‘I was terrified. Any further unfavourable report might have serious consequences: I had shortly to go away from Corsica on an important expedition. I thought carefully and, hoping to ward off disaster, I decided to take Benedetto with me. I hoped that the rough and active life of a smuggler, and the harsh discipline on board ship, would rescue a character on the point of being corrupted, provided it had not already gone too far. So I took Benedetto aside and suggested that he accompany me, dressing the proposal up with every sort of promise that might attract a twelve-year-old boy.
‘He let me continue right to the end and, when I had finished, burst out laughing. “Are you mad, uncle?” he said (that was his name for me when he was in a good mood). “Am I to exchange the life I lead for yours: my idleness for the awful toil that you have imposed on yourself! To be cold by night, hot by day and constantly in hiding – or, if you show yourself, to be shot at; and all to earn a little money! I have all the money that I want! Ma Assunta gives me some whenever I ask for it. So you can easily see that I’d be a fool to accept your proposal.”
‘I was dumbstruck at this shameless argument. Benedetto went back to play with his friends and I could see him, from a distance, pointing me out to them as an idiot.’
‘What a delightful child!’ Monte Cristo muttered.
‘Oh, if he had been mine,’ Bertuccio replied, ‘if he had been my own son, or at least my nephew, I should soon have brought him back to the straight and narrow, because a clean conscience gives a man strength. But the idea that I would beat a child whose father I had killed made it impossible for me to punish him. I gave good advice to my sister, who always took the miserable child’s side whenever we talked about him and, since she confessed to me that she had several times lost quite large sums of money, I showed her a place where she could hide our little fortune. For my part, I had made up my mind what to do. Benedetto knew very well how to read, write and do sums, because when he happened to want to work he could learn in one day what took another child a week. As I said, my mind was made up. I would sign him on as secretary on some ocean-going ship and, without giving him any advance warning, have him picked up one fine morning and carried on board. In this way, if I recommended him to the captain, he would be entirely responsible for his own future. Having taken this decision, I set off for France.
‘On this occasion all our business was to take place in the Gulf of Lyon. Smuggling was becoming more and more difficult, because it was now 1829, peace had been entirely restored and consequently the coastguard was operating more regularly and more efficiently than ever. Moreover its vigilance was temporarily intensified by the fair at Beaucaire, which had just opened.
‘The start of our expedition went off without a hitch. Our boat had a concealed hold to hide our contraband; we tied up alongside a large number of other boats lining both banks of the Rhône from Beaucaire to Arles. When we arrived there, we began to unload the forbidden goods at night and had them carried into town by associates of ours, or by the innkeepers whom we used to supply. It may be that success had made us careless, or else we had been betrayed, because one evening, around five o’clock, just as we were about to sit down to a light meal, our boy ran up in a state of great excitement to tell us that he had seen a squad of revenue men approaching. What worried us was not the patrol itself – because whole companies of Customs officials would scour the banks of the Rhône, and especially at that time – but the precautions that the boy told us they were taking not to be seen. We instantly leapt up, but it was already too late: our boat, which had clearly been the object of their investigation, was surrounded. Among the Customs men I noticed some gendarmes. Now the sight of these frightened me as much as that of any other militiamen would make me bold, so I went down into the hold and, slipping out through one of the hatches, I let myself slide into the river, then swam underwater, holding my breath for long periods, and escaped detection until I reached a small ditch that had just been dug, joining the Rhône to the canal that runs from Beaucaire to Aigues-Mortes. Once there, I was safe, because I could go down the ditch without being seen. In this way, I reached the canal without incident. I had chosen this route of escape deliberately: I think I told Your Excellency about an innkeeper in Nîmes who had set up a little hostelry on the Beaucaire to Bellgarde road.’
‘Yes, you did,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘I remember it perfectly. If I am not mistaken, this worthy man was your associate.’
