The Count of Monte Cristo

A condensed paraphrase of Alexandre Dumas's 1844 novel.

In 1815 the young sailor Edmond Dantès, on the eve of his promotion and his marriage, is denounced by jealous rivals and buried alive in the Château d'If. Fourteen years later he escapes — heir to the immense fortune of the Abbé Faria — and reappears in the world as the Count of Monte Cristo, fabulously rich, infinitely patient, and bent on rewarding the few who were faithful to him and destroying the four men who ruined his life. The novel follows his providential vengeance through Rome, Paris, and the South, and asks at the end whether any human hand can render perfect justice without becoming itself an instrument of suffering.

VOLUME ONE

Chapter 1 — Marseilles: The Arrival

On the 24th of February, 1815, the lookout at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master Pharaon, returning from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples. She approached the harbour so slowly that the spectators, with that instinct which is the forerunner of evil, asked one another what misfortune had befallen her. The vessel was handled with skill — but a young man directing her movements wore an air of melancholy.

So uneasy was M. Morrel, the shipowner, that he could not wait for her berthing, but was rowed out to meet her. The young sailor on deck was Edmond Dantès, a tall, slim fellow of nineteen, with black eyes and hair as dark as a raven's wing, and that calm of men accustomed from the cradle to danger. He bared his head to Morrel and explained the cause of his sadness: their good Captain Leclere had died of brain-fever off Civita Vecchia, and now lay sewn into his hammock with a thirty-six-pound shot at his head and his heels, off El Giglio. The cargo, however, was safe; and Dantès himself had assumed command upon the captain's death.

While Edmond directed the anchoring with the assurance of a man-of-war's officer, Morrel watched him with growing affection. Captain Leclere, before he died, had charged Dantès with a particular errand: to put in at the Island of Elba and deliver a packet to Marshal Bertrand. Dantès had done so, and had even been received by the Emperor himself, who had spoken with him about the ship and the firm. "The Morrels have been shipowners from father to son," Napoleon had said; "and there was a Morrel who served in my regiment at Valence." The good owner, delighted to hear his uncle Policar remembered, exclaimed aloud in his joy before catching himself; then he warned Dantès softly that such a meeting, if known, might bring him trouble.

Already, however, the trouble had begun. Beside them stood Danglars, the Pharaon's supercargo — a man of five-and-twenty, of unprepossessing countenance, obsequious to his superiors and insolent to his inferiors, and as much hated by the crew as Dantès was beloved. He insinuated to Morrel that Dantès had assumed command before the captain's body was cold, and had wasted a day and a half off Elba for his own pleasure. Morrel brushed the slanders aside, but Danglars darted at the young sailor a look gleaming with hate.

When the work was done, Morrel turned to Dantès. "The Pharaon cannot sail without her captain," he said, patting him on the back. "I have one vote of two in your favour; rely upon me for the other." Edmond's eyes filled with tears. He had only to ask leave to be married — first to see his old father, then to hasten to the Catalans, where his betrothed, the lovely Mercédès, had three times come to inquire if there were any news of the Pharaon. The young man sprang into the skiff and was gone.

On the deck, Danglars watched him disappear into the throng of La Canebière. The eyes that followed Edmond Dantès were not the same eyes.

Chapter 2 — Father and Son

Leaving Danglars to his demon, we follow Dantès. He climbed four flights of a dark staircase in the Allées de Meilhan and paused at a half-open door, his hand pressed against the beating of his heart. There, mounted on a chair and training nasturtiums upon a trellis, stood his old father, who had not yet heard of the Pharaon's return. Edmond seized him in his arms; the old man uttered a cry, then fell against him pale and trembling, declaring that joy itself would kill him.

The young sailor poured out his news — Captain Leclere dead, M. Morrel disposed to make him captain at twenty, with a hundred louis pay and a share of the profits — and promised his father a little house with clematis and honeysuckle. But as he spoke, his eye fell upon the empty cupboards. He had left two hundred francs three months ago; only sixty had gone to food. The rest, the old man confessed at last, had paid off a debt to their neighbour Caderousse, who had pressed for it. Dantès dropped on his knees. "You have wounded me to the heart." He emptied his pockets onto the table — gold and silver pieces — and made his father swear to take a servant.

The footstep on the stair was Caderousse himself, a tailor of five-and-twenty with ivory teeth and a Marseillais grin, who came to congratulate the dear boy on his fortune. He had heard the news from Danglars on the quay. His eyes glittered greedily at the coin on the table; his tongue was all warm welcome. He praised Edmond's prospects with M. Morrel, lamented that Edmond had refused the owner's invitation to dine — "to be captain one must do a little flattery to one's patrons" — and let drop, with the air of an old neighbour speaking for Edmond's good, that fine girls like Mercédès never lacked for followers, particularly when their lovers were at sea.

The young man's smile concealed a slight uneasiness, but he answered firmly that, captain or not, Mercédès would remain ever faithful to him. He embraced his father, nodded to the tailor, and was gone toward the Catalans.

Caderousse waited a moment, then descended to the corner of the Rue Senac, where Danglars stood waiting. The supercargo's first question was whether Dantès already spoke of the captaincy as decided. "Quite so," answered the tailor, "and is so puffed up he offered me his patronage and a loan, as if he were a banker." Danglars smiled coldly and remarked that, if they chose, Dantès would remain what he was — perhaps even less. He drew Caderousse out about the Catalane: had he seen anything? Yes — Mercédès was always accompanied into the city by a tall, fierce, black-eyed Catalan whom she called cousin, a strapping fellow of one-and-twenty with a fine wench of seventeen on his arm. "Let us go the same way," said Danglars. "We will stop at La Réserve and wait for news."

And so, while the birds sang one of the first days of spring in the budding planes, the two men sat down to a bottle of wine, and the demon of envy took its place at the table beside them.

Chapter 3 — The Catalans

A hundred paces from the arbour where Danglars and Caderousse drank lay the village of the Catalans, a small Moorish-Spanish settlement clinging to its bare promontory like a flight of seabirds, its inhabitants speaking still the tongue of their fathers and intermarrying among themselves. In one of its sun-baked, whitewashed houses a young and beautiful girl with hair as black as jet and eyes velvety as the gazelle's leant against the wainscot, restlessly stripping a bunch of heath blossoms. Three paces from her sat a tall Catalan of two-and-twenty, balancing his chair on its hind legs and watching her with vexation in his eyes.

"You see, Mercédès," said Fernand, "Easter is come again — is this not the moment for a wedding?" She had answered him a hundred times. She loved him as a brother, and only as a brother; her heart was another's. The Catalans had a custom of intermarrying, but custom was not law, and Fernand, included in the conscription, had no fortune to offer a poor orphan whose only inheritance was a half-ruined hut and a few ragged nets. Fernand pleaded that her love would bring him fortune; she shook her head. "A woman becomes a bad manager when she loves another man better than her husband." When he taunted her at last with the absent sailor — perhaps inconstant, perhaps drowned — she rose in anger. "If he does not return, I will tell you that he died loving me and me only. And if he is dead, I shall die too."

At that very moment a joyous voice called her name from outside, and Mercédès flew to the door. In the burning Marseilles sunlight that flooded the room, Edmond and Mercédès clasped each other. Then Dantès saw Fernand's pale and threatening face in the shadow, and his hand fell instinctively on the knife at his belt. Mercédès placed it in Fernand's. "He is my friend, my cousin, my brother." Fernand, conquered by her imperious gaze, took the offered hand — and the moment he had touched it rushed out of the house tearing his hair. "Wretched that I am! Who will deliver me from this man?"

He was hailed from the arbour by Caderousse and Danglars, who pulled him in and pressed wine upon him. The drunkard rallied him hoarsely about being a rejected lover; Danglars affected to pity him; together they spurred and stung the unhappy Catalan as the bandilleros prick the bull. "Let us drink," said Danglars, raising his glass, "to Captain Edmond Dantès, husband of the beautiful Catalane!" Fernand dashed his glass on the ground.

When the lovers themselves passed the arbour, Caderousse called them in. Mercédès, smiling and grave, refused to be styled Madame Dantès — "in my country it bodes ill fortune" — and Edmond announced the wedding feast for the next day or the day after at La Réserve, with Danglars and Caderousse and Fernand all invited. He had only one delay: he must leave at once for Paris, to deliver the last commission of poor Captain Leclere. "Ah, the letter the grand marshal gave him," murmured Danglars to himself. "This letter gives me an idea — a capital idea! Dantès, my friend, you are not yet registered number one on board the good Pharaon."

Danglars looked at the two men beside him: one brutalised by liquor, the other overwhelmed with love. "Unless I take a hand in the affair," he muttered, and a sinister smile passed over his lips. The lovers walked away as calm and joyous as if they were the elect of heaven.

Chapter 4 — Conspiracy

Danglars watched the lovers disappear behind the angles of Fort Saint Nicolas, then turned upon Fernand, who sat pale and shaking while Caderousse stammered out a drinking-song. "Well, my dear sir," said the supercargo, "here is a marriage which does not appear to make everybody happy."

"It drives me to despair," said Fernand. He adored Mercédès — had always adored her — but she had sworn to die if any harm came to Edmond, and he believed her. He would die himself before he would be the cause of her death.

Danglars shrugged. "Idiot. Whether she kill herself or not, what matters it, provided Dantès is not captain?" Caderousse, three parts drunk, was admitted to the conversation only as a fool to be steered. Danglars sketched his idea by halves: it was not necessary that Dantès should die. Absence severs as well as death; the walls of a prison would put as effective a tomb between the lovers as the grave itself. "But men come out of prison," objected Caderousse, who had drunk himself shrewd, "and Edmond Dantès would seek revenge." Danglars filled his glass again until the last glimmer of his reason vanished.

Then Danglars spoke plainly. Suppose someone denounced Dantès to the king's procureur as a Bonapartist agent — touching at Elba, carrying a letter from the usurper to the Bonapartist committee in Paris — what then? Fernand cried that he would denounce him on the spot. "Yes, but they will make you sign your declaration, and confront you with the man you have ruined. And then there is Mercédès, who will detest you the day she learns it."

Danglars called for pen, ink, and paper. He dipped the pen in the ink, took it in his left hand — the better to disguise his writing — and dashed off the denunciation, naming the ship, the touched ports, the Murat letter, the Bonapartist committee, and the proofs to be found on Dantès's person, at his father's, or in his cabin. He folded it, wrote the address — To the King's Attorney — and let Fernand read it.

Then, turning his eyes upon Caderousse with a smile, he crumpled the paper and tossed it into a corner of the arbour. "What I say and do is merely in jest. I should be the first to be sorry if anything happened to the worthy Dantès." Caderousse muttered his approval and called for more wine. Danglars hauled him off toward Marseilles by the Porte Saint-Victor.

Twenty yards along the road, Danglars looked back. Fernand was stooping in the arbour. He picked up the crumpled paper, thrust it into his pocket, and rushed out toward the city.

"Now," said Danglars to himself, "the thing is at work, and it will effect its purpose unassisted."

Chapter 5 — The Marriage Feast

The morning's sun touched the foamy waves into a network of ruby light. Above the arbour at La Réserve, in a long room over each of whose windows the name of a French city had been lettered in gold, the wedding feast was laid. An hour before noon the balcony was already thronged with the favoured part of the Pharaon's crew in their best costumes; the rumour that M. Morrel himself meant to attend turned out to be true, and the sailors broke into applause when their owner appeared, taking it as a sure sign that Dantès would soon command their ship.

The bridal party arrived, with old Dantès attired in glistening watered silk, embroidered stockings, and a three-cornered hat with white and blue ribbons, looking like one of the aged dandies of '96. Mercédès — eyes of jet, lips of coral, the free step of an Andalusian — looked frankly round the company with a smile that seemed to say, If you are my friends, rejoice with me, for I am very happy. Edmond, in the half-military, half-civil dress of the merchant service, was a perfect specimen of manly beauty. Behind them paced Fernand, pale and abstract, glancing again and again toward Marseilles like a man who foresees some great event.

They sat down to the dusky Arlesian sausages, lobsters in their red cuirasses, prawns and clovis — the fruits of the sea. The old father wondered at the silence of so happy a company; Edmond confessed he was too happy for noise. Then, drawing out his watch, he announced — to a general gasp — that thanks to M. Morrel's influence the usual delay had been waived, and that in an hour and thirty minutes Mercédès would be his wife. Fernand closed his eyes; a burning sensation passed across his brow, and he had to clutch the table to keep from falling. Tomorrow, Dantès added, he would set off for Paris on Captain Leclere's last commission; in nine days he would return, and on the second of March give the nuptial feast proper.

Two o'clock struck. Mercédès rose. As Dantès cried, "Let us go directly!" the company heard a sound on the stair: the measured tread of soldiers, the clank of swords. Three blows rang on the door. "I demand admittance, in the name of the law!" A magistrate entered with four soldiers and a corporal. "Who answers to the name of Edmond Dantès?" Edmond stepped forward with dignity. "I am he. What is your pleasure with me?" "I arrest you in the name of the law."

Old Dantès supplicated; the officer kindly spoke of a probably trivial irregularity. M. Morrel, knowing the magistrate, pressed him for the charge but received only a refusal. Edmond, having shaken hands with his sympathising friends, surrendered himself with a calm, "There is some little mistake to clear up, that's all." A carriage carried him away. From the balcony Mercédès cried, "Adieu, dearest Edmond!" and from the coach he answered, "Good-bye, Mercédès — we shall soon meet again."

Caderousse, the wine fumes lifting, looked round for Fernand and could not find him. The scene of the previous night came back to his memory with startling clearness. "This, I suppose, is part of the trick you were concerting yesterday." Danglars protested his innocence — I tore the paper to pieces; "No, you did not," answered the tailor, "I saw it lying in a corner." Danglars hissed him into silence with a hint that anyone who defended a Bonapartist agent would be reckoned an accomplice. Caderousse subsided. "Let us wait."

M. Morrel returned with a heavy face: the charge was being a Bonapartist agent. A despairing cry escaped Mercédès; the old man sank into a chair. The shipowner hastened off to plead with the king's attorney, M. de Villefort, but first arranged that Danglars should temporarily command the Pharaon. "Private misfortunes must never be allowed to interfere with business." Fernand, become once again the protector of Mercédès, led her home.

Danglars walked back toward the harbour smiling to himself. "So far all has gone as I would have it. Dantès is in the hands of Justice; and she will take her own."

Chapter 6 — The Deputy Procureur du Roi

In one of the aristocratic mansions built by Puget in the Rue du Grand Cours, opposite the Medusa fountain, a second marriage feast was being celebrated almost at the same hour as Dantès's. The company was the very flower of Marseilles royalist society — magistrates who had resigned under the usurper, officers who had deserted the imperial army for Condé, women whose husbands' fortunes hung upon the Bourbon throne. They drank to King Louis XVIII, strewed the table with their bouquets à l'Anglaise, and spoke of Napoleon — now penned in his petty Elba — as a ruined man.

At one end of the table sat the betrothed pair: Renée de Saint-Méran, with light brown hair and eyes that floated in liquid crystal, and her lover, the deputy procureur Gérard de Villefort. The Marquise de Saint-Méran, a stern-eyed woman of fifty in whom maternal love alone bloomed, drew Villefort into a discussion of Bonapartism. Villefort answered with the polished caution of a man who had inherited a problem: his own father, the Citizen Noirtier, had been a Girondin and was still a Bonapartist. Villefort had abjured both the man and the name. Let what may remain of revolutionary sap exhaust itself and die away with the old trunk, he said, and condescend only to regard the young shoot which has started up at a distance from the parent tree. The marquise extended her hand and promised that the past would be forever forgotten — provided Villefort proved inflexible in the future. They had pledged his fidelity to the king himself; he must be the more rigorous because he was known to belong to a suspected family.

The Comte de Salvieux mentioned that the Holy Alliance meant to remove Napoleon to Saint Helena — an island situated on the other side of the equator, at least two thousand leagues from here. The marquise approved. Villefort warned that, in the meantime, Marseilles was full of half-pay officers and half-secret Bonapartists, and the law could not strike until the evil had been done.

A young friend of Renée, the daughter of M. de Salvieux, begged him to get up some famous trial while they were in Marseilles — she had never seen a court. Villefort answered with the cool relish of a man who knew his own talents: in a court the prisoner was no actor, the executioner waited at the wings, and Villefort's pride was to see the accused pale and beaten by the fire of his eloquence. Renée shuddered at his vehemence and pleaded that he always show mercy to those for whom she pleaded. He promised, with one of his sweetest smiles, that they would always consult upon their verdicts.

A servant entered and whispered in his ear. Villefort excused himself; he soon returned with his face beaming. "You wished I were a doctor instead of a lawyer," he told Renée. "Well, like the disciples of Esculapius I am not master of a single day, not even my betrothal day." A serious matter had arisen, "which bids fair to make work for the executioner." A sort of Bonapartist conspiracy had been discovered.

He drew out the denunciation and read it aloud — the very letter Danglars had penned in the arbour. Edmond Dantès, mate of the ship Pharaon… the bearer of a letter from Murat to the usurper, and again of another from the usurper to the Bonapartist club in Paris. The accused, Villefort told them, was already in custody at his own house. Renée pleaded for mercy on the day of their betrothal; the marquise rebuked her sentimentality. Villefort kissed the marquise's bony hand, threw his betrothed an expressive look — for your dear sake my justice shall be tempered with mercy — and departed with paradise in his heart.

Chapter 7 — The Examination

As Villefort left the salon he assumed, like a finished actor before the glass, the air of a man who held the balance of life and death. Save for the embarrassing line of politics his Girondin father had taken, Gérard de Villefort had every reason to be happy: rich at twenty-seven, in a high official post, soon to marry a charming heiress with fifty thousand crowns in dowry and the prospect of half a million more.

At the door he was accosted by M. Morrel, who pleaded for Dantès as the most trustworthy creature in the world. Villefort answered coldly that a man might be the best seaman in the merchant service and yet, politically, a great criminal — a phrase aimed quite as much at the shipowner himself, whose Bonapartist sympathies were known. Morrel, embarrassed, pressed him to be merciful and give us the boy back. The plural sounded revolutionary in the deputy's ears.

The antechamber of his house was crowded with police agents and gendarmes, in the midst of whom the prisoner stood calm and smiling. Villefort took the packet of seized papers, glanced at Dantès — and registered, against his will, the high forehead, the dark eye, the frank lips — and ordered the man brought in. He warned himself against first impressions, for so often had he been told to mistrust them; but as the examination proceeded, every word the prisoner spoke convinced him further of the lad's innocence.

Dantès gave his name, his age — nineteen — and his trade. Asked what he had been doing at the moment of arrest, his voice trembled: "I was at the festival of my marriage." Villefort, on his own betrothal day, was struck. Dantès professed no political opinions whatever — I love my father, I respect M. Morrel, and I adore Mercédès. He told the whole truth: Captain Leclere, dying of brain-fever, had charged him to put in at Elba and deliver a packet to the grand-marshal, who in turn had given him a letter to carry to a person in Paris. He had landed, regulated his affairs, hastened to his bride, and was at his wedding feast when the gendarmes came.

Villefort showed him the denunciation. Dantès did not know the writing, but he saw at once that the writer was an enemy. "I have no enemies that I know," he said. "But you may have excited jealousy — you are about to become captain at nineteen, and to marry a pretty girl." The young man bowed his head: he preferred not to know who envied him, since then he should have to hate them. Villefort, watching, saw beneath the mildness how much energy lay hidden.

Then the deputy asked the address of the letter from Elba. "To Monsieur Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron, Paris."

Had a thunderbolt fallen Villefort could not have been more stupefied. Noirtier — his own father, the Bonapartist whose name he had cast off. He sank into his chair, drew the fatal letter from the packet, and read it three times with a face the colour of ash. If he knows what is in this letter, and that Noirtier is the father of Villefort, I am lost.

Mastering himself, the deputy assumed a softer tone. He was no longer able, he said, to set the prisoner immediately at liberty; the trial-justice must be consulted. But — to prove his goodwill — he stepped to the fire, cast the letter in, and waited until it was wholly consumed. "You see, I destroy it. You and I alone know of its existence. Should you be questioned, deny all knowledge of it; deny it boldly, and you are saved." Dantès, weeping with gratitude, swore that he would. Villefort rang for a police agent and whispered an order. "Follow him."

When the door closed behind Edmond, Villefort fell half-fainting into his chair. If the procureur himself had been here I should have been ruined. Oh my father, must your past career always interfere with my successes? Then a smile played round his set mouth. "This will do. From this letter, which might have ruined me, I will make my fortune." And he hastened off to the house of his betrothed.

Chapter 8 — The Château d'If

The commissary led Dantès through long gloomy corridors of the Palais de Justice into the prison adjoining. An iron mallet struck thrice upon the wicket; each blow seemed struck on the prisoner's heart. The door closed behind him with a heavy sound, and the air he breathed was no longer pure.

He was placed at four o'clock in a tolerably neat barred chamber, and there, in the dark, he waited for the deliverance Villefort had as good as promised. At ten the bolts creaked again — torchlight, four gendarmes, sabres glittering. They led him to a carriage, then to a boat at the Pilon. The chain that closed the harbour was lowered; they passed into the Frioul. He breathed the open air with a moment's joy, then heard from the open windows of La Réserve the laughter of a ball still going on. He folded his hands and prayed.

He saw, on the Point des Catalans, a single light in a single window — Mercédès was awake. A loud cry would have reached her; but pride restrained him, and the boat passed on. When he asked the gendarmes whither, they were forbidden to answer; only at last one of them grew weary of refusing and bade him look for himself. Within a hundred yards rose the black and frowning rock of the Château d'If, that gloomy fortress which has for three hundred years furnished food for so many wild legends, and which served only for political prisoners.

"The Château d'If? But I have committed no crime!" Dantès sprang to throw himself into the sea; four arms seized him before his feet quitted the bottom of the boat. A carbine was levelled at his temple. He yielded — the muzzle against his temple, his teeth gnashing, his hands wringing.

They dragged him up the steps and through the gate. He passed like a man in a dream, scarcely noting the soldiers, the courtyard, the muskets shining in the lamps. An under-jailer, ill-clad and sullen, conducted him into a bare reeking chamber under the ground. "Here is your chamber for tonight. There is bread, water, and fresh straw, and that is all a prisoner can wish for. Goodnight." The lamp went out, the door closed.

Dantès passed the night standing, his eyes swollen with weeping. With dawn the jailer returned. Have you slept? I do not know. Are you hungry? I do not know. What do you wish? I wish to see the governor. The jailer shrugged and went away. Dantès threw himself on the floor and wept; what crime had he committed that he was thus punished?

A day passed. He paced his cell like a wild beast in its cage. One thought tormented him above all: he might a dozen times have plunged into the sea on the journey here; he was famous for swimming, he spoke Italian like a Tuscan and Spanish like a Castilian, he could have reached Spain or Italy and brought Mercédès and his father to him; instead he had trusted Villefort's word, and so was buried here.

Next morning the same exchange. I wish to see the governor. It was against prison rules. He must wait — a month, six months, a year. Dantès threatened, then offered the jailer a hundred crowns to carry two lines to Mercédès at the Catalans. The man refused — his place was worth two thousand francs a year. Dantès snatched up the stool to dash out the man's brains. "All right, all right; I will send word to the governor."

The jailer returned with a corporal and four soldiers. "By the governor's orders, conduct the prisoner to the tier beneath. We must put the madman with the madmen." Dantès descended fifteen steps. The door of a dungeon opened; he was thrust in. He advanced with outstretched hands until he touched the wall, then sat down in the corner till his eyes grew used to the dark. The jailer had not been wrong: Dantès wanted but little of being utterly mad.

Chapter 9 — The Evening of the Betrothal

Villefort returned to the Place du Grand Cours, and announced to the marquis in the library that he must leave that very night for Paris. He demanded two things: a letter to the marquis's broker, ordering him to sell every franc out of the funds; and a letter from M. de Salvieux to procure him direct access to the king. He would not share his discovery with the keeper of the seals — the keeper would leave me in the background and take all the glory to himself. His fortune was made, he said, if only he reached the Tuileries first.

At his own door he found a figure waiting in the shadow. It was Mercédès, who had crept unseen into the city to hear what had become of her lover. He recognised her at once from Dantès's description; her beauty and high bearing made him feel for a moment as if she were the judge and he the accused. "The young man you speak of is a great criminal, and I can do nothing for him." She begged at least to know whether Edmond were alive or dead; he turned away and shut the door.

But remorse is not so easily shut out. Like Virgil's wounded hero, he carried the arrow in his wound. He sank into a chair in the salon, and for the first time the pangs of an unending torture seized his heart. He had often asked the death of guilty men without remorse; here was an innocent he had destroyed. In this case he was not the judge but the executioner. Had Renée's voice or Mercédès's pleaded at that moment for mercy, his cold and trembling hand would have signed the release. But no voice came: only the valet, with his cloak and the news that the carriage was ready. Villefort emptied the gold from his desk into his pocket and sprang into the carriage. The hapless Dantès was doomed.

He found Renée at her mother's, and started — he feared she would plead for the prisoner. But Renée's grief was wholly her own; she was thinking only that the man she loved was leaving her. She hated, without knowing his name, the criminal whose business now took her lover from her side.

Meanwhile, at the Catalans, Mercédès cast herself on her couch and lay there motionless through the night while Fernand knelt beside her covering her hand with kisses she did not feel. The lamp went out for want of oil. She did not know when the day came: grief had made her blind to all but Edmond. M. Morrel had spent the day pleading with every influential man he knew, and had returned home in despair: nothing more could be done. Caderousse drank himself between sobriety and sleep, conjuring up Hoffmannesque spectres in the smoking candlelight. Only Danglars was content. He was one of those men born with a pen behind the ear and an inkstand in place of a heart; he went to bed at his usual hour and slept in peace.

Villefort, his letter from Salvieux in his pocket, embraced Renée, kissed the marquise's hand, and started for Paris along the Aix road. Old Dantès was dying with anxiety to know what had become of Edmond. But we know very well what had become of Edmond.

Chapter 10 — The King's Closet at the Tuileries

We leave Villefort posting north, and pass into the king's little closet at the Tuileries — that arched-windowed room which was once Napoleon's, then Louis XVIII's, and afterwards Louis Philippe's. There the king, seated at a walnut table he had brought from Hartwell, was making marginal notes in a Gryphius edition of Horace while the Duc de Blacas paced anxiously before him.

"Sire," said the duke, "I have every reason to believe that a storm is brewing in the south." Louis XVIII liked a pleasant jest. "I think you are wrongly informed; the weather there is very fine." Blacas pressed for trusty men to be sent into Provence and Dauphiné. The king continued his Horace, sprinkling Latin tags between sentences. "Canimus surdis. Mala ducis avi domum."

The Baron Dandré, minister of police, was announced. He confirmed, with the gravest air, the latest report from Elba: Bonaparte was bored, watched his miners at Porto-Longone, was attacked by a prurigo, was likely shortly to go raving mad. He had even, at his last review, dismissed his veterans bidding them "serve the good king." The king laughed triumphantly. Blacas, however, knew through Villefort enough to be greatly uneasy. He persuaded the king to receive his messenger.

When Blacas at last named him — M. de Villefort — the king's mood changed. "And his father, pardieu, you know his father's name. Noirtier — Noirtier the Girondin, Noirtier the senator." Blacas cried out: "And your majesty has employed the son of such a man?" "Blacas, my friend, you have but limited comprehension. I told you Villefort was ambitious; to attain his ambition he would sacrifice everything, even his father." Bring him in at once.

Villefort, dusty from the road and not in courtly cut, was admitted over the master of ceremonies' protests. He bowed, and laid his report at the king's feet: not a commonplace plot, but a true conspiracy. The usurper was arming three ships, would soon have left Elba — for Naples, for Tuscany, perhaps for the very shores of France. He had drawn the news from his own examination of a sailor of Marseilles, whom he had arrested on the very day of his betrothal — sacrificing his bride and his friends to bring this warning to his sovereign. The king listened with growing emotion. He smiled at last and bid the young magistrate take courage: a conspiracy was easy to meditate but hard to conduct to its end; the Mediterranean shore had been watched these ten months. "Rely on our royal gratitude."

At that instant the door opened, and M. Dandré reappeared — pale, trembling, ready to faint.

Chapter 11 — The Corsican Ogre

Dandré, on the verge of throwing himself at the king's feet, stammered out his news. The usurper had left Elba on the 26th of February and landed on the 1st of March — in France, at a small port near Antibes in the Gulf of Juan, two hundred and fifty leagues from Paris. Louis XVIII rose pale with anger. "The usurper in France! Then they did not watch over this man — perhaps they were in league with him." He had been informed by the telegraph; only Villefort had foreseen the storm. Bonaparte was advancing by Gap and Sisteron — and the mountaineers of Dauphiné, Villefort confessed, were Bonapartists.

The king fell upon the trembling minister of police: a minister with offices, agents, spies, and fifteen hundred thousand francs of secret service money had learned less than a simple magistrate. The young deputy received the king's favour openly and modestly — but he saw at once that to crush Dandré would be to drive the minister of police to interrogate Dantès in revenge, and so lay bare the true motive of his own plot. So he intervened to save his enemy, and won the minister's silent gratitude.

Then the king turned to another matter — the death of General Quesnel, lately disappeared from a Bonapartist club in the Rue Saint-Jacques. The minister of police gave a description of the unknown man who had called on the general: dark complexion, fifty years of age, blue frock-coat buttoned to the chin, the rosette of the Legion of Honor, last seen at the corner of the Rue Coq-Héron. Villefort had to lean upon a chair: he knew the description.

The king dismissed his ministers, kept Blacas, and unfastened from his own breast the cross of the Legion of Honor. In the meanwhile, take this cross. Villefort kissed it through tears of joy. He was bidden to take what rest he needed and to remember that he might be of even greater service at Marseilles. As he left the Tuileries the minister of police, his career ended, murmured: "Sir, you have entered by luck's door — your fortune is made." Villefort threw himself into a hackney-coach, gave his hotel address, and gave loose to dreams of ambition.

Chapter 12 — Father and Son

Ten minutes later, at his hotel, the bell rang. The valet announced a stranger who would not give his name: a man of about fifty, of Villefort's height, very dark, with black hair and brows, dressed in a blue frock-coat buttoned close, and decorated with the Legion of Honor. Villefort turned pale. "It is he."

It was M. Noirtier — Citizen Noirtier the Girondin, Senator Noirtier the Bonapartist, vice-president of the club of the Rue Saint-Jacques. The father bolted both doors. "You seem as if you were not very glad to see me." But Villefort, mastering himself, claimed the visit for him: the journey would be his salvation.

He told what the king had told: that General Quesnel had been lured to the Rue Saint-Jacques and the next day fished out of the Seine; that an Elba letter addressed to one Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron had nearly fallen into hostile hands. He had burnt that letter himself.

Noirtier laughed. The general had not been murdered; he had merely lost his way after refusing the oath the conspirators required. As for the rest — politics had no men, only ideas; no feelings, only interests. The emperor was already on the road to Grenoble; Grenoble would open her gates and Lyons would hasten to welcome him; the soldiers sent against him would gather like atoms of snow about the rolling ball. Then he calmly informed his son that the description in the king's possession matched exactly the man before them — and proceeded to remove the disguise. He shaved off his black whiskers, retied his hair, took a brown coat of his son's, a narrow-brimmed hat, a bamboo switch, and emerged a different man.

Before going he gave his son a piece of advice. "Tell the king nothing more. Return to Marseilles by the back door, keep silent and inoffensive. This time, I swear to you, we shall act like powerful men who know their enemies." If the political balance turned again, his son might one day need him. Then he passed coolly into the street, walked unsuspected past two or three ill-looking men loitering at the corner, and disappeared toward the Rue Bussy.

Villefort, breathless at the window, watched him go. Then he turned to the abandoned coat, hat, and cane. He hid the cravat and frock-coat at the bottom of his portmanteau, threw the hat into a closet, broke the cane in pieces and burnt it, paid his bill, and sprang into his carriage. At Lyons he learned that Bonaparte had entered Grenoble, and in the tumult of the road he reached Marseilles at last, a prey to all the hopes and fears that enter the heart of man with ambition and its first successes.

Chapter 13 — The Hundred Days

Noirtier was a true prophet. Everyone knows the history of the famous return from Elba, that return without precedent in the past and without parallel in the future. Louis XVIII made but a faint attempt to parry it; the throne fell at a sign from the emperor. Villefort gained nothing by his Paris journey but the king's gratitude — which was now an embarrassment — and the cross of the Legion of Honor, which he had the prudence not to wear. Napoleon would have stripped him of his office, had not Noirtier — all powerful at court — protected the son who had just protected the father. The king's procureur alone was deprived of his place, suspected of royalism. Villefort retained his, and his marriage was put off until a more favourable wind.

In Marseilles, where civil war always smouldered, the populace took to the streets. M. Morrel, the worthy shipowner, was now sufficiently in favour to make a demand for Dantès, and one morning he was announced at the deputy's door. Villefort, knowing that to receive him at once would be a sign of weakness, made him wait a quarter of an hour, then admitted him with a glacial politeness.

Morrel reminded him: a few weeks ago he had come to plead clemency for a young man accused of correspondence with Elba. What was then a crime is today a title to favour. You then served Louis XVIII; today you serve Napoleon. Villefort, by a strong effort, asked the name. "Edmond Dantès." He would rather have stood opposite a pistol at five-and-twenty paces. He turned over a register with the most natural air. Yes, he recollected — a sailor about to marry a Catalan girl; it had been a serious charge; he had reported to Paris, and the man had been carried off — to Fenestrelles, perhaps, or to Pignerol, or to the Sainte-Marguerite islands. The new authorities had not yet sent the order for his release.

Morrel offered a petition; Villefort dictated it himself, and so artfully exaggerated Dantès's services to Bonaparte that any minister reading it would set the man free at once. Then Villefort signed at the bottom: I certify the truth of these contents. Morrel, in raptures of gratitude, hurried off to tell old Dantès that his son would soon be free.

But Villefort, instead of forwarding the petition, locked it in his desk against a not-improbable second restoration. Twice during the Hundred Days Morrel renewed his demand, and twice Villefort soothed him with promises. Then came Waterloo. Morrel came no more — any further attempt would only compromise himself.

Louis XVIII remounted the throne. Villefort, to whom Marseilles had become a city of remorseful memories, sought and obtained the post of king's procureur at Toulouse, and a fortnight later married Mademoiselle de Saint-Méran, whose father now stood higher at court than ever. And Dantès, after the Hundred Days and after Waterloo, remained in his dungeon, forgotten of earth and heaven.

Danglars, when Napoleon returned, lived in constant fear of Dantès's reappearance on a mission of vengeance. He left the Pharaon, took service with a Spanish merchant in Madrid, and was no more heard of. Fernand, knowing only that his rival was absent, was conscripted in the empire's last levy and went off to the wars; before he marched Mercédès placed his knapsack on his shoulders and called him brother — for if you are killed, I shall be alone in the world. Those words carried a ray of hope into Fernand's heart: should Dantès not return, Mercédès might one day be his.

Mercédès, left alone, wandered the Catalan village in tears, sometimes standing motionless as a statue, sometimes weighing the ocean's abyss as a remedy. Religion saved her from it. Caderousse, married and older, was sent only to the frontier. And old Dantès, sustained only by hope and losing it at Napoleon's downfall, breathed his last in Mercédès's arms five months after his son's arrest. M. Morrel paid the expenses of his funeral, and the small debts he had contracted — an act of more than benevolence, for the south was aflame, and to assist the father of so dangerous a Bonapartist as Dantès was stigmatised as a crime.

Chapter 14 — The Two Prisoners

A year after the Restoration the inspector-general of prisons made a visit to the Château d'If. Dantès in his dungeon heard the noise of preparation — sounds inaudible to all but a prisoner accustomed to count the splash of every hour's drop from his roof. The inspector toured the upper cells, where the prisoners begged for liberty and the inspector smiled at the monotony of their complaint. "When you see one prisoner, you see all — always the same thing, ill fed and innocent." The governor proposed showing him the dungeons reserved for the dangerous and the mad, and they descended a stair so foul, so humid, and so dark that it was loathsome to all the senses.

The first dungeon held a most dangerous conspirator, who had once attempted to kill his turnkey and was now half-mad. The inspector ordered the door opened. Dantès, crouched in his corner beneath a narrow grating, sprang forward with clasped hands. Bayonets met him; he saw himself counted dangerous, and put all the humility he could into voice and eyes. He asked only one thing: a trial. Let me know my crime. Let me be shot if I am guilty, and set free if I am innocent. Uncertainty is worse than all.

