LXXXIV. Beauchamp.

LXXXIV

Beauchamp.

For a fortnight nothing was talked of in Paris but that attempt at robbery so audaciously made at the count's house. The dying man had signed a deposition pointing to Benedetto as his assassin. The police were requested to set all their agents on the track of the murderer.

Caderousse's knife, the dark lantern, the bunch of keys, and the clothes, less the waistcoat, which could not be found, were deposited in the registry; the body was carried to the Morgue.

To everyone the count replied that this adventure had taken place while he was at his house at Auteuil, and that he consequently knew no more of it than the abbé Busoni had told him, who, that evening, by the greatest chance, had asked to spend the night with him in order to search among some precious books contained in his library.

Bertuccio alone grew pale every time that name of Benedetto was pronounced in his presence; but there was no reason why anyone should notice Bertuccio's paleness.

Villefort, called upon to verify the crime, had claimed the case and was conducting the investigation with that passionate eagerness he brought to all criminal matters in which he was called upon to speak.

But three weeks had already passed without the most active searches having produced any result, and the world was beginning to forget the attempt at robbery at the count's house and the murder of the thief by his accomplice, to occupy itself with the approaching marriage of Mlle Danglars with the Count Andrea Cavalcanti.

This marriage was all but announced, the young man was received at the banker's as a fiancé.

They had written to M. Cavalcanti father, who had greatly approved the marriage, and who, expressing all his regrets that his service absolutely prevented him from leaving Parma where he was, declared his consent to give the capital of a hundred and fifty thousand livres of income.

It was agreed that the three millions should be placed with Danglars, who would make them profitable; some persons had indeed tried to cast doubts in the young man's mind as to the solidity of his future father-in-law's position, who, for some time past, had met with repeated losses at the Bourse; but the young man, with a sublime disinterestedness and confidence, rejected all these idle reports, of which he had the delicacy to say not a word to the baron.

Thus the baron adored the Count Andrea Cavalcanti.

It was not the same with Mlle Eugénie Danglars. In her instinctive hatred of marriage, she had welcomed Andrea as a means of getting rid of Morcerf; but now that Andrea was drawing too near, she was beginning to feel a visible repulsion for him.

Perhaps the baron had noticed it; but as he could attribute this repulsion only to a caprice, he had pretended not to notice it.

Meanwhile the delay demanded by Beauchamp was almost expired. For the rest, Morcerf had been able to appreciate the value of Monte-Cristo's advice, when the latter had told him to let things fall of themselves; no one had taken up the note on the general, and no one had thought of recognizing in the officer who had betrayed the castle of Janina the noble count sitting in the Chamber of Peers.

Albert was none the less insulted, for the intention of the offense was certainly in the few lines that had wounded him. Besides, the way in which Beauchamp had ended the conference had left a bitter memory in his heart. He was therefore nursing in his mind the idea of that duel, from which he hoped, if Beauchamp would but consent, to hide even from his seconds the real cause.

As for Beauchamp, he had not been seen since the day of the visit Albert had paid him; and to all who asked for him, it was answered that he was away on a journey of a few days.

Where was he? no one knew anything of it.

One morning, Albert was awakened by his valet de chambre, who announced Beauchamp to him.

Albert rubbed his eyes, ordered that Beauchamp be made to wait in the small smoking-room on the ground floor, dressed quickly, and went down.

He found Beauchamp walking up and down; at sight of him, Beauchamp stopped.

"The step you are taking in presenting yourself at my house of your own accord, and without waiting for the visit I meant to pay you today, seems to me of good omen, sir," said Albert. "Come, speak quickly, am I to clasp your hand saying: 'Beauchamp, acknowledge a wrong and keep me a friend?' or am I simply to ask you: 'What are your weapons?'"

"Albert," said Beauchamp with a sadness that struck the young man with stupor, "let us sit down first, and talk."

"But it seems to me, on the contrary, sir, that before sitting down, you have to answer me?"

"Albert," said the journalist, "there are circumstances where the difficulty lies precisely in the answer."

"I will make it easy for you, sir, by repeating the question: Will you retract, yes or no?"