‘Yes,’ Bertuccio replied, ‘but seven or eight years before, he had relinquished his business to a tailor from Marseille who had gone bankrupt in his own trade and wished to try his luck at another. It goes without saying that the little arrangement we had with the first owner was continued with the second, so this was the man from whom I intended to ask for shelter.’
‘What was his name?’ the count asked, apparently taking a renewed interest in Bertuccio’s tale.
‘He was called Gaspard Caderousse, and he was married to a woman from the village of Carconte whom we never knew except by the name of her village; she was a poor creature, stricken with malaria and languishing. As for the man, he was a sturdy fellow of forty or forty-five; more than once he had given us proof of his presence of mind and his courage in difficult circumstances.’
‘And you were saying that all this took place in the year…’
‘1829, Monsieur le Comte.’
‘What month?’
‘In June.’
‘At the beginning or the end of the month?’
‘On the evening of the third.’
‘Ah,’ Monte Cristo said. ‘June the third, 1829. Very well, go on.’
‘So I was hoping to ask for shelter from Caderousse. Usually, even in normal circumstances, we did not enter his house by the front door and I decided to follow our established procedure, so I climbed over the garden hedge, crawled past the stunted olive-trees and wild figs and, fearing that Caderousse had some traveller in his inn, I made my way to a kind of hutch in which I had more than once spent the night as comfortably as in the best bed. This hutch or cupboard was only separated from the main parlour on the ground floor of the inn by a wooden wall, in which holes had been drilled for us, so that we could wait there until the time was ripe for us to reveal our presence. If Caderousse was alone, I intended to announce my arrival to him, finish at this table the meal that had been interrupted by the arrival of the Customs men and take advantage of the coming storm to return to the banks of the Rhône and find out what had become of the ship and those on board. So I slipped into the hutch – and it was as well that I did so, because at that very moment Caderousse was returning home with a stranger.
‘I kept quiet and waited, not because I wanted to discover my host’s secrets, but because I had no alternative. In any case, the situation had already arisen a dozen times before.
‘The man with Caderousse was obviously not a native of the south of France: he was one of those fairground tradesmen who come to sell jewellery at the fair in Beaucaire and who, for the month that it lasts, attracting merchants and buyers from all over Europe, sometimes do a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand francs’ worth of business.
‘Caderousse hurried in, leading the way. Then, when he saw the downstairs room empty as usual and watched over only by his dog, he called his wife: “Hey, La Carconte!” he said. “The good priest didn’t deceive us. The diamond was real.”
‘There was a shout of joy and almost at once the staircase began to creak under footsteps made heavier by weakness and ill-health. “What did you say?” the woman asked, paler than death.
‘ “I said that the diamond was real and that this gentleman, one of the leading jewellers in Paris, is prepared to give us fifty thousand francs for it. However, to ensure that the diamond is truly ours, he wants you to tell him, as I did, the miraculous way in which the diamond came into our hands. Meanwhile, Monsieur, please be seated and, as the weather is close, I shall go and find you something to refresh yourself.”
‘The jewe
ller looked carefully round the interior of the inn, examining the obvious poverty of this couple who were about to sell him a diamond that might have belonged to a prince.
‘ “Tell me about it, Madame,” he said, no doubt wanting to take advantage of the husband’s absence to ensure that the two accounts coincided and avoid Caderousse prompting her in any way.
‘ “Well, you wouldn’t believe it,” the woman gushed. “It was a blessing from on high, when we least expected one. To start with, I must tell you, my dear sir, that in 1814 or 1815 my husband was friendly with a sailor called Edmond Dantès. This poor lad, whom Caderousse had entirely forgotten, did not forget him and on his deathbed left him the diamond that you have just seen.”
‘ “But how did he come into possession of the diamond?” the jeweller asked. “Did he have it before going to prison?”
‘ “No, Monsieur,” the woman replied. “But it appears that while in prison he became acquainted with a very rich Englishman; and when his cellmate fell ill, Dantès took the same care of him as if he had been his brother, so the Englishman, on his release, left this diamond to poor Dantès, who was less fortunate than he was and who died in prison, bequeathing it in turn to us as he died and entrusting it to the good priest who came to give it to us this morning.”
