A bright morning shines over the wedding feast at La Réserve. Sailors and friends gather on the balcony in their best clothes to celebrate Edmond Dantès. M. Morrel, the ship owner, comes in person, and the crew takes that as a sign Edmond will soon be captain. The bridal party arrives: old Dantès dressed in fine silk, Mercédès glowing with happiness, and Fernand behind them with a stiff smile. Danglars sits at Edmond's left hand and shares a look with Fernand across the table.
At the feast Edmond says he feels almost afraid of his own joy. He tells the table that happiness can feel as heavy as sorrow. Mercédès seats Fernand beside her as a brother, and the gesture makes him go white with pain. Then Edmond announces that Mercédès will be his wife in an hour and a half, with the mayor already waiting at city hall. He adds that he will leave for Paris right after a quick civil marriage to finish Captain Leclère's commission. The room cheers. Fernand turns pale, grips his knife, and nearly falls from his chair. Caderousse, softened by wine and Edmond's kindness, quietly tells Danglars it would have been wrong to carry out the trick they planned the night before. Danglars answers that Fernand has mastered himself and calls the whole thing a joke.
When Mercédès says it is time to leave for the ceremony, boots sound on the stairs. A magistrate enters with soldiers and arrests Edmond in the name of the law. Edmond steps forward calmly and tells his friends it must be a mistake. From the carriage window he calls to Mercédès that they will meet again soon. M. Morrel hurries to the prosecutor and returns with bad news: Edmond is charged as a Bonapartist agent, linked to the letter from Elba. Mercédès sobs, and old Dantès collapses into a chair.
In the silent hall, Caderousse accuses Danglars of the plot from the night before. Danglars denies it, threatens Caderousse into silence, and warns that speaking up could make them look guilty too. Later, walking with Morrel, Danglars plays the loyal friend, says he never spread his suspicions, and accepts temporary command of the Pharaon. Alone, he smiles and thinks justice will keep Edmond, while he keeps the ship.
Coming Up in Chapter 6
Across Marseilles, at the same hour Edmond is driven away in a carriage, a second feast fills an aristocratic salon with magistrates, royalists, and a young prosecutor named Villefort who has publicly disowned his Bonapartist father to prove his loyalty to the king. A servant pulls him from the table with urgent news of an arrest, and he rises beaming.
