Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 1).djvu/322

302 though to add to the daily misery which this prosperous canal inflicted on the unfortunate aubergiste, whose utter ruin it was fast accomplishing, it was situated not a hundred steps from the forsaken inn, of which we have given so faithful a description.

The aubergiste himself was a man of from forty to fifty-five years of age, tall, strong, and bony, a perfect specimen of the natives of those southern latitudes. He had the dark, sparkling, and deep-set eye, curved nose, and teeth white as those of a carnivorous animal; his hair, which, spite of the light touch time had as yet left on it, seemed as though it refused to assume any other color than its own, was like his beard, which he wore under his chin, thick and curly, and but slightly mingled with a few silvery threads. His naturally dark complexion had assumed a still further shade of brown from the habit the unfortunate man had acquired of stationing himself from morn till eve at the threshold of his door, in eager hope that some traveler, either equestrian or pedestrian, might bless his eyes; but his expectations were useless. Yet there he stood, day after day, exposed to the rays of the sun, with no other protection for his head than a red handkerchief twisted around it, after the manner of the Spanish muleteers. This aubergiste was our old acquaintance Caderousse.

His wife, on the contrary, whose maiden name had been Madeleine Radelle, was pale, meagre, and sickly-looking. Born in the neighbor hood of Arles, she had shared in the beauty for which its females are proverbial; but that beauty had gradually withered beneath the influence of one of those slow fevers so prevalent in the vicinity of the waters of the Aiguemortes and the marshes of Cainargue. She remained nearly always sitting shivering in her chamber, situated on the first floor; either lolling in her chair, or extended on her bed, while her husband kept his daily watch at the door—a duty he performed with so much greater willingness, since his helpmate never saw him without breaking out into bitter invectives against her lot, to all of which her husband would calmly return an unvarying reply, couched in these philosophic words:

"Cease to grieve about it, La Carconte. It is God's pleasure."

The sobriquet of La Carconte had been bestowed on Madeleine Radelle from the circumstance of her having been born in a village so called, situated between Salon and Lanbèse; and as a custom existed among the inhabitants of that part, of calling every one by a nickname in place of a name, her husband had bestowed on her the name of La Carconte in place of Madeleine, too sweet and euphonious for him to pronounce.

Still, let it not be supposed that amid this affected resignation to the