"Morcerf, one is not content with answering yes or no to questions that concern the honor, the social position, the life of a man like M. the lieutenant-general Count of Morcerf, peer of France."

"What is done then?"

"What I have done, Albert; one says: Money, time, and fatigue are nothing when it is a question of the reputation and interests of a whole family; one says: More than probabilities are needed, certainties are needed to accept a duel to the death with a friend; one says: If I cross swords, or if I pull the trigger of a pistol on a man whose hand I have shaken for three years, I must at least know why I do such a thing, so that I may come on the field with a peaceful heart and that quiet conscience a man needs when his arm must save his life."

"Well, well," asked Morcerf impatiently, "what does that mean?"

"It means that I have just come from Janina."

"From Janina? you!"

"Yes, I."

"Impossible."

"My dear Albert, here is my passport; see the visas: Geneva, Milan, Venice, Trieste, Delvino, Janina. Will you believe the police of a republic, a kingdom, and an empire?"

Albert cast his eyes over the passport, and raised them, astonished, to Beauchamp.

"You have been to Janina?" said he.

"Albert, if you had been a foreigner, a stranger, a mere lord like that Englishman who came to demand satisfaction of me three or four months ago, and whom I killed to get rid of him, you understand that I should not have given myself such trouble; but I thought I owed you this mark of consideration. I took eight days to go, eight days to return, plus four days of quarantine, and forty-eight hours of stay, that makes my three weeks well. I arrived last night, and here I am."

"My God, my God! what circumlocutions, Beauchamp, and how you delay telling me what I await from you!"

"It is that in truth, Albert...."

"One would say you hesitate."

"Yes, I am afraid."

"You are afraid to confess that your correspondent had deceived you? Oh! no false pride, Beauchamp; confess, Beauchamp, your courage cannot be called in question."

"Oh! it is not that," murmured the journalist; "on the contrary...."

Albert turned frightfully pale: he tried to speak, but the words died on his lips.

"My friend," said Beauchamp in the most affectionate tone, "believe that I should be happy to offer you my excuses, and that those excuses I would make with all my heart; but alas...."

"But, what?"

"The note was right, my friend."

"What! that French officer...."

"Yes."

"That Fernand?"

"Yes."

"That traitor who betrayed the castles of the man in whose service he was...."

"Forgive me for telling you what I tell you, my friend: that man is your father!"

Albert made a furious movement to spring upon Beauchamp; but the latter restrained him far more by a gentle look than by his outstretched hand.

"See, my friend," said he, drawing a paper from his pocket, "here is the proof."

Albert opened the paper; it was a certificate from four notable inhabitants of Janina, attesting that Colonel Fernand Mondego, instructing colonel in the service of the vizier Ali-Tebelin, had delivered the castle of Janina for two thousand purses.

The signatures were legalized by the consul.

Albert staggered and fell crushed into an armchair.

There was no room for doubt this time, the family name was there in full.

Accordingly, after a moment of silent and painful stillness, his heart swelled, the veins of his neck dilated, a torrent of tears sprang from his eyes.

Beauchamp, who had looked with deep pity on this young man yielding to the paroxysm of grief, drew near him.

"Albert," said he to him, "you understand me now, do you not? I wished to see all, to judge all myself, hoping that the explanation would be favorable to your father, and that I might do him full justice. But on the contrary the information obtained establishes that this instructing officer, that this Fernand Mondego, raised by Ali-Pacha to the title of governing general, is none other than Count Fernand de Morcerf: then I returned, recalling the honor you had done me in admitting me to your friendship, and I hastened to you."

Albert, still stretched on his armchair, held both hands over his eyes, as if he would prevent the light from reaching him.

"I hastened to you," continued Beauchamp, "to tell you: Albert, the faults of our fathers, in these times of action and reaction, cannot reach the children. Albert, very few have crossed those revolutions amid which we were born, without some stain of mud or blood having soiled their soldier's uniform or their judge's robe. Albert, no one in the world, now that I have all the proofs, now that I am master of your secret, can force me to a combat that your conscience, I am certain, would reproach you with as a crime; but what you can no longer demand of me, I come to offer you. These proofs, these revelations, these certificates that I alone possess, do you wish them to disappear? this dreadful secret, do you wish it to remain between you and me? Confided to my word of honor, it shall never leave my mouth; say, do you wish it, Albert? say, do you wish it, my friend?"

