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Chapter 3 The Catalans

Word Count: 3962    |    Released on: 18/11/2017

Long ago this mysterious colony quitted Spain, and settled on the tongue of land on which it is to this day. Whence it came no one knew, and it spoke an unknown tongue. One of it

anner, half Moorish, half Spanish, still remains, and is inhabited by descendants of the first comers, who speak the language of their fathers. For three or four centuries they have remained upon this small promontory, on whi

, rubbing in her slender delicately moulded fingers a bunch of heath blossoms, the flowers of which she was picking off and strewing on the floor; her arms, bare to the elbow, brown, and modelled after those of the Arlesian Venus, moved with a kind of restless impatience, and she tapped the earth with her arched and supple foot, so as to display the pure and full shape of her well-turned leg, in i

, "here is Easter come round again; tel

mes, Fernand, and really you must

had your mother's sanction. Make me understand once for all that you are trifling with my happiness, that my life or death are nothing to

reproach me with the slightest coquetry. I have always said to you, 'I love you as a brother; but do

"Yes, you have been cruelly frank with me; but do you forge

with nothing but a half-ruined hut and a few ragged nets, the miserable inheritance left by my father to my mother, and by my mother to me? She has been dead a year, and you know, Fernand, I have subsisted almost entirely on public charity. Sometimes you pretend I am useful to you, and that is an excuse to share with me the produce of your fish

of the first shipowner or the richest banker of Marseilles! What do such as we desire but

ill remain an honest woman, when she loves another man better than her husband? Rest content with my fr

ell, Mercédès, beloved by you, I would tempt fortune; you would bring me good luck, and I should become rich. I could

emain at the Catalans it is because there is no war; so remain a fish

our fathers, which you despise, I will wear a varnished hat, a striped shirt, and

, with an angry glance,--"what do

se you are expecting some one who is thus attired; but perhaps he w

a gesture of rage. "I understand you, Fernand; you would be revenged on him because I do not love you; you would cross your Catalan knife with his dirk. What end would that answer? To lose you my friendship if he were conquered, and see that friendship changed into hate if you were victor. Believe me, to seek a quarrel with a man is a bad method of pleasing the woman who loves that man. No,

uld have shed his heart's blood; but these tears flowed for another. He arose, paced a while up and down the hut, and then, suddenly stopping

girl calmly replied, "and none but

ill always

g as I

s like a groan, and then suddenly looking her full in the face, with

ead, I shal

s forgott

joyous voice from w

in excess of love, "you see he has not forgotten me, for here he is!" And

vered them with a flood of light. At first they saw nothing around them. Their intense happiness isolated them from all the rest of the world, and they only spoke in broken words, which are the tokens of a joy so extreme that they seem rather the expr

did not perceive that there were three of us." Then, tu

my cousin, my brother; it is Fernand--the man whom, after you,

air. But Fernand, instead of responding to this amiable gesture, remained mute and trembling. Edmond then cast his eyes scrutinizingly at

with such haste to you, that

house, do you say, Edmond! If I believed that, I would place my arm under yo

mness which proved to Fernand that the young girl had read the very innermost depths of his sinister thought, "if misf

e continued. "You have no enemy here--there is no one but Fern

ffered him his hand. His hatred, like a powerless though furious wave, was broken against the strong ascendancy which Mercédès exercised

earing his hair--"Oh, who will deliver me f

rnand! where are you runni

ound him, and perceived Caderousse sittin

re you really in such a hurry that you have no

fore them," added Danglars. Fernand looked at them

ousse with his knee. "Are we mistaken, and is Dan

's reply; and turning towards the young man, sai

ered the arbor, whose shade seemed to restore somewhat of calmness to his

you?" And he fell, rather than sat down, on

the sea," said Caderousse, laughing. "Why, when a man has friends, they are not only to offer him a

a sob, and dropped his head into his h

that brutality of the common people in which curiosity destroys all diplomacy,

ke was not born to be unhappy in love.

," said Caderousse, "hold up your head, and answer us. It's no

aid Fernand, clinching his ha

ave Catalan, one of the best fishermen in Marseilles, and he is in love with a very fine girl, named Mercédès; but it appears, un

understand," s

een dismissed," con

se like a man who looks for some one on whom to vent his anger; "Mercédès is not

were a Catalan, and they told me the Catalans were not men to allow themselves to be supplant

sly. "A lover is neve

Why, you see, he did not expect to see Dantès return so suddenly--he thought he was dead, perhaps

n whom the fumes of the wine began to take effect,--"under any circumstances Fernand

I should say that woul

ng his own for the eighth or ninth time, while Danglars had merely sipped his. "Never mind-

ng glance on the young man, on whose heart

he wedding to

yet fixed!" mur

se, "as surely as Dantès will be ca

ance he scrutinized, to try and detect whether the blow was premeditated; but he read

