is what is inexplicable," resumed Danglars, "it is that this return of Don Carlos was indeed a telegraphic news item."

"So that," said Monte Cristo, "it is about seventeen hundred thousand francs that you lose this month?"

"There is no about; it is exactly my figure."

"The devil! for a fortune of the third order," said Monte Cristo with compassion, "it is a hard blow."

"Of the third order!" said Danglars, a little humiliated; "what the deuce do you mean by that?"

"Doubtless," continued Monte Cristo, "I make three categories in fortunes: fortune of the first order, fortune of the second order, fortune of the third order. I call fortune of the first order that which is composed of treasures one has at hand, lands, mines, revenues on states like France, Austria, and England, provided that these treasures, these mines, these revenues, form a total of a hundred millions or so; I call fortune of the second order manufacturing enterprises, joint-stock undertakings, vice-royalties and principalities not exceeding fifteen thousand francs in income, the whole forming a capital of some fifty millions; I call finally fortune of the third order capitals yielding compound interest, gains dependent on the will of others or the chances of hazard, which a bankruptcy eats into, which a telegraphic news item shakes; eventual speculations, operations subject in short to the chances of that fatality one might call force majeure's lesser sister, comparing it to force majeure, which is natural force; the whole forming a fictitious or real capital of some fifteen millions. Is not that about your position, say?"

"Why, yes!" answered Danglars.

"It follows that with six ends of the month like that," continued Monte Cristo imperturbably, "a house of the third order would be at death's door."

"Oh!" said Danglars with a very pale smile, "how you go on!"

"Let us say seven months," replied Monte Cristo in the same tone. "Tell me, have you sometimes thought that seven times seventeen hundred thousand francs makes twelve millions or thereabouts?... No? Well, you are right, for with reflections like that one would never risk one's capital, which is to the financier what the skin is to civilized man. We have our more or less sumptuous clothes, that is our credit; but when a man dies, he has only his skin, just as, on leaving business, you have only your real property, five or six millions at most; for fortunes of the third order scarcely represent a third or a quarter of their appearance, as the locomotive of a railway is always, amid the smoke that wraps and enlarges it, only a more or less powerful machine. Well, on those five millions which form your real assets, you have just lost about two, which diminishes by so much your fictitious fortune or your credit; that is to say, my dear M. Danglars, that your skin has just been opened by a bleeding which, repeated four times, would bring death. Eh! eh! take care, my dear M. Danglars. Do you need money? Will you let me lend you some?"

"What a bad calculator you are!" cried Danglars, calling to his aid all the philosophy and all the dissimulation of appearance: "at this hour, the money is back in my coffers by other speculations which have succeeded. The blood let out by the bleeding has come back by nutrition. I have lost a battle in Spain, I have been beaten at Trieste; but my naval army of the Indies will have taken some galleons; my pioneers of Mexico will have discovered some mine."

"Very well, very well! but the scar remains, and at the first loss it will reopen."

"No, for I march on certainties," pursued Danglars with the banal volubility of the charlatan, whose trade is to puff his credit; "it would take, to overthrow me, that three governments should crumble."

"Why, that has been seen."

"That the earth should fail of harvests."

"Remember the seven fat kine and the seven lean kine."

"Or that the sea should retire, as in the time of _Pharaoh_; still there are several seas, and the ships would be quit for becoming caravans."

"So much the better, a thousand times so much the better, dear M. Danglars," said Monte Cristo; "and I see that I was mistaken, and that you come into the fortunes of the second order."

"I believe I may aspire to that honor," said Danglars with one of those stereotyped smiles which gave Monte Cristo the effect of one of those pasty moons with which bad painters daub their ruins; "but, since we are on the subject of business," added he, delighted to find this motive for changing the conversation, "tell me a little what I can do for M. Cavalcanti."

"Why, give him money, if he has a credit on you and that credit seems good to you."

"Excellent! he presented himself this morning with a draft for forty thousand francs, payable at sight on you, signed Busoni, and returned by you to me with your endorsement. You understand that I counted him out his forty square bills on the instant."

Monte Cristo made a sign of the head which indicated his full assent.

"But that is not all," continued Danglars; "he has opened a credit for his son at my house."

