The Count of Monte Cristo

The Arbor: Caderousse and Danglars

Caderousse, sitting at a table with Danglars beneath an arbor, hails the distraught Fernand, who had been running furiously past. Caderousse and Danglars invite him to join them; Caderousse jokes that he feared Fernand would throw himself into the sea, and that friends must not only offer wine but also keep a man from swallowing unnecessary water. Fernand, pale and exhausted, stumbles into the arbor’s shade. Caderousse bluntly remarks that Fernand looks like a rejected lover, while Danglars affects sympathy, murmuring that Dantès’s sudden return must have struck Fernand hard. Fernand, clenching his hands, says his health is good enough. Caderousse, already growing drunk, makes plain the situation: Fernand, a fine Catalan fisherman, is in love with Mercédès, but Mercédès loves the mate of the Pharaon, who has just arrived. Danglars feigns not to understand until Caderousse spells it out that Fernand has been dismissed. Fernand, lifting his head like a man looking for someone on whom to vent his anger, insists that Mercédès is free to love whom she will, but Caderousse goads him by saying the Catalans are not men to be supplanted, and Fernand himself, he has heard, is terrible in his vengeance. Fernand replies only with a piteous smile that a lover is never terrible.

A Toast to Dantès

Danglars, pouring out a glass for Fernand, remarks that Dantès’s return will bring Fernand ill-luck, and Caderousse, heavy with wine, insists that in the meantime Dantès will marry the lovely Mercédès, and even become captain of the Pharaon. Danglars stiffens at the mention of the captaincy and scrutinizes Caderousse for any sign of design, but reads nothing in his drunken, envious face. He recovers, raises his glass, and proposes a toast to Captain Edmond Dantès and his bride, the beautiful Catalane. Caderousse drains his glass at a gulp; Fernand dashes his to the ground. Caderousse, squinting through the wine, thinks he sees two lovers walking hand in hand and embracing down by the wall in the direction of the Catalans, ignorant, he says, that they can be seen, and so the chapter closes on the image of Dantès and Mercédès in each other’s arms while the embittered Fernand and his two companions look on.