The inspector was touched. He asked when Dantès had been arrested. The 28th of February, 1815, at half-past two in the afternoon. Today was the 30th of July, 1816 — only seventeen months. "Only seventeen months — seventeen ages, monsieur, to a man at the summit of his ambition, on the point of marrying a woman he adored." The inspector promised to examine his case. Who had arrested him? "M. Villefort. See him, and hear what he says." But M. de Villefort was now at Toulouse. "Then I am no longer surprised at my detention," Dantès murmured, "since my only protector is removed." The door closed behind the inspector, and for the first time Dantès had a new companion in his cell — Hope.

Twenty paces farther, in another dungeon, sat the Abbé Faria, the mad abbé, who within a circle traced in plaster on the floor was drawing geometrical lines and pursuing a calculation that would, if it succeeded, change Newton's system. He told the inspector that he was the Abbé Faria, born at Rome, twenty years secretary to Cardinal Spada, arrested at Piombino in 1807. He had a secret of the greatest importance to communicate: a treasure of five millions, then six, which he would buy his liberty with. The inspector smiled at the offer; the governor had heard the same story dinned in his ears for five years. I am not mad, said the abbé, sharp-eared. The treasure exists. But the abbé's very madness was the proof against him: it has always been against the policy of despotic governments to allow the victims of their persecutions to reappear, and madness — like the bodies of the Inquisition's tortured — is concealed in its cell.

The inspector kept his word, and on his return examined the register. Beside Dantès's name had been added, in a different hand, a note: Violent Bonapartist; took an active part in the return from Elba. The greatest watchfulness and care to be exercised. The inspector could not contend against this. He wrote, Nothing to be done.

The visit had infused new vigour into Dantès. He scratched the date — 30th July, 1816 — on his wall with a fragment of plaster, and made a mark every day to keep his reckoning. He expected liberty in a fortnight, then in three months, then in six. Ten months and a half passed without a favourable change, and the visit began to seem like a dream. At the end of a year the governor was transferred to Ham and took several of his turnkeys with him. A new governor arrived who could not be troubled with the prisoners' names and learned their numbers instead. The unhappy young man was no longer Edmond Dantès. He was now Number 34.

Chapter 15 — Number 34 and Number 27

Dantès passed through all the stages of torture natural to prisoners in suspense. He was sustained at first by the pride of conscious innocence, then by despair, then by religion. He learnt anew the prayers his mother had taught him, and discovered new meanings in every word — for in prosperity prayers seem a mere medley of words until misfortune comes. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. And yet he remained a prisoner.

Then rage supplanted prayer. He uttered blasphemies that made his jailer recoil; he beat himself against his walls; the denunciation Villefort had shown him in the Palais de Justice gleamed forth on the wall in fiery letters like the mene, mene, tekel upharsin of Belshazzar. He resigned his unknown persecutors to every torture his mind could invent and found them all insufficient, because death came at the end. He began to brood on suicide.

He chose his manner of death — starvation, since hanging was the death of pirates and he abhorred it — and swore an oath. Each morning and evening he cast his food through the loophole, gaily at first, then with deliberation, then with regret, while hunger made the bad meat and mouldy bread acceptable. Twice his hand raised the food to his lips, and twice he remembered his oath. On the fourth day his strength failed him; his eyes saw, his ears heard, the will-o'-the-wisps that play about the marshes — the twilight of that mysterious country called Death.

It was about nine o'clock in the evening that he heard a hollow scratching in the wall. The young man's brain instantly responded to the idea that haunts every prisoner — liberty. Three hours of scratching, then silence. Some hours later it began again. Dantès, fearing the noise might be only workmen ordered by the governor, summoned the strength to test the question. He drank his soup; the bread he replaced on the table — he had heard that shipwrecked men died of devouring too much. With his thoughts collected he detached a stone from the corner and struck three blows on the wall. At the first blow the sound ceased as if by magic, and was not heard again that day or the next.

It is a prisoner, said Edmond joyfully. He set himself to assist his fellow-labourer. Three days passed. Then, with his ear to the wall, he heard movement again — a chisel had been replaced by a lever. He had nothing to dig with; his bed-clamps were screwed in, his pail had no handle. He broke his jug, hid the sharpest fragments under his straw, and worked the loose plaster from a dressed cornerstone — he reproached himself with all the years he had wasted in prayer and despondency.

But the cement gave only plaster, not the stone itself. To prise the dressed stone from its socket he needed iron. The jailer always brought their soup in an iron saucepan. Dantès placed his plate on the floor by the door so that the man stepped on it as he came in; the plate broke; the jailer, having only one vessel between him, was obliged to leave the saucepan with the prisoner. The handle of that saucepan was iron. Dantès would have given ten years of his life for it.

That night, with the iron handle as a lever, he extricated the dressed stone from the wall, leaving a cavity a foot and a half across. He worked till dawn, then concealed plaster and stone, and replaced his bed against the wall. The jailer next morning grumbled at the broken plate but left him the saucepan for the future.

After three days of silence Dantès toiled on alone, until his iron met a smooth surface — a beam ran across his hole, blocking it. Oh my God, my God, after having deprived me of my liberty, after having deprived me of death, do not let me die in despair!

"Who talks of God and despair at the same time?" said a voice that seemed to come from beneath the earth. Edmond's hair stood on end. He had not heard a human voice except the jailer's for years. The other prisoner asked his country, his name, his crime. An unhappy prisoner. Edmond Dantès, a Frenchman, a sailor, since the 28th of February, 1815, accused of having conspired to aid the emperor's return. "What — the emperor's return? Then he is no longer on the throne?" The other had been imprisoned since 1811.

The neighbour, in despair, learnt that he had taken the wrong angle in his calculations and dug not toward the outer wall and the sea, as he had hoped, but into Dantès's cell, which gave only on a corridor and a court. He bade the young man stop up his excavation and wait. Dantès swore by Christ he would betray nothing, and threatened, if abandoned, to dash his brains out against the wall. "How old are you?" asked the voice. Not yet twenty-six — at that age he cannot be a traitor. "I will not forget you. Wait."

Dantès threw himself into a happiness almost intolerable: he would have a companion, and captivity that is shared is but half captivity. The next morning three knocks. Is your jailer gone? In an instant a mass of stones and earth gave way under his hands, and from the depths of the passage rose first the head, then the shoulders, then the body of a man, who sprang lightly into his cell.

Chapter 16 — A Learned Italian

Dantès almost carried the stranger to the window for a better view. He was a small man, his hair more blanched by sorrow than by age, his eye deep and penetrating beneath thick gray brows, his beard long and still black. He might have been sixty or sixty-five, but a brisk vigour in his movements suggested that captivity, more than time, had aged him. His ragged garments hung in unguessable patterns. He greeted his young companion with grateful warmth.

His first care was to refit the dislodged stone. Dantès marvelled at his ease. "I made myself tools," said the abbé. From his garments he produced a sharp blade with a beechwood handle — a chisel forged from one of his bedstead clamps; he had also pincers and a lever. With this single chisel he had mined fifty feet of corridor, only to find at the end of his calculations that he had taken the wrong angle and emerged into Dantès's dungeon instead of into the open sea.

He climbed the table and, agile as a cat, mounted to Dantès's outstretched hands and from there to his shoulders, slipped his head between the upper bars of the loophole, and as quickly drew back. I thought so — that side opened upon a gallery walked night and day by sentries. Then? — Then the will of God be done. The young man gazed in astonishment at the man who could thus philosophically resign hopes so long nourished.

"Tell me at least who you are." "I am the Abbé Faria, born at Rome, twenty years secretary to Cardinal Spada, imprisoned at Fenestrelle in 1808 and at the Château d'If since 1811." He had been arrested for trying to do precisely what Napoleon had attempted in 1811 — to make Italy one large compact and powerful empire — and had taken for his Caesar Borgia a crowned simpleton who had betrayed him. He spoke with the kindling gaze of a prophet, forgot his own misfortunes in tracing the destinies of others, and predicted to Dantès the future of France: as in England after Charles I came Cromwell, so in France would come another revolution and at length a constitution and liberty.

Then, simply, he confirmed the rumour by which the prison knew him. Yes, I am the poor mad prisoner of the Château d'If, for many years permitted to amuse the visitors with what is said to be my insanity. He had renounced the attempt at escape; he considered it impious to attempt what the Almighty did not approve. Four years he had spent making his tools, two years scraping; the well of the staircase was choked with the rubbish of his tunnel; his strength had been husbanded just to the end of it, and the end had failed. He would attempt no more.

Dantès held down his head, that the abbé might not see how joy at having a companion outweighed his sympathy for the abbé's failure. Escape had never even occurred to Dantès — to undermine fifty feet of rock, to plunge from a precipice into the sea, to swim three miles to the islands — he had resigned himself to death. But the sight of an old man clinging to life with such desperate courage gave a fresh turn to his ideas. Faria had dug fifty feet, Dantès would dig a hundred; Faria at fifty had given three years to the work, he at twenty-five would give six; Faria, a priest, had not feared the swim, and should a sailor accustomed to dive for coral hesitate?

Suddenly Dantès cried, I have found what you were seeking! The corridor of Faria's tunnel ran parallel to the gallery overhead, only fifteen feet away. They had only to bore a side opening — the top of a cross — emerge into the gallery, kill the sentinel, and gain the open. Kill the sentinel? The abbé shook his head. He had thought it no sin to bore through stone, but he could not persuade himself to pierce a heart. Why, he asked, had Dantès himself never thought of knocking down his jailer with a piece of bedstead and dressing in the man's clothes? The idea never occurred to me. "Because the natural repugnance to such a crime kept you from it. The tiger needs but the smell of blood; man, on the contrary, loathes it." Successful escapes had been few — Beaufort from Vincennes, Latude from the Bastille — and the best chances came from accident. They must wait patiently and seize opportunity.

How had Faria endured so long? I wrote and studied. He had made paper from his shirts (a chemical preparation of his own), pens from the cartilages of the great whitings served on maigre days, ink from the soot of his old fireplace dissolved in his Sunday wine, and for important notes he used the blood of his own pricked finger. He was at work on A Treatise on the Possibility of a General Monarchy in Italy, and could recite from memory whole works of Thucydides, Plutarch, Tacitus, Dante, Shakespeare, Spinoza, and Machiavelli, having winnowed five thousand books down to one hundred and fifty essential ones during the years before his imprisonment. He spoke five modern tongues and was working at a sixth out of a vocabulary of a thousand words — all that is absolutely necessary. Dantès, his wonder mounting toward awe, asked when he might see all this. Follow me, said the abbé, and re-entered the subterranean passage.

Chapter 17 — The Abbé's Chamber

The two friends crept through the narrow passage to the abbé's cell. Dantès cast his glance round, expecting marvels, and saw only common things. It is a quarter past twelve, said Faria. He had no clock; but a ray of sunlight fell upon a wall ruled with lines, and by these — accurate to the double motion of the earth — he ascertained the hour with greater precision than any watch. The double motion of the earth was as remote from Dantès as the gold mines of Golconda.

Faria raised the disused hearthstone with his chisel and showed his secrets. First, the Treatise on the Possibility of a General Monarchy in Italy — sixty-eight slips of linen, four inches by eighteen, written close in legible Italian, the produce of two of his shirts and several handkerchiefs. Then the pen — a stick of wood with a fish-cartilage tied to its tip and split at the nib like a quill. Then the penknife and a longer knife, both made out of an old iron candlestick, the small one keen as a razor, the larger fit to cut and thrust. The ink was soot from the long-disused fireplace dissolved in his Sunday wine. He had a lamp made of fat melted from his meat ration, lit with two flints and a piece of burnt linen, and matches procured by feigning a skin disorder and asking for a little sulphur. Behind the head of his bed, in another concealment, lay a ladder of cords twenty-five or thirty feet long, woven from threads of his shirts and the seams of his sheets, hemmed back with a needle made from a fish-bone. Dantès stood with his head drooping on his breast, overwhelmed.

"What would you not have accomplished if you had been free?" he asked. The abbé smiled. "Possibly nothing. Misfortune is needed to bring out the treasures of the human intellect. Compression is needed to explode gunpowder."

Then he turned to Dantès's own story. Dantès recited it from his last cruise to the moment of his arrest, leaving everything afterward a blank. Faria meditated for some time, and then laid out the principle: when seeking the author of any bad action, find first the person to whom it could be in any way advantageous. To whom had Dantès's disappearance been useful? "To no one. I was insignificant." "Everything is relative. To whom would you not have made captain of the Pharaon?" Dantès thought. He had quarrelled with Danglars; had he been captain he would have dismissed him for inaccuracies in his accounts. And had Danglars been able to overhear the captain's last orders? Yes — the cabin door was open, and Danglars passed by just as Captain Leclere gave me the packet. And had Danglars seen the letter Dantès brought back from the grand-marshal? Yes — I carried it in my hand to the ship.

"And the words of the denunciation?" Dantès recited them. Backhanded writing. The abbé took his linen and his pen, dipped, wrote with his left hand, and produced — to Dantès's terror — the very script of the accusation. The writing of different men varies when done with the right hand; with the left, it is invariably uniform.

Was there any man who profited by hindering his marriage? Yes — a Catalan named Fernand, who loved Mercédès. But Fernand would have used a knife, not a pen, and knew nothing of the Elba letter. Then it was Danglars. Did Danglars know Fernand? Dantès thought — and remembered, as if a sluice had opened, the two of them sitting under the arbour at Père Pamphile's the evening before the wedding, in earnest conversation, with a third man — the drunken tailor Caderousse. And on the table were pen, ink, and paper.

That accounted for the denunciation. But who had condemned him without trial, who had shut him in this dungeon? "Who examined you?" The deputy procureur, six or seven and twenty years old. Old enough to be ambitious, but too young to be corrupt. He had treated Dantès kindly; he had even — yes, he had burned the only piece of evidence against me, the letter from Elba. The abbé started. To whom was it addressed? To M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron. And the deputy's name? De Villefort. The abbé burst into a fit of laughter. Poor short-sighted simpleton — Noirtier was his father.

Had a thunderbolt fallen at the prisoner's feet he could not have been more transfixed. He clasped his head as though to keep his very brain from bursting. His father! His father! In an instant a bright light shot through his mind and cleared all that had been dark before — Villefort's pallor, the burning of the letter, the exacted oath. He staggered back to his own cell. There the turnkey found him at evening, dumb and motionless as a statue. During those few seeming minutes he had taken a fearful resolution and bound himself to it by a solemn oath.

When at length the abbé came to invite him to share the white bread and Sunday wine that his reputation for harmless madness had earned him, Faria looked at him and said, "I regret now having helped you in your inquiries — for it has instilled a new passion in your heart, that of vengeance." Dantès only smiled. Let us talk of something else.

He begged his old friend to teach him. Faria's knowledge could be communicated in two years — mathematics, physics, history, the modern languages he knew. To learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other. That very evening they sketched a plan of education. Dantès had a prodigious memory, an exact mathematical mind, and a poetic feeling that gave colour to dry computation; he already knew Italian and a little Romaic, and at the end of six months he was speaking Spanish, English, and German.

In strict accord with his promise he spoke no more of escape, until one day Faria, growing daily sadder and pacing his cell with folded arms, exclaimed, "Ah, if there were no sentinel!" Dantès, who had read his thought through a brain enclosed for him in transparent crystal, answered: "There shall not be one a minute longer than you please." The abbé refused; murder was hateful to him; but he had thought of it incessantly. He had a plan: from the existing passage they would drive a level, mine to a spot directly beneath the gallery, undermine one of the flagstones, and at the appointed moment let the sentry fall through. They had only to bind and gag him and let themselves down by the rope ladder.

For a year, with chisel, knife, and wooden lever, they laboured. The fresh earth was crumbled small and cast on the night wind from their cell windows. As they worked, Faria continued to teach Dantès — sometimes in one language, sometimes in another — and to give him an outward polish and an air of melancholy dignity Dantès had never known. At the end of fifteen months the level was finished and the excavation completed beneath the gallery. They could distinguish the measured tread of the sentinel. They had only to wait for a night dark enough, propping the loose stone with a small beam to keep it from falling untimely.

It was while Dantès was setting the beam that he heard Faria call him in a tone of agony. He found him in the middle of his cell, pale as death, eyes sunken, lips white as a corpse's. I am seized with a terrible illness — I had a similar attack the year before my imprisonment. Quick, in the foot of my bed there is a hollow with a phial of red fluid. When I am rigid as a corpse, force open my teeth and pour eight or ten drops down my throat. Dantès half-carried him back to his bed.

The fit was violent. Dantès muffled the abbé's cries with the blanket. For two hours the body shook in convulsions, and then lay rigid as marble. Edmond forced open the jaws and administered the drops. An hour passed before consciousness returned to the dull eyes, and Faria smiled feebly. I did not expect to see you again — knowing all was ready for flight, I thought you might have escaped without me. Dantès flushed indignantly: Did you really think me capable of that?

But the abbé knew his own malady. His father and grandfather had died of it in their third attacks; the famous Cabanis had foretold this end for him. His right arm and leg were now paralysed forever; he would never swim again. None can fly from a dungeon who cannot walk. He gave Dantès back his promise and bade him go without him. Edmond rose, extended his hand over the old man's head, and slowly said: By the blood of Christ I swear never to leave you while you live. Faria pressed his hand. The first task now was to fill up the excavation beneath the gallery, lest the sentry hear his own footsteps ring hollow. The young man went off to his task with the obedience of a son.

Chapter 18 — The Treasure

When Dantès returned next morning, Faria was sitting up. In his good hand he held a sheet of paper rolled like a cylinder. Look at it. Edmond saw only a half-burnt scrap with traces of Gothic characters in a peculiar ink. This paper, my friend, is my treasure, of which from this day forth one half belongs to you.

The sweat started on Dantès's brow. He had taken the abbé's silence for a return to reason, and now those words seemed a relapse into the old madness. Your treasure? "I am not mad, Edmond. The treasure exists, and if I have not been allowed to possess it, you will." The young man, suspecting only a fresh crisis, urged his friend to rest, but Faria pressed the half-burnt paper into his hands. Dantès read it: ragged, broken phrases — this treasure, which may amount to two… of Roman crowns in the most distant a… 25th April, 149- — and saw only the wandering of a sick mind. Then steps approached and Dantès slipped back through the passage. It was the governor, who, hearing of the abbé's illness, came in person; Faria sat up so as to mask his paralysis, and the visit passed off with no order to remove him.

Dantès stayed in his cell all day, dreading the moment when he should be obliged to admit his friend's madness. But that evening Faria, hearing no footstep, dragged himself painfully along the passage and called Edmond to help him through. I am pursuing you remorselessly. Listen.

He had been twenty years secretary to Cardinal Spada, the last of those whose family wealth had passed into the proverb as rich as a Spada — though the Spadas had ceased to be rich. The cardinal had often bent over old manuscripts in vain. One day, smiling bitterly, he had opened the History of Rome at the twentieth chapter of the Life of Pope Alexander VI, and Faria had read the story.

The pope and Cæsar Borgia had needed money to buy all Italy. They had made two of the richest men in Rome cardinals — Giovanni Rospigliosi and Cæsar Spada — selling them their hats and the appointments they vacated; eight hundred thousand crowns had thus entered the speculators' coffers. Then, after lavishing honours upon their new princes of the church, they invited the two cardinals to dinner in a vineyard near San Pierdarena. Cæsar Borgia had subtler instruments — a key with a poisoned point, a ring with a poisoned lion's head — but the pope preferred plainer ways. Spada, a prudent man, made his will before going, and tried to send word to his nephew. The nephew was already at the vineyard, in full costume, the object of Cæsar's ironical attentions; both had drunk of the bottles set out by the pope's butler, and within an hour both were dead, declared by the physicians to have been poisoned by mushrooms.

The Borgias rifled the dead man's papers and found only a scrap: I bequeath to my beloved nephew my coffers, my books, and amongst others my breviary with the gold corners, which I beg him to preserve in remembrance of his affectionate uncle. They examined the breviary, ransacked the library and the laboratories, and found nothing — a few thousand crowns in plate and as many in money. Two palaces and a vineyard remained to the family, beneath the rapacity of the pope. Public rumour said that Cæsar had carried off the cardinals' fortune. Alexander died poisoned by mistake; Cæsar shed his skin like a snake but caught his death obscurely in a night skirmish.

The Spada family lived in obscure ease for centuries. The breviary was preserved with superstitious veneration. When Faria became secretary to the last Count of Spada, he examined every parchment, calculated three centuries of income and expenditure, wrote a history of the Borgia family — and found nothing. The count died and made him heir to his library, his family papers, and the famous breviary, with a thousand crowns and the obligation to pray for his soul.

A month before his arrest, on the 25th of December 1807, Faria fell asleep at his papers. He woke at six in utter darkness, with no one to bring him a candle, and groped for a piece of paper to light his taper at the embers. He hesitated — the papers were precious — and then remembered the old yellow scrap that had served as a marker in the breviary for centuries. He twisted it up and held it to the embers. Beneath his fingers, as the fire ascended, yellow characters appeared on the paper as if by magic. He snatched it from the flame, lit his candle, and read by it. The ink was sympathetic; it appeared only in fire; nearly a third of the document had already been consumed. But by patient calculation he had restored the missing words, joining the burnt scrap to a second leaf, and produced this:

This 25th day of April, 1498, being invited to dine by his Holiness Alexander VI, and fearing that not content with making me pay for my hat, he may desire to become my heir, and reserves for me the fate of Cardinals Caprara and Bentivoglio, who were poisoned, I declare to my nephew, Guido Spada, my sole heir, that I have buried in a place he knows and has visited with me, that is, in the caves of the small Island of Monte Cristo, all I possessed of ingots, gold, money, jewels, diamonds, gems; that I alone know of the existence of this treasure, which may amount to nearly two millions of Roman crowns, and which he will find on raising the twentieth rock from the small creek to the east in a right line. Two openings have been made in these caves; the treasure is in the furthest angle in the second; which treasure I bequeath and leave entire to him as my sole heir. — Cæsar † Spada.

Faria had resolved to set out at the very instant; but the imperial police had had their eyes on him for some time, his hasty departure had aroused them, and he was arrested at Piombino just as he was leaving. Now, he told Dantès, the secret was equally his. If we ever escape together, half is yours; if I die here and you escape alone, the whole.

"And the treasure amounts to —" Two millions of Roman crowns; nearly thirteen millions of our money. "Impossible!" cried Dantès, staggered. The Spadas were one of the great families of the fifteenth century, said the abbé; in those times such accumulations of gold and jewels were by no means rare. He had kept the secret these six years only to test his young friend's character. Had we escaped before my attack, I should have conducted you to Monte Cristo; now it is you who must conduct me there.

"This treasure belongs to you alone — I have no right to it; I am no relation of yours." You are my son, Dantès. You are the child of my captivity. My profession condemned me to celibacy; God has sent you to me to console at once the man who could not be a father, and the prisoner who could not get free. And Faria extended the one arm that remained to him; the young man threw himself upon his neck and wept.

Chapter 19 — The Third Attack

Now that the treasure could secure the future of the boy he loved as a son, it had doubled in the abbé's eyes. He talked of it perpetually — of the good a man with thirteen or fourteen millions of francs could do to his friends — and as he talked, Dantès's countenance grew gloomy with the thought of the ill such a man could do to his enemies. The Island of Monte Cristo Faria did not know, but Dantès did: a deserted, almost conical rock, twenty-five miles from Pianosa, between Corsica and Elba; he had once put in there. He drew its plan for the abbé, who in turn instructed him minutely in the recovery of the treasure. But Dantès, while he no longer doubted his friend's reason, doubted that the deposit still existed.

Then, as if fate were resolved to deprive them of every last chance, the gallery on the seaward side, which had long been in ruins, was rebuilt. Vast masses of stone now blocked the very passage they had so painfully mined. Had the abbé not bidden Edmond fill in the excavation beneath the sentry's flagstone, the works would have been discovered and the friends torn apart; as it was, only their hopes of liberty had perished.

"You see," said the young man with sorrowful resignation, "God deems it right to take from me any claim to merit for my devotion. I could not break my promise now if I would. The treasure will be no more mine than yours. But my real treasure, my dear friend, is your presence; the rays of intelligence you have struck from my brain, the languages and sciences you have planted there. With this you have made me rich and happy, and even Cæsar Borgia could not deprive me of it."

So the days passed quickly enough. Faria, who had so long held his treasure secret, now talked of it perpetually, made Dantès learn the inscription by heart, and then destroyed the second portion lest it be intercepted. He gave whole hours of instruction for the day of liberty: how to gain the island unseen; how to find the cavern; the appointed spot — the farthest angle in the second opening. Faria, paralysed in his right arm and left leg, taught his young companion the patient and sublime duty of a prisoner — to make something out of nothing — and so kept himself from growing old, and Dantès from recalling the past.

But beneath the calm of the surface there were many stifled sighs. One night Edmond awoke believing he heard his name called. The voice came from Faria's dungeon. He moved his bed, drew up the stone, and rushed through the passage. By the wavering lamp he saw the old man pale but erect, clinging to the bedstead, his features writhing with the symptoms he knew. You understand, do you not?

Edmond cried for help; Faria, with the strength remaining to him, restrained him. Silence, or you are lost. We must think only of you now. The dungeon would not long remain empty; some other prisoner might one day take his place, perhaps a young and strong man who could aid Edmond's escape; he, half a dead body, had become but a drag. Providence has done something for you; he restores to you more than he takes away.

Edmond drew the phial from the foot of the bed: there was still some of the magic draught. Faria bade him this time give twelve drops instead of ten, and if no recovery followed, pour the rest down his throat. He laid him on the bed. And now, my dear friend, sole consolation of my wretched existence, at the moment of separating from you forever, I bless thee, my son. Edmond fell on his knees against the bed.

Listen now to what I say in this dying moment. The treasure of the Spadas exists. God grants me the boon of vision unrestricted by time or space. I see it in the depths of the inner cavern, and my eyes are dazzled at the sight of so much riches. If you escape, remember that the poor abbé whom all the world called mad was not so. Hasten to Monte Cristo — for you have indeed suffered long enough.

A violent convulsion seized him; his eyes filled with blood. Adieu, adieu! Hush — that they may not separate us if you save me. And by a final effort, summoning all his faculties, he said, Monte Cristo — forget not Monte Cristo! Then he fell back.

Dantès placed the lamp on a stone above the bed and waited with steady gaze for the moment to administer the restorative. He pried open the teeth — they offered less resistance than before — counted twelve drops, and watched. Ten minutes passed, then a quarter of an hour, then half an hour. Then, trembling and his hair erect, he poured the whole phial down his friend's throat.

The draught produced a galvanic effect: a violent trembling, a great sigh almost like a shriek, and then immobility. For an hour and a half Edmond knelt with his hand on Faria's heart and felt the body grow cold and the pulse become deeper, slower, until it ceased. The face became livid; the eyes remained open and glazed.

It was six o'clock; the dawn paled the lamp. Dantès tried twice to close the eyes, but each time they opened again. He extinguished the lamp, concealed it, and slipped back through the passage.

Just in time. The jailer began his rounds at Edmond's cell that morning, then went on to Faria's. A moment later Dantès, drawn back by an indescribable longing, heard the turnkey's exclamation, the tramp of soldiers, and at last the governor. The corpse was prodded; the bed creaked. Words of pity mingled with brutal jests. Well, the madman has gone to look after his treasure. Good journey to him! With all his millions, he will not have enough to pay for his shroud. The doctor was sent for. He pronounced the abbé dead, declared his disease monomania, and to satisfy the governor's official scruples, called for a brazier of hot irons. Dantès heard the crackling of the burning flesh and smelt its peculiar nauseous smoke through the wall, and felt as though he should faint. This burn in the heel is decisive, said the doctor. The poor fool is cured of his folly and delivered from his captivity.

The body was sewn up in a sack — the newest we can find — and the burial fixed for the same evening, ten or eleven o'clock. The chaplain was on leave at Hyères; there could be no mass. Pooh, pooh, said the doctor, he is a churchman, God will respect his profession. A shout of laughter followed. Shall we watch by the corpse? — Of what use would it be? Shut the dungeon as if he were alive. The hinges creaked; the bolts shot home; a silence more sombre than solitude — the silence of death — struck its icy chill into Dantès's soul.

He raised the flag-stone with his head and looked carefully around the chamber. It was empty.

Chapter 20 — The Cemetery of the Château d'If

On Faria's bed lay the long, stiffened form sewn into its canvas — the winding-sheet that, as the turnkey had said, cost so little. A barrier had been placed between the friends. Dantès sat upon the bed and gave way to gloomy reverie. Alone again — alone with nothingness — never again to hear the only voice that united him to earth. The thought of suicide, which Faria's cheerful presence had driven away, hovered again like a phantom over the corpse. I will rush on the first man that opens the door, strangle him, and then they will guillotine me. But excessive grief is like a storm at sea: from despair he passed suddenly to an ardent desire for life. Die? No — not now, after having suffered so long. Before I die I have my executioners to punish, and perhaps some friends to reward.

Then he stopped, his hand to his brow. Just God! whence comes this thought? Since none but the dead pass freely from this dungeon, let me take the place of the dead!

Without giving himself time to reconsider, he opened the canvas with the knife Faria had made, drew the corpse out, and bore it back along the tunnel to his own cell. He laid it on his couch, tied his night rag about its head, drew up the counterpane, kissed the icy brow, turned the face to the wall as if asleep — for so the jailer had often left him — and re-entered the abbé's chamber. He took the needle and thread from the hiding-place, flung off his rags so that only naked flesh might be felt under the canvas, slipped into the sack in the dead man's posture, and sewed up the mouth from the inside.

His heart beat so hard that the jailers would have heard it had they come at that moment. He had laid his plans. If the grave-diggers discovered they were carrying a living man he would slit the sack from top to bottom and use his knife. If they buried him in the earth, he would let them go and then dig his way up through the yielding soil. If the earth proved too heavy he would be stifled — and so much the better. Then he waited.

The first peril passed: at seven o'clock the jailer placed bread and soup on the table without speaking — Dantès had often received him in bed thus, from misanthropy or fatigue. About the appointed hour double footsteps came down the stair. The door opened, a faint light reached him through the canvas; two shadows took the sack by its ends. He's heavy for an old thin man. — They say every year adds half a pound to the weight of the bones. — Have you tied the knot? — I can do that when we get there. What knot? thought Dantès.

They lifted the bier and ascended. The mistral struck him sharp and cold through the canvas — pleasure and pain strangely mingled. Twenty paces along the bearers stopped and one of them went off, his shoes ringing on the pavement, in search of something. He returned with a heavy metal weight, which he laid down beside Edmond, and a cord which he tied round his feet pretty tight too, I can tell you. Edmond's hair stood up on end.

They went on, opened a door, and went on again. The noise of the waves dashing against the rocks on which the château stands now reached him distinctly. Bad weather. Not a pleasant night for a dip in the sea. — The abbé runs a chance of being wet. A burst of brutal laughter. They ascended five or six more steps; and then they took him by the head and the heels and swung him to and fro. One! Two! Three! — and at the same instant Dantès felt himself flung into the air like a wounded bird, falling and falling for what seemed a century, and then, with a horrible splash, plunged into the ice-cold sea.

He had been flung from the cliff with a thirty-six-pound shot tied to his feet. The sea is the cemetery of the Château d'If.

Chapter 21 — The Island of Tiboulen

Stunned and almost suffocated, Dantès had still presence of mind enough to hold his breath and his open knife. He ripped up the sack, freed his arms and body, and at last by a desperate effort severed the cord round his legs at the very moment of strangulation. The shot dragged the canvas down to the depths and Dantès rose with a mighty leap to the surface. He filled his lungs and dived again, lest the dim shapes he saw on a high rock with their torch should hear his cry.

He had to find his bearings. Ratonneau, Pomègue, and Daume were inhabited; only Tiboulen and Lemaire — a league from the Château d'If — would do. Faria's words rang in his ears even beneath the waves: Dantès, you must not give way to this listlessness; you will be drowned if you seek to escape. He struck out with the energy of despair, and found, with relief, that captivity had taken nothing from him; he was still master of the element he had sported on as a boy. Fear pursued him; every wave behind him sounded like a boat. He swam an hour in the dark, against the wind, and then, just as he was ready to sink from exhaustion, his knee struck rock. He had reached Tiboulen, a barren grotesque mass that resembled a vast fire petrified at the moment of its fiercest combustion. He stretched himself on the granite — softer than down — and slept for an hour beneath the wind and rain.

The thunder woke him. The mistral was let loose; lightning played along the heavens like a fiery serpent. He drank rainwater from a hollow in the rock, his first food in twenty-four hours. By the next flash he saw, between Lemaire and Cape Croiselle, a fishing-boat driven like a spectre before wind and waves; four men clung to the splintered mast, a fifth to the broken rudder. They saw him, too, and cried out — and then a violent crash, and silence. The vessel had been dashed to pieces. Dantès ran down the rocks at the risk of being himself dashed, but found nothing. The wind died at last, and dawn began to gild the foaming crests with gold.

In two or three hours, he reflected, the turnkey would find Faria's body in his cell, the alarm would be given, the tunnel discovered, the men who had cast him in would be questioned, and all the police of Marseilles would be after him by land and sea. He was naked, hungry, and had even lost his knife. Then he saw, off the point of Pomègue, a small Genoese tartan with a lateen sail standing out to sea. To swim aboard would mean a dozen questions, and these smugglers would as soon sell him as save him — unless he could pass himself off as a survivor of the wreck. At that very moment his eye fell on a red sailor's cap caught on a spike of rock and on a piece of the wrecked keel floating at its foot. In an instant his plan was formed.

He put on the cap, seized the timber, and struck out across the tartan's course. I am saved! The vessel, beating against the wind, did not at first see him; he rose on the waves, waving his cap, until he was both seen and heard. The tartan steered toward him and lowered her boat. Dantès let go his timber too soon; his arms stiffened, his legs lost their flexibility, a wave passed over him, and he felt himself sinking as if a fresh shot were tied to his feet. A hand seized him by the hair, and he fainted.

He came to himself on deck. A sailor was rubbing his limbs; another, the one who had cried Courage!, held a gourd of rum to his mouth; a third — the captain and pilot together — looked on with the egotistical pity men feel for misfortune they have escaped. Dantès gave his story in bad Italian. He was a Maltese sailor, the Santa Maria from Syracuse with grain, wrecked at Cape Morgiou the night before; the captain and the rest of the crew were drowned. He had clung to the rocks, had seen their tartan, and had swum out on a piece of wreckage rather than be left to perish. The frank-faced sailor — Jacopo, who had hauled him in — told him he had looked more like a brigand than an honest man, with a beard of six inches and a foot of hair. I made a vow to Our Lady of the Grotto, said Dantès, not to cut my hair or beard for ten years if ever I were saved in danger; today my vow expires.

Asked what they should do with him, Dantès offered to work his passage; he had sailed the Mediterranean since childhood and could enter or leave its harbours blindfold. They were bound for Leghorn. Dantès, taking the helm at the captain's leave, brought her about so neatly that she passed twenty fathoms to windward of the Island of Rion. Bravo! cried the captain and the sailors, looking at this new comrade with astonishment. Jacopo found him a shirt and a pair of trousers; the captain agreed to ship him on equal wages with the others, and a piece of bread and another glass of rum were brought.

As Dantès raised the gourd to his lips, a small white cloud crowned the summit of the Château d'If, followed at a moment's distance by the faint report of a gun. A prisoner has escaped from the Château d'If, and they are firing the alarm. He drank with such composure that the captain's suspicions, if he had any, died away. Pretty strong rum, said Dantès, wiping his brow with his sleeve.

He took the helm under pretence of relieving the steersman, and so kept his eyes on Marseilles. He asked Jacopo the day of the month — the 28th of February — and the year. The year 1829. It was fourteen years, day for day, since his arrest. He had been nineteen when he entered the Château d'If; he was thirty-three when he escaped. A sorrowful smile passed over his face as he wondered what had become of Mercédès, who must believe him dead. Then his eyes lit with hatred at the thought of the three men who had cost him so much, and he renewed in his heart against Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort the oath of implacable vengeance.

The oath was no longer a vain menace, for the fastest sailor in the Mediterranean would have been unable to overtake the little tartan, which with every stitch of canvas set was flying before the wind to Leghorn.

Chapter 22 — The Smugglers

Dantès was scarcely a day on board La Jeune Amélie before he understood the men with whom his lot had been cast: smugglers, the perpetual enemies of the customs along the Mediterranean coast. The captain had at first suspected him of being a spy from the excise, but the gun fired from the Château d'If as Dantès lifted his rum had instead persuaded him that he was harbouring an escaped prisoner. The young man's nautical skill and admirable dissimulation pleaded in his favour, and the Genoese, after the manner of his trade, asked no questions whose answers might compromise him.

