The Count of Monte Cristo

The Decline of Morrel’s Warehouse

A traveler returning to Marseilles after a few years away would find the warehouse of Morrel & Son transformed. The air of prosperity, the merry faces, the bustling clerks, and the lively courtyard full of bales and porters have all vanished, replaced by a pervading sadness. Of the numerous clerks who once filled the corridors and offices, only two remain: a young man of twenty-three or twenty-four who is in love with Mademoiselle Morrel and has stayed out of loyalty, and Cocles, the old one-eyed cashier.

Cocles the Loyal Cashier

Cocles, nicknamed “Cock-eye” by former colleagues, has both risen to the rank of cashier and sunk to that of a servant within the diminished firm, yet he remains the same good, patient, devoted man. He is inflexible only on the subject of arithmetic, grounded in a multiplication table he knows by heart, and no scheme or trap can catch him. While other clerks have fled the firm like rats deserting a doomed ship, Cocles has remained unmoved by a firm conviction: in twenty years he has never seen a payment missed, and it seems to him as impossible for the house to stop payment as for the miller’s river to cease flowing. When he detects an overbalance of fourteen sous at the end of the month, he brings them to M. Morrel, who calls him “the pearl of cashiers”—a compliment that flatters Cocles more than fifty crowns.

Morrel’s Financial Distress

Since the end of that month, Morrel has passed many anxious hours. To meet his immediate payments, he has exhausted every resource, even going secretly to the Beaucaire fair to sell his wife’s and daughter’s jewels and a portion of his plate. Credit is no longer available because of rumors about his distress, and he faces two payments of 100,000 francs each to M. de Boville, due on the 15th of the present month and the 15th of the next. His only real hope is the return of the Pharaon, whose departure he learned of from a vessel that sailed at the same time and has already arrived in harbor—yet that ship has been in for a fortnight, and no news has come of his own.

The Clerk from Thomson & French

On the day after Morrel’s interview with M. de Boville, the confidential clerk of the house of Thomson & French of Rome appears at the warehouse. Emmanuel, the young clerk in love with Julie, receives him with alarm, fearing every new face may be a creditor, but the stranger insists his business is with M. Morrel in person. Cocles escorts the Englishman upstairs, where they meet Julie, who looks anxiously at the visitor. The Englishman states that M. Morrel does not know his name and that Cocles need only announce the confidential clerk of Thomson & French. Cocles conducts the stranger to Morrel’s private office, where Morrel is found turning over the columns of his formidable ledger. Fourteen years have changed the once-firm merchant: now fifty, his hair is white, his brow furrowed, and his gaze irresolute and wandering.

Morrel’s Last Hope

The Englishman explains that Thomson & French had 300,000 to 400,000 francs to pay in France this month and, knowing Morrel’s strict punctuality, has collected all bills bearing his signature to present as they fall due. He lays out the debts: 200,000 francs assigned by M. de Boville (the inspector of prisons, to whom the money was placed at four and a half percent nearly five years ago, due in halves on the 15th of this month and the 15th of next), 32,500 francs in short-term bills, and nearly 55,000 francs in additional bills from the houses of Pascal and Wild & Turner—a total of 287,500 francs. When the Englishman bluntly states the rumor in Marseilles that Morrel cannot meet his liabilities, Morrel replies that in twenty-four years under his direction and his father’s thirty-five years before him, nothing bearing the signature of Morrel & Son has ever been dishonored. Pressed for a direct answer, Morrel admits he will pay only if the Pharaon arrives safely, and confesses his dread of any news of the vessel, since uncertainty is still hope. He notes the Pharaon left Calcutta on February 5th and should have arrived a month ago. Asked if he has friends who could help, Morrel sadly replies that in business one has correspondents, not friends.