"let us drink to Captain Edmond Dantès

h unsteady hand, and swallowed the contents

our eyes are better than mine. I believe I see double. You know wine is a deceiver; but I should say it was two lovers walkin

lose one pang tha

them, Ferna

in a low voice. "It is

lo, Dantès! hello, lovely damsel! Come this way, and let us know when the

tenacity of drunkards, leaned out of the arbor. "Try to stand upright, and let the lovers make

elf to dash headlong upon his rival, when Mercédès, smiling and graceful, lifted up her lovely head, and looked at them with her clear and bright eyes. At this Fernand recollected her t

sees the woman he loves stolen from under his nose and takes on like a big baby. Yet this Catalan has eyes that glisten like those of the vengeful Spaniards, Sicilians, and Calabrians, and the other has fists big enough to crush an ox at one

his fist on the table, "hallo, Edmond! do you not see

am not proud, but I am happy, and happi

lanation!" said Caderousse. "

ry it bodes ill fortune, they say, to call a young girl by the name of her b

ghbor, Caderousse," said Dantè

ace immediately, M. Dantès," said Da

, and to-morrow, or next day at latest, the wedding festival here at La Rèserve. My friends

ousse with a chuckle; "Fe

ond; "and we, Mercédès and I, should be ver

y, but his voice died on his lip

orrow or next day the ceremony!

cédès said just now to Caderousse, 'Do not give me a title

med in a hurry, and we have lots of time; the Pharaon c

d a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune. But it

ill it be the first time you

es

business

lere; you know to what I allude, Danglars--it is sacred

grand marshal gave him. Ah, this letter gives me an idea--a capital idea! Ah; Dantès, my friend, you are not yet registered n

the two lovers continued on their way, as calm and

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Contents

Chapter 1 Marseilles--The Arrival Chapter 2 Father and Son Chapter 3 The Catalans Chapter 4 Conspiracy Chapter 5 The Marriage-Feast Chapter 6 The Deputy Procureur du Roi Chapter 7 The Examination Chapter 9 The Evening of the Betrothal Chapter 11 The Corsican Ogre Chapter 12 Father and Son Chapter 13 The Hundred Days
Chapter 14 The Two Prisoners
Chapter 15 Number 34 and Number 27
Chapter 16 A Learned Italian
Chapter 18 The Treasure
Chapter 19 The Third Attack
Chapter 21 The Island of Tiboulen
Chapter 22 The Smugglers
Chapter 23 The Island of Monte Cristo
Chapter 24 The Secret Cave
Chapter 25 The Unknown
Chapter 26 The Pont du Gard Inn
Chapter 27 The Story
Chapter 28 The Prison Register
Chapter 29 The House of Morrel & Son
Chapter 30 The Fifth of September
Chapter 31 Italy Sinbad the Sailor
Chapter 32 The Waking
Chapter 33 Roman Bandits
Chapter 34 The Colosseum
Chapter 35 La Mazzolata
Chapter 36 The Carnival at Rome
Chapter 37 The Catacombs of Saint Sebastian
Chapter 38 The Compact
Chapter 39 The Guests
Chapter 40 The Breakfast
Chapter 41 The Presentation
Chapter 42 Monsieur Bertuccio
Chapter 43 The House at Auteuil
Chapter 44 The Vendetta
Chapter 45 The Rain of Blood
Chapter 46 Unlimited Credit
Chapter 47 The Dappled Grays
Chapter 48 Ideology
Chapter 49 Haidée
Chapter 50 The Morrel Family
Chapter 51 Pyramus and Thisbe
Chapter 52 Toxicology
Chapter 53 Robert le Diable
Chapter 54 A Flurry in Stocks
Chapter 55 Major Cavalcanti
Chapter 56 Andrea Cavalcanti
Chapter 57 In the Lucerne Patch
Chapter 58 M. Noirtier de Villefort
Chapter 59 The Will
Chapter 60 The Telegraph
Chapter 61 How a Gardener may get rid of the Dormice that eat His Peaches
Chapter 62 Ghosts
Chapter 63 The Dinner
Chapter 64 The Beggar
Chapter 65 A Conjugal Scene
Chapter 66 Matrimonial Projects
Chapter 68 A Summer Ball
Chapter 69 The Inquiry
Chapter 70 The Ball
Chapter 71 Bread and Salt
Chapter 72 Madame de Saint-Méran
Chapter 73 The Promise
Chapter 74 The Villefort Family Vault
Chapter 75 A Signed Statement
Chapter 76 Progress of Cavalcanti the Younger
Chapter 77 Haidée
Chapter 78 We hear From Yanina
Chapter 79 The Lemonade
Chapter 80 The Accusation
Chapter 81 The Room of the Retired Baker
Chapter 82 The Burglary
Chapter 83 The Hand of God
Chapter 84 Beauchamp
Chapter 85 The Journey
Chapter 86 The Trial
Chapter 87 The Challenge
Chapter 88 The Insult
Chapter 89 A Nocturnal Interview
Chapter 90 The Meeting
Chapter 91 Mother and Son
Chapter 92 The Suicide
Chapter 93 Valentine
Chapter 95 Father and Daughter
Chapter 96 The Contract
Chapter 97 The Departure for Belgium
Chapter 98 The Bell and Bottle Tavern
Chapter 99 The Law
Chapter 100 The Apparition
Chapter 101 Locusta
Chapter 102 Valentine
Chapter 103 Maximilian
Chapter 104 Danglars Signature
Chapter 105 The Cemetery of Père-la-Chaise
Chapter 106 Dividing the Proceeds
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