At Leghorn, Dantès went to a barber in St Ferdinand Street and at last looked in the glass at the face he had not seen for fourteen years. The smiling young man of nineteen had become a man of three-and-thirty, the oval face lengthened, the mouth set in firm lines, the brow furrowed with thought, the eyes full of melancholy and lit at intervals with gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred. The skin had the pale colour of long captivity, and his eyes had acquired in twilight the faculty of seeing in the dark, like the wolf and the hyena. He smiled — no living friend could have recognised him; he could not recognise himself. He bought a sailor's costume of white trousers and striped shirt, returned Jacopo his clothes, and engaged with the captain for three months — no more.

The cargo was filled in a week — printed muslins, contraband cottons, English powder, untaxed tobacco — and the lugger sailed for Corsica. The next morning, leaning against the bulwarks, Dantès saw a pile of granite rocks tinged rosy by the rising sun. It was the Island of Monte Cristo. La Jeune Amélie passed three-quarters of a league to larboard. He could be there in half an hour by leaping into the sea — but he had no instruments and no arms; he must wait. He had learnt to wait fourteen years for his liberty; he could wait six months for his fortune.

They landed the cargo by night on the Corsican coast, took on a return cargo of Havana cigars and Spanish wines from Sardinia, and ran the duties on the Lucchese coast in a brisk skirmish in which a customs officer was killed and Dantès himself wounded in the shoulder. He was almost glad of the wound: it taught him with what eye he could meet danger and with what endurance suffering. Pain, thou art not an evil, he repeated. The sight of the dying officer made little impression on him; his heart, he felt, was on its way to petrifaction. Jacopo, who had nothing to expect from him but his share of the prize, raised him with the kindness of a devoted comrade — a kindness that touched him in spite of himself. From that day Edmond made Jacopo his pupil, with chart in hand, as Faria had been his master. Why teach all this to a poor sailor like me? asked Jacopo. Who knows? You may one day be the captain of a vessel; your countryman Bonaparte became emperor.

Two months and a half passed. Dantès passed the Island of Monte Cristo twenty times without finding a way to land alone. Then one evening at a smugglers' tavern on the Via del' Oglio in Leghorn the patron of La Jeune Amélie proposed Monte Cristo itself as a neutral place for transferring a cargo of Turkey carpets and cashmeres bound at last for the French coast. Dantès started with joy, rose to mask his feeling, and then advised that great enterprises should be done quickly. They were to make Monte Cristo by the following day.

Chapter 23 — The Island of Monte Cristo

So at length, by one of the unexpected strokes of fortune that sometimes befall the long-tormented, Dantès was about to set foot on his promised land by simple and natural means. The night before sailing was feverish with dreams of grottos paved with emeralds and roofs of diamond stalactites — and of the same grottos vanishing into a labyrinth as he tried to return.

The lugger weighed anchor at seven and made the island the next morning. The peak reddened by the sun stood against the azure sky. He could not restrain his impetuosity; he was the first to leap on shore, and would have kissed the earth like Lucius Brutus had he dared. At eleven the moon rose and silvered the rocks of this second Pelion. He asked Jacopo where they should pass the night. On board the tartan. — Should we not do better in the grottos? — What grottos? — The caves of the island. — I do not know of any grottos. The cold sweat sprang to his brow. They had been filled in, he reasoned, by some accident, or stopped up by Cardinal Spada himself for greater security. He must find the hidden entrance — but only by daylight.

The transfer of cargo went on under a signal answered from sea, and was completed by the small hours. The next day Dantès, taking a fowling-piece and powder, declared his intention of shooting the wild goats that sprang from rock to rock. Jacopo would have followed, but Dantès killed a kid within a quarter of a league and sent his comrade back with it to be roasted, with orders to fire a gun when dinner was ready.

Then he climbed alone, looking back from time to time at his unsuspecting companions far below. In two hours these men will depart richer by fifty piastres each, and risk their lives for fifty more, and waste it all in some city with the pride of sultans. At this moment hope makes me despise their riches. Yet tomorrow perhaps disappointment will compel me to count such a sum the height of happiness. No — the wise Faria could not be mistaken in this one thing. Better to die than to lead this low and wretched life again. So Dantès, who three months before had wanted only liberty, now had not liberty enough.

He followed a torrent path to where he reckoned the grottos must have been, and along the shore he began to find — beneath myrtle bushes and parasitical lichen — marks made on the rock by the hand of man. Time, which encrusts physical substances with mossy mantles, had spared these signs; they might have been traced by the cardinal himself. At sixty paces from the harbour the marks ended at a single great round rock — and at no grotto. He wondered for a moment if he had only found the beginning of the road, and was retracing his steps when the gun sounded. He was returning to the meal — and as he sprang from rock to rock his foot slipped, and he rolled twelve feet down a declivity onto the rocks, bleeding and almost senseless.

A little rum revived him, but he complained of fearful pain in his loins and could not bear to be moved. He insisted his comrades eat without him, and afterwards declared he could not undertake a voyage. He had only broken ribs, the patron said; an excellent fellow; they would carry him on board. Dantès would rather die where he was. The patron, who never delayed an enterprise, agreed to leave him with biscuit, gun, powder and shot, and a pickaxe to build a shelter, and to return for him within a week. Jacopo offered to give up his share and remain with the wounded man; Dantès, with a peculiar smile, refused him.

When the tartan had at last passed out of sight, Dantès rose more agile and light than the goat among the myrtles, took up his gun and pickaxe, and hastened to the round rock at the end of the marks. And now, he cried, remembering the tale of the Arabian fisherman that Faria had told him, now — Open Sesame!

Chapter 24 — The Secret Cave

The sun stood near its meridian. Grasshoppers chirped in the bushes, lizards glittered like emerald among the stones, the wild goats bounded from crag to crag. Edmond, before he began, climbed the highest rock and looked round in every direction — not at Corsica or Elba but at the brigantine and the tartan vanishing in opposite directions on the sea. Reassured, he descended.

The marks led to a small creek hidden like the bath of an ancient nymph, deep enough at the centre to conceal a lugger. The cardinal, Dantès reasoned, had hidden his barque there, followed the marks, and buried his treasure at the end. But how could one man have raised this round rock weighing several tons? Suddenly the answer came: it had been lowered. He sprang to inspect the base, and discovered that a slope had been formed and a wedge of stone had been driven beneath, the joinery concealed under earth, moss, and myrtle. He dug away the cement, opened a hole large enough for his arm, and found the wedge. With his pickaxe and an olive-branch lever the rock would not move. So he made a mine, in the fashion of a military sapper: dug a small chamber under the wedge, packed it with the powder Jacopo had left him, made a slow match of his handkerchief and saltpetre, and lit it.

The explosion shattered the lower stone; thousands of insects fled, and a huge snake — the guardian demon of the treasure — uncoiled and disappeared into darkness. The upper rock, leaning toward the sea, yielded at last to his lever, rolled, bounded, and plunged into the ocean. On the spot it had occupied lay a circular space and a square flagstone with an iron ring.

Dantès uttered a cry of joy. His knees trembled and his sight grew dim — be a man, I am accustomed to adversity. He inserted his lever in the ring; the flagstone yielded; steps descended into a subterranean grotto.

He hesitated and reflected. Cæsar Borgia, the indefatigable plunderer, may have come before me, raised this stone, and left me nothing. And then with the smile of one who tries fortune for the last time, he murmured the last word of human philosophy — perhaps — and went down. To his astonishment the cavern was not dark, for the daylight came through unseen crevices and showed walls of granite that sparkled like diamonds. These are the treasures the cardinal left, and the good abbé in his dream took the sparkle for jewels. But the will had said the second opening, in the farthest angle. He must seek the second grotto.

He sounded the walls. One spot gave a hollow echo. He struck more sharply, and found a layer of stucco painted to imitate granite — the entrance had been masked with art. He climbed back to the open air for a moment to be sure no one watched, swallowed a few drops of rum, and returned. The pickaxe was now light as a feather in his grasp; the stones, simply piled and stuccoed over, fell away one by one. He entered the second grotto, lower and gloomier than the first, with a mephitic air which the new opening soon cleared.

The treasure, if it existed, was in the dark angle to the left. He attacked the ground; at the fifth or sixth stroke the pickaxe rang against iron. A casket of wood bound with iron. A shadow passed the opening; he seized his gun and sprang up the steps — only a wild goat — and would have shot it but feared the report. He cut a resinous branch, lighted it at the smugglers' fire, and descended with this torch.

In a moment he had cleared a space three feet long by two broad, exposing an oaken coffer bound with cut steel and bearing on a silver plate the arms of the Spada family — a sword en pale on an oval shield surmounted by a cardinal's hat. Faria had drawn them for him often. He could not raise the chest. He pried open the lock and the two padlocks with his pickaxe; the hinges yielded.

Three compartments divided the coffer. In the first, piles of golden coin. In the second, bars of unpolished gold, attractive only by their weight. In the third, fistfuls of diamonds, pearls, and rubies that fell with a sound like hail against glass. Dantès rushed through the caverns like a man seized with frenzy, leaped onto a rock above the sea, scared the goats and the gulls with his wild cries, returned, fell at last upon his knees, and offered a prayer intelligible to God alone.

Then he began to count. A thousand ingots of two or three pounds each; twenty-five thousand crowns of Alexander VI and his predecessors, and the chest still half full; ten double handfuls of pearls and gems, many of them mounted by famous workmen and valuable beyond their intrinsic worth.

When the light began to fade he left the cavern with his gun in his hand, supped on a piece of biscuit and a little rum, and snatched a few hours of sleep on the threshold of the cave. It was a night of joy and terror such as this man of stupendous emotions had known twice or thrice in his life.

Chapter 25 — The Unknown

At dawn Dantès returned to the cavern, filled his pockets with gems, replaced the casket, sprinkled fresh sand, replaced the flagstone, heaped broken granite over it, set young myrtle and flowering thorn in the cracks, watered them, and effaced every footprint, leaving the approach as savage and untrodden as he had found it. Then he sat down to wait — to keep watch like a dragon over riches that could not satisfy him so long as he was kept from the world.

On the sixth day La Jeune Amélie returned. He met her at the landing, dragging himself with a creditable limp, and listened to the news of the trip — a guard-ship from Toulon had nearly overhauled them, but night and the Cape of Corsica had saved them, and they had cleared fifty piastres a head. He smiled inwardly at the modesty of the sum and embarked for Leghorn.

At Leghorn he sold four of his smallest diamonds to a Jewish dealer for five thousand francs each. He bought Jacopo a vessel of his own and gave him a hundred piastres, telling him a story of a sudden inheritance, and dispatched him to Marseilles to inquire after one Louis Dantès, residing in the Allées de Meilhan, and a young woman named Mercédès in the Catalan village. Then he took leave of La Jeune Amélie and proceeded to Genoa.

There a small yacht was on trial in the bay, just built for an Englishman who was away in Switzerland. Dantès offered the builder sixty thousand francs for immediate possession; the gold was counted out by a Jew the same hour. He declined a crew, but had a secret closet of three compartments fitted in the cabin behind his bed. Two hours later he sailed alone from Genoa under the gaze of an immense crowd, who took him for a Spanish nobleman and bet on his destination — Corsica, Elba, Spain, Africa — but no one thought of Monte Cristo. He reached the island in thirty-five hours, anchored in the secret creek, removed his treasure into the secret locker by night, and in a week of single-handed manoeuvring made himself perfectly conversant with his beautiful new vessel.

On the eighth day Jacopo's boat appeared, and a mournful answer awaited his eager inquiries. Old Dantès was dead. Mercédès had disappeared.

He listened with outward calm, leapt ashore alone, and returned in two hours. He took two of Jacopo's men aboard the yacht and steered direct for Marseilles. He had been prepared for his father's death; the disappearance of Mercédès he could not explain, and could not entrust to any agent.

His yacht entered Marseilles harbour at the very spot from which, on that never-to-be-forgotten night, he had been put aboard the boat for the Château d'If. He shuddered as a gendarme approached, but presented an English passport in the name of Lord Wilmore, and was given immediate leave to land. On the Canebière he met one of his own former Pharaon sailors and questioned him at length to test his disguise; the man gave no sign of recognition. When Dantès paid him a piece of money, the sailor ran after him to point out an honest mistake — a double Napoleon instead of a two-franc piece — and Dantès, thanking him, gave him another double Napoleon to drink his health. Some nabob from India, was the man's verdict.

He walked on, his heart oppressed with memory; not a tree or a street that did not bring some cherished recollection. At the corner of the Allées de Meilhan his knees tottered and a mist came over his sight, and he had to cling to a tree to keep from falling. The nasturtiums his father had trained at the upper window were gone. He inquired for rooms to let; the apartment on the fifth floor was inhabited by a young couple newly married. The four walls were as he had left them, but everything else had changed. The bed stood where his father's had stood. Edmond's tears flowed silently down his stern features, and the young couple, sensing the sacredness of his grief, withdrew. As he descended he asked if Caderousse the tailor still lived on the fourth floor; he had got into difficulties and now kept a little inn on the road from Bellegarde to Beaucaire. From the proprietor of the house Dantès — as Lord Wilmore — purchased the dwelling for twenty-five thousand francs, at least ten thousand more than it was worth.

That evening the same stranger was seen in the Catalan village, entering a poor fisherman's hut and asking, for more than an hour, after persons dead or vanished for fifteen years. The next morning the fisher-family received a brand-new fishing-boat with two seines and a tender, but their benefactor had already given orders to a sailor, sprung lightly on horseback, and left Marseilles by the Porte d'Aix.

Chapter 26 — The Pont du Gard Inn

Halfway between Beaucaire and Bellegarde stands a small roadside inn whose tin sign — a grotesque Pont du Gard — flaps in the mistral. A canal had revolutionised the trade between the towns and was fast accomplishing the ruin of its keeper. The innkeeper, dark, hooked-nosed, his hair under a red Spanish handkerchief, kept his daily watch on the doorsill — Gaspard Caderousse. His wife, La Carconte, withered by the slow fever of the Camargue marshes, kept her bed upstairs and never saw him without a fresh complaint, to which he answered, with a philosophic shrug, Hush, La Carconte. It is God's pleasure that things should be so.

A traveller approached: a priest in black, riding a Hungarian horse, in a three-cornered hat. He tied up his mount, struck thrice on the door with his iron-shod stick, and was welcomed by Caderousse with effusive courtesy. The priest fixed him with a long searching gaze, and asked in a strong Italian accent: You are M. Caderousse, formerly of the Allées de Meilhan, fourth floor, by trade a tailor? He called for a bottle of Cahors. Did you, in 1814 or 1815, know a young sailor named Dantès?

"Did I know poor dear Edmond?" cried the tailor, his colour rising. "Edmond Dantès and I were intimate friends. Is he alive?" The priest answered that he had died in prison, more wretched and heartbroken than the felons of the Toulon galleys. He had been called to administer the last consolations of religion to him, and the dying man had charged him with a commission. A rich Englishman, his fellow prisoner, had given him a diamond before being released — a diamond worth fifty thousand francs. The priest drew it from a small black shagreen box and laid it before Caderousse's dazzled eyes. Dantès had named four faithful friends besides his betrothed Mercédès — Caderousse, Danglars, and a third, his rival, who in spite of being his rival had loved him sincerely… — Fernand! cried Caderousse with a fiendish smile, and Mercédès was the betrothed. Dantès had charged the priest to sell the diamond and divide the proceeds in five equal parts: among the four friends and the elder Dantès himself.

"But four are still living, and the father?" The fifth is dead, as I hear. Yes — old Dantès was dead, said the tailor; about a year after his son's disappearance. Of what? "The doctors called it gastro-enteritis; his neighbours called it grief. But I, who saw him in his dying moments — I say he died of downright starvation."

The priest sprang up. Starvation! The vilest animals are not allowed to die so. A Christian to perish of hunger in the midst of other Christians! "What I have said, I have said," answered Caderousse.

A voice from the top of the stairs interrupted him. And you are a fool for having said anything about it. Why should you meddle? It was La Carconte, who had crept down to listen and now scolded her husband for politeness with strangers and warned him to take care. The priest reassured her — no harm should come to them — and she sank back muttering.

The priest pressed Caderousse: had old Dantès then been wholly forsaken? "Not altogether — Mercédès the Catalan and M. Morrel were very kind to him. But he had contracted a profound hatred for Fernand — the very man you named just now as one of Dantès's faithful friends." And was he not so? "Can a man be faithful to another whose wife he covets and desires for himself?" La Carconte hissed at her husband to hold his tongue. Imbecile! Caderousse hesitated. Why should I tell you, if poor Edmond is dead and beyond hatred or revenge?

The priest let the diamond catch the light again. "You prefer, then, that I bestow on men you say are false the reward intended for faithful friendship?" Caderousse and his wife exchanged looks of deep meaning. This splendid diamond might all be ours, if we chose. La Carconte washed her hands of it and dragged herself back upstairs, calling down a last warning. Caderousse closed and bolted the door, and the priest withdrew his seat into a deep shadow where the light would fall full on the narrator. "I am all attention," he said.

And the tailor began his story.

Chapter 27 — The Story

"First, sir," said Caderousse, "promise me that, if you make any use of what I tell you, no one shall ever know it came from me; the persons I am about to speak of are rich and powerful, and would crush me like glass." The abbé reassured him: he was a priest, and an Italian, who would shortly retire to his convent.

He began with old Dantès. After Edmond was carried off the old man returned alone, folded up his wedding suit with tears in his eyes, and paced his chamber day and night. Mercédès went next morning to plead with M. de Villefort and was refused; she returned to the old man and would have taken him into her own house, but he would not leave the apartment where his boy must seek him first. By degrees he saw fewer and fewer people. Strangers came up the stairs and went down with bundles concealed under their coats — he was selling his furniture to live. Three quarters' rent fell due. The fourth day Caderousse heard no footstep, peered through the keyhole, and saw him pale and haggard. M. Morrel ran for a doctor, who diagnosed inflammation of the bowels and prescribed a strict diet. The old man smiled at the prescription. From that day he had an excuse not to eat. He would not be moved to Mercédès's house; M. Morrel left his purse on the chimney-piece, but the old man would touch nothing. After nine days of fasting and despair he died, cursing those who had caused his misery, with a last message for his son: Tell him I die blessing him.

"You believe he died —" Of hunger, sir, of hunger; I am as certain of it as that we two are Christians. The abbé, with shaking hand, drained a glass of water and resumed his seat with red eyes. "Tell me, who killed the son with despair and the father with famine?" Two men jealous of him: Fernand for love and Danglars for ambition. Danglars had written the denunciation with his left hand, that his writing might not be known; Fernand had put it in the post; both had been at La Réserve the day before the wedding.

"And you were there yourself," exclaimed the abbé. He had overshot the mark, and added quickly that no one had told him so — but Caderousse, in a choking voice, admitted it. They had made him drink to such excess that he had only an indistinct understanding; they assured him it was a jest. Next day, when he saw Edmond arrested, Danglars warned him that to defend a man charged with carrying a Bonapartist letter would make him an accomplice, and he had been silent — cowardly, but not criminal. Remorse had preyed upon him ever since, and the misery of his present condition was the just expiation.

Caderousse had repeatedly mentioned a M. Morrel. The abbé asked who he was. The owner of the Pharaon, an honest man, full of courage and regard, who had interceded for Edmond twenty times, brought the doctor to old Dantès, and left a red silk purse to pay for the funeral. He still had the purse — a long one of faded red silk with copper runners. Was M. Morrel still alive? Yes, but on the verge of ruin: he had lost five ships in two years, his only hope was the Pharaon expected from the Indies with cochineal and indigo, his daughter's marriage was endangered by his bankruptcy, and if he were alone in the world he would blow out his brains.

And Danglars, the chief instigator? Danglars had risen by every step the abbé could imagine. He had taken service in a Spanish bank on M. Morrel's recommendation, made a fortune in the commissariat of the army during the Spanish war, speculated in the funds, married a banker's daughter and on her death the widow Madame de Nargonne, daughter of the king's chamberlain Servieux, and was now Baron Danglars in the Rue du Mont-Blanc, with ten horses in his stables, six footmen in his antechamber, and an unknown number of millions in his strongbox.

And Fernand? Fernand had been drafted at the second levy and posted to the front. The night after the battle of Ligny he had been sentry at the door of a general who that very night went over to the English; the general had taken Fernand with him, and the deserter had been gazetted sub-lieutenant by the Bourbons, captain in 1823 in Spain, where (as Danglars's friend) he had betrayed the mountain passes to his own regiment and been made colonel, count, and officer of the Legion of Honor. The peace ended his career until the Greek war, when he obtained leave to serve abroad. He had become instructor-general to Ali Pasha of Yanina, who had bequeathed him a great sum on his death; on his return Fernand had been gazetted lieutenant-general. He was now the Comte de Morcerf, with a magnificent house at No. 27, Rue du Helder, Paris.

The abbé hesitated, then asked after Mercédès. She had not disappeared, said Caderousse, as the sun disappears, to rise the next day with greater splendour. After three months of waiting alone, with old Dantès telling her every day that Edmond was dead, Fernand had returned in his sub-lieutenant's uniform; she had thrown herself into his arms not from love but from joy at being no longer alone. He had said no word of love at his first visit, and only at his second did he begin to court her; she had asked another six months in which to mourn Edmond; at the end of eighteen months she had become his wife in the very church of Accoules where she should have wedded Edmond — only a change of bridegrooms, murmured the priest. Caderousse had seen her once again, in Spain, at Perpignan, attending to the education of her son Albert. She had risen with her husband's fortune, learning music and drawing — perhaps to forget. She was now one of the great ladies of Paris, but Caderousse was sure she was not happy. When he had gone to Danglars in his destitution he had been refused at the door; Fernand had sent him a hundred francs by a valet; only Mercédès, as he turned from Fernand's house, had thrown him a purse of five-and-twenty louis from a window before quickly closing the blind.

The abbé reflected, then drew the diamond from his pocket and held it out. "Take this; it is yours." Edmond, he said, had had only one true friend, and so the diamond could not be divided. Caderousse stretched his hand, then drew it back. In exchange, said the abbé, give me the red silk purse that M. Morrel left on old Dantès's chimney-piece. The bewildered tailor opened a cupboard and produced it. The exchange was made.

"You are a man of God, sir — you might have kept it." (Which, said the abbé to himself, you would have done.) He rose, took his hat and gloves, made Caderousse swear by his crucifix and his wife's testament that he had told the truth, and left, with difficulty getting away from the man's effusive thanks. He mounted and turned back along the road by which he had come.

When Caderousse turned around, La Carconte stood behind him paler than ever. Suppose it's false? The colour fled from his face. To get your secret without paying for it, you blockhead! He clapped on his hat. We will soon find out — the fair is on at Beaucaire and there are jewellers from Paris there. He left the inn at a run, in the opposite direction to that the priest had taken. Alone in the empty room, La Carconte muttered: Fifty thousand francs — it is a large sum of money, but it is not a fortune.

VOLUME TWO

Chapter 28 — The Prison Register

The day after the abbé's visit to the Pont du Gard, an Englishman of about thirty in a bright blue frock-coat, nankeen trousers, and a white waistcoat presented himself before the mayor of Marseilles. He was, he said, chief clerk of the house of Thomson and French of Rome, which had a hundred thousand francs lent on Morrel & Son's securities and was uneasy at reports the firm was on the brink of ruin. The mayor, himself a creditor for ten thousand, vouched for M. Morrel's honour but referred the matter to M. de Boville, the inspector of prisons, who was owed two hundred thousand for his daughter's dowry.

M. de Boville was found in despair: his money was, he believed, lost, for M. Morrel had just admitted that without the safe arrival of the Pharaon on the 15th he could not pay. I will buy the credit of you, said the Englishman, for the full sum, ready money. The astonished inspector dared to mention a discount; the Englishman would have nothing of that — Thomson and French did not do business in such a way. The only commission he asked was a small favour: he had been educated at Rome by a poor abbé who had vanished, and had since heard that the man had died in the Château d'If. Might he see the prison register?

Oh, the Abbé Faria? I recollect him perfectly — he was crazy. He pretended to know an immense treasure and offered vast sums for his liberty. He had died last February. And his death was accompanied by a singular incident. Forty or fifty feet from his dungeon had been confined Edmond Dantès — one of the most resolute Bonapartist agents of 1815. The two prisoners had communicated through a tunnel, and when the abbé died of catalepsy, Dantès had taken his place in the corpse-sack expecting to be buried in some ordinary ground. But the Château d'If has no cemetery. They threw him into the sea with a thirty-six-pound shot at his feet, and so by his own act disembarrassed the government of his fears. The inspector laughed; the Englishman laughed too — as the English do, at the end of his teeth.

In the inspector's study, the Englishman was offered the registers and left in his armchair, while M. de Boville read Le Drapeau Blanc in a corner. He turned past the abbé's papers to those of Edmond Dantès. He found the accusation, the examination (in which the name Noirtier did not appear), and the petition Morrel had presented in 1815 with the marginal certificate of services rendered to Bonaparte — written by Villefort himself, exaggerated upon his own advice, and afterwards turned, under the second restoration, into a fatal weapon against the prisoner. He saw the marginal note: An inveterate Bonapartist; took an active part in the return from the Island of Elba. To be kept in strict solitary confinement, and to be closely watched and guarded — and beneath, in the inspector's hand, Nothing can be done. The note in the bracket was in Villefort's writing.

He folded the original anonymous accusation — postmarked Marseilles, 27th February, six o'clock P.M. — and slipped it quietly into his pocket. The inspector, intent on his two hundred thousand francs and his newspaper, would not have opposed any irregularity. The Englishman closed the register with a slam, took the assignment of the debt in exchange for his bank-notes, and departed.

Chapter 29 — The House of Morrel & Son

Anyone returning after a few years would have found a great change in the warehouse of Morrel & Son. The merry voices and crowded corridors were gone; only two clerks remained — a young man of three-and-twenty named Emmanuel, in love with Mademoiselle Julie, and an old one-eyed cashier known as Cocles, inflexible only on the multiplication table, who alone of all the household believed it impossible the firm should fall, as a miller believes it impossible the river should cease to flow.

M. Morrel had passed many an anxious hour. He had sold his wife's and daughter's jewels and a portion of his plate at the Beaucaire fair to make the last month's payments; credit was no longer to be had; and the only hope for the hundred thousand francs due on the 15th of June and another hundred thousand due on the 15th of July was the Pharaon, which had left Calcutta on the 5th of February and should have made port a month ago.

It was at this juncture that the confidential clerk of Thomson & French was admitted by Cocles. On the staircase he met a beautiful girl of sixteen — Julie — who descended pale to look for Emmanuel. M. Morrel sat at his ledger of liabilities. Fourteen years had ploughed deep furrows on his brow; his look, once firm and penetrating, was irresolute and wandering. The Englishman read out his portfolio: M. de Boville's two hundred thousand, thirty-two thousand five hundred more in bills, and another fifty-five thousand from Pascal and Wild & Turner — in all 287,500 francs. Could M. Morrel pay? "If, as I hope, my vessel arrives safely. If the Pharaon be lost, I fear I must suspend payment." Had he no friends? "In business, sir, one has no friends, only correspondents."

At that moment a noise of feet and half-stifled sobs came up the stair. Morrel sank into his chair. The door opened and Julie entered weeping. Forgive your child for being the bearer of evil tidings. "The Pharaon has gone down, then?" Yes — but the crew was saved by the very Gironde that had just entered the harbour. Morrel raised his hands. "Thanks, my God; at least thou strikest but me alone." A tear moistened the eye of the phlegmatic Englishman.

The eight half-naked sailors were brought in. Penelon, an old seaman bronzed by the tropical sun, twirled the rags of his hat and told the story: how the squall came up off Cape Boyador, how the captain reefed in time but they sprang a leak from old timbers, how Penelon had bidden his messmates die at the pumps and the captain had drawn a brace of pistols to enforce it, how at last the boat was launched ten minutes before the deck burst, and how three days adrift on the open sea were ended by the Gironde. The Englishman corrected one of the captain's manoeuvres in a clear sonorous voice that startled the company. M. Morrel ordered Cocles to pay each man two hundred francs of wages; the seamen, after a low conference, asked for fifty francs only and offered to wait for the rest. No more ships? — Then we shall scud, like the Pharaon, under bare poles. Morrel sent them away.

Then he turned to the Englishman. You have heard everything. I have nothing more to tell you. "I see that a fresh and unmerited misfortune has overtaken you," answered the stranger, "and it only increases my desire to serve you." He was the largest creditor; he would grant a delay. Morrel asked for two months. I will give you three. The bills were renewed: today was the 5th of June, and on the 5th of September at eleven o'clock the Englishman would return for his money. I shall pay you, Morrel murmured, or I shall be dead.

On the staircase Julie was waiting. One day you will receive a letter signed Sinbad the Sailor, the stranger told her. Do exactly what it bids you, however strange it may appear. She swore. Adieu, mademoiselle. Continue to be the good sweet girl you are, and I have great hopes that Heaven will give you Emmanuel for a husband. Julie blushed and leaned against the baluster. In the court below the Englishman found Penelon hesitating with two rouleaux of a hundred francs in his hands. "Come with me, my friend; I wish to speak to you."

Chapter 30 — The Fifth of September

The extension granted by Thomson & French was so unexpected a stroke of fortune that Morrel almost dared to believe fate was weary of him. The other creditors, however, took a different view; their bills were presented punctually and Cocles, untroubled by anything but the multiplication table, paid them with his usual exactitude. By such efforts the end of June and the end of July were passed.

The Englishman had not been seen again at Marseilles. The crew of the Pharaon had also disappeared. Captain Gaumard returned from Palma, and Morrel, hearing of his arrival, brought him his wages himself. On the staircase he met Penelon, who, newly clad, seemed embarrassed to be caught in his finery. Morrel attributed the awkwardness to the man having found another berth and pressed his hand. May your new master love you as I loved you, and be more fortunate than I have been.

August was a month of unceasing effort to find new credit; on the 20th Morrel was known to have left Marseilles in the mailcoach, and rumour at once foretold the bills would go to protest at the end of the month. But on the 31st the house opened as usual and Cocles paid all that was presented. The prophets of bad news put the failure off till the end of September. On the 1st Morrel returned. He had gone to Paris to ask Danglars — under whose old obligations he had once placed him with the Spanish banker — for a loan he need not even part with money to grant. Danglars had refused. Morrel did not utter a complaint; he embraced his wife and daughter, pressed Emmanuel's hand, and went up to his study to send for Cocles. The cashier came down again pale, trembling, and stricken, hands raised to heaven: Oh, mademoiselle, what a dreadful misfortune! He carried up two or three heavy ledgers, a portfolio, and a bag of money. The total of all the funds was 14,000 francs against 287,500 of debts due.

In the household council it was agreed that Julie should write to her brother Maximilian, sub-lieutenant in the 53rd of the line at Nîmes — the stoic, as his comrades called him — to come at once. That night Madame Morrel saw through the keyhole that her husband was writing on stamped paper, and the terrible idea that he was making his will took her by the throat. The next two days passed in much the same way. Morrel was kinder to his wife and daughter than ever; once he held Julie a long time against his bosom. On the evening of the 4th he asked her for the key of his study. She had never been forbidden it but in childhood as a punishment, and trembled. She made an excuse, hurried to Emmanuel for counsel — do not give him the key, and tomorrow do not quit him for a moment.

At eight o'clock on the morning of the 5th Morrel came to his wife's chamber. He was calm, but the agitation of the night was legible on his pale face. He kissed Julie again and again, then bade her remain with her mother and went out. An instant later Maximilian arrived from Nîmes, called by his sister's letter. Madame Morrel made her son acquainted with the truth. Julie ran from the chamber and at the foot of the stair found a man with a strong Italian accent who handed her a letter and disappeared.

The letter said: Go this moment to the Allées de Meilhan, enter the house No. 15, ask the porter for the key of the room on the fifth floor, take from the corner of the mantelpiece a purse netted in red silk, and give it to your father. It is important he receive it before eleven o'clock. — Sinbad the Sailor. A postscript warned her to come alone. Half terrified by the postscript, Julie consulted Emmanuel, who urged her to go and offered to follow at a distance. Today at eleven o'clock your father has nearly three hundred thousand francs to pay, and we have not fifteen thousand in the house. They flew off together.

Maximilian, meanwhile, ran upstairs and found his father coming out of his bedchamber, his left hand pressed against something hidden under his coat. The young man clutched his father's breast and felt a brace of pistols. Father, in Heaven's name, what are these for? "Maximilian, you are a man of honour. Come, and I will explain to you." In the study he laid the pistols on the desk and pointed to the open ledger. Read. Maximilian read the figures: 287,500 owed, 15,257 in hand. In half an hour our name is dishonoured. — Blood washes out dishonour. The young man reached for one of the pistols. There is one for you and one for me — thanks! But Morrel caught his hand. Your mother — your sister — who will support them? And so, by the most paternal kindness, he laid upon his son the duty of living. Maximilian slowly took off his epaulets in token of acceptance. Be it so, my father; die in peace.

Morrel blessed him and gave him his last command: that the house of Thomson & French — the only one that had shown him pity, whether from humanity or from selfishness it was not for him to say — should be the first repaid. And he sent his son away. He rang for Cocles, who appeared crushed beyond his years; he was to bring the agent of Thomson & French to him the moment he arrived. Morrel sat and watched the clock. The minute hand moved on. He cocked one of the pistols and laid it down again to write a few last words to Julie. Then he placed the muzzle between his teeth.

Suddenly a cry — his daughter's voice. He turned. Julie threw herself in his arms with a red netted silk purse in her hand. Saved! you are saved! Morrel, dazzled, took the purse — and recognised it; at one end was the receipted bill for the 287,000 francs; at the other a diamond as large as a hazel-nut, with a slip of parchment: Julie's Dowry. Where did you find this? In a house in the Allées de Meilhan, No. 15, on the corner of a mantelpiece on the fifth floor. The clock struck eleven, and at that very moment Emmanuel rushed in. The Pharaon! They have signalled the Pharaon! She is entering the harbour!

They all hastened to the Canebière. Before the tower of Saint-Jean lay a vessel bearing on her stern the words The Pharaon, Morrel & Son, of Marseilles — the exact duplicate of the lost ship, and loaded as she had been with cochineal and indigo. On her deck were Captain Gaumard and good Penelon making signals to the owner. Ten thousand persons were there to corroborate the testimony of his senses.

As Morrel embraced his son on the pier-head amid the applause of the city, a man with a black beard watched from behind a sentry-box and murmured: Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter; and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds. He left his hiding-place, descended a flight of steps, hailed three times: Jacopo! Jacopo! Jacopo! A launch took him aboard a yacht splendidly fitted up. He looked once more at the weeping shipowner thanking the unknown benefactor he sought in the skies.

And now, said the unknown, farewell kindness, humanity, and gratitude. Farewell to all the feelings that expand the heart. I have been Heaven's substitute to recompense the good — now the god of vengeance yields to me his power to punish the wicked. At a signal, the yacht put out to sea.

Chapter 31 — Italy: Sinbad the Sailor

Towards the beginning of 1838, two young men of the first society of Paris, the Viscount Albert de Morcerf and the Baron Franz d'Épinay, were at Florence. They had agreed to spend the Carnival at Rome together, and had written to Signor Pastrini at the Hôtel de Londres for two rooms and a parlour on the third floor. Albert went to Naples; Franz, having visited Corsica, the cradle of Bonaparte, took a boat for Elba, the waiting-place of Napoleon.

After traversing Elba and shooting (badly) at red partridges on Pianosa, he was drawn by the captain Gaetano's promise of capital sport on a desert pile of conical rocks belonging to Tuscany — the Island of Monte Cristo. Wild goats bred there in thousands; the only obstacle was that Monte Cristo was an infected port, sometimes used by smugglers and Corsican bandits, and a known visit there meant six days of quarantine at Leghorn. Six days! As long as the Almighty took to make the world. "But who will say your excellency has been there?" None of them would. They steered for Monte Cristo.

On the way Gaetano discoursed of pirates and of the manner in which they sank a vessel and chained four-and-twenty pound shot to her crew so that no complaint was ever made to the government. Franz, who never courted danger but met it with cold resolution, declined to retreat. As night fell upon the rocks of Monte Cristo, a fire was seen on the strand. Gaetano stripped off his shirt, slipped into the sea, and swam ashore noiselessly to reconnoitre. He returned to report Spanish smugglers and two Corsican bandits — bandits being sailors hard pressed by the carbineers, and one must always help one another. Smugglers were not thieves; the bandits had only made a stiff, which was a different thing from murder; they were six in all, exactly the strength of Gaetano's party. Franz coolly loaded his guns and approved the plan: steer for Monte Cristo.