"How much, without indiscretion, does he allow the young man?"

"Five thousand francs a month."

"Sixty thousand francs a year. I suspected as much," said Monte Cristo, shrugging his shoulders; "they are paltry fellows, these Cavalcanti. What does he expect a young man to do with five thousand francs a month?"

"But you understand that if the young man needs a few thousand francs more...."

"Do nothing of the kind, the father would leave them to your account; you do not know all the ultramontane millionaires: they are veritable harpagons. And by whom is this credit opened for him?"

"Oh! by the house of Fenzi, one of the best in Florence."

"I do not mean that you will lose, far from it; but keep yourself nevertheless within the terms of the letter."

"You would not then have confidence in this Cavalcanti?"

"I! I would give him ten millions on his signature. That comes into the fortunes of the second order, of which I spoke to you just now, my dear M. Danglars."

"And with that how simple he is! I should have taken him for a major, nothing more."

"And you would have done him honor; for, you are right, he does not look his part. When I saw him for the first time, he gave me the air of an old lieutenant mildewed under the counter-epaulette. But all Italians are like that, they resemble old Jews when they do not dazzle like magi of the Orient."

"The young man is better," said Danglars.

"Yes, a little timid, perhaps; but, on the whole, he appeared to me decent. I was uneasy about that."

"Why so?"

"Because you saw him at my house almost on his entrance into the world, as I have at least been told. He traveled with a very strict tutor and had never come to Paris."

"All these Italians of quality have the habit of marrying among themselves, do they not?" asked Danglars negligently; "they like to unite their fortunes."

"Usually they do so, it is true; but Cavalcanti is an original who does nothing like others. I shall not be shaken from the idea that he sends his son to France so that he may find a wife there."

"You think so?"

"I am sure of it."

"And you have heard speak of his fortune?"

"It is all that is talked of; only some allow him millions, others pretend he does not possess a paul."

"And your opinion?"

"You must not found yourself on it; it is wholly personal."

"But, in short...."

"My opinion, mine, is that all these old podestas, all these former condottieri, for these Cavalcanti have commanded armies, have governed provinces; my opinion, I say, is that they have buried millions in corners known only to their elders, who make them known to their elders from generation to generation; and the proof is that they are all yellow and dry like their florins of the time of the Republic, of which they keep a reflection by dint of looking at them."

"Perfect," said Danglars; "and it is so much the truer that not an inch of land is known to any of these people."

"Very little, at least; I, I know well that I know of Cavalcanti only his palace at Lucca."

"Ah! he has a palace!" said Danglars, laughing; "that is already something."

"Yes, and moreover he leases it to the Minister of Finance, while he himself lives in a little house. Oh! I have already told you, I believe the old fellow close-fisted."

"Come, come, you do not flatter him."

"Listen, I scarcely know him: I think I have seen him three times in my life. What I know of him is from the Abbé Busoni and from himself; he was speaking to me this morning of his plans for his son, and letting me glimpse that, weary of seeing considerable funds sleep in Italy, which is a dead country, he would like to find a means, either in France or in England, of making his millions bear fruit. But remark well always that, though I have the greatest personal confidence in the Abbé Busoni, I, I answer for nothing."

"No matter, thanks for the client you have sent me; it is a very fine name to inscribe on my registers, and my cashier, to whom I explained what the Cavalcanti were, is quite proud of it. By the way, and this is a mere tourist detail, when these people marry their sons, do they give them dowries?"

"Eh, my God! it depends. I knew an Italian prince, rich as a gold mine, one of the first names of Tuscany, who, when his sons married to his liking, gave them millions, and, when they married against his will, contented himself with making them an allowance of thirty crowns a month. Let us admit that Andrea marries according to his father's views, he will perhaps give him one, two, three millions. If it were with the daughter of a banker, for example, perhaps he would take an interest in the house of his son's father-in-law; then, suppose beside that that his daughter-in-law displeases him: good evening, father Cavalcanti lays his hand on the key of his strongbox, gives a double turn to the lock, and there is Master Andrea obliged to live like a Parisian man of family, by beveling cards or cogging dice."

"That lad will find a Bavarian or Peruvian princess; he will want a closed crown, an Eldorado crossed by the Potosi."