Albert sprang to Beauchamp's neck.

"Ah! noble heart!" cried he.

"See," said Beauchamp, presenting the papers to Albert.

Albert seized them with a convulsive hand, clutched them, crumpled them, thought to tear them; but, trembling lest the least scrap carried off by the wind should one day return to strike him on the brow, he went to the candle always lit for the cigars and consumed them to the last fragment.

"Dear friend, excellent friend!" murmured Albert while burning the papers.

"May all this be forgotten like a bad dream," said Beauchamp, "effaced like those last sparks that run over the blackened paper, may all this vanish like that last smoke escaping from those silent ashes."

"Yes, yes," said Albert, "and may there remain only the eternal friendship I vow to my savior, friendship that my children shall transmit to yours, friendship that shall ever remind me that the blood of my veins, the life of my body, the honor of my name, I owe them to you; for if such a thing had been known, oh! Beauchamp, I declare to you, I should have blown out my brains, or no, poor mother! for I would not have wished to kill her with the same blow, or I should have exiled myself."

"Dear Albert!" said Beauchamp.

But the young man soon emerged from that unexpected and, so to speak, factitious joy, and fell back more deeply into his sadness.

"Well," asked Beauchamp, "come, what is there still? my friend."

"There is," said Albert, "that something is broken in my heart. Listen, Beauchamp, one does not thus in a second part with that respect, that confidence, and that pride which the unsullied name of a father inspires in a son. Oh! Beauchamp, Beauchamp! how now shall I approach mine? Shall I shrink back my brow which he shall approach with his lips, my hand which he shall approach with his hand?... See, Beauchamp, I am the most unhappy of men. Ah! my mother, my poor mother," said Albert, looking through his eyes drowned in tears at his mother's portrait, "if you have known this, how you must have suffered!"

"Come," said Beauchamp, taking both his hands, "courage, friend!"

"But whence came that first note inserted in your journal?" cried Albert; "behind all this there is an unknown hatred, an invisible enemy."

"Well," said Beauchamp, "all the more reason. Courage, Albert! no traces of emotion on your face; bear this grief within you as the cloud bears within itself ruin and death, a fatal secret that is understood only at the moment the storm breaks. Go, friend, reserve your strength for the moment when the disclosure would be made."

"Oh! but you believe then that we are not at the end?" said Albert, terrified.

"I believe nothing, my friend; but after all, everything is possible. By the way...."

"What?" asked Albert, seeing that Beauchamp hesitated.

"Are you still to marry Mlle Danglars?"

"Why do you ask me that at such a moment, Beauchamp?"

"Because, in my mind, the breaking off or the accomplishing of that marriage is connected with the matter that occupies us at this moment."

"How!" said Albert, whose brow flushed, "you believe that M. Danglars...."

"I merely ask you how your marriage stands. What the devil! see in my words nothing beyond what I mean to put there, and give them no more weight than they have!"

"No," said Albert, "the marriage is broken off."

"Good," said Beauchamp.

Then, seeing that the young man was about to fall back into his melancholy:

"See, Albert," said he to him, "if you will take my advice, we are going out; a turn in the Bois in a phaeton or on horseback will distract you; then, we will come back and breakfast somewhere, and you will go to your affairs and I to mine."

"Willingly," said Albert, "but let us go on foot, it seems to me that a little fatigue would do me good."

"So be it," said Beauchamp.

And the two friends, going out on foot, followed the boulevard. Arrived at the Madeleine:

"See," said Beauchamp, "since we are on the road, let us go and see M. de Monte-Cristo a little, he will distract you; he is an admirable man for restoring spirits, in that he never questions; now, in my opinion, those who do not question are the most skillful consolers."

"So be it," said Albert, "let us go to his house, I love him."

END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”