Gaetano sang a fishing-song as the boat came in, was answered by a sentinel's Who comes there? in Sardinian, and gave Franz's name as a Frenchman travelling for pleasure. The sentinel sent a man among the rocks, who returned and gave the order S'accommodi — that untranslatable Italian welcome. They landed and were directed not to bivouac in the spot they had chosen but in another, on a small esplanade. While Gaetano's men plucked partridges and kindled a fire, the chief of the smugglers — informed that Franz was a young Frenchman — sent his invitation: he begged the gentleman to sup with him. There was one peculiar condition: that Franz should be blindfolded, and not lift the bandage until his host bid him. Gaetano said the chief inhabited a cavern to which the Pitti Palace is nothing. Cama, the pilot of the Saint Ferdinand, had once been within and had come back vowing that such treasures were heard of only in fairy tales; the door, it was said, was opened not by a key but by a magic word. The vessel of the chief — a Genoese yacht of a hundred tons, fit to round the world — anchored where no one could see her. The chief called himself Sinbad the Sailor.

Franz let himself be bandaged. He was led past the bivouac, then fifty paces farther, into a cave whose air changed and grew balmy and perfumed; his feet sank into a thick carpet; a voice in excellent French bid him remove the bandage. He found himself in a chamber lined with crimson brocade and gold; a divan, a stand of Arabian swords with hilts of gems, a Venetian glass lamp, and the host himself — a man of forty in Tunisian costume, with a remarkable handsome face of an almost livid pallor, eyes penetrating and sparkling, a Greek nose, teeth like pearls, a black moustache, a cangiar in his girdle. His pallor was so peculiar that it seemed to belong to one who had been long entombed.

The host apologised for the bandage — he had to keep his retreat secret if he were to enjoy the certainty of separating himself from mankind at pleasure. He proposed that they exchange names of convenience: he called himself Sinbad the Sailor; Franz, declaring himself transported to the East, agreed to be called Aladdin. A black Nubian, Ali, summoned them to a marble dining-room of antique bas-reliefs and four statues with baskets of pyramidal fruits — Sicilian pineapples, oranges from the Balearics, peaches from France, dates from Tunis. The supper was a roast pheasant garnished with Corsican blackbirds, a boar's ham, a kid with tartare, a turbot, and a great lobster, served on silver plate and Japanese china by Ali alone. Sinbad explained that he had bought Ali from the Bey of Tunis, who had condemned the boy to lose tongue, hand, and head on three successive days, by offering a splendid double-barrelled gun and an English cutlass; the bargain had cost the boy his tongue but saved hand and head, on condition he never returned to Tunis.

Asked whether he travelled like the celebrated Sinbad, the host smiled. I made a vow at a time when I little thought I should ever fulfil it; and others I hope to fulfil in season. His eyes gave forth a momentary gleam of extraordinary ferocity. He claimed to live the life of a pasha, free as a bird, with his own silent and sure way of dispensing justice. Revenge? asked Franz. And why revenge? The host laughed and changed the subject — I am a sort of philosopher, and one day perhaps shall go to Paris to rival Monsieur Appert.

For dessert Ali brought a small silver cup. Beneath the cover was a greenish paste like preserved angelica. That is the ambrosia which Hebe served at the table of Jupiter. It was hashish — the purest hashish of Alexandria, the hashish of Abou-Gor. Sinbad called it the gift of the Old Man of the Mountain to the Assassins of Hassen-ben-Sabah, who, transported to a paradise of ever-blooming shrubs and ever-lovely virgins, had sold themselves body and soul to him who gave it them. He swallowed a teaspoonful with eyes half closed and head bent back. Taste, Signor Aladdin — taste the hashish. Franz took a teaspoonful. They retired to a round chamber whose walls and floor were heaped with the skins of lions, tigers, panthers, and bears, took chibouques with amber mouthpieces, and Ali brought coffee in the Turkish style.

A strange transformation came over Franz. The horizon expanded with all the spangles of the sun and the perfumes of the summer breeze; he heard divine music; he seemed to enter the cavern again amid strains of melody; the chamber opened again before him, lit by an antique lamp, and the four statues turned into Phryne, Cleopatra, Messalina, with one chaste vision veiled among them. The marble figures advanced upon him. He yielded to a dream of passion such as the Prophet promised the elect — lips of stone turned to flame, breasts of ice became heated lava, love a sorrow and voluptuousness a torture — and at last sank back exhausted under the kisses of these marble goddesses and the enchantment of his marvellous dream.

Chapter 32 — The Waking

Franz woke as if from a sepulchre. He lay on his bournous on a bed of dry heather; the statues had vanished. A ray of light from a fanlight showed him a grotto and beyond it the morning sea. The fresh breeze and the dash of the waves recalled him gradually to reality. The vision had only been hashish, but it remained so vivid in his memory that he saw, even now in the bright sunshine, the shadows of his dream among the rocks.

Gaetano met him on the beach. The Signor Sinbad has left his compliments and his regret at not being able to take leave in person; very important business calls him to Malaga. Franz raised his telescope, and there indeed at the stern of a small white yacht was the mysterious stranger, dressed as before, waving his handkerchief in adieu. A puff of smoke followed: a salute from the cannon. Franz fired his carbine in answer.

He took a torch and went back into the grotto with Gaetano, but his most painstaking search of the granite walls — every fissure tried with his hunting sword, every projecting point pressed — disclosed nothing but the smoke-stains of others who had attempted the same thing in vain. Two hours later he gave up. The yacht on the horizon was now only a sea-gull on the wave, and steering not for Malaga but for the gulf of Porto-Vecchio, where Gaetano remembered the chief was to land his Corsican brigands. He fears neither God nor Satan, and would run fifty leagues out of his course to do a poor devil a service. The Signor Sinbad was clearly on excellent terms with every smuggler and bandit on the Mediterranean coast.

Franz killed a goat and two kids, but they were too like domestic goats to be game. He made a second futile search of the grotto, and in the afternoon returned to the boat. The yacht had vanished into Porto-Vecchio; supper, Sinbad, hashish, and statues all became a dream. Next morning Monte Cristo was lost behind them.

He finished his affairs at Florence and reached the Place de la Douane in Rome on a Saturday evening, when the city was already in that low feverish murmur that precedes its four great events — Carnival, Holy Week, Corpus Christi, and the Feast of St Peter. At the Hôtel de Londres he was told there was no room until he sent his card to Signor Pastrini, who flew to the door and led him up to the apartment Albert de Morcerf had retained: two small rooms and a parlour, the rest of the floor being occupied by a very rich gentleman who was supposed to be a Sicilian or a Maltese, the host could not decide which.

Supper would come at once. The carriage was the difficulty. There were no carriages to be had in Rome at Carnival; even at double the usual price of forty lire none could be procured; and there were no post-horses left except those absolutely required for posting. Albert, with that delighted philosophy that believes nothing impossible to a full purse, supped, went to bed, slept soundly, and dreamed he was racing all over Rome at Carnival time in a coach with six horses.

Chapter 33 — Roman Bandits

Pastrini brought a carriage at last — at twelve piastres for three days — but no Sunday-to-Tuesday vehicle could be had at any price, and not a window in the Corso. Franz proposed escaping to Venice; Albert refused: he had come to see Carnival and would see it on stilts. They visited Saint Peter's all that day and ordered the carriage for eight that evening, to view the Colosseum by moonlight by way of the Porta del Popolo and the Porta San Giovanni — Franz being one of those men who feel the same pride in showing a city as in pointing out a former mistress.

Pastrini interrupted the dinner with a grave warning: this route was impossible — very dangerous, on account of the famous Luigi Vampa. Albert had never heard the name. He is a bandit, compared to whom the Decesaris and Gasparones were mere children. Pastrini, hurt by Albert's incredulity, addressed Franz alone, and produced a magnificent Bréguet that Vampa had once given him in exchange for letting him go free; and then, at his guests' invitation, sat down and told the bandit's history.

Vampa was a shepherd boy of the Count of San-Felice's farm at Pampinara, of extraordinary precocity. At seven he had taught himself to read from the curate's breviary, then to write with a sharpened nail on slate. The count, astonished, granted him two piastres a month, with which the boy bought books and pencils, and started carving wood like a young Pinelli. He had a playmate, an orphan named Teresa, beautiful, lively, coquettish to excess, on whom he spent every coin he had on earrings and gold hairpins. They grew up together as two trees whose roots are mingled.

When a wolf was reported, the steward gave Vampa a discarded gun whose stock the count had broken; the boy carved a new one and so soon perfected his marksmanship that he could pick off the eagle in flight, the fox at his earth, the wolf as it left the wood. He killed his wolf at ten paces. He became the most adroit and courageous contadino for ten leagues around, and no one spoke of love to Teresa, for it was known that she was Vampa's.

The bandit chief Cucumetto was at this time the terror of the country. Pastrini told one example of his ferocity: how a brigand named Carlini, finding that the chief had violated his betrothed Rita while he himself was sent on an errand, had buried his knife in her own breast and offered the knife to the girl's father — I loved her, therefore I slew her, for she would have served as the sport of the whole band — and the old man had taken him in his arms and called him son. The next morning Carlini was killed in an encounter with the carbineers — shot in the back by Cucumetto, who had overheard his oath of vengeance under the oak that shaded Rita's grave.

One day Cucumetto himself, hard pressed, asked refuge of Vampa and Teresa, and Vampa hid him in the closed-up grotto. The carbineers questioned them; his head is valued at a thousand Roman crowns, said the brigadier — five hundred for them — but they had not seen him. When the carbineers were gone Cucumetto offered them a purse, which Vampa proudly refused — but Teresa's eyes shone for it, and the cunning fiend made a mental note of her weakness.

A few days later the Count of San-Felice gave a great masked ball for his daughter Carmela, whose age and figure were Teresa's exact match. Luigi obtained leave for them to mingle with the servants. The count's daughter, lacking a partner of her own peasant costume in the quadrille, sent for Teresa, who took her place trembling with delight. Luigi, watching her dazzled by the cashmere and diamonds and the praise of her aristocratic cavalier, drew the dagger half from its sheath without knowing it; he was jealous. After the dance he led her away by force into a corner of the garden, walked her home in silence, and at her door asked: what were you thinking of as you danced? — I would give half my life for a costume such as she wore. — Then you shall have it.

That night the Villa San-Felice took fire in the wing of Carmela's chamber. An unknown peasant scaled the window and bore her in his arms to the lawn; he had vanished by the time her father arrived. The next morning Luigi, in high spirits, drew aside the stone of the grotto: there, in the light of two wax candles before a splendid mirror, lay the entire costume of the count's daughter — pearls, diamond pins, cashmere, sapphire buttons. Teresa darted in to dress.

While she dressed, Luigi went to direct a traveller who had lost his way at the cross-roads from Palestrina to Tivoli. The traveller, used to the difference between cities and mountains, did not insist on payment but offered two Venetian sequins as a gift to be made into earrings for the bride; Luigi gave him in return the carved poniard from his belt. What is your name? — Luigi Vampa. — And yours? — Sinbad the Sailor.

(Franz d'Épinay started at the name. He did not interrupt.)

Returning to the grotto, Luigi heard a woman's cry — Teresa's. He ran, climbed a hill, and saw a man bearing her toward the wood, two hundred paces away, like Nessus the centaur with Deianira. He measured the distance, dropped to one knee, took aim, and at the report the ravisher fell with Teresa in his arms. It was Cucumetto, who from the day Vampa had hidden him had sworn the girl should be his. Ah, good — you are dressed; it is now my turn. He carried the corpse into the grotto, and emerged in his turn in a vest of garnet velvet, sky-blue breeches, gold scarf, deerskin garters, two watches in his girdle, and the splendid poniard at his belt — Cucumetto's own. Are you ready to share my fortune, whatever it may be? — To the world's end.

He led her by a torrent's bed to the bandit retreat at Rocca Bianca. There, before twenty bandits, he asked admittance — and not as a follower but as captain. They laughed. And what have you done? — I have killed your chief Cucumetto, whose dress I now wear, and set fire to the villa San-Felice to procure a wedding-dress for my betrothed. An hour later Luigi Vampa was elected captain, vice Cucumetto deceased.

Well, Albert? — I say he is a myth. But the bandit was at this very moment exercising his trade in the Roman environs with a boldness no predecessor had matched, said Pastrini, having a good understanding with the shepherds, the fishermen of the Tiber, and the smugglers of the coast; the police pursued him on land while he was on the sea, and pursued him on the sea while he was on land. He gave eight or twelve hours' grace for ransom, and at the sixtieth minute of the sixty-first hour he blew out the prisoner's brains.

Are you still disposed to go to the Colosseum by the outer wall? — Quite so, if the way be picturesque. The carriage rolled out at nine.

Chapter 34 — The Colosseum

Franz had so chosen his route that they passed not a single ancient ruin before the Colosseum, so that no preliminary impression should mitigate its colossal proportions. He brooded in the carriage on Pastrini's story; the strange intimacy between the smuggler-bandits and his Sinbad of Monte Cristo was no longer to be doubted. The Corsican brigands fed at the same yacht's table; Sinbad was clearly playing the same philanthropic part along the Italian coast as he played at Monte Cristo and Tunis.

At the Colosseum the moonlight played through the dark frowning openings like the unearthly gleam from the eyes of the wandering dead. The two friends were seized upon by guides — there is one guide for each monument and almost for each part of a monument — and Franz, leaving Albert to be dragged through the Lions' Den and the Hall of Gladiators, climbed a half-dilapidated staircase and seated himself at the foot of a column, hidden by its shadow, opposite a wide aperture.

A quarter of an hour later he heard a stone roll on the opposite stair, and a man emerged into the moonlight, listening at every step. He stood in half-light beneath a great hole in the roof, wearing a brown mantle drawn across the lower part of his face and a broad-brimmed hat that hid the upper. The polished boots and the fashionable trousers proved that he belonged to no inferior station. He waited; presently a dark shadow swung itself down by a rope of matted boughs from the broken roof — a man in the Transtevere costume — and apologised, in the Roman dialect, for keeping his excellency waiting.

The man — Beppo, his correspondent in the Castle of St Angelo, had supplied the news — reported that two executions of considerable interest were fixed for the day after tomorrow at two o'clock. One was an atrocious villain who had murdered the priest who brought him up; the other, poor Peppino, was a shepherd of Vampa's band, sentenced to be guillotined. The man in the cloak observed coolly that Peppino was to all intents an accomplice; and the bandit, with passionate insistence, swore he would not desert him in his extremity. He proposed to surround the scaffold with twenty men and carry Peppino off by force.

"My scheme is far better than yours," answered the man in the mantle, in the purest Tuscan. "I will so advantageously bestow two thousand piastres that the prisoner shall obtain a respite till next year, and during that year another thousand will procure his escape. Pardieu!" — and at this French exclamation Franz pricked up his ears — "I will do more single-handed by gold than you and all your troop with stilettos and blunderbusses." The bandit asked the signal of success. I have engaged the three lower windows at the Café Rospoli. If I have obtained the pardon, the two outer windows will be hung with yellow damask and the centre with white, with a great red cross. If I fail, all three will be yellow. The bandit pledged a future obedience the man in the cloak promised to remember. They parted, and Franz let his old host slip away unrecognised — for the conversation he had overheard made his appearance at that moment anything but agreeable. He could not doubt: it was the inhabitant of the grotto of Monte Cristo, Sinbad the Sailor.

He passed a sleepless night arguing the chain of identifications. The next morning he ceded the carriage to Albert (who had a list of letters of introduction to leave) and visited the Teatro Argentina that evening, where Albert had taken a box. Parisina by Donizetti was the opera. At the close of the first act, the Countess G — — a Venetian Franz had met in Paris — entered her box and recognised him. He brought Albert to be presented; while Albert engrossed her with Parisian gossip, Franz noticed in the box opposite a beautiful young woman in Albanian costume, accompanied by a masculine figure in deep shadow. The countess could only tell him that she was an Albanian who had been at Rome since the season opened, just my idea of what Medora must have been, and was attended sometimes by this man and sometimes by a black servant.

In the second act — at the great duet in which the sleeping Parisina betrays her secret to Azzo — the man in the opposite box rose to applaud, and Franz saw his face fully revealed in the lights. It was, beyond all doubt, his host of Monte Cristo and the unknown of the Colosseum. The countess, gazing at him, declared he looked as if he had just been dug up — more like a corpse permitted by a friendly grave-digger to revisit this earth. Lord Ruthven himself in a living form, she said. Byron, she insisted, had told her he had seen vampires, and the description matched: the coal-black hair, the great glittering eyes burning with unearthly fire, the ghastly paleness, the foreign woman who attended him. She would not let Franz approach him that night; she would even pretend she had a party at home, just to compel him to escort her away. He took her home in a trembling silence and submitted to her promise: not to follow the man until tomorrow.

Albert, when Franz returned, had met the supposed vampire in the lobby and pronounced him a fine-looking fellow, admirably dressed by some Parisian tailor, and a little pale (paleness being aristocratic). He had heard him speak in Romaic mixed with Greek. That settles it, murmured Franz; 'tis he, past all doubt. Albert had also been hatching a plan for the Carnival: since they could not get a carriage, they would hire a cart and a pair of oxen and dress as Neapolitan reapers, with the countess as a Madonna of Sorrento. He had sent Pastrini to procure them. The host returned with better than that: the Count of Monte Cristo, who occupied the rest of the floor, had heard of the dilemma and offered his guests two seats in his carriage and two places at his windows in the Palazzo Rospoli. A liveried servant followed with two cards: the Count of Monte Cristo begs these gentlemen's permission to wait upon them as their neighbour. They accepted at once. Franz had a private reason: the windows in the Palazzo Rospoli were the windows of the Café Rospoli of the Colosseum bargain, and tomorrow he would see whether they were hung with yellow damask or with white.

He passed another night in confused dreams and was up at eight. He asked Pastrini for one of the tavolettas — the wooden tablets pasted at the corners of the streets the night before an execution, that good Catholics may pray for the condemned — and read the names: Andrea Rondolo, sentenced to be mazzolato for the murder of the canon of St John Lateran; and Peppino, called Rocca Priori, accomplice of the bandit Luigi Vampa, to be decapitato. Every detail tallied with what he had heard in the Colosseum. The Transteverin was beyond a doubt Vampa himself; the man in the mantle was Sinbad. Pastrini led the two young men across the landing to their neighbour's apartment, through two rooms of luxury they had not expected to find under his roof, and into a drawing-room of Turkey carpets, painted masters, and trophies of war. From behind a tapestry came a guzla. Then a door opened, the tapestry was drawn aside, and the master of these riches stood before them. Albert rose to meet him; Franz remained spellbound, for in the man before him he recognised at once the mysterious visitor of the Colosseum, the occupant of the opposite box at the Argentina, and his extraordinary host of Monte Cristo.

Chapter 35 — La Mazzolata

The Count of Monte Cristo apologised for being beforehand with their visit; he sat them down. Albert's expansive thanks Franz had nothing to add to. The count gave nothing in his manner that betrayed a wish to be recognised, and Franz, master of the count's secret while the count had no hold on him, resolved to let things take their course. He led the conversation to the place where the execution might be best seen.

The count rang for his steward — one ring for the valet, two for the majordomo, three for the steward; thus I waste neither word nor minute. The man who entered, Bertuccio, exactly resembled the smuggler who had bandaged Franz's eyes at Monte Cristo, but he gave no sign of recognition. The window in the Piazza del Popolo had been secured for them. The count then read aloud the tavoletta and remarked, with the air of a newspaper bulletin, that since the previous evening some change had taken place in the order of the ceremony — at Cardinal Rospigliosi's the night before mention had been made of a pardon for one of the two men: not for the parricide Andrea Rondolo, but for Peppino, called Rocca Priori. They would lose the spectacle of the guillotine, but the mazzolata remained — a punishment, said the count, very curious when seen for the first time, and even the second. As for European executions, they were in the infancy, or rather the old age, of cruelty.

Franz pressed him: had he then studied the punishments of all nations? There are at least few I have not seen. And had he taken pleasure in beholding them? My first sentiment was horror, the second indifference, the third curiosity. He went on, a deep hatred rising in his face where another man would have shown a flush of anger: If a man had by unheard-of tortures destroyed your father, your mother, your betrothed — leaving in your breast a wound that never closes — do you think the few moments of pain interposed between the base of his occiput and his trapezal muscles by the guillotine were sufficient reparation? There were a thousand wrongs no human justice could touch, and the duel was a poor remedy. Had I to avenge myself, it is not thus I would take revenge — but slow, profound, eternal, like the Orientals: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Then breaking off — but really, this is a singular conversation for the Carnival — he summoned them to breakfast.

The breakfast was excellent. The count scarcely tasted it, awaiting his guests' departure to be served some stranger food alone, and Franz remembered Countess G's belief that the man was a vampire. The count then offered them the use of a private room in the Piazza del Popolo for the changing of their masks — the scaffold forms part of the fête. Franz declined to view the execution; Albert, who had once seen Castaing executed in a state of intoxication, hesitated, but yielded to the count's eloquence: Think what a figure you will make when asked, "How do they execute at Rome?" and you reply, "I do not know!"

Franz asked to take the route by the Corso, the better to see the windows of the Café Rospoli. He pretended to ask casually which were the count's. The three last. The two outer windows were hung with yellow damask; the centre with white damask and a great red cross. The man in the mantle had kept his promise to the Transteverin. There could be no more doubt that he was the count.

The crowd thickened toward the Piazza del Popolo. The two uprights of the mandaïa glittered between the obelisk and the convergence of the three streets. The count's window — let, no doubt at an exorbitant price he had concealed from his guests — was a small dressing-room and a bedroom. On chairs lay elegant white-and-blue satin masks. Franz scarcely heard the count's commentary, for he was wholly absorbed in the spectacle below: two assistants of the executioner sat on the movable plank eating bread and sausages and passing a flask of wine. The whole square was paved with heads. Mothers held their children on their shoulders for a better view; the Monte Pincio was a vast amphitheatre; the most curious spectacle in life is the spectacle of death. And yet, instead of solemnity, there was laughter and jest: the execution was, in the eyes of the people, only the prologue to the Carnival.

A brotherhood of penitents in gray sackcloth came first from the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, the chief at their head; then the executioner, naked but for cloth drawers, with a great knife at his belt and an iron sledgehammer on his shoulder; then Peppino — handsome, bronzed, head erect — and then Andrea Rondolo, supported by two priests. Franz felt his legs tremble; Albert had cast away his cigar. The count alone seemed unmoved — nay, more, his nostrils dilated like those of a wild beast scenting prey, his white pointed teeth glittered between half-open lips, and yet his black eyes were full of kindness and pity.

At the foot of the mandaïa a priest forced his way through the soldiers and handed the chief of the brotherhood a folded paper. The chief raised his hand. Heaven be praised, and his Holiness also; here is a pardon for Peppino, called Rocca Priori! — A pardon! cried the people. Andrea raised his head. Pardon for whom? — For Peppino. — Why for him and not for me? We ought to die together. I will not die alone, I will not! He broke from his confessors raving like a wild beast. The two assistants leaped from the scaffold and seized him.

"Do you not see," said the count, "that this human creature is furious that his fellow does not perish with him? Were he able he would tear him to pieces with his teeth. Lead two sheep to the butcher; one will bleat for pleasure to learn the other will not die. But man — man whom God created in his own image — man whom God has commanded to love his neighbour — what is his first cry when his fellow is saved? A blasphemy. Honour to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of creation!" And he burst into a laugh — a terrible laugh, that showed he must have suffered horribly to be able thus to laugh.

The two assistants forced Andrea to his knees on the scaffold. The executioner raised his mace, signed them aside; the criminal strove to rise; the mace fell on his left temple with a dull heavy sound, and the man dropped like an ox. The executioner drew his knife, opened his throat, mounted his stomach, and stamped violently with his feet. At every stroke a jet of blood sprang from the wound. Franz, half fainting, sank into a seat. Albert, his eyes closed, clutched the curtains. The Count was erect and triumphant — like the Avenging Angel.

Chapter 36 — The Carnival at Rome

When Franz recovered, scaffold and victims had vanished, and the Monte Citorio bell — which only sounds for a Pope's death and the opening of Carnival — was ringing a joyous peal. Peppino had slipped into the crowd unnoticed in the general distraction. Decidedly man is an ungrateful and egotistical animal, said the count. Franz fastened his mask, white as his own pallor, over his face, and they descended into the Corso, where instead of silent death there was now an immense gay tumult — clowns, harlequins, dominoes, peasants, and Transteverins screaming, fighting, and pelting each other indiscriminately with confetti, eggs filled with flour, and bouquets, while three hundred thousand spectators leant from balconies hung with flags. As at a violent wine, Franz and Albert felt the past gradually washed from them and gave themselves up to the festival.

At the second turn the count alighted opposite the Palazzo Rospoli, where in the centre window with the white damask and red cross now stood a blue domino — the beautiful Greek, no doubt. He left the carriage to his guests, and his coachman dressed as a bear and his footmen as green monkeys. Albert, throwing bouquets at a calash full of pretty Roman peasants, lost his mask in one encounter, and one of the women threw him a bunch of violets which he kept in his button-hole and which she clapped her hands at when she next saw him. He swore he would not be caught at first sight by a rendezvous; if she wished to carry the matter further she would find him.

That evening at the Argentina the Countess G — looked into the count's box and beckoned the young men over. So you are now the best friends in the world with this new Lord Ruthven? They explained how he had introduced himself; how he had three windows at the Rospoli Palace at three thousand crowns; how he had bought an island that did not bring him a bajocco. He is an original, then. — Eccentric — were he in Paris I should call him a poor devil literally mad.

Pastrini procured ready-made peasant costumes the next morning. Albert was charmed with himself. Their bear-and-monkey coachmen took them out at half-past one. The fair peasants of yesterday had become harlequins; Albert kept the old violets and pinned a fresh bunch beside them, raised them to his lips when he passed, and won approving laughter. By evening the harlequin had raised her mask: she was charming, and Albert had recognised, by certain unmistakable signs, that she belonged to the aristocracy. He begged Franz for the carriage to himself the next day; Franz, never having had such a piece of fortune in three years' travel in Italy, agreed.

Franz spent the day at the windows of the Rospoli Palace and saw Albert go up and down with an enormous bouquet conspicuous by a circle of white camellias, which presently appeared in the hand of a charming harlequin in rose-coloured satin. That evening Albert returned waving a folded paper: Tuesday evening at seven, descend from your carriage opposite the Via dei Pontefici, and follow the Roman peasant who snatches your torch from you. At the first step of the church of San Giacomo, fasten a knot of rose-coloured ribbons to the shoulder of your harlequin costume, that you may be known. — Constancy and Discretion. The orthography was irreproachable. I am in love, declared Albert. Two or three more such adventures, said Franz, and I do not despair of seeing you a member of the Academy.

The Count of Monte Cristo, returning from Civita Vecchia, was that evening like everybody else and brought them his Argentina box. Franz was by degrees becoming accustomed to his pallor and admired the severe Byronic beauty of his features — that stern head upon Manfred's shoulders, beneath Lara's helmet. The count was at least forty, and yet seemed formed to rule the young men with whom he kept company. Franz, while admiring him, made up his mind that he did not wish to be in Paris when the count was there.

On Tuesday — the last and most tumultuous day, when theatres open at ten in the morning because Lent begins after eight in the evening — Albert wore his harlequin costume and his rose-coloured ribbons; Franz, to avoid confusion, kept his peasant's. At three the cannon of Sant' Angelo announced the barberi; seven horses passed like lightning; number three had won. Then came the moccoletti — candles from paschal taper to rushlight — which gave each spectator two problems: how to keep his own alight and how to extinguish his neighbour's. The moccoletto is like life: man has but one means of transmitting it, but a thousand of taking it away. For two hours fifty thousand lights danced from the Palazzo di Venezia to the Piazza del Popolo, and back, and one might see the features of the spectators on the third and fourth storeys.

At seven, in the Via dei Pontefici, Albert sprang out moccoletto in hand, knocked down two or three masks who tried to snatch it, and ran toward the steps of San Giacomo. Franz saw a peasant-costumed mask take his torch, saw Albert disappear with her into the Via Macello arm in arm — and then the bell sounded, and as if by enchantment all fifty thousand lights went out at once. The Carnival was over.

Chapter 37 — The Catacombs of Saint Sebastian

Rome had changed under the demon-breath of night into a vast tomb. Franz dined alone, ordered the carriage for eleven, and went on to the Duke of Bracciano's ball — that house of European celebrity over which the duchess Colonna presided with consummate grace. Albert had not returned. The duke and Countess G — both shared his uneasiness; the night was gloomy, and the Tiber was very near the Via Macello. Then a servant brought word that a man with a letter from the viscount waited at the hotel.

The messenger refused to come up. He stood wrapped in a great cloak in the middle of the street and gave Franz the paper. It was Albert's hand: Take the letter of credit from my pocket-book, run to Torlonia, draw four thousand piastres, and give them to the bearer. P.S. — I now believe in Italian banditti. Below, in another hand, was added in Italian: If by six in the morning the four thousand piastres are not in my hands, by seven the Count Albert will have ceased to live. — Luigi Vampa.

The street was safer for Peppino than Franz's apartment. Together the two letters of credit (Albert's and Franz's) made up three thousand two hundred piastres — eight hundred short. A luminous idea crossed Franz's brain: the Count of Monte Cristo. He went straight to him. The count, who had returned half an hour before, opened a drawer of gold and made a sign that Franz should take what he liked. Then Franz pressed him: he was sure that if they went together to Vampa, the bandit would not refuse them. What influence can I have over a bandit? — Have you not just saved Peppino's life? The count knit his brows. Who told you that? — No matter; I know it. He paused, then agreed. It is a lovely night, and a walk without Rome will do us both good.

He whistled at the window in a peculiar manner, and the man in the cloak entered the room without hesitation. It was Peppino — who threw himself at the count's feet and kissed his hand. The count made him explain. Albert had crossed the carriage of Teresa, the chief's mistress, several times in the day. He had thrown her a bouquet; she had returned it; the chief himself had been driving the calash, disguised as a coachman. Teresa had fixed the rendezvous on the steps of San Giacomo — only it was Beppo, a lad of fifteen, who has taken in plenty of others, that snatched Albert's moccoletto. Beppo had drawn him into a waiting carriage and out beyond the Porta San Paolo, where four bandits surrounded them; the Frenchman, after nearly strangling Beppo, had been brought to Vampa in the catacombs of St Sebastian.

The count ordered out his carriage, the pistols removed from the holsters, Ali on the box. Franz recognised the Nubian mute of Monte Cristo. They went out by the Porta San Sebastiano on a permit signed by the governor of Rome, along the ancient Appian Way bordered with tombs. Sentinels appeared and vanished in the moonlit ruins as Peppino signalled. They alighted near the Baths of Caracalla; Peppino went ahead with a torch through the tall red herbage that lay like the bristling mane of a lion. They followed and were challenged by another sentry, then descended an opening among bushes and rocks, then a narrow passage, then twenty steps into a mortuary chamber from which five corridors radiated like a star.

Down one corridor a reddish glare was visible. The count laid his hand on Franz's shoulder. Would you like to see a camp of bandits in repose? He guided him through the dark. They came to three arcades opening into a square chamber whose niches showed it to have been a columbarium. In the middle, four stones surmounted with a cross had once been an altar. By a single lamp at the foot of a column sat Luigi Vampa with his back turned, reading; round him twenty bandits lay about with their carbines, and at the further end a sentry walked before a darker grotto.

The count entered through the middle arcade and advanced. Who comes there? cried the sentinel; Vampa sprang up with a pistol; twenty carbines were levelled. Well, my dear Vampa, it appears to me that you receive a friend with a great deal of ceremony. The bandit took off his hat in confusion. Your pardon, your excellency. I did not really recognise you. The count pressed the point: Was it not agreed that not only my person, but the persons of my friends, should be respected by you? You have this evening carried off Viscount Albert de Morcerf, who lodges in the same hotel as myself, who has been up and down the Corso for eight hours in my private carriage, and you have set a ransom on him as if he were a stranger. Vampa turned upon his men in fury — Why have you caused me thus to fail in my word? By heavens, if I thought one of you knew, I would blow his brains out with my own hand!

He led them to the inner grotto. Albert lay wrapped in a borrowed cloak, in profound slumber. Not so bad, said the count, for a man who is to be shot at seven o'clock tomorrow morning. Vampa woke him with a touch. Albert stretched himself, looked at his watch, and complained: Half-past one only? I had such a delightful dream — I was dancing the galop with the Countess G. Told that he was free, he asked who had paid his ransom; told no one, but a person to whom Vampa could refuse nothing, he turned and saw Franz — and then the count. Oh, my dear count, you are most kind, and he held out his hand. The count gave his own, and as Franz noticed shuddered slightly as he gave it.

Vampa, who was used to seeing his prisoners tremble before him, gazed in amazement at this gay temperament. If you make haste, said Franz, we shall yet have time to finish the night at Torlonia's. Vampa took up the torch from Peppino and led them out himself, not as a servant, but like a king who precedes ambassadors. At the door he repeated his apologies. Gentlemen, perhaps the offer may not appear tempting to you, but if you should ever feel inclined to pay me a second visit, wherever I may be, you shall be welcome. Franz, before leaving, asked what work Vampa had been reading so attentively. Cæsar's Commentaries — it is my favourite work.

They reached the carriage. Albert lighted his cigar at Vampa's torch. Ali drove. At two o'clock the friends entered the ball-room, and Albert at once advanced to the Countess G. Madame, yesterday you were so condescending as to promise me a galop; I am rather late in claiming the gracious promise. He swept her into the whirl of waltzers. Franz, watching, brooded over the singular shudder that had passed over the Count of Monte Cristo at the moment he had been forced to give his hand to Albert.

Chapter 38 — The Rendezvous

The next morning Albert insisted on a fresh visit to the count to repeat his thanks. The count brushed them aside — Albert owed him only some twenty thousand francs saved from the travelling expenses. Then Albert offered, in his turn, the use of his name and his father's connections. The count accepted: he asked a great favour. He had never seen Paris, and required only an introduction into the fashionable world. To open to me the doors of that world of which I know no more than a Huron or a native of Cochin-China. Albert gave it readily — a letter that morning had summoned him home for a marriage with a family of high standing, and the count would be welcome. They fixed a positive appointment: the 21st of May, at half-past ten in the morning, No. 27, Rue du Helder. The count was proverbial for punctilious exactitude.

Franz had to take leave too, for he was bound for Venice. The count gave each young man his hand. It was the first time Franz had touched it: it was cold and icy as a corpse's. He shuddered.

In their own apartments Franz tried to communicate his apprehension to Albert. He told him for the first time the whole story of his visit to Monte Cristo: the smugglers and Corsican bandits, the magical hospitality, the supper, the hashish, the marble statues of the dream, the vanishing of all proof except the small yacht on the horizon; then the conversation in the Colosseum and the count's promise to obtain Peppino's release; then the bargain with Vampa in the catacombs. Albert listened — and answered every objection with reason. The count was a rich Englishman who travelled in his own yacht, had bought a deserted island for a refuge, took its name as a courtesy title; the Corsican bandits were not rogues but exiles; and as to the influence over Vampa, a man who owed his life to it should not search too closely into its source. Above all, when Franz had run to the count for help, the count had not asked who Albert de Morcerf was, by what right he existed, or where he was born; he had simply opened a drawer of gold. Do as you please, said Franz with a sigh; your arguments are beyond my powers. He could only insist that the Count of Monte Cristo was a most singular personage.

The next afternoon at half-past five they parted — Albert for Paris, Franz for a fortnight at Venice. Before mounting his carriage Albert left a card with the waiter for the count, on which beneath his name he had written: 27, Rue du Helder, on the 21st May, half-past ten A.M.

Chapter 39 — The Guests

In Albert's pavilion at No. 27, Rue du Helder — at the corner of the great courtyard of the Comte de Morcerf's hotel, with a small private door beside the concierge's for the Open Sesame of the sweetest voices — the morning of the 21st of May was full of preparation. The pavilion had downstairs a smoking salon and a breakfast-room, and upstairs a salon, a boudoir, and a bedroom (with an invisible door on the staircase between them); higher still, an atelier of musical instruments, painting easels, fencing swords, oriental stuffs, royal armchairs from the Louvre, and Beethoven and Mozart on a rosewood Roller piano. Albert sent word that Madame Danglars's box at the opera was accepted; that Rosa was to be sent six bottles of wine and a barrel of Ostend oysters; that he would call upon his mother for a liqueur cellaret and to ask leave to introduce someone to her. Then he settled down with the morning papers.

