About a hundred yards from where the two friends sat drinking wine, beyond a weathered stone wall, lay the Catalan quarter.
This mysterious community had fled Spain centuries ago and settled on this narrow strip of land jutting into the diterranean. Nobody knew exactly where they’d co from originally, and they still spoke their own dialect that outsiders couldn’t understand.
Long ago, one of their leaders who could speak so French had begged the city of Marseille for permission to settle on this barren piece of land where they’d beached their boats like ancient sailors. The city said yes, and within three months, a small village had sprung up around the dozen or so boats that had carried these sea nomads to their new ho.
The village looked like sothing out of a fairy tale, half North African, half Spanish architecture. The descendants of those original settlers still lived there, speaking their ancestors’ language and keeping their old customs alive.
For three or four centuries, they’d stayed on this little peninsula like a flock of seabirds, never really mixing with the French population of Marseille. They married among themselves and kept their traditional clothes and ways of life exactly as their forefathers had.
Let’s walk down the single street of this little village and step inside one of the houses. The walls were sun-bleached to that beautiful golden-brown color you see all over the diterranean, with the interior painted stark white like a Spanish inn.
A stunning young woman with jet-black hair and eyes like liquid velvet leaned against the wall, nervously shredding heath flowers in her delicate fingers and scattering the petals on the floor. Her bare arms, tanned and perfectly shaped, moved restlessly, and her arched foot tapped against the ground.
About ten feet away, a tall guy in his early twenties balanced his chair on two legs, elbow propped on a beat-up old table, staring at her with a mix of frustration and anxiety. His eyes questioned her, but her steady, determined gaze shut down whatever he was thinking.
"Look, rcédès," the young man said, "Easter’s here again. Isn’t this the perfect ti for a wedding?"
"I’ve told you a hundred tis, Fernand. Are you really that dense that you need to ask again?"
"Just... say it one more ti. Please. Let hear you refuse my love again, the love your mother approved of, by the way. Make understand once and for all that you’re just playing with my feelings, that whether I live or die ans nothing to you. Damn it, I’ve spent ten years dreaming of marrying you, rcédès, and now I’m losing the only hope that kept going!"
"At least I never gave you false hope, Fernand," rcédès replied. "You can’t accuse of leading you on. I’ve always been straight with you, ’I love you like a brother, but don’t ask for more than that. My heart belongs to soone else.’ Isn’t that true?"
"Yeah, that’s true," Fernand said bitterly. "You’ve been brutally honest. But don’t you rember? Among the Catalans, it’s sacred tradition to marry within the community."
"You’re wrong, Fernand. It’s not a law, just a custom. And please don’t try to use that tradition to guilt . Besides, you’re eligible for military service and could be called up any ti. Once you’re a soldier, what would you do with , a poor orphan with nothing but a half-ruined shack and so torn fishing nets that my father left my mother, and my mother left ?
She’s been dead a year, and you know I’ve been living basically on charity. Sotis you pretend I’m useful to you, and that’s your excuse for sharing your catch with . I accept it because you’re my cousin, because we grew up together, and because it would hurt you if I refused. But I know damn well that the fish I sell to buy flax for spinning, I know it’s charity."
"So what if it is, rcédès? Poor and alone as you are, you suit better than the daughter of the richest shipowner or banker in Marseille! What do guys like us want except a good wife who can manage a household? Where could I find that better than in you?"
rcédès shook her head. "I’m not that woman. And who knows if she’ll even stay faithful when she loves another man more than her husband? Be satisfied with my friendship, because that’s all I can promise, and I won’t promise more than I can give."
"I get it," Fernand said. "You can handle your own misery, but you’re afraid to share mine. Well, rcédès, if you loved , I’d take risks to get rich. You’d bring luck, and I could expand beyond fishing, maybe get a job as a warehouse clerk and eventually beco a rchant myself."
"You couldn’t do any of that, Fernand. You’re a soldier, and you only stay with the Catalans because there’s no war right now. Stay a fisherman and be content with my friendship, because I can’t give you more."
"Fine, I’ll do better than that. I’ll beco a sailor, trade in our traditional clothes that you obviously hate for a sailor’s outfit. A varnished hat, striped shirt, and blue jacket with anchor buttons. Would that make you happy?"
"What the hell do you an?" rcédès snapped, her eyes flashing with anger. "I don’t understand you."
"I an you’re being harsh and cruel because you’re waiting for soone dressed like that. But maybe the guy you’re waiting for isn’t as loyal as you think, or maybe the sea has claid him."
"Fernand!" rcédès cried. "I thought you were good-hearted, but I was wrong! You’re being evil, calling on jealousy and trying to curse him! Yes, I won’t deny it, I am waiting for soone, and I do love him. If he doesn’t return, instead of believing your insinuations about his unfaithfulness, I’ll know he died loving and only ."
The young woman’s gesture radiated fury. "I understand you, Fernand. You want revenge because I don’t love you. You’d cross your Catalan knife with his blade. But what would that accomplish? I’d lose your friendship if he won, and that friendship would turn to hate if you won. Believe , picking a fight with a man is a terrible way to impress the woman who loves that man.
No, Fernand, don’t give in to these evil thoughts. Since you can’t have as your wife, be content having as your friend and sister. Besides," she added, her eyes troubled and wet with tears, "wait, Fernand. You just said the sea is treacherous, and he’s been gone for four months. During those four months, there have been terrible storms."
Fernand said nothing and didn’t try to stop the tears running down rcédès’ cheeks, even though he would have bled his heart dry for each of those tears, but she was crying for another man. He got up, paced around the small room, then suddenly stopped in front of her with burning eyes and clenched fists.
"Tell , rcédès," he said, "once and for all, is this your final answer?"
"I love Edmond Dantès," the girl said calmly, "and only Edmond will ever be my husband."
"And you’ll always love him?"
"As long as I live."
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