第二十九章 The House of Morrel & Son
Chapter 29, “The House of Morrel & Son,” depicts the collapse of the once-thriving Marseilles shipping firm of Morrel & Son. The chapter opens with a contrast between the firm’s former bustle and its now-deserted corridors, then introduces Cocles, the devoted one-eyed cashier whose faith in the house remains unshaken. It details Morrel’s mounting financial distress—debts of nearly 287,500 francs to Thomson & French and 200,000 francs to M. de Boville—exhausted resources, and his last hope pinned on the return of the Pharaon. When a clerk from Thomson & French arrives to demand payment, Morrel confesses he can only pay if his ship comes in. The chapter climaxes with the arrival of Julie and Madame Morrel bearing the news that the Pharaon has gone down, though the crew was saved, and concludes with the old sailor Penelon beginning to recount the circumstances of the wreck to his employer and the assembled household.
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.
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