The first guest was Lucien Debray, private secretary to the minister of the interior, blue-coated and tortoise-shell-eyeglassed, just risen from a night of twenty-five despatches, the new ribbon of Charles III at his button-hole. He had been writing about the Carlist business in Spain — we take Don Carlos to the other side of the French frontier and offer him hospitality at Bourges, and Danglars, who somehow obtained intelligence as soon as the ministry, had made a million on the Bourse. The next was Beauchamp the journalist, the terror of the French government, exchanging civil insults with Lucien. Albert was sure to inherit two millions through the projected marriage with Mlle Eugénie Danglars; Beauchamp doubted it would happen — the King has made Danglars a baron and may make him a peer, but he cannot make him a gentleman. They debated breakfast; Albert held them with sherry and biscuits.

Then a servant announced M. de Château-Renaud — M. Maximilian Morrel. The count of Château-Renaud, the figure of a Guiche and the wit of a Mortemart, brought with him a stranger to Albert: a young man in the half-French, half-Oriental uniform of a captain of Spahis, broad-chested and decorated with the Legion of Honor — Maximilian Morrel, Château-Renaud's preserver. Château-Renaud, in retreat from Constantine on foot, had been overtaken by six Arabs and disarmed; one had him by the hair, the other had a yataghan at his neck, when this gentleman charged them, shot one and cleft the skull of the other. He had then warmed Château-Renaud with his own cloak (like Saint Martin) and fed him on his own dead horse. It was the 5th of September, said Morrel quietly, the anniversary of the day on which my father was miraculously preserved; therefore, as far as it lies in my power, I endeavour to celebrate it by some action.

Five minutes' grace to ten remained. Albert filled them by telling his friends about the man he was waiting for: a man called the Count of Monte Cristo, who had bought a deserted island in the Mediterranean and a Tuscan title; who lived like Sinbad the Sailor, with a cave full of gold; whom Franz had visited blindfold and been waited on by mutes and women whom hashish made of marble. The Countess G — declared he was a vampire — Lord Ruthven himself in a living form. Wild eyes whose iris contracts at pleasure, magnificent forehead, livid complexion, black beard, sharp white teeth, politeness unexceptionable, said Debray. Just so, said Morcerf — and one day when we were viewing an execution he made me shudder more by the cold calm manner in which he spoke of every form of torture than the executioner did. Beauchamp suggested he had sucked Albert's blood at the Colosseum, or made him sign away his soul on flaming parchment. No bandits, no vampires, no Count of Monte Cristo, declared Debray as the clock struck. The half-past ten had not died away when Germain announced: His excellency the Count of Monte Cristo.

Chapter 40 — The Breakfast

The count appeared at the door, dressed with the most fastidious simplicity, and seemed scarcely five-and-thirty. Punctuality is the politeness of kings, he said — and apologised for the two seconds' delay, since five hundred leagues are not accomplished without trouble. Albert presented his friends one by one. At the name Maximilian Morrel, captain of Spahis, the count stepped forward and a slight tinge of red coloured his pale cheeks. You wear the uniform of the new French conquerors, monsieur. It is a handsome uniform. No one could have said what made his voice vibrate so deeply. Beneath this uniform, said Albert, beats one of the bravest and noblest hearts in the whole army. — Ah, said the count, you have a noble heart; so much the better. It was an answer to his own thought rather than to Morcerf's words.

At table he confessed himself a stranger of strangers, the first time at Paris, used only to Eastern customs. He had not eaten in twenty-four hours but had slept in his carriage; he could sleep at will, by an infallible recipe — equal parts of pure Canton opium and the best hashish from between the Tigris and the Euphrates, made into pills. He drew from his pocket a casket carved out of a single emerald and showed half a dozen of the pills — a greenish ball with an acrid penetrating odour. Of three such emeralds he had given one to the Sultan, who set it in his sabre, in exchange for the liberty of a woman; another to the holy father in Rome, who set it in his tiara, in exchange for the life of a man — so that once in my life I have been as powerful as if heaven had brought me into the world on the steps of a throne. And it was Peppino you saved, was it not? cried Morcerf. — Perhaps, returned the count, smiling.

Albert pressed him to tell the rest. He told it himself, describing his mistake in taking a fifteen-year-old boy named Beppo for the contadina of his rendezvous, and the highly educated brigand chief he had found in the catacombs reading Cæsar's Commentaries. The count answered that he had known Vampa since the day he was a shepherd boy who had directed him at the cross-roads of Palestrina, and that he had since captured the bandit and his band but had let them go on the simple condition that they should respect myself and my friends. He never sought to protect a society which would not protect him; I preach egotism. Bravo, said Château-Renaud. But Morrel observed that in delivering Morcerf, whom he did not know, the count had nevertheless done good to his neighbour. The count's piercing glance fell upon Morrel and the young man could not for an instant sustain it.

The talk turned to the count's lodging. Château-Renaud proposed the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Debray the Chaussée d'Antin, Beauchamp a balcony on the Boulevard de l'Opéra. Morrel offered an apartment at his sister's, in the Rue Meslay — his sister was twenty-five, married for nine years to Emmanuel Herbaut, as happy as it is permitted to a human creature to be. The count smiled imperceptibly, but said his lodging was already arranged: he had sent his Nubian mute Ali a week ahead, with an instinct of a hound, to choose and furnish a house. Ali had met him at the Barrière de Fontainebleau that morning with a paper bearing the address. His steward — a countryman of yours, said the count to Morcerf, if a Corsican can be a countryman of any man's — was Bertuccio, who understood hiring windows in the Piazza del Popolo. He had been a soldier, a smuggler, and not improbably mixed up with the police for some trifle, a stab with a knife. As to a mistress, the count had something better: a slave, a Greek girl bought at Constantinople, who spoke only Romaic.

The count let drop, as if by accident, that he had a credit opened in Paris with the Baron Danglars, having letters from Richard & Blount of London, Arstein & Eskeles of Vienna, and Thomson & French at Rome. At the last name Maximilian Morrel started as if electrified. Thomson & French — do you know that house, monsieur? — They are my bankers in the capital of the Christian world. — They did our house, in past years, a great service, and have always denied having rendered it. — I shall be at your orders.

Debray rose at half-past two — I must return to the minister's; I will tell him of the count, and we shall soon know who he is. Beauchamp — I have something better than a Danglars speech for my readers. Maximilian gave the count his card: Rue Meslay, No. 14. Beauchamp and Château-Renaud took their leave. Maximilian Morrel left the room with Château-Renaud, leaving the count alone with Morcerf.

Chapter 41 — The Presentation

Albert showed his guest his pavilion. The count, who had expected to be guided, became Albert's tutor in archaeology, mineralogy, and natural history; he named the unsigned painters of the salon — Dupré, Delacroix, Boulanger, Diaz, Decamp, Giraud, Müller, Dauzats — at a glance. In the bedchamber a single portrait by Léopold Robert hung in a carved gilded frame: a young woman of five or six-and-twenty, dark-complexioned, with light lustrous eyes veiled by long lashes, in the picturesque costume of a Catalan fisherwoman, against the blue ocean. The count made three rapid steps and stopped before it; the light was too faint for Albert to see the pallor that spread over his visage.

You have a charming mistress, viscount. — I would never forgive you that mistake if you had seen another picture beside it. It is my mother. The portrait was painted in 1830 in a fancy costume, while my father was absent. The picture displeased him strangely. He still keeps her own portrait by Gros in the salon. My mother never comes here without weeping over it. Monte Cristo glanced sharply at the young man — but Albert spoke in the simplicity of his heart.

Albert led his guest to the apartments of M. and Madame de Morcerf. Above the door of the antechamber were the family arms, azure seven martlets, or, placed in bend, joined to gules a silver tower — which are my mother's. By her side I am Spanish. Monte Cristo remarked, with the irony of an Œdipus, that the seven martlets were one of the arms of pilgrims who had gone to the Holy Land, and made the family date from the thirteenth century. Yes, you are at once from Provence and Spain; that explains the dark hue I so much admired on the visage of the noble Catalan.

In the salon hung the portrait of a man of thirty-five or eight-and-thirty in a general's uniform, with the double epaulet, the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, the star of the Order of the Saviour and the grand cross of Charles III — proving that he had served in Greece and Spain. As the count was examining it the door opened and the original entered: a man of forty to forty-five who looked at least fifty, his short-cropped hair almost white, his black moustache and brows in strange contrast. The count saw him advance without making a step in return; his feet seemed rooted to the ground, his eyes upon the Count of Morcerf.

Albert presented his father; the count of Morcerf welcomed him as the man who had preserved his only heir. They sat. Monte Cristo placed himself in the shadow of the velvet curtains and read on the careworn and livid features of the count a whole history of secret griefs written in each wrinkle time had planted there. The general told him his story: peer at the Restoration, served the first campaign under Marshal Bourmont, expected higher rank if the elder branch had remained on the throne, but the Revolution of July had been sufficiently glorious to allow itself to be ungrateful; he had hung up his sword and entered politics. Monte Cristo praised these labours with what to Albert seemed an unaccustomed warmth — but it was perhaps to dispel the cloud he had brought to Morcerf's brow.

Then Madame de Morcerf entered at the door opposite — pale and motionless, her hand on the gilded post. She had heard the last words of the visitor through the half-open door, and the voice — that voice she had not heard for four-and-twenty years — had stopped her on the threshold like a ghost. The count rose and bowed; she inclined herself without speaking. Monte Cristo and the general both asked if she were ill; she rallied with a smile and advanced with the majesty of a queen. Monsieur, I owe to you the life of my son, and for this I bless you. — Madame, the count and yourself recompense too generously a simple action. To save a man, to spare a father's feelings or a mother's sensibility, is not to do a good action, but a simple deed of humanity. Mercédès raised her fine eyes to heaven; the count thought he saw tears in them. He was even paler than she. M. de Morcerf made his excuses to attend a debate at the Chamber and left them; the countess pressed the count to spend the rest of the day, but he excused himself: he must see how his Nubian steward had installed him in Paris.

Outside, a coupé of Koller's building waited, with horses and harness for which Drake had refused seven hundred guineas the day before. Give me one more day, said the count to Albert, before I invite you. I shall then be certain not to fail in my hospitality. As the carriage door closed Monte Cristo perceived an almost imperceptible movement in the curtains of Madame de Morcerf's room.

When Albert returned, he found his mother in the boudoir reclining in a velvet armchair, the room obscure, her face hidden by a thin veil; the air was sharp with volatile salts, and her smelling-bottle lay open on the chimney-piece. She blamed it on the perfume of the orange and tuberose flowers, which Albert had taken away. Then she asked the meaning of Monte Cristo — Albert explained the title was a trifle, and the count a chance count, but no man at Rome doubted that he was of high distinction, and his manners surpassed all the leading aristocracies of the three proudest nobilities of Europe. And his age, Albert? — Thirty-five or thirty-six. — So young — it is impossible. — It is the truth, however; I have compared dates several times. The countess bent her head as if beneath a heavy wave.

And does this man display a friendship for you, Albert? — I am inclined to think so. — And do you like him? — He pleases me, in spite of Franz d'Épinay, who tries to convince me he is a being returned from the other world. The countess shuddered. Albert, be prudent. — But what have I to fear? he never plays, he drinks only water tinged with sherry, and is so rich that he cannot try to borrow money. — You are right; my fears are weakness, especially against a man who has saved your life. She fell into so deep a reverie that her eyes closed; Albert tiptoed out. This devil of a fellow, he muttered. I measure his effect by an infallible thermometer: my mother has noticed him.

Chapter 42 — Monsieur Bertuccio

The count's house in the Champs-Élysées had a clump of trees masking the front, two carriage alleys forming arms, and a portico of porcelain vases — and another exit on the Rue de Ponthieu. Twenty young men gallopped after the foreign nabob who could afford twenty thousand francs apiece for his horses. Inside, the steward Bertuccio reported: a notary waited in the small salon, the cards were engraved (the first delivered to the Baron Danglars in the Chaussée d'Antin), the country house was bought.

Monte Cristo signed the deed without troubling about the address — he had merely been tempted by an advertisement. Where is this house, by the way? — At Auteuil, said the notary. At the word Bertuccio turned pale. Rue de la Fontaine, No. 28. Monte Cristo paid fifty-five thousand francs (five thousand more than was due) and dismissed the notary. Then he opened a small private book locked at his neck, compared the address to the notes, and rang.

M. Bertuccio, you know the environs of Paris? — No, your excellency, no, returned the steward, with a nervous trembling that the count, a connoisseur in all emotions, attributed to disquietude. Then it is unfortunate, for I shall live at Auteuil and you must come there with me. Bertuccio bowed his head and ordered the carriage with the look of a man hearing his sentence.

Chapter 43 — The House at Auteuil

In the carriage Bertuccio crossed himself in the Corsican manner and muttered a prayer; he scanned every house with a feverish anxiety as they entered the village. Tell them to stop at Rue de la Fontaine, No. 28. The concierge announced that the old master had been the Marquis de Saint-Méran, a staunch follower of the Bourbons, whose only daughter had married M. de Villefort, formerly king's attorney at Nîmes. Bertuccio went whiter than the wall against which he leant.

The count took the carriage-lamp himself and bade Bertuccio show him through the empty rooms. They came to a winding staircase down to the garden. At the outer door the steward stood stupefied, his haggard eyes glancing about as if for the traces of some terrible event. I can go no farther. He had not warned his master because he had hoped the house might be any house in Auteuil but the house of the assassination. The count laughed, took the right-hand alley toward a clump of plane-trees, and stopped beneath them. Move away, I entreat you — you are exactly in the spot — where he fell.

The count, with the irresistible voice he commanded, threatened to dismiss him, send him to a lunatic asylum, write to the Abbé Busoni who had recommended him in 1829. Bertuccio fell at his feet. He had committed an assassination — a vendetta — and done it on this very ground; he had buried a child in this garden two paces from where he and his master stood. It is fatality. First you purchase a house at Auteuil; this is the house where I committed an assassination; you descend by the same staircase he descended; you stop where he received the blow; and two paces farther is the grave in which he had just buried his child. This is not chance — chance is too much like Providence. The count agreed to call it Providence, and bade him collect himself.

The Abbé Busoni alone knew a part of my secret, said the steward. But I pray you, go away from that plane-tree. The moon is just bursting through the clouds, and standing there in that cloak that conceals your figure, you remind me of M. de Villefort. — What! cried the count, it was M. de Villefort? The former royal attorney at Nîmes? Who married the Marquis de Saint-Méran's daughter? Who enjoyed the reputation of being the most severe, the most upright, the most rigid magistrate on the bench? — Well, monsieur, this man with this spotless reputation was a villain. — Bah, impossible. — It is as I tell you. — Have you proof? — I had it. I have lost it, but by careful search it might be recovered. — Relate it to me; it begins to interest me. And humming an air from Lucia di Lammermoor, the count seated himself on a bench, while Bertuccio composed his thoughts.

Chapter 44 — The Vendetta

Bertuccio began. The story commenced in 1815. He had a brother, an elder brother, a lieutenant in a Corsican regiment, who had brought him up after the death of their parents and married in 1814. When the emperor returned from Elba the next year, he had rejoined the army, was wounded at Waterloo, and retired with the army of the Loire. He wrote home asking for money to be left for him at Nîmes with the innkeeper they dealt with — in the smuggling line — and Bertuccio brought it to him in person, leaving five hundred francs with his sister-in-law Assunta and taking five hundred himself.

He arrived at Nîmes in the midst of the White Terror of Trestaillon, Truphemy, and Graffan. He waded in blood through the streets. At the very door of the innkeeper's house his brother had been assassinated the previous evening. He went to the king's attorney — a man named Villefort, lately deputy procureur at Marseilles, one of the first who had informed the government of the departure from Elba. Villefort answered him coldly: He has smitten with the sword, and he has perished by the sword. — He has perished by the poniard. — Your brother was involved in a quarrel and killed in a duel; the people here do not like soldiers of such disorderly conduct. Bertuccio begged at least a small pension for the widow. Every revolution has its catastrophes; government owes nothing to his family.

The Corsican leant forward. Since you know the Corsicans so well, you know that they always keep their word. From this moment I declare the vendetta against you. Protect yourself as well as you can; for the next time we meet, your last hour has come.

Villefort knew what vendetta meant. He shut himself up, then solicited a change of residence and was nominated to Versailles. Bertuccio followed him on foot — a Corsican who has sworn to avenge himself cares not for distance — and within three months had discovered that the procureur went mysteriously to a house at Auteuil belonging to his father-in-law, the Marquis de Saint-Méran, and let to a young widow known only as the Baroness. One evening Bertuccio saw, in the garden, a young and handsome woman of eighteen or nineteen, tall, fair, in a loose muslin gown that showed her ere long to become a mother. The little door opened, and a man entered: M. de Villefort. They embraced and went into the house.

Three days later, about seven in the evening, a servant on horseback rode at full gallop toward Sèvres; three hours later he returned dusty; two minutes after that, a man on foot muffled in a mantle opened the little garden door. Bertuccio recognised Villefort by the beating of his own heart. He sprang the wall, knife in hand, and concealed himself in the shrubbery. Two hours passed, during which he fancied he heard low groans on the wind — he who is about to commit assassination always fancies that he hears low cries. At midnight a faint light shone in the windows of the private staircase. The man in the mantle reappeared, holding what Bertuccio took for a weapon and which proved to be a spade. He stopped near the thicket, dug a hole, and laid in it a box two feet long and six or eight inches deep, which he had brought from beneath his cloak. As he stamped the earth Bertuccio sprang on him and plunged the knife into his breast, exclaiming: I am Giovanni Bertuccio; thy death for my brother's; thy treasure for his widow!

Villefort fell without a cry. Bertuccio dug up the box, replaced the earth, threw the spade over the wall, and escaped, locking the garden door behind him with the key that had been left in it.

By the riverside he forced open the lock. In a fine linen cloth was wrapped a new-born child, its visage purple, hands violet, dead of suffocation. He hesitated to throw it into the water — and then he fancied he felt a slight pulsation. He had been an assistant at the hospital at Bastia. He inflated the lungs by blowing into them. At the end of a quarter of an hour the child began to breathe and cry. God has not cursed me, then, since he permits me to save the life of a human creature in exchange for the life I have taken.

He left the infant at the foundling asylum at the upper end of the Rue d'Enfer, after first cutting in half the marked linen so that one of the two letters that marked it remained on the cloth wrapped round the babe and the other in his own pocket. The letters were H and N surmounted by a baron's coronet. He returned to Rogliano. Console thyself, sister; Israel is dead, but he is avenged. — Giovanni, said Assunta, you should have brought this child with you; we would have replaced its parents and called it Benedetto, and God would have blessed us. In reply he gave her the half of the linen that he had kept.

He returned to smuggling. Six weeks later, when his expedition was done, he found in the middle of Assunta's chamber a sumptuous cradle and in it a baby seven or eight months old. Assunta had set out for Paris in his absence, presented the half of the linen, and reclaimed the child. He wept tears of joy. The child was named Benedetto. And God made this infant the instrument of our punishment. He grew up beautiful, with large blue eyes and red hair — red is either altogether good or altogether bad — and in everything bad. He stole Wasilio's louis at five, and, when caught, declared he had found a chained monkey in the woods. When Bertuccio raised his arm to strike him, the boy retorted: You cannot beat me; you have no right; you are not my father. No one ever knew who had revealed the secret. By eleven Benedetto was choosing his companions among the worst characters of Bastia. Bertuccio, fearing a prosecution that would lead to inquiries into his own past, proposed to take the boy with him as a smuggler's apprentice. Benedetto laughed: Are you mad, uncle? Do you think I am going to change my agreeable indolence for your hard toil to earn a paltry sum, when mother Assunta gives me money whenever I ask?

He resolved at last to put the boy as a clerk on board some ship. In June 1829, Bertuccio sailed for the Gulf of Lyons with a cargo to land. They were betrayed; one evening at five o'clock customs officers and gendarmes surrounded the vessel. Bertuccio sprang into the hold, dropped through a port into the Rhône, and reached the canal that runs from Beaucaire to Aigues-Mortes. He made for the inn of the Pont du Gard, on the road from Bellegarde to Beaucaire — the old smuggler's tavern, which their colleague had sold seven or eight years before to a tailor from Marseilles called Gaspard Caderousse, who had married La Carconte from the village of that name. The date — the evening of the 3rd of June, 1829 — caught the count's attention.

Caderousse was alone with a stranger, and Bertuccio, slipping into a shed separated by a thin partition with peep-holes, waited in silence to announce himself when the visitor was gone. The stranger was a Paris jeweller from the Beaucaire fair. Caderousse had brought him to authenticate the diamond.

Chapter 45 — The Rain of Blood

Hello, Carconte! The diamond is real, cried Caderousse to his sick wife above. The jeweller, smelling some fraud in the poverty of the inn, asked La Carconte to repeat the story in her husband's absence. She told the same: the diamond was a gift from one Edmond Dantès, a sailor friend of Caderousse, who had had it from a rich Englishman in prison and bequeathed it on his death by the hands of the Abbé Busoni. The jeweller pretended doubt and finally settled at forty-five thousand francs, a gold chain for La Carconte, and silver buckles for the husband — though the abbé had said the stone was worth fifty thousand. Caderousse demurred and at last agreed; the jeweller spread fifteen thousand in gold and thirty thousand in bank-notes upon the table. The thunder growled outside; from his shed Bertuccio felt himself riveted, fascinated as in a dream, by the spectacle of all this gold.

The jeweller refused supper and prepared to set off for Beaucaire two leagues off in the storm, his pistols loaded. Caderousse pressed him to stay; yes, do stay, added La Carconte in a tremulous voice. He went out into the wind, asked the road, and disappeared. Particularly when there is money in the house, said Caderousse, double-locking the door. Bertuccio could see them count the money for a third time. The Carconte's eyes resembled burning coals.

If you had been a man, she said at last, you would not have let him go from here. — Woman! — Or else he should not have reached Beaucaire. The road takes a turn; alongside the canal there is a shorter road — Woman, you offend the good God! And the thunder seemed to roll away unwillingly from the cursed abode.

A knock at the door. Joannes, the jeweller. The shortest follies were best; he had returned to accept the bed offered. The good God sends him back again, said La Carconte with a horrid smile. She double-locked the door behind him. He was given the upstairs chamber. Bertuccio, exhausted, fell at last into a deep sleep — and was awakened by the report of a pistol, a fearful cry, the sound of weak footsteps and a heavy weight falling on the staircase, then the cries of a deadly struggle. As he raised himself in the dark he felt warm wet drops fall on his forehead.

A man came down. It was Caderousse, pale and his shirt all bloody. He took out the shagreen case, made sure of the diamond, rolled it into his red handkerchief and tied it round his head; he took the bank-notes and gold from the cupboard, tied up a small bundle, and rushed out into the night.

Bertuccio forced his way through the partition into the house. On the staircase lay the body of La Carconte, a pistol-shot through her throat. Upstairs the murdered jeweller lay against the wall amid an overturned chamber and a pool of blood, three deep wounds in his breast and a long table-knife plunged up to the hilt in a fourth. The second pistol — its powder wet — lay where Bertuccio stumbled on it. The dying man opened his eyes upon him for an instant and expired.

He fled — and at the foot of the stairs ran into five or six customs officers and three gendarmes who had been on his trail and had come up just in time to hear the report. They saw him bloodied, traced through the partition the hole he had broken, and would not hear his protests of innocence. Keep your innocent stories for the judge at Nîmes. He was handcuffed, tied to a horse's tail, and carried to Nîmes.

Two months passed in hopeless waiting; the Caderousse who alone could clear him had vanished. On the eighth of September, the Abbé Busoni — whose visit Bertuccio had begged in vain — at last presented himself at the prison. Busoni listened with the strangest belief, confirming every detail of the diamond story. Won by his charity and trusting to the seal of confession, Bertuccio told him in addition the Auteuil affair in all its particulars. The voluntary confession of that assassination proved his innocence in this. Busoni went to work; the trial was postponed; Caderousse was at length apprehended in another country, brought back to France, made a full confession (refusing to make his wife's incitement an excuse), was sentenced to the galleys for life, and Bertuccio was set at liberty. The abbé then recommended him as servant to a person who had asked for one and who entertains a high regard for me — that was the count.

There remained the most distressing chapter of all. When Bertuccio had returned to Corsica he found his sister Assunta dead. Benedetto, with two of the most reckless companions, had come home demanding money; when she would not give it, the boy had cried Put her to torture and she'll soon tell us where her money is. They had barricaded the doors and dragged her toward the brazier. Her clothes had caught fire. Beating at the doors and windows in vain, she had perished in the flames; the closets had been forced and the money stolen. Benedetto had vanished and been never since heard of. Those Villeforts are an accursed race, said Bertuccio. Truly they are, murmured the count.

Then Bertuccio acknowledged what was now clear — the count had bought the very house, the very garden, the very plane-tree. I am perhaps standing on the very grave in which lies M. de Villefort, by whose hand the ground was dug to receive the corpse of his child. — Everything is possible, said the count, rising; and added in an inaudible voice: Even that the procureur be not dead. He sent the steward to compose himself; he had only one rebuke for him — that, having rescued the infant, he had not restored it to its mother. That was the real crime, Bertuccio. That was where you became culpable.

When Bertuccio was gone the count walked alone beneath the plane-tree. Here was the infant's grave. There is the little door. At the corner is the private staircase. There will be no necessity for me to make a note: the plan is sketched here in living truth. He went over the garden a second time and re-entered his carriage. That same evening, at his house in the Champs-Élysées, he went over every room as a man long acquainted with each nook, choosing without hesitation each corridor and staircase. Then, drawing out his watch, he said to Ali: It is half-past eleven. Haydée will soon be here. Have the French attendants been summoned? The Nubian indicated by signs that three female attendants awaited their new mistress in her sleeping-chamber. Madame will be tired tonight. Let no one weary her with questions.

A carriage rolled up the avenue. The count handed down a young woman wrapped in a green silk mantle heavily embroidered with gold; she raised his hand to her lips. They exchanged a few words in that sonorous language in which Homer makes his gods converse. Ali led her, with a rose-coloured flambeau, to her own apartments. In another hour every light in the house was extinguished, and it might have been thought that all the inmates slept.

Chapter 46 — Unlimited Credit

The next day at two o'clock the Baron Danglars's calash, drawn by a magnificent pair of English horses, stopped at Monte Cristo's door. The baron, dressed in blue with a heavy gold chain across a white waistcoat, his black hair improbably glossy and his hooded eyes proof of cunning rather than intelligence, waited while his groom inquired. The Nubian Ali signed in the negative; His excellency does not receive visitors today. The groom returned with the rebuff. Bless me, murmured Danglars, this must surely be a prince instead of a count, by their styling him "excellency". However, he has a letter of credit on me, so I must see him when he requires his money. He drove off — To the Chamber of Deputies — loud enough to be heard across the road.

Behind his blinds the count had observed him through a lorgnette, and rang for Bertuccio. That fellow has a decidedly bad countenance — a flat, receding serpent's forehead, a vulture's skull, and the beak of a buzzard. He was displeased — when he had ordered the finest pair of horses to be found in Paris, why was there a finer pair than his in the city? They were not to be sold when I bought yours. — All things are to be sold to such as will pay the price. Offer Danglars double — sixteen thousand for sixteen thousand. A banker never loses an opportunity of doubling his capital. He wanted them, harnessed and at the door with his carriage, by five o'clock — and let all the horses in my stables be led before the windows of your young lady, that she may select those she prefers. Then he turned to Baptistin, his French valet of one year's standing. You have served me a year, the time I generally give myself to judge of those about me. You suit me. You receive fifteen hundred francs, more than many a brave subaltern; you make as much again in commissions on my linen, and I do not condemn it. But I never caution my servants twice. If I learn that you have spoken of me, even favourably, that very instant you quit my service. Ali is not your model — he is not a paid servant but a slave whom, if he failed me, I should not dismiss but kill. Ali, when this was repeated to him in Arabic, smiled and kissed his master's hand.

At five the carriage was at the door behind the very pair of horses Danglars had owned that morning. As he descended Monte Cristo gave Bertuccio a fresh commission: he wished an estate by the sea in Normandy, between Le Havre and Boulogne, with a creek into which his corvette (drawing fifteen feet) might enter and remain at constant readiness, and constant relays of horses every ten leagues along the northern road. The corvette was at Fécamp, the yacht at Martigues, the steamboat at Châlons; all were to be kept alert. He was driven at speed to the Chaussée d'Antin.

Danglars excused himself from a railroad committee with a pompous warning to his colleagues that the pretended count had given himself airs befitting a great millionaire and had refused to be visited that morning, and that he was about to deal with him cautiously: they laugh best who laugh last. He led his guest into a drawing-room of white and gold and copies of Albano and Fattore that had been sold to him as originals.

Monte Cristo, after letting the baron stumble through his pretences of egalitarian citizen-baron-monsieur-my lord, brought him to the point. The letter of advice from Thomson & French gave him unlimited credit. Danglars confessed himself uneasy at the word. Is it possible that Thomson & French are not solvent? — They are perfectly solvent, but the word "unlimited" in financial affairs is so vague — and what is vague is doubtful. Monte Cristo allowed him to dig his own pit. Then, when the baron pressed him to name a sum, he carelessly drew from his card-case two bearer orders on the treasury for five hundred thousand francs each. A million? Excuse my smiling at a sum I am in the habit of carrying in my pocket-book. Danglars trembled and was on the verge of apoplexy. The count produced two more letters of unlimited credit, identical with that on Thomson & French, the one drawn by Arstein & Eskeles of Vienna upon Rothschild, the other by Baring of London upon Lafitte; he had only to say the word and he would address himself to one or the other. The baron was vanquished. Oh sir — three letters of unlimited credit! You must pardon me my astonishment. They settled six millions for the first year, with five hundred thousand to be sent the next morning before midday, half in gold and half in notes.

Then the baron — anxious to recover by intimacy what he had lost in business — proposed to introduce his guest to the baroness, who lowered herself by marrying me, for she belongs to one of the most ancient families in France. Her maiden name was De Servières, and her first husband was Colonel the Marquis of Nargonne. And — was the count alone? No, there was a visitor with the baroness. Who? M. Debray? asked the baron with the air of indulgent good-nature that made the count smile, who knew the secrets of the banker's domestic life. M. Lucien Debray, said the baron unnecessarily, is an old friend of ours, private secretary to the minister of the interior.

Chapter 47 — The Dappled Grays

Danglars led the count through a series of apartments of heavy magnificence and ostentatious wealth into the only room in the great mansion that betrayed any taste — Madame Danglars' octagonal pink-satin boudoir, which had been left to be decorated by the baroness and Lucien Debray. Madame Danglars (still strikingly handsome though past first youth) was at the piano; Debray, before a small work-table, turned the pages of an album — a little ruse adopted by way of precaution, for Lucien had had time to repeat to her every excited word about the count he had heard at Albert's breakfast.

The introduction was made; Danglars added his coarse public flattery — the count proposes to spend six millions in twelve months, which means balls, dinners, and lawn parties without end. The baroness asked when he had arrived. Yesterday morning, madame. — From the extreme end of the world? — No, this time merely from Cadiz.

The favourite attendant of Madame Danglars whispered something in her ear. The baroness turned pale. I cannot believe it. She demanded of her husband whether it was true that her own dappled grays — the handsomest pair in Paris, of which she had promised the loan to Madame de Villefort tomorrow — had been removed from the stables without her coachman's knowledge. Danglars stammered that the horses were too spirited and made him uneasy on her account. The baroness shrugged with ineffable contempt.

Debray, looking from the window, exclaimed in astonishment: There are your horses — harnessed to the count's carriage! My dappled grays? The baroness sprang to the window. The count made well-feigned astonishment. The baron looked stupefied; in a low whisper he confessed to his wife that some madman or fool had sent his steward to buy them at any price, that he had gained sixteen thousand francs by the transaction, and that she should have four thousand of it and Eugénie two. Madame Danglars looked at him with withering contempt.

The count, with a pitying air toward the baron, remarked that women would always prefer what was dangerous, and prepared the field for the gathering storm by taking his leave. Debray followed him to escape the explosion. Excellent, murmured Monte Cristo. The domestic peace of this family is henceforth in my hands. Now to play another master-stroke. Two hours later Madame Danglars received a most flattering letter from him entreating her to receive back her favourite dappled grays; the horses came back wearing the same harness, but in the centre of each rosette was now fastened a large diamond.

That evening the count went out to Auteuil with Ali. The next afternoon at three he summoned the Nubian. You have explained to me your skill at the lasso. Would you stop two horses rushing in ungovernable fury? Ali smiled. Then, at the risk of your life, you must stop a certain pair of dappled grays before my door. Ali marked a chalk line on the pavement before the gate, sat down on the corner-stone, and began to smoke his chibouque.

As the hour approached, the count paced restlessly indoors and watched the street. At length the rumble of mad wheels was heard, and Madame de Villefort's carriage came hurtling along — Madame Danglars's dappled grays bolting; in the carriage a young woman and a child of seven or eight clasped in each other's arms. Ali cast aside his chibouque, drew his lasso, threw it about the forelegs of the near horse, and was dragged a few steps before the animal fell on the pole, snapping it; he then seized the second horse by the nostrils with an iron grip until it sank beside its companion.

The count rushed out, lifted the lady (clutching her senseless boy) into his salon, and laid them on a sofa. Compose yourself, madame; all danger is over. The mother begged him to send for a physician. The count opened a casket and dropped on the child's lips a single drop of a liquid the colour of blood from a Bohemian glass phial inlaid with gold. The boy opened his eyes. The mother declared herself Madame Héloïse de Villefort; she had been driving with her son Edward to test Madame Danglars's celebrated grays. The count bowed at the name as if hearing it for the first time. He refused, with imperturbable courtesy, to allow Ali to be rewarded for saving them: Ali is my slave, and his life is mine, in return for my having saved him from death. The wife of the king's attorney, deeply impressed by the authoritative manner, contemplated the man before her.

While she folded her son in her arms, the count studied the boy: small for his age, unnaturally pale, with straight black hair over his projecting forehead, sparkling eyes full of mischief, the deep crafty look of a boy of twelve or fourteen rather than of seven or eight. Edward broke from his mother's embrace and rushed to the casket of phials. Touch nothing — some are dangerous even to inhale. Madame de Villefort drew him back; her brief expressive glance at the casket was not lost on the count. When Ali entered, she bid the boy thank the man who had saved their lives. He's too ugly, said the boy. The Arab, when this was repeated to him in his own tongue, did not move; only the spasmodic working of his nostrils showed that he had been wounded.

The count had Madame de Villefort's broken calash put aside and her own horses harnessed to one of his own carriages, with Ali on the box. Under his hand the dappled grays, sponged with aromatic vinegar and rubbed by the Nubian's whistling, had become so docile that he was forced to apply the whip; they took two hours to crawl to the Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

Madame de Villefort, scarcely arrived, wrote at once to Madame Danglars: she owed her safety, after all, to the very Count of Monte Cristo they had spoken of, who proved beyond all the eulogies; her horses, she added, were stupefied as if vexed at having been conquered; the count promised that two or three days of barley would restore them. P.S. — Do contrive some means for me to meet the Count of Monte Cristo at your house. I must and will see him again. I have just made M. de Villefort promise to call on him, and I hope the visit will be returned.

That night the adventure at Auteuil was the talk of Paris: Albert told it to his mother, Château-Renaud at the Jockey Club, Debray in the minister's salon, and even Beauchamp gave it twenty lines in his journal. As for M. de Villefort, he fulfilled the prediction of his wife to the letter — donned his dress suit, drew on a pair of white gloves, ordered the carriage in full livery, and drove that same night to No. 30, Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

VOLUME THREE

Chapter 48 — Ideology

The valet flung wide the door just as the count, bending over a map, was tracing the long road from St Petersburg to China. He did not raise his head at the name; he had been expecting it for days. Villefort held his eminence in the French magistracy as a Harlay or a Molé had held theirs, surviving every change of dynasty and serving each new master with the same dry fidelity: hated by many, upheld by more, loved by nobody. His drawing-room, managed by a young second wife and by Valentine, his daughter by the first, passed in Paris for a model of its kind — one of those cold, correct houses where a freezing politeness did duty for grace, where the ministerial line was never departed from, and where ideality was held in horror as a disease. He scarcely ever returned a visit, sending his wife instead; he was said to be the least curious and the least wearisome man in France; he gave one ball a year, and appeared at it for the quarter of an hour required of a host before vanishing again into the recesses of his study.