‘ “The accounts agree,” the jeweller muttered. “And, when all’s said and done, the story may be true, however implausible it may seem. Now all that remains is to agree about the price.”
‘ “What do you mean, agree?” said Caderousse. “I thought you had accepted the price I asked.”
‘ “You mean, I offered you forty thousand francs,” said the jeweller.
‘ “Forty thousand!” exclaimed La Carconte. “We certainly can’t let it go at that price. The abbé told us it was worth fifty thousand, even without the setting.”
‘ “What was this abbé’s name?” the tireless questioner asked.
‘ “Abbé Busoni,” she replied.
‘ “A foreigner then?”
‘ “An Italian from near Mantua, I think.”
‘ “Show me the diamond,” the jeweller said. “I’d like to examine it again. One often estimates a jewel wrongly at first sight.”
‘Caderousse got a little bag of black shagreen out of his pocket, opened it and passed it to the jeweller. At the sight of the diamond, which was as fat as a small walnut – I remember it as well as if I could still see it – La Carconte’s eyes shone with greed.’
‘And what did you think of all that, eavesdropper?’ Monte Cristo asked. ‘Did you believe the fine tale?’
‘Yes, Excellency. I did not consider Caderousse a wicked man. I felt he was incapable of committing a crime, or even pilfering.’
‘That does more honour to your heart than to your experience, Monsieur Bertuccio. Did you know the Edmond Dantès they mentioned?’
‘No, Excellency. I had never before heard his name and I have never heard it mentioned since, except once by Abbé Busoni himself when I saw him in prison in Nîmes.’
‘Very well. Continue.’
‘The jeweller took the ring from Caderousse and brought a little pair of steel pliers and a little copper balance out of his pocket. Then, removing the stone from the gold clamps that held it in the ring, he lifted the diamond from the bezel and weighed it with the utmost care in the scale.
‘ “I can go to forty-five thousand francs,” he said, “but not a sou more. In any case, since that was the value of the diamond, that is all the money I have brought with me.”
‘ “Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Caderousse. “I’ll come back to Beaucaire with you to fetch the other five thousand francs.”
‘ “No,” the jeweller said, returning the ring and the diamond to Caderousse. “No, it’s not worth more; and I’m sorry to have offered that much, since there is a defect in the stone which I did not notice at first. However, it’s too bad. I’ve given my word. I said forty-five thousand and I won’t unsay it.”
‘ “Well, do at least put the diamond back in the ring,” said La Carconte sourly.
‘ “That’s fair,” said the jeweller, replacing the stone in its setting.
‘ “Very well, very well,” Caderousse said, putting the bag back in his pocket. “We’ll sell it to someone else.”
‘ “Do,” the jeweller said, “though he may not be as easy as I am. Someone else might not be satisfied with the explanation you gave me. It is not normal for a man like you to have a diamond of fifty thousand francs. This other person will probably inform the magistrate, Abbé Busoni will have to be found – and it’s not easy to find an abbé who gives away diamonds worth two thousand louis! Then they would start by arresting him, they would send you to prison and, even if you were found innocent and released after three or four months inside, the ring would have been mislaid in the clerk of the court’s office, or else they would give you a piece of glass worth three francs instead of a diamond worth fifty thousand, or at best fifty-five – but which, as you must admit, my good fellow, represents a risk to the buyer.”
‘Caderousse and his wife exchanged looks. “No,” he said. “We are not rich enough to lose five thousand francs.”
‘ “As you wish, friend,” said the jeweller. “But, as you can see, I have brought the sum in cash.” And he took a handful of gold from one pocket and held it, shining, before the dazzled eyes of the innkeeper, and a bundle of banknotes from the other.
‘It was clear that there was a battle going on inside Caderousse: obviously the little shagreen bag which he was turning over and over in his hands did not appear to him to correspond in value to the huge sum of money which mesmerized him. He turned back to his wife.