"No, all these great lords on the other side of the mountains frequently marry simple mortals; they are like Jupiter, they love to cross the races. Ah, now! do you want to marry Andrea, my dear M. Danglars, that you ask me all these questions?"

"Faith," said Danglars, "it would not seem to me a bad speculation; and I am a speculator."

"It is not with Mlle Danglars, I presume? you would not want to have poor Andrea cut to pieces by Albert?"

"Albert?" said Danglars, shrugging his shoulders; "ah! yes, indeed, he cares precious little about that."

"But he is engaged to your daughter, I believe?"

"That is to say that M. de Morcerf and I have sometimes talked of this marriage; but Mme de Morcerf and Albert...."

"You are not going to tell me that this one is not a good match?"

"Eh! eh! Mlle Danglars is worth M. de Morcerf, it seems to me!"

"The dowry of Mlle Danglars will be handsome, indeed, and I do not doubt it, especially if the telegraph makes no more foolish news."

"Oh! it is not only the dowry. But, tell me, by the way?"

"Well!"

"Why then did you not invite Morcerf and his family to your dinner?"

"I had done so, but he alleged a journey to Dieppe with Mme de Morcerf, to whom sea air has been recommended."

"Yes, yes," said Danglars, laughing, "it must be good for him."

"Why so?"

"Because it is the air she breathed in her youth."

Monte Cristo let the epigram pass without seeming to pay attention to it.

"But in short," said the count, "if Albert is not as rich as Mlle Danglars, you cannot deny that he bears a fine name."

"Granted, but I like my own name as well," said Danglars.

"Certainly, your name is popular, and it has ornamented the title with which one thought to ornament it; but you are too intelligent a man not to have understood that, according to certain prejudices too deeply rooted to be extirpated, nobility of five centuries is worth more than nobility of twenty years."

"And that is just why," said Danglars with a smile he tried to make sardonic, "that is just why I should prefer M. Andrea Cavalcanti to M. Albert de Morcerf."

"But however," said Monte Cristo, "I suppose the Morcerfs yield nothing to the Cavalcanti?"

"The Morcerfs!... See here, my dear count," resumed Danglars, "you are a gentleman, are you not?"

"I believe so."

"And, besides, a connoisseur in heraldry?"

"A little."

"Well, look at the color of mine; it is more solid than that of the blazon of Morcerf."

"Why so?"

"Because, I, if I am not a baron by birth, I am called Danglars at least."

"After?"

"Whereas he is not called Morcerf."

"What, he is not called Morcerf?"

"Not in the least."

"Come now!"

"I, someone made me a baron, so that I am one; he made himself a count all alone, so that he is not one."

"Impossible."

"Listen, my dear count," continued Danglars, "M. de Morcerf is my friend, or rather my acquaintance, for thirty years; I, you know, I make little of my arms, since I have never forgotten whence I started."

"That is the proof of a great humility or a great pride," said Monte Cristo.

"Well, when I was a little clerk, I, Morcerf was a simple fisherman."

"And then he was called?"

"Fernand."

"Short?"

"Fernand Mondego."

"You are sure of it?"

"Pardieu! he sold me enough fish for me to know him."

"Then, why did you give him your daughter?"

"Because Fernand and Danglars being two upstarts, both ennobled, both enriched, are equal at bottom, save certain things, however, that have been said of him and that have never been said of me."

"What then?"

"Nothing."

"Ah! yes, I understand; what you tell me there refreshes my memory about the name of Fernand Mondego; I have heard that name pronounced in Greece."

"About the Ali Pacha affair?"

"Exactly."

"There is the mystery," resumed Danglars, "and I confess I should have given much to discover it."

"It was not difficult, if you had greatly wished it."

"How so?"

"No doubt, you have some correspondent in Greece?"

"Pardieu!"

"At Janina?"

"I have them everywhere...."

"Well, write to your correspondent at Janina, and ask him what part a Frenchman named Fernand played in the catastrophe of Ali Tebelin."

"You are right!" cried Danglars, rising quickly, "I will write this very day!"

"Do so."

"I will do it."

"And if you have some very scandalous news...."

"I will communicate it to you."

"You will oblige me."

Danglars sprang out of the apartment, and made but one bound to his carriage.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”