The procureur entered with the same grave step he would have used in court. He was the same man Marseilles had known fifteen years before, but worn meagre and yellow, his hollow eyes screened by gold spectacles, in entire black except for the funereal red ribbon at his button-hole that looked like a streak of blood traced with a delicate brush. The two men met as adversaries — Villefort distrustful by habit and incredulous of social prodigies, the count returning his salute with the calmest scrutiny. Villefort opened with a stiff acknowledgement of the service the count had rendered his wife and son. The count answered with a chilling air; Villefort started like a soldier struck over his armour, and registered, that the Count of Monte Cristo was by no means a highly-bred gentleman.

Villefort fell back upon the map for a topic. The count had been making a physiological study of the human race in the mass — easier, he said, to descend from the whole to a part than to ascend from a part to the whole. The procureur, with the studied paradox of a man who had not heard a paradox in years, attempted to defend his profession; the count answered that the law of retaliation, the law of primitive nations, was the law most often according to the law of God. Then he placed Villefort on his own ground: the English, Turkish, Japanese, and Hindu codes are as familiar to me as the French. The procureur looked at everything from the most restricted, most narrow view which it is possible for human understanding to embrace; he saw only the office-holders signed by ministers and kings, and not the men whom God had set above them by giving them a mission to follow out instead of a post to fill. Tobias took the angel for an ordinary young man; the nations took Attila for a conqueror; both had to declare themselves before they could be known.

And you, sir, consider yourself one of these extraordinary beings? — Why not? My kingdom is bounded only by the world; for I am not Italian, nor French, nor Hindu, nor American, nor Spaniard — I am a cosmopolite. No country can say it saw my birth; God alone knows what country shall see me die. I have only two adversaries — time and distance; the third, the most terrible, is my mortal condition; and unless I die I shall always be what I am. He had only to know better than they knew themselves the men he might fear, and any king's attorney with whom he had to deal would be more embarrassed than he. Every man, then, on your creed, has committed faults? — Faults or crimes, said the count negligently. And you alone are perfect? — Not perfect — only impenetrable.

When Villefort, taking refuge at last in piety, reminded him that above us all there is God, the count's tone deepened so that Villefort involuntarily shuddered. I have my pride for men, who are serpents; I lay it aside before God, who has taken me from nothing to make me what I am. And then he confessed his ambition. I, like every man, have been taken by Satan to the highest mountain. I had never seen anything that resembled Providence. I told him: I wish to be Providence myself, for the most beautiful thing in the world is to recompense and punish. Satan had bowed his head and answered that Providence existed but worked by hidden ways, and offered to make him one of the agents of that Providence. The bargain was concluded. I may sacrifice my soul, but what matters? If the thing were to do again, I would again do it.

Villefort gazed at him in extreme amazement. He felt for some weakness — relations? None, I am alone in the world. — So much the worse. He tried death, age, madness; the count answered each in turn. I have been nearly mad; you know the axiom — non bis in idem. — There is also apoplexy, said the procureur, that lightning-stroke that strikes but does not destroy. And he invited the count to come to his house and see his father, M. Noirtier de Villefort — one of the most fiery Jacobins of the French Revolution, who had played at revolutions as if France were a chess-board, and whom the rupture of a blood-vessel had reduced in a single second to a dumb and frozen carcass at the tender mercies of his grandchild Valentine, living painlessly on while his frame decomposes without his consciousness of its decay. The count answered that he would come, having something of a physician about him.

And what is your deduction from this compensation, asked the count — for the procureur had at last let drop that, against his fallen father, God had set Valentine and the boy Edward whose life had just been saved. My deduction is that my father, led away by his passions, has committed some fault unknown to human justice but marked by that of God; and that God, desirous in his mercy to punish but one person, has visited this justice on him alone. The count smiled, but uttered in the depths of his soul a groan which would have made Villefort fly had he heard it.

When Villefort had gone — escorted by two footmen with every mark of attention — Monte Cristo breathed a profound sigh. Enough of this poison; let me now seek the antidote. He rang for Ali. I am going to madame's chamber. Have the carriage ready at one o'clock.

Chapter 49 — Haydée

No sooner had the count's horses cleared the angle of the gate than he turned aside to the apartments of Haydée. After the procureur's icy visit he needed her presence as a man needs water after the desert. Her rooms were fitted up in strict accordance with Oriental ideas, with rich Turkey carpets, brocaded silk on the walls, divans of soft cushions; three French maids and one Greek waited in the antechamber, instructed to treat Haydée with all the deference they would observe to a queen. The young Greek herself sat in a circular boudoir lit only from a roof of rose-coloured glass, on cushions of blue satin spotted with silver, the coral mouthpiece of a narghile to her lips. She wore the costume of Epirus — white satin trousers embroidered with pink roses, a striped vest with silver loops, a bodice with three diamond clasps, gold-and-pearl slippers, a small gold cap on one side and a purple rose on the other, in luxuriant black hair that was tinged with blue. She was in the very springtide and fulness of her youth, having scarcely numbered nineteen or twenty summers.

The count summoned her in the sonorous tongue of Athens. Why demand permission ere you enter? Are you no longer my master, or have I ceased to be your slave? He answered that she was now in France and free. Free to leave me? — Yes. I have never seen anyone I preferred to you, and I have never loved anyone but you and my father. — That is because your father and myself are the only men who have ever talked to you. — I do not want anyone else to talk to me. He lifted her hand to kiss it; she withdrew it and presented her cheek instead.

He explained that she was henceforth absolute mistress of her actions — she might keep her costume or change it, go abroad with Ali and Myrtho or remain. He had only one favour to ask: Guard carefully the secret of your birth. Make no allusion to the past; do not pronounce, on any occasion, the name of your illustrious father or your ill-fated mother. And she should accustom herself to the manner of the north as she had accustomed herself to Rome and Madrid, whether you remain here or return to the East. — Whether we return to the East, you mean to say. — My child, the count answered gently, whenever we part, it will be no wish of mine. The tree forsakes not the flower — the flower falls from the tree. — I never will leave you, for I am sure I could not exist without you. My father had a long white beard, but I loved him; he was sixty.

Then will you accustom yourself to our present life? — Shall I see you? — Every day. — Then I fear nothing. — Three great passions — sorrow, love, gratitude — fill my heart; ennui can find no place. — You are a worthy daughter of Epirus. Be assured that if you love me as a father, I love you as a child. — You are wrong, my lord. The love I have for you is very different from the love I had for my father. My father died, but I did not die. If you were to die, I should die too.

The count, smiling, extended his hand; she carried it to her lips. He went out, attuned now for the visit to Morrel's, murmuring two lines of Pindar: Youth is a flower of which love is the fruit; happy is he who, after watching its silent growth, is permitted to gather and call it his own.

Chapter 50 — The Morrel Family

The carriage stopped at No. 7, Rue Meslay. The concierge who opened the gate was Cocles, his single eye now too dim to recognise the count after nine years. The little courtyard was bright with flowers and a fountain in a basin of rockwork — the Little Versailles of the quarter. Emmanuel had bought the house, the immense workshop, two pavilions and a garden, kept the house and half the garden, and let the rest at a profit. There was a study for Emmanuel who never studied and a music-room for Julie who never played. Maximilian, who had the second story, was at his cigar in the garden when the carriage drove up.

He hastened forward and shook the count's hand with such warmth that there was no mistaking either the impatience with which he had been awaited or the pleasure of his reception. Such a man as you are ought not to be introduced by a servant. In the garden Julie was plucking the dead leaves from a noisette rose-tree; she uttered a cry of surprise and fled to dress while a one-eyed old gardener — Penelon, the bronzed quartermaster of the Pharaon, who had never been able to call her anything but Mademoiselle Julie — went to fetch Emmanuel.

While Julie was away, Maximilian told the count their story. His brother-in-law had been a clerk who, on marrying Julie, had laboured to amass for himself the same dowry his wife had brought him, taking six years to accomplish what less scrupulous men did in two; when he had reached the appointed sum he and Julie had at once closed the office of Morrel & Son, refusing the next insurance offered them at a clear profit of fifteen thousand francs. They lived now upon five-and-twenty thousand francs a year and were as rich as Rothschild. As Maximilian spoke the count's heart swelled.

In the salon — a large vase of Japan porcelain on the table, the songs of birds in an aviary, branches of laburnums and rose-acacias against the blue velvet curtains — everything breathed tranquillity and repose. The count, who had felt the influence of this happiness from the moment he entered, sat silent until at last with a violent effort he begged the lady of the house to excuse his emotion: contentment is so new a sight to me that I could never be weary of looking at yourself and your husband. We are very happy, said Julie, but we have also known unhappiness. God did for us what he grants only to his chosen — he sent us one of his angels. The count's cheeks became scarlet and he coughed behind his handkerchief.

He rose and walked the room. Pale as death, his hand on his heart, he asked the meaning of a silken purse beneath a crystal cover on a black velvet cushion, the paper at one end and the great diamond at the other. Those are our most precious family treasures. The diamond, valued at a hundred thousand francs, was the dowry that an unknown angel had given Julie; the paper was the letter, signed Sinbad the Sailor, that had been delivered to her on the morning of the 5th of September. They had never known him; Penelon had once seen on the quay at Trieste an Englishman whom he had recognised as the confidential clerk of the house of Thomson & French; it was that very name from the count's lips at the breakfast that had made Maximilian start. Did the count know him?

The count, controlling himself, suggested it might be a Lord Wilmore he had once met — an eccentric being who did not believe in gratitude. He had parted with him two years ago at Palermo and feared he would never return. Oh, monsieur, this is cruel of you. — Madame, had Lord Wilmore seen what I now see, he would become attached to life; the tears you shed would reconcile him to mankind. He held out his hand and Julie gave him hers. Maximilian came to his rescue: Sister, recollect what our excellent father told us — "It was no Englishman that thus saved us." On his death-bed his last words were, "Maximilian, it was Edmond Dantès."

At those words the count's paleness became alarming; he could not speak. He looked at his watch as if he had forgotten the hour, said a few hurried words to Madame Herbault, pressed the hands of Emmanuel and Maximilian — Madame, I trust you will allow me to visit you occasionally; this is the first time for many years that I have thus yielded to my feelings — and quitted the apartment. He has an excellent heart, said Maximilian. His voice went to my heart, said Julie; two or three times I fancied I had heard it before.

Chapter 51 — Pyramus and Thisbe

In the Faubourg Saint-Honoré stood one of the most imposing mansions of the quarter, with a noble Louis XIII iron gate between stone vases of geraniums that had fallen into utter disuse. Behind the gate ran a kitchen-garden along an abandoned street the demon of speculation had projected and never built; the proprietor had let the ground for five hundred francs a year to market-gardeners and boarded up the gate to a height of six feet so that no ignoble glance might spy on the aristocratic enclosure. A scanty crop of lucerne now bore evidence of cultivation; toward the house stood a stone bench in deep shade.

There, on a warm spring evening, on the bench lay a book, a parasol, and a half-embroidered handkerchief, while a young woman pressed her face to the chinks of the planks looking for someone on the other side. The little side-gate from the abandoned street opened, and a tall, powerful young man entered in a common gray blouse and velvet cap, his black hair, beard and moustache ill matching his plebeian dress. Don't be alarmed, Valentine — it is I!

She rebuked him for being late and for the costume. He explained: he had grown weary of climbing walls, and had become a tenant of the lucerne, having taken the ground (for the same five hundred francs a year) from the disappointed proprietor. He could now build himself a hut twenty yards from her with the right of any honest workman, and not even the police could trouble him. A faint cry of pleasure escaped her, then she shook her head: it could not be — they would presume too much on their own strength.

The young man — Maximilian Morrel, captain of Spahis — defended himself. From the first hour of their acquaintance he had submitted to her every wish; she had told him she was engaged to M. Franz d'Épinay and that her father M. de Villefort was inflexible; he had asked no other reward than to be useful, hoping Providence would interpose. He had never tried to touch the hem of her gown, or even to pass between the planks. And you are a true and faithful friend, she answered, and let her slender fingers through a small opening so that he might press them to his lips. But you acted from self-interest, for you knew that if you had manifested any other spirit, all would have been ended between us.

She had no friend on earth but him. Her father neglected her, her stepmother detested her — with a hatred so much more terrible because it is veiled beneath a continual smile — and her sole companion at home was her grandfather Noirtier, a paralysed and speechless old man whose withered hand can no longer press mine, who can speak to me with the eye alone. Her stepmother's hatred had a natural source: Madame de Villefort had nothing of her own and envied Valentine the fortune that came from her mother and would more than double on the death of M. and Mme de Saint-Méran, of whom she was sole heiress. I would gladly exchange the half of this wealth for the happiness of a father's love.

Maximilian protested that he would not say she was all he loved in the world, for I dearly prize my sister and brother-in-law, but my affection for them is calm and tranquil, in no manner resembling what I feel for you. M. Franz, he was told, was not expected for a year; many things might befriend them in that time. Did she really suppose her father's veto was insurmountable? — Yes; she judged the future by the past. He pleaded his class — the aristocracy of the lance has allied itself with the nobility of the cannon — and his prospects in the army; his fortune, though small, was free; the memory of his father was honoured at Marseilles — don't speak of Marseilles, said Valentine, that one word brings back my mother.

Then she told him what she wished him to know. On the day his appointment to the Legion of Honor had appeared in the papers, she had been reading them aloud to her grandfather; M. Danglars was present. At the name Morrel her father had turned suddenly: surely this cannot be one of the Morrel family who lived at Marseilles, and gave us so much trouble from their violent Bonapartism in 1815? Danglars (who, she fancied, also trembled) confirmed that it was the son of the old shipowner. Villefort then said: Their idolised emperor treated such madmen as they deserved — he called them food for cannon. Maximilian shrugged the brutality off (his own father had had jokes of the same temper); but Valentine added that, after Danglars had laughed his half-malicious half-ferocious laugh and gone, her grandfather had become agitated; she alone could read emotion in that paralysed frame. Pressing him with questions he could answer only by yes-or-no signs, she had at last drawn from him that he was glad to hear that M. Morrel had been made an officer of the Legion of Honor. Your father hates me, said Maximilian, while your grandfather, on the contrary — what strange feelings are aroused by politics. (Maximilian reminded her that Noirtier had been a leading Bonapartist conspirator under the Restoration.)

A voice called from behind the trees: Mademoiselle! Madame is searching for you everywhere; there is a visitor in the drawing-room — some grand personage, a prince, I believe — the Count of Monte Cristo. The name went through Maximilian like an electric shock, while Valentine cried I am coming! — their customary signal of farewell. He leant on his spade. I would give a good deal to know how it comes about that the Count of Monte Cristo is acquainted with M. de Villefort.

Chapter 52 — Toxicology

It was indeed the count, returning Villefort's visit. The procureur was at the chancellor's, and Madame de Villefort received him alone with her son Edward, who pulled out the feathers of the screaming paroquet on its perch and snatched live flies for it. The young madcap announced that his sister Valentine — whom they were looking for where she is not to be found — was under the big chestnut-tree, and not in their grandfather Noirtier's room. Presently Valentine herself entered: a tall and graceful girl of nineteen, with bright chestnut hair, deep blue eyes, the quiet distinction of her mother, the traces of recent tears in her eyes, and the reposeful air of an Englishwoman in her manner. She saluted the count without girlish awkwardness.

The count remarked that he could not help thinking he had met them before. In Italy, suggested Valentine timidly. He recollected: at Perugia, on Corpus Christi day, in the garden of the Hôtel des Postes, where he had been taken for a physician (having cured his own valet of a fever and his landlord of jaundice) and where Madame de Villefort had consulted him about her step-daughter's health. They had also discussed the famous aqua Tofana, of which they had told you that certain individuals at Perugia had preserved the secret. Madame de Villefort coloured slightly.

The clock struck six. The mother sent Valentine off — this is the hour at which we usually give M. Noirtier the unwelcome meal that sustains his pitiful existence — and got rid of Edward (who would not go without the album of drawings he had been mutilating). Let us see if she shuts the door after him, the count muttered. She did. He observed her looking around the chamber as she returned to her chair.

He praised the boy's quotation of Mithridates, rex Ponticus, the king who hardened himself against poison by daily small doses — and confided that he himself had survived attempts on his life at Naples, Palermo, and Smyrna by precisely such precautions. He had studied chemistry as an amateur. Suppose the poison is brucine — extracted from the false angostura, is it not? — Precisely; allow me to compliment you on your knowledge. — I have a passion for the occult sciences, said the lady. He explained how, by ingesting one milligramme on the first day, two on the second, and so on for thirty days, one might at length drink from a single carafe with another and kill the other without inconvenience to oneself. He praised the Eastern science of poisons that the Orientals made not only into a cuirass but a dagger; and contrasted it with the buffoonish stupidity of European poisoners, who buy arsenic from the grocer in their false names, kill their victim with a dose that would burst a mastodon, and end on the scaffold within a fortnight. The Northerns understood chemistry only as the playwrights did, where the stage curtain falls before the police arrive.

He told her of his friend, the Abbé Adelmonte of Taormina, who had watered a cabbage three days with arsenic, fed a leaf to a rabbit which died, and watched the chain unfold itself: the rabbit's entrails had killed a hen, the hen's body had killed a vulture, the vulture had fallen into a fish-pond, the pike of the pond had served at someone's table, and the guest had died on the eighth day of a tumour on the liver, or of typhoid fever, the doctors had said. To direct chance — that is the art. And when Madame de Villefort objected that arsenic was indelible, the count answered that the Abbé had next watered the cabbage with a salt of strychnos colubrina, which left no special symptoms in any organ, only general symptoms — an excitement of the nervous system, a case of cerebral congestion. The fowl had not been poisoned: she had died of apoplexy. Apoplexy is a rare disease among fowls, but very common among men. Madame de Villefort grew more and more thoughtful.

She murmured something about conscience. The count answered with the casuistries of conscience by which Richard III had served himself for the children of Edward IV, and by which Lady Macbeth had served herself for Duncan; maternal love is a powerful motive — so powerful that it excuses a multitude of things. She listened with avidity. Then, returning at last to the elixir that had revived her son, she begged to know what it was. He warned her that one drop will restore life, as you have seen; five or six will inevitably kill, in a way the more terrible because poured into a glass of wine it would not in the slightest degree affect its flavour. She begged him to send her the prescription against her own fits of suffocation; he agreed. The clock struck half-past six; a friend of Madame de Villefort was announced for dinner; the count took his leave (he must escort a Greek princess of my acquaintance to the opera), and bowed himself out.

Madame de Villefort remained motionless. He is a very strange man, and in my opinion he is himself the Adelmonte he talks about. As for the count, walking out into the street: Good — this is a fruitful soil, and the seed sown will not be cast on barren ground. The next morning, faithful to his promise, he sent the prescription.

Chapter 53 — Robert le Diable

The opera that night was Robert le Diable, with Levasseur returning as Bertram, and the brilliant and fashionable audience was unusually large. Albert had a stall, Château-Renaud beside him, Beauchamp the journalist had run of the house. The minister's box had been offered to Lucien Debray, who had passed it to the Comte de Morcerf, who in turn (on Mercédès's refusal) had passed it to Danglars; the baron had refused for political reasons to be seen in a ministerial box, and so the baroness, with Eugénie, came escorted by Lucien Debray.

In the stalls Albert recognised the Countess G — and learnt from Château-Renaud the story of the Jockey Club gold cup, won at the races in the Champ-de-Mars by an unknown roan and a tiny jockey entered under the names Vampa and Job. Albert at once knew the owner. Then the parquet ordered him to be quiet, and he affected to mind the stage.

Madame Danglars and her daughter entered the minister's box. Château-Renaud chid Albert for his want of enthusiasm: Mademoiselle Danglars was deuced fine — a Diana the huntress. Albert preferred something more in the manner of the Venus of Milo or Capua. Eugénie was indeed beautiful in a marked way — black hair, eyes of the same colour beneath an habitual frown, the masculine look — completed by a large dark mole at the corner of her mouth. Her bearing was haughty and resolute. She was a perfect linguist, an artist, a poet, a musician, and inseparable from her schoolfriend the singing-pupil Mlle Louise d'Armilly, whom she would not be seen with in public lest she be confounded with one destined for the stage.

In the entr'acte Albert went not to the baroness's box but to the Countess G —. She told him the story of the cup: she had cheered for the roan and rider in the pink jacket without knowing whose they were, and on returning home had found the cup in her own apartments with a slip of paper inside — *From Lord Ruthven to Countess G — *. Albert proved to her that Lord Ruthven was the count, who had borrowed Vampa from his brigand of the catacombs.

When Albert returned to the stalls, the parquet was on its feet staring at the box that had belonged to the Russian ambassador. A man in deep black with a young woman dressed Eastern-style had just entered. It is Monte Cristo and his Greek! Haydée's diamonds drew every eye. The second act passed in a continuous whisper.

After the second act Madame Danglars summoned Albert to her box and pressed him for everything he knew of the count — Eugénie listening with cold curiosity. He has a mania for diamonds, said Albert, and like Potemkin keeps his pockets filled to strew them along the road. The baroness wished to be presented; Eugénie, overloaded by Haydée's ornaments, strange child, would not. The count would surely come of his own accord. Albert went to walk past his box.

The count came out and took his arm. They strolled the lobby, where the crowd had collected to gape at Ali standing before the box. Paris is a strange city, and the Parisians a singular people; in Tunis or Bagdad a Frenchman could walk freely without being so stared at. He was now, said Albert, the most celebrated person in the city. Why had he called his roan Vampa if he had wished to be private? That was an oversight. He asked whether the Comte de Morcerf came to the opera. He will be here tonight in the baroness's box. — Then I must wait.

In the third act the Comte de Morcerf appeared in the baroness's box, unnoticed by anyone. The count's quick eye marked his coming, and a meaning smile passed over his lips. After the act the count went down into the box. He was very gracious to the baroness, asked to be presented to Eugénie, and let her ask the cool freedom of who Haydée was. She is a poor unfortunate Greek left under my care. — And what is her name? — Haydée. — A Greek? murmured Morcerf. The baroness pressed: Did you ever see at the court of Ali Tepelini, whom you so gloriously and valiantly served, a more exquisite beauty? — Did I hear rightly that you served at Yanina? asked the count. — I was inspector-general of the pasha's troops, and owe my fortune to the liberality of the illustrious Albanese chief.

But look! exclaimed the baroness. The count, putting his arm round Morcerf, leant over the front of the box; just then Haydée, looking for her guardian, perceived the pale face of the count beside that of Morcerf — and as if she had beheld the head of Medusa, uttered a faint cry and threw herself back in her seat. Ali opened the box-door; the count, with profuse apologies for Haydée's nervous sensibility to flowers and the like, drew a phial from his pocket and went back to her.

She seized his hands: hers were moist and icy. Who was it you were talking with there? — The Count of Morcerf. He tells me he served your illustrious father, and owes his fortune to him. — Wretch! He sold my father to the Turks, and the fortune he boasts of was the price of his treachery! The count had heard something of this in Epirus, but not the particulars; she should tell them to him. They left in the middle of the rising fourth act. Do you observe, said the Countess G — to Albert, that man does nothing like other people; he listens devoutly to the third act of Robert le Diable, and when the fourth begins, takes his departure.

Chapter 54 — A Flurry in Stocks

A few days later Albert and Lucien Debray called on the count in the Champs-Élysées — Lucien deputed by the curiosity of the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin to gather a faithful account of the man who gave away horses worth thirty thousand and went to the opera with a Greek slave wearing a million in diamonds. The count pretended not to suspect the connection.

He drew Albert out on the marriage with Eugénie Danglars. It is more than ever a settled thing, said Lucien. I did not expect that, said the count. Albert, in a half whisper, confessed that he was not enthusiastic. Mademoiselle Danglars was too rich for him, and his father's whole income would only allow him ten or twelve thousand a year on marriage. That is no large sum in Paris, said the count, but everything does not depend on wealth: the integrity of a Bayard united to the poverty of a Duguesclin is a fine thing. I consider the union with Mademoiselle Danglars a most suitable one — she will enrich you and you will ennoble her. But there was something else: it was Albert's mother who dissented, his mother of penetrating judgment, who would be made miserable by the match. The Comtesse de Morcerf, the count suggested in a forced tone, would not relish an alliance with one of ignoble birth. The wedding had once been postponed two months when Albert had had a sudden indisposition; the two months expired next week.

Across the room Debray, settled with pencil and account-book, was doing a little sum in arithmetic: the house of Danglars had cleared three hundred thousand francs in three days on a rise in Haitian bonds — and would have lost twenty or twenty-five thousand had they waited a day. And the cause of the sudden fall from 409 to 206? — Because, said Albert laughing, one piece of news follows another, and there is often great dissimilarity between them. But it was not the baron who played, said Lucien — it is Madame Danglars. Albert, with an artless cheerfulness, suggested how Lucien — secretary to the minister and trusted by the brokers — might use his position to teach the baroness prudence: he had only to tell her some morning that Henri IV had been seen yesterday at Gabrielle's; she would buy heavily, and lose a hundred thousand francs when Beauchamp's gazette next morning denied the report. Lucien half smiled with embarrassment that escaped Albert but not the count. The visit was cut short.

In taking his leave the count whispered something to Lucien, to which the secretary answered: Willingly, count; I accept. Then the count turned to Albert. Do you not think you have done wrong in thus speaking of your mother-in-law in the presence of M. Debray? — My dear count, do not apply that title so prematurely. — Was your mother really so very averse to the marriage? — So much so that she has, I think, visited Madame Danglars only twice in her life.

The count came at last to the favour he had wanted to ask. He proposed a dinner at Auteuil for M. and Mme Danglars and M. and Mme de Villefort — and not for Albert or his parents, lest the affair take on the look of a matrimonial meeting and prejudice the countess against him. Albert thanked him for the candour, accepted his exclusion, and offered the perfect solution: his mother had wished to go to the seaside; she and he would leave the next day for Tréport.

Then Albert pressed the count to dine with the Comtesse de Morcerf that very evening (his father was engaged out). The count refused — he had a most important engagement. Albert reminded him of his own lesson: the proof of a pre-engagement must be furnished. The count rang Baptistin: at five o'clock the doors were closed against everyone except Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti and his son, of an ancient Italian family whose name Dante had celebrated in the tenth canto of the Inferno. The major would bring his son Andrea, a charming young man, about your own age, viscount, bearing the same title as yourself, and who is making his entry into the Parisian world aided by his father's millions. Albert, taking leave, asked the count to remember him if he was looking for a very rich, very noble wife for the contino of the Cavalcanti — I should like you a hundred times better if by your intervention I could remain a bachelor, even for ten years. — Nothing is impossible, gravely replied the count.

Then he summoned Bertuccio. He intended to entertain at Auteuil on Saturday. The tapestried hangings were to be all changed, with the exception of the sleeping-chamber which is hung with red damask: you will leave that exactly as it is. The garden was not to be touched; the yard was to be altered beyond all recognition. — And whom does your excellency expect? — I do not yet know myself, neither is it necessary that you should know. Lucullus dines with Lucullus; that is sufficient.

Chapter 55 — Major Cavalcanti

At seven o'clock a hackney cab stopped at the gate of No. 30 in the Champs-Élysées and deposited a man of about fifty-two — green frogged surtout, blue cloth trousers, gendarme's hat, a black-and-white striped cravat that looked uncommonly like a halter — and hurried away as if ashamed of its fare. Baptistin recognised him by the description he had been given, and presently he was ushered to the count.

The count met him with a smile. Ah, my dear sir, you are most welcome; I was expecting you. The Italian was nervous: he hoped the little precaution of his being announced beforehand had not been forgotten. The count would prove the matter beyond a doubt: Are you not the Marquis Bartolomeo Cavalcanti? — Yes. — Ex-major in the Austrian service? — Was I a major? — Yes; you were a major. — Very good — I do not demand more, you understand. — Your visit is not of your own suggestion? — No. — You were sent by the Abbé Busoni? — Exactly so. — And you have a letter?

The count took the letter and read it aloud: Major Cavalcanti, a worthy patrician of Lucca, descendant of the Cavalcanti of Florence, possessing an income of half a million. — Half a million! exclaimed the major, who had not known. Because you are robbed by your steward. — I will show the gentleman the door. The letter went on: who only needs one thing to make him happy — to recover a lost and adored son, stolen away in his infancy at the age of five years either by an enemy of his noble family or by the gypsies. — I have given him renewed life and hope, in the assurance that you have the power of restoring the son whom he has vainly sought for fifteen years.

A postscript followed: a draft for two thousand francs to defray the major's expenses, and the credit on the count for forty-eight thousand francs more which you still owe me. That is the misfortune, said the major: he had counted on the abbé's signature and had brought no other money. The count accepted the order without a quibble.

While they took Alicante and biscuits the count cross-questioned him in the gentlest way through the rest of the catechism. And the mother? — Her name was Oliva Corsinari, of a noble Fiesolan family, a marchioness. — Yes, I knew it. The major looked at him as at a magician. And you have the certificate of marriage and the register of your son's birth, of course? — Your excellency, I forgot the papers. — That is unfortunate; in France marriage is a civil affair, and proof of identity is indispensable. — Fortunately I have them, said the count, and handed him both documents — the marriage at the church of San Paolo del Monte-Cattini, the baptism at Saravezza. Take them; they do not concern me. You will give them to your son.

He drilled him in the story to be told in France: not gypsies, but an unfaithful tutor bought over by the Corsinari to extinguish the line; the boy had been sent to a college in the provinces and was now to complete his education in Parisian society; the major had come from Via Reggio after the death of his wife, who had died ten years ago. The major embraced this version. The count then announced that he had a surprise — the lost son was at that moment in the blue drawing-room. Andrea would enter by that door — fair-complexioned, perhaps a little too fair, pleasing in his manners; you cannot mistake him. The major hinted at the question of money. The count counted out eight thousand francs to him on account of the forty-eight: between honest men, a receipt is unnecessary. The major's eyes sparkled.

Finally a suggestion of dress. Leave off that style. It is out of fashion at Paris. You are a man of foresight and prudence, therefore you have sent your luggage on before you to the Hôtel des Princes, Rue de Richelieu. Wear your uniform on grand occasions; do not forget your crosses — they still laugh at them in France, but they wear them all the same. The major was in ecstasy. Now, said the count, prepare yourself to meet your lost Andrea; and he bowed himself out behind the tapestry.

Chapter 56 — Andrea Cavalcanti

Next door, in the blue drawing-room, the count found a young man stretched on the sofa tapping his boot with a gold-headed cane: tall, light-haired, red-bearded, black-eyed, brilliantly complexioned — exactly as Baptistin had been told. The young man rose. The Count of Monte Cristo, I believe? — Yes; and I have the honour of addressing Count Andrea Cavalcanti. He had a letter signed Sinbad the Sailor — a name strange, said the youth, who knew it only from the Thousand and One Nights. The count vouched for the writer: He is a great friend of mine, very rich, eccentric almost to insanity, an Englishman whose real name is Lord Wilmore.

Andrea, with the quickness which gave proof of his ready invention, gave his prepared history: son of Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, descendant of the Cavalcanti of Florence, abducted by his tutor at the age of five, fifteen years a wanderer, now seeking his father. The count complimented him with gloomy satisfaction. Your father is here, and is seeking you. The young man started in fright at the words, then collected himself: Oh yes, that is the name — Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti. The count traced his journey for him — the carriage at Nice, on through Genoa, Turin, Chambéry, Pont-de-Beauvoisin, Paris — exactly the route your father took. Andrea, recovering, agreed to the voice of nature.

The count then asked, with the courtesy of a patron, whether the misfortunes of his early life had been such as to make him a stranger to the world he was now to enter. The youth answered confidently that his abductors had calculated, like the slave-merchants of Asia Minor, that to make the most of him in the Roman market they should leave him with all his hereditary worth and even improve it; he had received a very good education. The count was satisfied. I would not, if I were you, divulge a word of these adventures. The world delights in romances in yellow covers but mistrusts those bound in living parchment. He warned him to form honourable friendships and recommended him to a tailor and a horse-dealer. He explained that his father had eighteen years of Austrian service to his credit (and we are not very severe with the Austrians), and that he would allow him fifty thousand livres a year during the whole time of your stay in Paris. — Then I shall always choose to remain there. — You cannot control circumstances; man proposes and God disposes. — Shall I receive it from my father? — Yes, but Lord Wilmore is the security; he has at the major's request opened an account of five thousand francs a month at M. Danglars'. The major would only stay a few days. Ah, my dear father! exclaimed Andrea, charmed at the speedy departure.

The count led him to the door of the next room, then touched a spring in a panel made to look like a picture, and watched the meeting through a small opening. Ah, my dear father — is it really you? — How do you do, my dear son? They embraced after the fashion of actors on the stage. The major then handed over the marriage and baptismal documents. Andrea read them with an expression that proved he was accustomed to similar documents and at last addressed the major in excellent Tuscan: Then there is no longer any such thing in Italy as being condemned to the galleys? He took the major's arm confidentially. How much are you paid for being my father? They give me fifty thousand francs a year to be your son, so you can understand it is not at all likely I shall ever deny my parent. — They paid me fifty thousand francs down.

He showed the major his own letter, signed Sinbad the Sailor; the major showed him his, signed Abbé Busoni. They agreed there was a dupe somewhere — at all events neither you nor I. We must play the game to the end and consent to be blindfolded. On hearing the count return they fell again into each other's arms.

The count asked for a confession of his finances; Andrea had touched on a tender chord; the major was unable to do more than gape. The count slipped a packet of bank-notes into the young man's hand: It is from your father — silence, he does not wish you to know that it comes from him. — I fully appreciate his delicacy, said Andrea, cramming the notes into his pocket.

He invited them both to dinner at Auteuil on Saturday. The major was to come in uniform with all his crosses; Andrea was to wear black trousers, patent boots, a white waistcoat, and either a black or a blue coat, and to go to Blin or Véronique for his clothes. M. Danglars, his banker, would be there. They bowed and went out. Monte Cristo watched them cross the street arm in arm. There go two miscreants; it is a pity they are not really related. Then, with an instant of gloomy reflection: Come, I will go to see the Morrels; disgust is even more sickening than hatred.

Chapter 57 — In the Lucern Patch

That same evening Maximilian was at the iron gate before Valentine. When she came at last she came with a companion: Madame Danglars and Eugénie had paid an unexpected visit, and Valentine, to keep her promise, had proposed a turn in the garden, taking care to walk where Maximilian could see her — and to throw him passing glances that said Have patience, it is not my fault. He waited, contrasting the fair, soft-eyed, willow-bending Valentine with the brunette, fierce, poplar-straight Eugénie. Then the girls went away, and Valentine, after a precautionary delay on a bench, joined her lover at the planks.

She told him that the confidential conversation he had observed between her and Eugénie had been a frank exchange of repugnance — Eugénie's at the marriage with Albert de Morcerf, hers at the marriage with Franz d'Épinay. Eugénie loved no one and almost wished her father might lose his fortune so that she might be an artist like her friend Louise d'Armilly. Valentine had been called away to her stepmother because of a communication on which a part of my fortune depended; she did not think it concerned her marriage. Maximilian then told her that the Comte de Morcerf had had a letter from Franz d'Épinay announcing his immediate return.

Valentine paled. She had once thought of taking the veil, and Madame de Villefort, though she had made a duty of remarks against it, had secretly approved — for had Valentine entered a convent the whole of her fortune (her own from her mother, her grandfather's, her grandparents Saint-Méran's) would have descended to her father and so to Edward, who inherited nothing from his mother. Only her grandfather Noirtier had kept her from it: I shall never forget the reproachful look he cast on me, the tears of utter despair which chased each other down his lifeless cheeks.

Maximilian asked permission to confide their secret to a friend. She tried to refuse: who is this friend? He told her of the strange instinctive sympathy he had conceived for the Count of Monte Cristo, whom he had only known eight or ten days; the count seemed to him to possess something of the gift of prophecy. Let me see this man. — You know him already. It was he who saved the life of your stepmother and her son. Valentine drew back: He is too much the friend of Madame de Villefort ever to be mine. She described the count's almost unlimited power over her household — courted by her stepmother as the epitome of human wisdom, admired by her father, idolised by Edward who ran to him for presents — and yet to her the count never even glanced; she rather felt him avoid her. He is not generous; he saw I was unhappy and could be of no use to him, and so paid me no attention. He may, to please my stepmother and father, persecute me by every means in his power.

Maximilian gave up the idea of confiding their love. He had only this defence: he had served ten years in the army and had learnt the value of sudden inspirations; and he could prove it by his new horse Médéah. The horse had cost forty-five hundred francs which he had not had; but at his rooms that evening Château-Renaud, Debray, and others had pressed him into a game of bouillotte, the count of Monte Cristo had taken his seat among them, Maximilian had won precisely five thousand francs, and at midnight he had driven straight to the dealer and bought Médéah. I firmly believe that the count knew of my wish to possess this horse, and lost expressly to give me the means of procuring him. — You are too fanciful, said Valentine; they are calling me. Maximilian begged her for a finger through the opening; she mounted the bench and passed her whole hand through. He kissed it with a cry of delight. She withdrew it as if terrified by her own sensations and ran toward the house.