‘ “What do you think?” he whispered.
‘ “Go on, give it to him,” she said. “If he returns to Beaucaire without the diamond, he will report us! And, as he says, no one knows whether we shall ever be able to put our hands on Abbé Busoni again.”
‘ “Very well, agreed,” said Caderousse. “Take the diamond for forty-five thousand. But my wife wants a gold chain and I a pair of silver buckles.”
‘ “The jeweller took a long flat box out of his pocket containing several examples of the required objects. “Go on,” he said. “I do business fairly. Choose what you want.”
‘The woman chose a gold chain that was possibly worth five louis and her husband a pair of buckles worth around five francs.
‘ “I hope you’re satisfied,” said the jeweller.
‘ “The abbé said it was worth fifty thousand,” Caderousse muttered.
‘ “Come, come, now. Give over! What a terrible creature!” the jeweller said, taking the diamond from his hands. “I am giving him forty-five thousand francs and two thousand five hundred in kind, all of which adds up to a fortune that I wouldn’t mind having myself, and he still isn’t satisfied.”
‘ “And what about the forty-five thousand francs?” Caderousse demanded hoarsely. “Where are they?”
‘ “Here,” said the jeweller, and he counted out fifteen thousand francs on the table in gold and thirty thousand in banknotes.
‘ “Just wait while I light the lamp,” said La Carconte. “It’s getting dark and we might make a mistake.”
‘Night had indeed fallen while they were discussing this and, with it, the storm that had been threatening for the past half-hour. In the distance you could hear the dull rolls of thunder, but neither the jeweller, nor Caderousse, nor La Carconte seemed to be bothered by it, all three being possessed by the demon of greed. Even I felt a strange fascination at the sight of all that gold and all those banknotes. It seemed to me that I was dreaming; and, as happens in dreams, I felt rooted to the spot.
‘Caderousse counted and re-counted the gold and the notes, then passed them to his wife, who counted and re-counted them in her turn.
‘Meanwhile the jeweller was turning the diamond in the rays of the lamp, and the diamond gleamed with flashes that outshone those, heralding the storm, that we
re starting to light up the window.
‘ “Is it all there?” the jeweller asked.
‘ “Yes,” said Caderousse. “Give me the portfolio and look for a bag, Carconte.”
‘La Carconte went to a wardrobe and came back carrying an old leather portfolio, out of which they took a few greasy letters which they replaced with the notes, and a bag in which there were two or three écus of six livres, which probably represented the unfortunate couple’s entire fortune.
‘ “There,” said Caderousse. “Even though you may have underpaid us by about ten thousand francs, would you like to take supper with us? You’re welcome.”
‘ “Thank you,” said the jeweller, “but it must be getting late and I have to return to Beaucaire. My wife will be worried.” He took out his watch. “Heavens above!” he exclaimed. “It’s nearly nine. I won’t be in Beaucaire before midnight. Goodbye, my children. If any more Abbé Busonis happen to drop by, think of me.”
‘ “In a week, you will no longer be in Beaucaire,” said Caderousse. “The fair ends next week.”
‘ “No, but that doesn’t matter. Write to me in Paris: Monsieur Joannès, at the Palais-Royal, number forty-five, Galerie de Pierre. I’ll come down here specially if it’s worth my while.”
‘A peal of thunder sounded, with a bolt of lightning so bright that it almost dimmed the light from the lamp.
‘ “Oh, ho,” said Caderousse. “Are you going out in this weather?”
‘ “I’m not afraid of thunder,” said the jeweller.
‘ “Or thieves?” asked La Carconte. “The road is never quite safe when the fair’s in town.”
‘ “Huh! As far as thieves are concerned, here’s my answer to them.” And he took a pair of little pistols, fully loaded, out of his pocket. “These are dogs that bark and bite at the same time, and I’m keeping them for the first two men who want to get their hands on your diamond, Caderousse.”
The Count of Monte Cristo Page 65