Chapter 58 — M. Noirtier de Villefort

Meanwhile in the king's attorney's house, M. and Mme de Villefort entered the room of the old man Noirtier. He sat in his casters' armchair before a great mirror that reflected the whole apartment, as immovable as a corpse but with a quick intelligent eye. Sight and hearing were the only senses that remained to him; through his eye alone could he reveal his thoughts. His long white hair flowed over his shoulders. The thick lashes shaded eyes in which all the activity, address, and force of his old self were now concentrated. His whole appearance produced the impression of a corpse with living eyes. Three persons could read his language: Villefort, Valentine, and the old servant Barrois (who had been with him five-and-twenty years). Of these, Villefort came rarely; all the old man's happiness was centred in his granddaughter, whose untiring devotion had so perfected her in the art of guessing his meaning that she anticipated even his unspoken wishes.

Villefort dismissed Valentine to the garden and Barrois from the room, and seated himself at his father's right while Madame de Villefort took the left. We have a communication to make to you. We are thinking of marrying Valentine. The marriage will take place in less than three months. Noirtier's face remained as wax. Madame de Villefort named the bridegroom: M. Franz de Quesnel, Baron d'Épinay.

At the name the old man's pupils dilated, his eyelids trembled like the lips of a man about to speak, and he darted a lightning glance at his son and his wife. The procureur, who knew the political hatred between his father and the elder d'Épinay, feigned not to perceive and went smoothly on. He went on to add that they had arranged for Valentine and her husband to live with the old man — so you and Valentine, who are so attached to each other, will not be separated.

Noirtier's look became furious; a cry of anger and grief rose in his throat and almost choked him; his lips and face went purple. Villefort opened a window — it is very warm, the heat affects M. Noirtier — and resumed his place. Madame de Villefort added that the marriage was agreeable to M. d'Épinay's family; that the bridegroom's father had been assassinated in 1815 when Franz himself was but two years old. That assassination was a mysterious affair, said Villefort, and the perpetrators have hitherto escaped detection, although suspicion has fallen on the head of more than one person. Noirtier's lips expanded into a smile. Now, continued Villefort, those to whom the guilt really belongs would rejoice in the opportunity of bestowing such a peace-offering as Valentine on the son of the man whose life they so ruthlessly destroyed. Noirtier mastered his emotion and his look replied with strong indignation and profound contempt. Villefort answered with a slight shrug.

By the agreed signs — closed eyes for assent, winking for refusal, raised eyes for desire — the old man refused to see Edward and asked for Valentine.

When Valentine entered she saw at once that her grandfather was suffering. By patient questioning she learnt that he was angry with her and on what subject — her marriage. She apologised that she had been ordered to keep silence about it; he replied that the silence was not all that grieved him. He did not like Franz d'Épinay; he was vexed at the engagement. Listen, said Valentine, throwing herself on her knees and putting her arms round his neck, I am vexed too, for I do not love M. Franz d'Épinay. The reason I asked to take the veil was that I might escape this hateful marriage.

The old man's eyes beamed with affection — and then with the look that meant I can still do much for you. He raised his eyes — the sign for desire. What do you want, dear grandpapa? She tried to anticipate; he answered each guess with No. Then she recited the alphabet from A to N; at N he stopped her. She tried Na — Ne — Ni — No — Yes! She fetched a dictionary, ran her finger up the columns; at the word Notary he stopped her. Yes, a notary — immediately. — Shall my father be informed? — Yes.

Villefort came in. My grandfather wishes for a notary. The procureur stared. Is it to do us some ill turn? Noirtier's look would not be moved. Old Barrois, who acknowledged no master but Noirtier, declared he would go fetch the notary at once. You shall have one, said Villefort, but I shall explain your state of health, for the scene cannot fail of being a most ridiculous one. — Never mind that, said Barrois, and went off triumphantly on his mission.

Chapter 59 — The Will

Three quarters of an hour later Barrois returned with the notary. All M. Noirtier's limbs are paralysed and he has lost his voice, said Villefort. The notary protested that he could not draw up an instrument when his client could not speak. Valentine intervened: I perfectly understand my grandfather's meaning at all times. By Noirtier's yes (closed eyes) and no (winks) the notary was at last persuaded the old man could express himself. He sent for a colleague to make the deed unimpeachable; Barrois, who had foreseen the order, had already gone for the second notary.

When all were assembled, the first notary asked the old man, by the alphabet, what document he wished. The eye stopped at W; the dictionary stopped at Will. Yes, yes, yes, motioned the invalid. The notary asked the amount of his fortune; by gradations he stopped at nine hundred thousand francs — not in landed property but in stock — held in his own hands. Barrois fetched a small casket which contained nine hundred thousand in bank scrip exactly. To whom do you wish to leave this fortune? — Oh, said Madame de Villefort hopefully, to his beloved granddaughter Valentine, who has nursed him for six years. The old man's eyes showed he was not deceived by her false sympathy. Is it to Mademoiselle Valentine de Villefort that you leave these nine hundred thousand francs? He winked: No, no.

Valentine raised her head dumbfounded. Madame de Villefort eagerly asked whether it was to Edward; the answering wink was almost amounting to hatred. — To his son M. de Villefort? — No. Valentine bent over her grandfather: if you love me, try and bring that love to bear on your actions. Explain yourself. He fixed his eye on her hand. My hand? — Yes. — Ah, I understand — it is my marriage you mean. — Yes. — You are angry with us all on account of this marriage? — Yes. The notary at once grasped the train of ideas. You disinherit your granddaughter because she has contracted an engagement contrary to your wishes? — Yes. So that, but for this marriage, she would have been your heir? — Yes.

Villefort interposed haughtily: I am the only person who has the right to dispose of my daughter's hand. It is my wish that she should marry M. Franz d'Épinay, and she shall marry him. Valentine sank weeping. The notary pressed Noirtier: in case the marriage took place, how was the fortune to be disposed of? Not for any member of the family. To charitable purposes? — Yes. — You are aware that the law does not allow a son to be entirely deprived of his patrimony? — Yes — but I shall give all. — They will contest the will after your death? — No. Villefort, biting his lip, declared that his father knew him too well to suppose he would plead against the poor. The old man's eye beamed with triumph.

The same day the will was made, witnessed by seven, sealed by the notaries, and given into the charge of the family notary M. Deschamps. Madame de Villefort could not entirely repress an inward joy that played on her countenance.

Chapter 60 — The Telegraph

The Villeforts came down to find the Count of Monte Cristo waiting for them in the drawing-room. The procureur, who flattered himself that he had completely mastered his agitation, did not know that the cloud was still on his brow. The count noticed it at once. What is the matter? Have I arrived at the moment when you were drawing up an indictment for a capital crime? No — the loss of nine hundred thousand francs, worth regretting even by a philosopher, occasioned by an old man relapsed into second childhood. He told the story.

Madame de Villefort came down. The husband and wife began to speak in parables. It is still in the power of M. de Villefort to cause the will, now in prejudice of Valentine, to be altered in her favour. The count, pretending not to listen, watched Edward who was pouring ink into the bird's water-glass. Villefort was firm: this marriage shall be consummated. Madame de Villefort suggested Valentine might be in league with her grandfather; she could make up her mind to renounce the world, since it is only a year ago that she proposed entering a convent. The count addressed himself to the procureur: Do you say that M. Noirtier disinherits Mademoiselle de Villefort because she is going to marry M. le Baron Franz d'Épinay? — Yes. He suggested politics. Villefort, carried by his emotion beyond the bounds of prudence, declared that his father was more than a Bonapartist, a Jacobin, who had used the imperial robe to disguise himself in. Did not General d'Épinay, asked the count, retain royalist sentiments and was not the person who was assassinated one evening on leaving a Bonapartist meeting to which he had been invited on the supposition that he favoured the cause? Villefort looked at him almost with terror. Am I mistaken, then? — No, said Madame de Villefort, the facts were precisely what you have stated; and it was to prevent the renewal of old feuds that M. de Villefort formed the idea of uniting in the bonds of affection the two children of these inveterate enemies.

A sublime and charitable thought. Villefort declared that he would marry Valentine to Franz nevertheless, even at the cost of the inheritance: M. d'Épinay would respect him the more for sacrificing nine hundred thousand francs to keep his word. Madame de Villefort returned again and again to the alternative of letting Franz off; the count, fixing his eyes on her, agreed with M. de Villefort and pressed him to settle the affair beyond all possibility of revocation as soon as Franz returned. I will answer for the success of a project which will reflect so much honour on M. de Villefort. The procureur, delighted, took his hand. The wife slightly changed colour.

The count rose to take his leave, only to remind them of his Saturday dinner. At your house in the Champs-Élysées? — No, in the country, only half a league from the barriers — at Auteuil, Rue de la Fontaine, No. 28. — Then it was you who bought M. de Saint-Méran's house? exclaimed Villefort. — Did it belong to him? — Yes; and would you believe it, my husband would never live in it. — I do not like Auteuil, stammered the procureur. — I shall expect you on Saturday at six o'clock; and if you fail, I shall think that this house, uninhabited for twenty years, has some gloomy tradition or dreadful legend connected with it. — I will come, count — I will be sure to come.

Then the count confided where he was going next: to see a thing he had often mused on for hours together — a telegraph. He had often gazed in wonder at those immense beetles on the hilltops with their black claws cleaving the air, conveying ideas three hundred leagues, and had peopled them in fancy with sylphs and gnomes; until he learnt that the mover was only a poor wretch hired for twelve hundred francs a year, watching all day a fellow-insect four leagues away. He wished to see one in the open country, a good-natured simpleton, who knows no more than the machine he is employed to work; he would not visit those of the home office or the observatory, where they would force him to understand things he preferred to remain ignorant of. The line most in use — the Spanish one. He took the Bayonne road, by the tower of Montlhéry. On Saturday I will tell you my impressions concerning the telegraph. At the door he met the two notaries, who had just completed the act of disinheriting Valentine and were leaving under the conviction of having done a thing which could not fail of redounding considerably to their credit.

Chapter 61 — How a Gardener May Get Rid of the Dormice that Eat His Peaches

The next morning the count took the road to Orléans, passed the telegraph at Linas without stopping, and arrived at the tower of Montlhéry. He climbed the winding path to a hedge of green fruit, found a wooden gate fastened with a nail and string, and opened it on a little garden of twenty feet by twelve, kept like a porcelain jardinière — twenty rose-trees without a slug, paths of red gravel edged with box, the path winding into a figure of eight to make sixty feet of walk. The man at the telegraph must engage a gardener or devote himself passionately to agriculture.

Behind a wheelbarrow he discovered the man himself, plucking strawberries onto vine leaves. He had had twenty-one strawberries this year (against sixteen last year — a warm spring), but three were missing — the son of Mère Simon had stolen them, the rascal. He was nervous of the count's blue coat, but the count reassured him: I am not an inspector, but a traveller brought here by a curiosity he half repents of. The horticulturist, taken by the count's helpful opinion that dormice were bad neighbours for those of us who do not eat them preserved like the Romans, opened up. Last year the dormice had stolen one of his four apricots; they had eaten half his single nectarine on the wall — and a splendid nectarine — I never ate a better — You ate it? — That is to say, the half that was left.

Every man has his devouring passion, as every fruit has its worm; the telegraph man's was horticulture. The count began plucking grape-leaves to win his heart and was offered the run of the tower. The first floor held the gardener's spades; the second, his pitiful living room and his labelled sweet-pea seeds; the third, the telegraph itself. The man earned a thousand francs a year, his pension after twenty-five years would be a hundred crowns, and he had been at his post fifteen years. He could not interpret the signals, and he liked that — I am a machine, and so long as I work, nothing more is required of me. (Is it possible, said the count to himself, that I have met a man with no ambition? That would spoil my plans.)

The right-hand correspondent began to signal: it would be five minutes before the message had to be repeated. The count had ten — more time than I require. Did the man like gardening? — Passionately. Would he like an enclosure of two acres instead of twenty feet? — I should make a terrestrial paradise of it. And what would happen if his head turned away from the right-hand correspondent? — I should be fined a hundred francs — the tenth of my income. And if he were to substitute another signal for the one given him? — I should lose my place and my pension. The count laid before him fifteen thousand-franc notes — fifteen years' wages. The right-hand correspondent began to signal more impatiently. The count laid down ten thousand more, until twenty-five thousand francs were in the man's hands. With five thousand you can buy a pretty little house with two acres; the remaining twenty thousand will bring you a thousand francs a year. Then he laid before him a paper with three signs and their order. Do this, and you will have nectarines and all the rest.

The man, red and trembling and with great drops on his brow, executed the three signs in spite of the right-hand correspondent's frightful contortions; the left-hand correspondent passed them faithfully on, and at last the telegraph delivered them to the Minister of the Interior. Now you are rich. The man counted his bank-notes, fainted in the midst of his dried herbs. Five minutes later Debray had his horses put to and drove to Madame Danglars: Has your husband any Spanish bonds? — Six millions' worth. — He must sell at whatever price; Don Carlos has fled from Bourges and returned to Spain. The baroness flew to her husband; he sold at any price; the Spanish funds fell. Danglars lost five hundred thousand francs but cleared all his shares.

That evening Le Messager announced by telegraph that Don Carlos has escaped the vigilance of his guardians at Bourges and returned to Spain. The next morning Le Moniteur contradicted it: A telegraphic signal, improperly interpreted owing to the fog, was the cause of this error. The funds rose one per cent above where they had fallen. Reckoning his loss and his missed gains, Danglars had lost a million.

When the news reached the count's, Maximilian Morrel was with him. I have just made a discovery for twenty-five thousand francs, for which I would have paid a hundred thousand. — What have you discovered? — How a gardener may get rid of the dormice that eat his peaches.

Chapter 62 — Ghosts

The exterior of the house at Auteuil gave no sign of the splendour the count's wealth might have lent it; this simplicity was according to his strict order. The splendour was within. In three days Bertuccio had planted poplars and great spreading sycamores in the bare court, laid down a lawn that morning fresh and glistening; the antechambers, staircases, and mantle-pieces were loaded with flowers; the count's books and arms and favourite pictures lay where his hand could find them; his dogs caressed him in the antechamber, his birds sang in the aviary; the house, awakened from its long sleep like the sleeping beauty in the wood, lived, sang, and bloomed. The library held two thousand volumes (one division entirely novels); on the other side a conservatory of china jars and a billiard-table abandoned mid-game.

One chamber alone — the red-damask bedchamber — Bertuccio had been forbidden to touch, and before its door the servants passed with curiosity and the steward with terror.

The count arrived at five and walked all over without comment until he reached his bedroom and approached a small rosewood piece of furniture: That can only be to hold gloves. — Will your excellency open it? he found gloves. He nodded. Good; the steward left enraptured.

At six Maximilian Morrel arrived first, on Médéah, having outdistanced Château-Renaud and Debray on the minister's Arabians and Madame Danglars's pair as well. Then came the rest in a cluster: as Debray handed Madame Danglars from the carriage the count saw a little note pass with practised facility from her hand to his. The baroness, palely controlled, glanced about courtyard, peristyle, and house. She turned to Morrel: if you were a friend of mine I should ask you to sell me your horse. Morrel turned in embarrassment to the count, who answered for him: He has laid a wager to tame Médéah in six months; a brave captain of Spahis cannot risk his honour, even to gratify a pretty woman. Danglars, in his coarse tone, grumbled — you have horses enough already — but his wife, to the surprise of the young people, did not retort.

The count showed her two immense porcelain jars over which marine plants twined. They are the work of another age, by the genii of earth and water. An emperor of China had had twelve such baked successively in a special oven; two had broken in the kiln, the other ten had been sunk three hundred fathoms in the sea, where the sea had thrown its weeds and corals about them; a revolution had carried away the emperor; two centuries later, three of the ten had been recovered. Danglars meanwhile, mechanically, was tearing the blossoms off an orange-tree and then a cactus, until the cactus pricked him. The count showed his pictures: two Hobbemas (one rejected by the Museum because the government was too poor), a Paul Potter, a Mieris, two Gerard Douws, a Raphael, a Van Dyck, a Zurbaran, three Murillos.

Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti and Count Andrea Cavalcanti, announced Baptistin. The major was the thorough bearing of an old soldier — black satin stock, three medals and five crosses on his uniform; the son followed in entirely new clothes. These Italians are well named and badly dressed, said Château-Renaud — that gentleman appears to be well dressed for the first time in his life. To Danglars the count gave the necessary cues: the Cavalcanti were of princely descent, of enormous fortune, and the son had been educated in a college in the south, near Marseilles, and was determined to take a French wife.

M. and Madame de Villefort, cried Baptistin. As they entered, the procureur, in spite of his self-command, was visibly moved; when the count touched his hand he felt it tremble. Certainly women alone know how to dissimulate, said the count to himself, glancing at Madame Danglars, who was smiling on the procureur and embracing his wife.

He noticed Bertuccio gliding into an adjoining room and followed him. How many covers, your excellency? — Count for yourself. The steward looked through the open door and exclaimed Good heavens! That woman — the one in the white dress with the diamonds — the fair one! He did not know her name. Madame Danglars? — I do not know her name; but it is she — the woman of the garden! And he pointed, with the gesture of Macbeth pointing at Banquo, at Villefort. Then I did not kill him? The count laughed: Instead of striking between the sixth and seventh left ribs as your countrymen do you must have struck higher or lower; or rather there was no truth in anything you told me — it was a dream. — Eight, said Bertuccio counting. — Stop, you forget one of my guests. Lean a little to the left. Look at M. Andrea Cavalcanti, the young man in the black coat, looking at the Murillo Madonna; now he is turning. — Benedetto, muttered Bertuccio. Fatality! The count silenced him with a look and bade him serve dinner; the steward succeeded with a great effort in reaching the dining-room. Five minutes later he reappeared, made his violent effort, and announced: The dinner waits. The count offered his arm to Madame de Villefort. M. de Villefort, will you conduct the Baroness Danglars?

Chapter 63 — The Dinner

A single sentiment affected all the guests as they entered the dining-room. The recent events, the count's eccentric position and incredible fortune should have made them all cautious; yet curiosity had been enough to overleap prudence and decorum. Madame Danglars had started when Villefort offered her his arm; Villefort felt her arm tremble on his beneath his gold spectacles. The count noticed every contact.

Villefort had on his right Madame Danglars, on his left Morrel; the count was between Madame de Villefort and Danglars; the rest were Debray (between the two Cavalcanti) and Château-Renaud (between Madame de Villefort and Morrel). The repast was an Oriental feast such as the Arabian fairies might have prepared: every fruit of the four quarters in vases of China, rare birds with brilliant plumage, enormous fish on silver, the wines of the Archipelago and Asia Minor and the Cape sparkling in grotesque bottles. To see things which I cannot understand, to procure impossibilities — that is the study of my life. I gratify my wishes by my will and my money. He showed two fish, a sterlet from the Volga and a lamprey from Lake Fusaro, one brought from fifty leagues beyond St Petersburg, the other five leagues from Naples — is it not amusing to see them both on the same table? Each had been carried in a special wagon-cask of its native weeds; and when Danglars stupidly doubted, the count had Baptistin bring in the duplicates that had travelled in the second casks. But why two of each? — Because one might have died.

Château-Renaud admired the prodigious speed with which the count's orders were executed: he had bought the house only six days ago, and where the courtyard had been empty stones it was now a lawn under century-old trees. In four days, said Morrel; it is extraordinary. — I recollect coming with my mother to look at it when M. de Saint-Méran advertised it for sale two or three years ago. — M. de Saint-Méran? said Madame de Villefort. — Then this house belonged to M. de Saint-Méran before you bought it? — It appears so. — Is it possible that you do not know? — My steward transacts all such business for me. Château-Renaud added: It is ten years since the house was occupied; if it had not belonged to the procureur's father-in-law one might have thought it some accursed place where a horrible crime had been committed. Villefort, who had not touched his rare wine, drained a glass.

The count laid the next stroke deliberately. The same idea came across me the first time I came here; it looked so gloomy I should never have bought it if my steward had not taken the matter into his own hands. Perhaps the fellow had been bribed by the notary. — I had nothing to do with any such proceeding, stammered Villefort; the house is part of Valentine's marriage portion. Morrel turned pale. There was, above all, one room — very plain, hung with red damask — which appeared to me quite dramatic. There is something in it that reminds me forcibly of the chamber of the Marquise de Ganges or Desdemona. Let us, since dinner is over, go and see it.

He led the way through Eastern apartments and Chinese boudoirs to the famous chamber. It was the only one not relit; Oh, cried Madame de Villefort, it is really frightful. Look at that large clumsy bed, hung with such gloomy blood-coloured drapery; and those two crayon portraits faded from the dampness — do they not seem to say with their pale lips and staring eyes, We have seen?* Villefort became livid; Madame Danglars fell into a seat by the chimney, then sprang up. The count opened a door concealed by drapery and showed a wicked-looking crooked staircase. Can you imagine some Othello descending these stairs step by step on a stormy night carrying a load he wishes to hide from the sight of man if not from God? Madame Danglars half fainted on the arm of Villefort, who was forced to support himself against the wall. The count pretended to relent: Why should we not imagine this the apartment of an honest mother, and the staircase the way by which doctor and nurse pass at night? But at this softer picture Madame Danglars uttered a groan and fainted outright.

The count had forgotten his smelling-bottle; Madame de Villefort had hers — the same red liquid the count had tested on Edward. At your advice I have made the trial. — And succeeded? — I think so. He dropped a small portion on the baroness's lips and she came to herself with the cry what a frightful dream! Villefort pressed her hand to remind her it was not a dream. M. Danglars had gone out into the garden and was talking with Major Cavalcanti about the projected railway from Leghorn to Florence.

In the garden, the count made his declaration. It is my opinion that a crime has been committed in this house. — Take care, said Madame de Villefort, the king's attorney is here. — Since that is the case, I will take advantage of his presence to make my declaration before witnesses. He drew Villefort and Madame Danglars by the arms to the great plane-tree, where the shade was thickest. Here, in this very spot, and he stamped, I had the earth dug up to refresh these old trees. My man found the iron-work of a box, and in the midst of it the skeleton of a newly born infant.

Madame Danglars's arm stiffened on his; Villefort's trembled. This affair becomes serious, said Debray. — Houses, like men, have souls, said Château-Renaud; this house was gloomy because remorseful, and remorseful because it concealed a crime. — Who said it was a crime? asked Villefort. Is it not a crime to bury a living child in a garden? Why bury it there if it were dead? — What is done to infanticides in this country? asked Cavalcanti innocently. Their heads are soon cut off, said Danglars, am I not right, M. de Villefort? — Yes, count, replied Villefort in a voice scarcely human.

Seeing that his pair could endure no more, the count led the company back to coffee. Madame Danglars again required Madame de Villefort's bottle; Villefort had time, while she was being fetched, to whisper: I must speak to you. — When? — Tomorrow. — Where? — In my office, or in the court — that is the surest place. — I will be there.

Chapter 64 — The Beggar

The party broke up. Madame de Villefort wished to leave; her husband offered Madame Danglars a place in the landau under his wife's care, since Danglars was deep in conversation with Major Cavalcanti about a railway from Leghorn to Florence. While the count had been begging Madame de Villefort's smelling-bottle he had observed Villefort's whisper to Madame Danglars and guessed every word. He let Morrel, Château-Renaud, and Debray ride off, and Danglars carried away the major in his own carriage to the Hôtel des Princes. Andrea Cavalcanti's tilbury, with a groom in caricatured English fashion, waited at the door.

Andrea had spoken little at table; he was an intelligent lad, and feared to make himself ridiculous before the king's attorney. Danglars had taken him aside after dinner, contemplated the great diamond on the major's little finger (the major had prudently converted half his eight thousand francs into a stone), questioned father and son about their mode of life, and concluded he was in the company of a nabob come to Paris to finish his heir's worldly education. Above all the major had won him by holding to the principle of Horace, nil admirari: he had merely named the lake the lampreys came from and eaten in silence — as if such luxuries were common at the table of the illustrious Cavalcanti. Tomorrow, sir, I shall have the honour of waiting upon you on business — And I, sir, shall be most happy to receive you. Danglars carried him off in his own carriage; Andrea, his son, took his tilbury alone.

He was scolding the groom for having left the tilbury at the outer door, when a hand touched his shoulder. He turned and saw a face sunburnt, encircled by a beard, with eyes brilliant as carbuncles, and a smile displaying a perfect set of white teeth pointed and sharp as the wolf's or jackal's. A red handkerchief covered the gray head; torn and filthy garments clung to the bony limbs; the hand on his shoulder seemed of gigantic size. Andrea shuddered and stepped back. I want to speak to you. The groom would have driven the beggar off; the man fixed him with so frightful an eye and a smile that he withdrew. I only wish to say two or three words to your master, who gave me a commission to execute about a fortnight ago. — What do you want? Speak quickly, friend. — I want you to take me up in your fine carriage and carry me back. I have taken the whim into my head; do you understand, Master Benedetto?*

At the name Andrea sent the groom on foot to take a cab from the barrier, and let the beggar lead the tilbury into the shadow. Once outside Auteuil, he stopped and turned: Now tell me why you come to disturb my tranquillity? — Let me ask you why you deceived me? When we parted at the Pont du Var you told me you were going through Piedmont and Tuscany; instead of which you come to Paris and pass through the barrier with a groom and a tilbury. Caderousse — for it was he — was jealous but pleased; he had concealed himself because his clothes were bad. He wanted only an income that would allow him to live like a retired baker, take a respectable room, shave every day, read the papers in a café, go to the theatre — for, he said, a hundred francs a month, then a hundred and fifty. Andrea handed him ten gold louis: here are two hundred. Apply to the steward on the first day of every month and you shall have the same. — No, you must give it to me yourself. — Be it so.

The tailor wished to know the whole. I have found my father — Major Cavalcanti — and the man who found him for me is the Count of Monte Cristo, the man whose house I have just left. — I wish you would find me a place with him as grandfather, since he holds the money-chest. Andrea promised to mention you to him. Then he tried to put him down. Not at all, my good friend — Caderousse explained that with his red handkerchief, his bare feet, and ten gold napoleons in his pocket he should certainly be arrested at the barriers, his story would be checked, and he would find himself escorted back to Toulon as Number 106. No, my boy; I prefer remaining honourably in the capital. Andrea's hand fell into his pocket and played with a pistol; Caderousse's hand passed behind his back and opened a long Spanish knife. The two friends were worthy of and understood one another. Andrea brought his hand inoffensively to his moustache. Good Caderousse, how happy you will be. — I will do my best, said the tailor, shutting up his knife.

To pass the barrier Caderousse threw on the groom's greatcoat and Andrea's hat and assumed the air of the master's servant; the wind is high, your hat can easily seem to have blown off. They passed without incident; at the first cross-street Caderousse leapt out, refused to give back the coat or the hat — you would not like me to take cold? You are young, I am beginning to get old. Au revoir, Benedetto — and ran into a court and disappeared. Alas, sighed Andrea, one cannot be completely happy in this world.

Chapter 65 — A Conjugal Scene

At the Place Louis XV the three young men separated. Morrel went to the Boulevards, Château-Renaud to the Pont de la Révolution; Debray, with the air of a man familiar with the house, threw his bridle to a footman in the Danglars's court just as Villefort's landau stopped to set down the baroness. He gave her his arm. Hermine, what was the matter with you, that you were so affected at that fable the count related? — I have been in shocking spirits all evening. He suspected secret agitation but did not press her — the former of these symptoms is one of the inherent penalties of womanhood. He waited.

She passed into her dressing-room with Cornélie; he stretched himself on a couch and played with the spaniel. From within she chid him about Eugénie, who would not address him a word — I hear her piano now? — No, that is Mlle Louise d'Armilly playing while Mademoiselle Danglars is in bed. The girl had a ridiculous infatuation for music, the baroness said; one day she would come to the minister's office to ask for an engagement at the opera. Let her come, with your consent and the baron's, and we will give her one, smiled Debray.

Madame Danglars came back in a loose dress. Hermine, something vexes you. — Nothing. The door opened suddenly: M. Danglars. The baroness, supposing he had come to make peace, did not even answer his greeting; she bid Debray read aloud from a book. The banker, with frightening calm and politeness, advised the secretary to leave them — he had serious matters to discuss with his wife. Debray, staggered, bowed and withdrew, hitting himself against the door like Nathan in Athalie. It is extraordinary, he muttered in the corridor, how easily these husbands whom we ridicule gain an advantage over us.

Danglars sat down on the sofa, picked up the spaniel that tried to bite him and threw it across the room into a heap of cushions, where it crouched in stupefaction. You are improving — generally you are only rude, tonight you are brutal. — Because I am in a worse humour than usual. Hermine looked at him with supreme disdain. And what have I to do with your ill-humour? Vent it on your clerks. — No; my clerks earn my fortune; I shall vent it on those who eat my dinners and exhaust my fortune — those who draw out seven hundred thousand francs in the course of an hour. He had lost seven hundred thousand francs that day on the Spanish loan.

He proceeded calmly to itemise the partnership. Last February she had told him of a Haitian dream — I bought immediately and gained 400,000 francs, of which 100,000 were honestly paid to you; in March, the railway grant — I gained a million, of which I paid you 250,000 for pin-money; in April, the Spanish expulsion of Don Carlos — 600,000, of which you took 50,000 crowns. In all you have received this year five hundred thousand livres. Then, three days ago, you talked politics with M. Debray, and you fancied from his words that Don Carlos had returned to Spain. He had sold; the news had proved false; he had lost seven hundred thousand francs. Since I gave you a fourth of the gains, I think you owe me a fourth of the losses; the fourth of seven hundred thousand francs is one hundred and seventy-five thousand. — But why mix M. Debray in this? — Because if you do not have those one hundred and seventy-five thousand francs you must have lent them to your friends, and M. Debray is one of your friends.

He went on. Look into my conduct for the last four years that we have ceased to be husband and wife and see whether it has not been consistent. We have peace in the house; I tolerated your music master, your dancing master, your secretary, so long as you paid for the lessons out of your own cash-box. But today I find you are drawing on mine, and that this apprenticeship may cost me 700,000 francs a month. Either the diplomatist must give his lessons gratis, and I will tolerate him, or he must never set foot in my house again.

The baroness rose to denounce him; the banker brushed her aside. Look into my conduct for the last sixteen years. Not one step, not an action, not a fault has escaped me, while you flattered yourself you had deceived me. Every one of your friends from Villefort to Debray has trembled before me. I will allow you to make me hateful, but I will prevent your rendering me ridiculous, and above all I forbid you to ruin me.

At the name of Villefort the baroness went pale and rose as if touched by a spring. M. de Villefort? What do you mean? — I mean that M. de Nargonne your first husband, being neither philosopher nor banker, or perhaps both, died of grief or anger at finding after an absence of nine months that you had been enceinte six. I am brutal — I boast of it; it is one of the reasons of my success. As to Debray — let him bear his share of the seven hundred thousand, or let him become bankrupt for the two hundred and fifty he owes me. There are fifty other secretaries in the world who would do better.

Madame Danglars sank into a chair, thinking of Villefort, of the dinner scene, of the strange chain of misfortunes that had broken upon her house in three days. Danglars closed the bedroom door behind him without another word. When she recovered her senses she could almost believe she had dreamt it.

Chapter 66 — Matrimonial Projects

Debray's coupé did not appear at Madame Danglars' the next morning. The baroness drove out at half-past twelve. Danglars, watching from behind his curtain, recorded her departure. He spent two hours at his desk, sadder by the minute over his unsealed despatches and his figures, received Major Cavalcanti exactly at the appointed hour to terminate their business, then went to the Chamber and inscribed his name to speak against the budget. His humour at the sitting was bitterer than ever. From the Chamber he drove straight to No. 30, Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

The count was at home but engaged. While Danglars waited, a man in priest's dress passed without ceremony into the inner apartments — the Abbé Busoni. A minute later the count came out: one of my friends, the Abbé Busoni, has just arrived; not having seen him for a long time I could not make up my mind to leave him sooner. Danglars looked careworn. Melancholy in a capitalist, like the appearance of a comet, presages some misfortune to the world.

He had had a string of bad news. A merchant of Trieste, Jacopo Manfredi, had suspended payment, leaving him a million in advance and four hundred thousand more in unredeemed bills. With the Spanish loss, the bill was nearly seventeen hundred thousand francs in a single month. And how did you make such a mistake — such an old stager? — It was all my wife's fault. She believes in dreams.

The count was condoling. It is a hard blow for a third-rate fortune. — Third-rate? — I assort fortunes in three ranks: the first, of mines and lands and funded property in stable states, totalling about a hundred millions; the second, of joint-stock and viceregal incomes, totalling fifty; the third, of fluctuating capital that a false telegram or a bankruptcy can shake — bringing in some fifteen millions of real or fictitious capital. I think this is your position. — Confound it, yes. — Six more such months would reduce a third-rate house to despair. Your real principal — for third-rate fortunes are only a fourth of what they appear, like a locomotive magnified by its own steam — is at most five or six millions; you have just lost two of them. Do you want money? Shall I lend you some? Danglars rallied: I have my Indian galleons, my Mexican mines; I am only embarked in certainties; to involve me three governments must crumble. — Such things have been. Recollect the seven fat and lean kine. — Or that the sea should become dry as in the days of Pharaoh; even then my vessels would become caravans. — So much the better; I see I was deceived, and you belong to the second rank. The smile Danglars produced reminded the count of the sickly moons that bad artists daub into pictures of ruins.

Glad to change the subject, Danglars asked about Cavalcanti. The major had presented a draft of forty thousand francs that morning, signed by Busoni and endorsed by the count. He had also opened an account of five thousand a month for Andrea. Sixty thousand francs a year; how can a young man live on five thousand a month? But do not advance more — the father will never repay; you do not know these ultramontane millionaires, they are misers. I myself would advance ten millions on his signature. The count let drop his theory of old condottieri who buried their millions in corners and transmitted the secret only to their eldest sons; the Cavalcanti owned no land except a palace at Lucca, which they let to the Minister of Finance while they lived in a simple house. Was Andrea seeking a French wife? — I am sure of it. — He must be looking for a Bavarian or Peruvian princess; he will want a crown. — No, these grand lords often marry into plain families. Danglars, with assumed indifference: Do you wish to marry Andrea, that you ask so many questions? — Ma foi, it would not be a bad speculation. — You forget that Mademoiselle Danglars is engaged to Albert de Morcerf. — He would care very little, I think.

The count was leading up. You must allow that the Morcerfs have a fine name. — And so have the Danglars. — A nobility of five centuries is worth more than one of twenty years. — And for that very reason, said Danglars with a sardonic smile, I prefer M. Andrea Cavalcanti to M. Albert de Morcerf. — Still, the Morcerfs would not yield to the Cavalcanti? — Look at my coat-of-arms; mine is worth more than Morcerf's. I was made a baron, so I am one; he made himself a count, so he is not one at all. He had bought fish of Fernand Mondego, the man who was now the Comte de Morcerf, when both were starting out. There were certain things said of him that had never been said of Danglars. In Greece? asked the count. In conjunction with the affairs of Ali Pasha — exactly so. — Probably you have a correspondent at Yanina? Well, write and ask him what part was played by a Frenchman named Fernand Mondego in the catastrophe of Ali Tepelini. — I will write today. And Danglars made one leap into his coupé.

Chapter 67 — The Office of the King's Attorney

That same morning Madame Danglars, in a plain dress, took her own carriage to the Faubourg Saint Germain, descended at the Passage du Pont-Neuf, hailed a cab in the Rue Guénégaud, drew a thick black veil from her pocket and tied it to her bonnet, and was set down at the Rue de Harlay. She crossed the Salle des Pas-Perdus unnoticed; in Villefort's antechamber the doorkeeper recognised her by appointment and conducted her by a private passage to the procureur's office.

Villefort wrote with his back to the door, did not look up until the doorkeeper had gone, then drew the bolts, closed the curtains, examined every corner. Then he turned. Thanks for your punctuality. They sat opposite. It is true, then, that all our actions leave traces on our paths, like the course of an insect on the sands. — I feel my place is not in the judge's seat but on the prisoner's bench. — You exaggerate, sir; the world excuses, and notoriety ennobles you men. — Madame, I was not so on the night of the betrothal at Marseilles. Since then everything has changed. He warned her: she had not heard all. Picture to yourself a future more gloomy still — certainly frightful, perhaps sanguinary. The baroness opened her mouth to scream; the sound died.

She still believed the Count of Monte Cristo had truly disinterred a child by chance. Villefort interrupted her: No, madame; this is the terrible news. Nothing was found beneath the flowers; there was no child disinterred. She stared. Neither chest nor skeleton, because neither of them was there. Then he forced himself to tell what he had hidden from her for twenty years. The child had been born motionless, breathless, voiceless, and he had thought it dead; he had laid it in the chest, descended to the garden, dug a hole, flung it down, and was just covering it with earth when the arm of the Corsican stretched toward him with a flash of light, and he had fallen, supposing himself killed. Madame Danglars had been brave: a duel had been the pretext for the wound; he had been carried to Versailles, struggled with death three months, then taken six months by litter and river to the South.

And from the moment consciousness returned to me, my thoughts were always the same — the child's corpse, rising every night from the earth and hovering over the grave with menacing look. When he returned to Paris and learnt that she had married Danglars, he had at last bought out the tenant of the Auteuil house for any sum, hurried to the garden by the staircase he had once descended, and dug. He had recognised the spot by the laburnum and the artificial rockery. He had widened the hole twice, three times, twenty feet square — and the chest was no longer there. He had searched the whole thicket through the dawn. There was nothing. Why should that man have carried away the corpse? — As proof? — No, dead bodies are not kept a year. Something more terrible: the child was perhaps alive, and the assassin saved it.

The baroness sprang up. My child was alive? You buried my child alive! She wrung Villefort's hands. He had searched everywhere. The Corsican might have thrown it in the river — Impossible, said the mother, a man may murder another out of revenge, but he would not deliberately drown a child. He might have left it at the foundling hospital. Yes, my child is there! Villefort had run to the hospital and learned that on the night of the 20th of September a child had been brought there wrapped in part of a fine linen napkin, marked with half a baron's coronet and the letter H. Truly, all my linen is marked thus; M. de Nargonne was a baron, and my name is Hermine. The child had been claimed six months later by a woman bearing the other half of the napkin; Villefort had set bloodhounds on her trail, and they had lost her at Châlons. Forever? — Forever.

But the Count of Monte Cristo can know nothing, she said, or he would not seek our society as he does. — The wickedness of man is very great, for it surpasses the goodness of God. Did you observe that man's eyes? Of all the exquisite things he placed before us he tasted nothing — I might have suspected he was poisoning us. — But that man has other projects. I wished to see you to warn you against everyone, but especially against him. Did you ever reveal our connection to anyone? — Never. — Do you talk in your sleep? — I sleep soundly, like a child; do you not remember? The colour mounted in her face; Villefort went awfully pale. It is true.

In less than one week I will ascertain who this M. de Monte Cristo is, whence he comes, where he goes, and why he speaks in our presence of children disinterred in a garden. He led her back to the door, kissed the hand she reluctantly gave. She returned by another cab to the Pont-Neuf passage, where her own carriage and her sleeping coachman waited.

Chapter 68 — A Summer Ball

That same day Madame de Morcerf returned from Tréport on her son's arm, and Albert hurried off to the Champs-Élysées. He ran toward the count with open arms and was, as always, chilled by the impassable barrier; the count gave his hand coldly. Albert told him of the four days in Tréport. The count had had a dinner: Danglars, the Cavalcanti, the Villeforts, Debray, Morrel, Château-Renaud. Did they speak of me? — Not a word. — So much the worse; if they did not speak of me they thought of me, and I am in despair. — Mademoiselle Danglars, said Albert, was not among those present.

Albert vented his repugnance: Mademoiselle Danglars would make a charming mistress, but a wife — diable! One can forsake a mistress, but a wife must always be there. He longed for a wife such as my father found — and praised his mother. I wish I had a hundred thousand francs to break the engagement. — Then make yourself easy, said the count; M. Danglars would give double that sum to attain the same end. He is delighted with you, but is more enchanted with another. Look and judge for yourself. Albert promised to invite the Cavalcanti to a summer ball his father was giving on Saturday. The count would invite young Andrea but would not present him: if he were afterwards to marry Mademoiselle Danglars, you would accuse me of intrigue, and would be challenging me — and besides, I may not be there myself. — Why? — You have not yet invited me.

Albert pressed: My mother begs you to come. The count started at the name. The Comtesse de Morcerf? — Yes; for the last four days we have spoken of no one else. The Countess G — takes you for Lord Ruthven; my mother imagines you to be Cagliostro or the Count Saint-Germain. The first opportunity, confirm her in the opinion: you have the philosophy of the one and the wit of the other. — I shall be prepared. — Then you will come on Saturday? — Yes, since Madame de Morcerf invites me.

He asked after Franz d'Épinay. Five or six days hence at the latest, and to be married immediately on the arrival of M. and Madame de Saint-Méran. — Bring him to see me; you say I do not like him, but I shall be happy to see him. He watched Albert mount his phaeton and turned to Bertuccio. What news? — She went to the Palais and stayed an hour and a half. — Well, my dear Bertuccio, now I advise you to go in quest of the little estate I spoke to you of in Normandy. The steward bowed and started the same evening.

Chapter 69 — The Inquiry

Villefort kept his promise. He wrote at once to M. de Boville (now of the police), who in two days reported the count was intimate with Lord Wilmore, a rich foreign English traveller now in Paris, and known also to the Abbé Busoni, a Sicilian priest of high repute in the East. The procureur ordered the strictest inquiries respecting both. The next evening's report described the abbé's modest two-storied house behind Saint-Sulpice — the dining-room furnished only with a walnut table and chairs, the upstairs library of theological books and parchments where the abbé buried himself for months, the wicket through which his valet inspected visitors, and the alms always left for distribution. Lord Wilmore, who lived in the Rue Fontaine-Saint-Georges, was one of those English tourists who consume large fortunes in travel; he hired his apartment furnished, slept there rarely, and refused on principle to speak French (though he wrote it with great facility).

The next day a man alighted at the corner of the Rue Férou and inquired for the Abbé Busoni. The valet declined; the visitor presented a card and a sealed paper; he would return at eight. At eight he was admitted with every mark of respect to a library where the abbé sat in monk's dress, his head in a cowl, his great spectacles covering eyes and temples, behind a lamp shaded so as to throw the light forward and his face into shadow.

He was the agent of the prefect of police, sent by M. de Boville. The abbé corrected the name: You mean M. Zaccone, I presume? — Monte Cristo is the name of an estate, not a family. He had known Zaccone's father (a rich Maltese shipbuilder) and had played as a child with the son in the timber-yards. The title of count had been bought; the man was not so very rich — perhaps four millions of capital, two hundred thousand a year. Why did he buy a rock? — In Italy one must have territorial possessions to be a count. As to his youth, the abbé had lost sight of him; he believed he had served in the navy. He was a Quaker — exactly that, with the exception of the dress — and the holy father had made him a Knight of Jesus Christ. He had only one enemy: Lord Wilmore, an Englishman who had been with him in India, who lived now in Paris in the Chaussée d'Antin (the street and number unknown). The count had not been in France before this visit; six months ago he had asked the abbé for an introduction, and the abbé had recommended M. Cavalcanti — Bartolomeo, the father. Finally, what was the count's design in buying the house at Auteuil? To make of it a lunatic asylum, like the one founded by the Count of Pisani at Palermo. A magnificent charity. The abbé bowed, the visit ended.

An hour later the carriage carried the agent to No. 5, Rue Fontaine-Saint-Georges, where Lord Wilmore was expected at ten. The Englishman entered with the strokes of the clock — rather above the middle height, with thin reddish whiskers, light hair turning rather grey, blue coat with gilt buttons in the fashion of 1811, white kerseymere waistcoat, nankeen pantaloons too short and held by straps — and announced You know, sir, I do not speak French. Less restrained than the abbé in the character of the count's enemy, he was more communicative. The young Zaccone had at ten years old taken service with one of the petty Indian sovereigns making war on the English; Wilmore had fought against him there, taken him prisoner, sent him to the hulks, whence he had escaped by swimming. Then his travels and duels; then the insurrection of Greece; then a silver mine he had discovered in Thessaly which the new King Otho had granted him after Navarino. Hence his immense fortune, of one or two millions a year, but precarious, for the mine might fail tomorrow. He came to France to speculate in railways and to perfect a new system of telegraphy he had invented; he was a miser, spending no more than five or six hundred thousand francs a year. The house at Auteuil was bought because the count supposed there was a mineral spring equal to those at Bagnères, Luchon, and Cauterets; he had already dug up the garden two or three times in vain. Wilmore hated him, hoped he would ruin himself, and was watching for his discomfiture.

Why do you not seek revenge? — I have fought three duels with him — pistol, sword, sabre. He broke my arm the first time, wounded me in the breast the second, gave me this scar the third — and he turned down his shirt-collar to show a fresh red mark. I practise shooting every day, and every other day Grisier comes to my house.

The agent retired. Lord Wilmore, when the door closed, returned to his bedroom and with one hand pulled off the light hair, the reddish whiskers, the false jaw, and the wound, to resume the black hair, dark complexion, and pearly teeth of the Count of Monte Cristo. It was M. de Villefort, not the prefect of police, that the same man drove back to. The procureur felt more at ease, though he had learnt nothing really satisfactory, and slept that night for the first time since the dinner at Auteuil.

Chapter 70 — The Ball

The Saturday came in the warmest July, the supper laid by the lawn under coloured lanterns according to the Italian custom. The guests came more for the charming hospitality of Mercédès than for the count of Morcerf. Madame Danglars had hesitated to come, but Villefort, meeting her carriage in the morning, had made her a sign and told her it is important that you should be seen; she came radiant.

Albert went to her, and was asked the question of the night: Will not the Count of Monte Cristo be here? — Seventeen, said Albert; she was the seventeenth to ask. He is in fashion; we are among the privileged. The Greek princess will not appear, however; her position is not sufficiently understood. Madame de Villefort caught Albert's attention with a different bait: news of M. Franz d'Épinay (he was leaving at the same time as his letter). She also boasted that she knew the count's real name. Monte Cristo is the name of an island, and he has a family name — Zaccone, the son of a Maltese shipowner; he has served in India, discovered a mine in Thessaly, and comes to Paris to establish a mineral water-cure at Auteuil. — A secret just discovered by the police.

A handsome young man with bright eyes and black hair bowed to her: Maximilian Morrel, captain of Spahis, one of our best and bravest officers, said Albert by way of presentation. I have already had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman at Auteuil, said Madame de Villefort, turning away with marked coldness. The chill went to Morrel's heart. But across the room he saw a beautiful fair face, large blue eyes raising a bouquet of myosotis to her lips: he raised his handkerchief in answering signal. They might have remained much longer lost in one another — but the Count of Monte Cristo had just entered.

The pale complexion, the waving black hair, the mouth chiselled with marvellous delicacy easily expressing high disdain, fixed every eye. He passed under a battery of glances toward the Comtesse de Morcerf at the mantelpiece. She turned to him with a serene smile; he bowed; both remained silent; the count went on to Albert. He asked Albert who the great geniuses were in his father's group. Albert pointed them out: the tall harsh-looking man discovered a lizard in the Roman countryside with a vertebra more than ordinary, and was made an officer of the Legion for it; the man in the blue coat embroidered with green was the Academician who thrust pins through the heads of rabbits, made fowls eat madder, and punched the spinal marrow out of dogs — and was elected not to the Academy of Sciences but to the French Academy, for the goodness of his style; the third was an opponent of the Peers' uniform, who had written two or three comic operas, four or five articles in the Siècle, and voted five years on the ministerial side. Bravo, viscount, you are a delightful cicerone. Now do me one favour: do not introduce me to any of these gentlemen.

Danglars touched his arm. Why do you call me baron? You know that I care nothing for my title. The count let drop, by way of conversation, that the millionaire bankers Franck & Poulmann of Frankfurt had just become bankrupts; he had withdrawn a million from their hands a month ago. — Ah mon Dieu, exclaimed Danglars; they have drawn on me for two hundred thousand francs. — Their signature is worth five per cent. — Yes, but I have honoured the bills. — Hush, said Danglars, especially before young Cavalcanti.

The count moved alone for an instant. The heat became excessive; the footmen passed with salvers of ice; the count refused. Mercédès did not lose sight of him. He has never been willing to partake of food under the roof of M. de Morcerf. She sent Albert to insist; the count obstinately refused. In a word, said Mercédès, it was a way of assuring me that his abstinence was intended. She went out, and a moment later the blinds were thrown open and the cool breeze of the garden flooded in. She returned paler than before. Do not detain these gentlemen, count, she said to her husband; they would prefer to breathe in the garden than to suffocate here. She offered her arm to lead the way to the garden — and turned to the count. Will you oblige me with your arm? The count almost staggered, then fixed his eyes on her — only a moment, but to the countess it seemed to have lasted a century. He offered his arm; she just touched it with her hand; they descended together the steps lined with rhododendrons and camellias.

Chapter 71 — Bread and Salt

Mercédès led the count through a grove of lindens, her hand trembling on his arm. She offered Muscatel grapes; he stepped back. I never eat Muscatel grapes. A peach he refused too. You pain me.

There is a beautiful Arabian custom, she said with a supplicating glance, which makes eternal friends of those who have eaten bread and salt under the same roof. — In France eternal friendships are as rare as the custom itself. — But we are friends, are we not? she pressed, gripping his arm. The count became pale as death, then crimson. Certainly; why should we not be? She turned away with something like a groan.

Was he not married? She is a slave I bought at Constantinople, whom I have adopted, having no one else to love. At Malta I loved a young girl and was to marry her when war carried me away; when I returned she was married. — And have you forgiven her? — Her, yes. — And those who separated you? — Not at all; why should I?

Take some, she said, holding out the grapes. — Madame, I never eat Muscatel grapes. She dashed them into the thicket. Inflexible man!

Albert ran in: the marquis had died, Valentine had fainted. So Franz must wait. Why was not M. de Saint-Méran also grandfather to Mademoiselle Danglars? — Albert, chided his mother.

She seized his hand and her son's and joined them. We are friends; are we not? — Madame, I am at all times your most respectful servant. She left with an indescribable pang; before she had taken ten steps the count saw her raise her handkerchief to her eyes. Do not my mother and you agree? asked Albert. — On the contrary; did you not hear her declare we were friends?

Chapter 72 — Madame de Saint-Méran

While the ladies had gone to the ball Villefort had shut himself in his study, opened the secret drawer of his desk, and gone over the cherished memoranda of his enemies in his private cipher. None of my enemies would have waited so patiently and laboriously to crush me with this secret. The story has been told by the Corsican to some priest, who has repeated it to Monte Cristo. But why should this stranger interest himself in such a useless fact? He could not still his fears.

A carriage rolled into the yard. He heard servants' lamentations on the stair. The door opened and an old lady entered unannounced, carrying her shawl on her arm and her bonnet in her hand: it was the Marchioness de Saint-Méran. She fell into a chair sobbing. M. de Saint-Méran is dead. He had died of an apoplectic stroke six leagues from Marseilles. He had taken his usual lozenges, fallen into a deep sleep, and awakened only with a piercing cry; he had thrown his head back violently; he was already a corpse when she stopped the carriage at Aix. I had him put in a leaden coffin and I am preceding him by a few days. She wished to see Valentine.

Villefort hurried to the ball; Valentine guessed at his face that some misfortune had happened — and grandpapa? — He offered his arm in answer; she swayed, and her stepmother helped her to the carriage. What a singular event! murmured Madame de Villefort. Who could have thought it? At the foot of the stair Barrois met Valentine: M. Noirtier wished to see her tonight. Tell him I will come when I leave my dear grandmamma.

She spent the silent hours by her grandmother's bed in caresses and tears. Madame de Villefort, maintaining all outward forms of respect, withdrew at her mother-in-law's plain wish. After her grandmother had fallen at last into a feverish sleep, Valentine went up to Noirtier — Yes, you mean that I have yet a kind grandfather left; the eye replied yes; she kissed him and went down again.

The next morning the marchioness was worse. She had hardly slept. Sir, she said the moment Villefort entered, you wrote to me of this child's marriage. M. Franz d'Épinay, son of General d'Épinay who was on our side and who was assassinated some days before the usurper returned from Elba? Does he not dislike the idea of marrying a Jacobin's granddaughter? — Our civil dissensions are happily extinguished, mother. She approved everything. Well, sir, I must hasten the marriage, for I have but a short time to live. I am all that is left to her belonging to my poor Renée, whom you have so soon forgotten. — Madame, you forget that I was obliged to give a mother to my child. — A stepmother is never a mother. The conversation, of fearful rapidity, had something of the beginning of delirium.

Valentine begged her to wait, even for decorum. Let us hear none of the conventional objections that deter weak minds. I was married at the death-bed of my mother and have not been the less happy. — Still that idea of death, said Villefort. — Always! I tell you I am going to die. Before I die I will see my son-in-law and read in his eyes whether he intends to obey me — that I may rise from the depths of my grave to find him if he should not fulfil his duty. — The dead, once buried, rise no more. — And I tell you, sir, you are mistaken. This night I had a fearful sleep. My eyes closed against my will, and what will appear impossible to you, I saw with my eyes shut, in the spot where you now stand, issuing from the corner where the door opens into Madame de Villefort's dressing-room — I saw silently enter a white figure. Valentine screamed. I heard my glass removed — the same that is now there on the table.

She demanded the notary at once and a certainty that all her property would return to Valentine. Grandmamma — do you wish to kill me? You are feverish; we must send for a doctor! — I am not ill, I am thirsty; give me my orangeade. The marchioness drained her glass at one draught and lay back, repeating the notary, the notary. Valentine sat by her, herself with a bright spot in either cheek, thinking how Maximilian Morrel — whom she could not yet name to this proud Marquise — was now to find Madame de Saint-Méran an unknowing enemy.

Two hours later the notary arrived; the marchioness sent her granddaughter out. At the door Valentine met the family doctor, M. d'Avrigny, whom she had sent for: an old friend who had attended her birth and had himself a daughter Madeleine and a niece Antoinette. He gathered the symptoms — extreme nervous excitement, the dream of the white figure, the touched glass. It is singular; I was not aware that Madame de Saint-Méran was subject to such hallucinations. The notary descended; Valentine asked him to go up to her grandmother and herself went out into the garden to recover. As she advanced toward the gate she heard a voice speak her name — Maximilian's.

Chapter 73 — The Promise

It was Maximilian Morrel at the gate. He had passed a wretched day; with the lover's instinct he had felt that the death of M. de Saint-Méran and the marchioness's arrival would precipitate matters at Villefort's. Valentine ran to the opening in the gate, surprised to see him at an unaccustomed hour.

Listen, dear Valentine — when are you to be married? — They wait only for M. d'Épinay; the day after his arrival the contract will be signed. — Then tomorrow you will be promised to him, for he came to Paris this morning. I was at Monte Cristo's an hour ago; a carriage rolled into the courtyard; Albert entered first, and after him a young man whom the count named to me — Baron Franz d'Épinay. I smiled, and went out without having heard a word.

Valentine's head fell. What do you intend to do? he asked. My life depends on your answer. Will you struggle, or will you submit? The idea of resisting her father, her dying grandmother, the whole house — it would be a sacrilege, she murmured. I shall need all my strength to support my grief in secret. — Then it is understood. Tomorrow you will sign — by your own will. He smiled bitterly. Mademoiselle, I am selfish; I had thought to gain heaven, and now I have lost it.

He proposed his plan: she should follow him to his sister's house, and they would embark for Algiers, for England, for America. — It is the counsel of a madman, said Valentine; I should be more mad than you did I not stop you. Impossible, Morrel, impossible! — Then you will submit? — Yes — if I die. — Adieu, Valentine. He bowed and turned away. She seized his coat through the opening. Where are you going? — I shall not provoke M. Franz; he is innocent. I shall write to my brother-in-law and to the prefect of police, and at the corner of some wood, on the brink of some abyss, I will put an end to my existence, as certainly as I am the son of the most honest man who ever lived in France.

Valentine fell on her knees. Maximilian, my friend, my brother on earth, my husband in heaven — live in suffering; perhaps we may one day be united. — Adieu, Valentine. — My God! she cried, raising her hands; I have begged, I have entreated; he regards nothing. It is done — I am resolved not to die of remorse, but rather of shame. Live, Maximilian, and I will be yours. Speak, command, I will obey.

Pale with joy, he drew back to her. No — not by violence; if it is from mere humanity you bid me live, I would rather die. — Who on this earth cares for me, if it is not he? On him, on him, always on him! Yes, I will follow you. I will give up all — even my dear old grandfather, whom I had nearly forgotten. — No, said Maximilian; we will not leave him. M. Noirtier has shown a kind feeling toward me. As soon as we are married he shall come and live with us; instead of one child he shall have two. I shall learn his language by signs.

A last bargain: if by artifice or accident she could delay the marriage, he would wait. If not — instead of signing, she would come to him at the gate, where a carriage would be ready. They would not see one another again until then; it was already a miracle they had not been discovered. I will write to you, she said. I dread this marriage, Maximilian, as much as you. The sound of a kiss came across the cold barrier; Valentine fled through the avenue.

Morrel waited all that evening and the next day in vain. On the second morning, just as he was setting out to call on the notary M. Deschamps, the postman handed him a small billet — Valentine's first letter. Tears, entreaties, prayers have availed me nothing. The signature of the contract is fixed for this evening at nine o'clock. I have but one promise to give; that promise is pledged to you. This evening, at a quarter to nine, at the gate. Your betrothed, Valentine de Villefort. — P.S. My poor grandmother gets worse and worse; today her delirium is almost madness. I think it is kept a secret from grandpapa Noirtier that the contract is to be signed this evening.

Morrel went to the notary, who confirmed it; then to Monte Cristo, who told him more — Madame de Villefort had begged the count to excuse her not inviting him, the recent death and the grandmother's illness casting a gloom over the meeting. The count's penetrating eye marked Maximilian's agitation; more than once Morrel was on the point of telling him all, but he kept his promise. He read Valentine's letter twenty times that day, and twenty times renewed his vow. He had hidden two ladders in the clover-field, and ordered a cabriolet without lamps and without a servant; at the turning of the first street they would light the lamps, as it would be foolish to attract the notice of the police.

Never did a man deeply in love allow the clocks to go on peacefully. Morrel tormented his so effectually that they struck eight at half-past six. He left the Rue Meslay at half-past eight; the clock of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule struck eight as he reached the clover-field. Half-past eight passed; nine; half-past nine; ten — and still no white dress in the avenue, no footstep on the gravel. The house, glimpsed through the trees, remained dark — no illumination at the windows, no sign of the great ceremony of a contract-signing. It is impossible, he said, that the signing should occupy so long a time. Something must have happened. Had Valentine fainted in the path? Had she been discovered?

At half-past ten he could bear it no longer. He set the ladder, threw one leg over the wall, and dropped into the garden. He crossed under the wall, slipped through a clump of trees, and saw the house at last. Only a light moved past three windows on the second floor — Madame de Saint-Méran's room — and another shone steady behind red curtains in Madame de Villefort's bedroom. Voices reached him on the wind. He stepped back into the trees and pressed himself against a sycamore, motionless.

The moon broke from the cloud: M. de Villefort was descending the steps with a gentleman in black, whom Morrel recognized at once as Doctor d'Avrigny. They stopped within a few paces of his hiding-place. Heaven declares itself against my house! groaned the procureur. Dead, dead! — I have not led you here to console you, said the doctor; behind the misfortune which has just happened, there is another, perhaps still greater. Let us sit down. Are we quite alone?

Morrel pressed his hand to his heart for fear its beating should be heard. Madame de Saint-Méran was advancing in years, but she enjoyed excellent health. Grief may kill, but never in a day, never in an hour, never in ten minutes. The symptoms of tetanus and of poisoning by vegetable substances are the same — and during the three-quarters of an hour her struggle lasted, I watched, and I am thoroughly convinced not only that she died of poison, but I could specify the poison. Sleep broken by spasms, excitation of the brain, torpor of the nerve centres — Madame de Saint-Méran succumbed to a powerful dose of brucine or strychnine.

Villefort seized his hand. It is impossible — I must be dreaming! — I do not affirm it on oath, my friend; I speak not as a magistrate but as a friend. Make inquiry. Has anyone sent for from a chemist's? Had she enemies? Whose interest does her death affect? — None — my daughter Valentine is her sole heiress; if such a thought could enter my mind I would stab myself for harboring it! — Nothing more simple than a mistake, the doctor went on. For three months I have been giving M. Noirtier brucine — six grains in his last dose. That quantity, safe for his frame which has grown accustomed to it, would kill another. May not Barrois have confused the doses? — Impossible — there is no communication between the apartments.

Villefort begged him with horror to recall his words. Doctor, you know what it is to occupy the post of king's attorney for twenty-five years; an inquest in my house — impossible! My wife, my daughter would die of it. — Let us bury this terrible secret, said d'Avrigny; if anyone should suspect, my silence shall be imputed to my ignorance. But watch, sir — watch carefully, for perhaps the evil may not stop here. And when you find the culprit, if you find him, I will say: you are a magistrate, do as you will.

They went toward the house. Morrel ventured out, his face like a ghost's in the moonlight. I am protected in a most wonderful, but most terrible manner. Valentine — how will she bear so much sorrow? He looked up at the windows: the three white-curtained ones still showed their pale shadow on the balcony. He thought he heard a sob; he thought he heard her call. By an irresistible transport he crossed the flower-garden, ran up the steps, and pushed open the door, which yielded.

The carpeted staircase muffled his tread; a sob from a half-open door directed him. He entered. At the far end of the room, under a white sheet, lay the corpse; beside it, on her knees, head buried in the velvet cushion of an easy-chair, was Valentine, her clasped hands stretched above her head — a head like that of a Magdalen by Correggio. She raised it without surprise; a heart overwhelmed with one great grief is insensible to lesser shocks. She pointed to the sheet by way of apology and began to sob again.

How came you here? she whispered at last. He told her of the wall, the garden, the voices — your servants, repeating the whole sorrowful story; from them I learned it all; he could not bring himself to speak of the doctor's words. But what of M. d'Épinay? — He arrived to sign the contract just as my dear grandmother was dying. And what redoubles my sorrow is that on her death-bed she begged the marriage be hastened. She thought to protect me, and was acting against me.

Steps in the corridor. My father, accompanying the doctor to the door. — How do you know it is the doctor? — I imagined it. The street door closed; Villefort locked the garden door and returned upstairs, paused, then passed on to his own apartment. Now you can go neither by the front door nor by the garden. There is but one way left — through my grandfather's room. I have long wished it.

She led him by a narrow staircase to Noirtier. Barrois shut the door behind them. Dear grandfather, poor grandmamma died an hour since, and I have no friend in the world but you. Look attentively at this gentleman: it is M. Maximilian Morrel, son of that good merchant of Marseilles. I love him, and will be only his; were I compelled to marry another, I would destroy myself. — And you will protect us, who are your children, against the will of my father? The eye said perhaps I may.

Valentine left them. Morrel took the dictionary, the pen, the paper, and laid out his case. He told the old man his birth, his fortune, his love. Then his designs: a cabriolet at the gate, an elopement to his sister's, marriage, and a respectful waiting on Villefort's pardon. — No, signified Noirtier. — We must not? — No. — There is another way: I will seek M. Franz d'Épinay, force him to challenge me, and either he renounces Valentine, or one of us falls. Noirtier shut his eyes. No. — You disapprove this also? But what then must be done? Am I to wait? — Yes. — But Valentine alone has no power; she will be compelled to submit. — No. — Whence will the help come — from chance? — No. — From you? — Yes. The look that gave the answer left no doubt of his will, whatever might be doubted of his power.

But how, chained to that armchair, dumb and motionless, can you oppose this marriage? A strange smile lit the eyes in the paralyzed face. You will assure me the contract shall not be signed? — Yes, said Noirtier. Morrel could scarcely realize so great a happiness. The old man's eye demanded more than a promise. Shall I swear to you, sir? — Yes. Maximilian extended his hand. I swear on my honor to await your decision respecting M. d'Épinay. — That is right.

He kissed the old man on the forehead where Valentine's lips had been, and was led by Barrois along a dark passage to a little door on the garden. He reached his ladder, the wall, the clover-field, his cabriolet, and arrived in the Rue Meslay about midnight, where, worn out by so many emotions, he threw himself on his bed and slept soundly.

VOLUME FOUR

Chapter 74 — The Villefort Family Vault

Two days later a great crowd assembled before Villefort's door. Among the carriages was a covered wagon painted black from a distance: by a strange coincidence it bore the corpse of M. de Saint-Méran, so that those who had come to one funeral followed two. The two coffins set out together for Père-Lachaise, where Renée had been waiting ten years for her father and mother.

In one mourning-coach Beauchamp, Debray, and Château-Renaud talked of the marchioness's sudden end. I saw her last year — she looked likely to live a hundred years. — Sixty-six, said Albert; not of old age but of grief. — Mademoiselle Valentine — or rather our friend Franz — inherits eighty thousand livres a year, doubled at the death of the old Jacobin Noirtier. — A tenacious old grandfather, said Beauchamp; I think he has made an agreement with death to outlive all his heirs. No one suspected the secret d'Avrigny had whispered to Villefort under the sycamore.

Among the yew-trees Château-Renaud spied Morrel alone. You here? Are you a friend of Villefort's? — No, but I was of Madame de Saint-Méran. Albert came up with Franz and presented them. Morrel hesitated — it seemed hypocrisy to take the hand of the man he was tacitly opposing — but his oath came back, and he bowed. Mademoiselle de Villefort is in deep sorrow? — Extremely, said Franz; she was so pale this morning I scarcely knew her. The words pierced Morrel: this man had seen Valentine, had spoken to her. The ceremony done, Morrel watched Franz and Villefort step into the same mourning-coach; the meeting boded evil.

The procureur took Franz straight to his study. Allow me to remind you of Madame de Saint-Méran's wish that the wedding not be deferred. Valentine inherits the whole property. The contract was to have been signed three days since; we can sign it today. — But the mourning? — Mademoiselle de Villefort may retire for three months to her estate of Saint-Méran; the civil marriage shall be celebrated there without pomp. Franz consented and asked only that his witnesses be summoned. Half an hour.

The news fell on the house like a thunderbolt. Valentine, ascending in search of her grandfather, was met on the stair by her father, who took her arm and led her down. Madame de Villefort entered with little Edward, pressing the child convulsively to her bosom. The notary and Franz's witnesses arrived. Valentine was so pale the blue veins could be traced from her temples down her cheeks. M. de Villefort was, as ever, unmoved.

The notary raised his spectacles. I have to inform you, sir, that your projected marriage has changed the feelings of M. Noirtier toward his grandchild, and he disinherits her of the fortune he would have left her. Having alienated all of a property he had only the right to alienate in part, the will is null and void. — And during my lifetime, added Villefort, my father's will shall never be questioned, my position forbidding any doubt.

Franz bowed. I have never inquired the amount of Mademoiselle Valentine's fortune; however limited, it exceeds mine. All I seek is happiness. Two silent tears rolled down Valentine's cheeks. Besides, said Villefort, it is not because she marries you that he is angry, but because she marries at all. Old age is selfish; my father has perhaps even forgotten the name of his intended grandson.

The door opened. Barrois entered. Gentlemen, M. Noirtier de Villefort wishes to speak immediately to M. Franz de Quesnel, baron d'Épinay — giving all the titles, lest there be any mistake. Villefort started; Madame de Villefort let her boy slip from her knees; Valentine rose, dumb as a statue. It is impossible, said the procureur. — Then M. Noirtier gives notice he will be carried hither. — Grandpapa Noirtier can speak, then? piped Edward, but no one smiled.

Since M. Noirtier sent for me, said Franz with sudden firmness, I will not lose the opportunity of paying my respects. He followed Valentine, who was hurrying down the corridor with the joy of a shipwrecked mariner who finds a rock to cling to. Villefort followed at their heels. Château-Renaud and Albert exchanged a third look of still greater wonder.

Chapter 75 — A Signed Statement

Noirtier waited dressed in black, the valet closing the door behind them. Listen, whispered Villefort to Valentine, if M. Noirtier wishes to communicate anything that would delay your marriage, I forbid you to understand him. She blushed but did not answer.

The eye that met Villefort made his blood run cold. By the patient sign-language Valentine had grown skilled in, Noirtier asked for a key from a small chest, then for an old neglected secretaire, then for the middle drawer. She emptied it; nothing. The eye fixed on the dictionary; she ran through the alphabet to S — secret. A secret spring known only to Barrois. The old servant came, touched it; a false bottom slid out; a packet of papers tied with black string came to light — to be given, the eye directed, to M. Franz d'Épinay. Franz read the cover: To be given, after my death, to General Durand, who shall bequeath the packet to his son, with an injunction to preserve it as containing an important document. — Read, said the eye.

Extract of the report of a meeting of the Bonapartist Club in the Rue Saint-Jacques, held February 5th, 1815. — February 5th! said Franz; that is the day my father was murdered. It was on leaving this club that he disappeared. Noirtier's eye said only — Read.

The signed deposition of Beaurepaire, Duchampy, and Lecharpal: a letter from Elba had recommended General de Quesnel to the club as a faithful Bonapartist, despite the barony Louis XVIII had just conferred. He was sent for at nine, blindfolded, taken in the president's carriage to a hall in the Rue Saint-Jacques, where he removed the bandage and saw faces he knew. They read him the letter, which spoke of the emperor's return and promised further details on the arrival of the Pharaon, Morrel of Marseilles, the captain entirely devoted to the emperor. The general listened with knitted brows. It is too soon after declaring myself for Louis XVIII to break my vow for the ex-emperor.

The president rose. We acknowledge no Louis XVIII; we acknowledge his majesty the emperor, driven from his kingdom by violence and treason. — I do — he made me a baron and a field-marshal. Calling your conspiracy what it is and not informing on you — that is what I should call accomplice. I am more candid than you.

Ah, my father! murmured Franz; I understand why they killed him. Valentine cast one glance of filial admiration. The president put a form of oath: I swear by my honor not to reveal what I have seen and heard tonight, and I plead guilty of death should I ever violate this oath. The general, white and trembling, swore — but in so low a voice they made him repeat it.

He was bandaged and set in the carriage with three escorts. Where shall we drive you? — Anywhere out of your presence. You are still as brave in your carriage as in your assembly because you are still four against one. The president stopped the coach at the steps of the Quai des Ormes. You have insulted a man, and that man will not go a step farther without honorable reparation. Remove your bandage. — At last, said the general, I shall know with whom I have to do.

It was a dark night, the steps sheeted with ice. A lantern was fetched from a coal-barge. The president's blade, drawn from his cane, was five inches shorter than the general's and had no guard; he refused to cast lots, for I gave the provocation, and supposed each would use his own arms.

The general, one of the best swords in the army, was pressed so close on the onset that he missed his thrust and fell. His opponent offered his hand; the courtesy enraged him. On the third pass he fell again; a witness passing an arm under him felt blood. Ah, they have sent me a fencing-master. The president turned back his sleeve to show two wounds in his arm, opened his coat to show a third in his side; he had not uttered a sigh. Five minutes later General d'Épinay was dead, his body thrown into the river. In proof that he fell in a loyal duel and not in ambush, we have signed this paper. — Beaurepaire, Duchampy, Lecharpal.

Franz finished in a voice scarcely audible. Sir, refuse me not one final satisfaction — tell me the name of the president of the club. Villefort's hand mechanically sought the door-handle; Valentine, who had often seen two old scars on her grandfather's right arm, drew back a few paces. — Hold, sir, said Villefort, the names were purposely concealed. — Yes, replied Noirtier. Franz took the dictionary; Noirtier stopped him at M, then at MYSELF. You! you, M. Noirtier — you killed my father? — Yes, replied the old man, fixing a majestic look upon him. Franz fell powerless into a chair; Villefort fled, for the thought had crossed his mind to stifle the little remaining life in the heart of this terrible old man.

Chapter 76 — Progress of Cavalcanti the Younger

Major Cavalcanti the elder had returned to his service — not in the army of the Emperor of Austria, but at the gaming-tables of Lucca, where he had spent every farthing of his journey-money as reward for his part of father. Andrea inherited the papers proving him the legitimate son of the Marquis Bartolomeo and the Marchioness Oliva Corsinari, and was launched in that Parisian society which treats foreigners as they wish to be considered. In a fortnight he was called count, said to possess fifty thousand livres a year, with vast paternal riches buried in the marble quarries of Saravezza — and a learned man declared he had seen the quarries, so the legend hardened into truth.

Monte Cristo called one evening on Danglars. The baron was out; he was shown to the baroness, who never heard his name announced without a nervous shudder yet was invariably charmed back into ease — the most corrupt minds only suspect evil when it would answer some interested end. She reclined on a sofa, Eugénie beside her, Cavalcanti standing in his black coat and openworked stockings, carelessly raising a hand to his light hair to display a diamond on his little finger — which he had been unable to resist putting on against the count's advice. His killing glances at Eugénie might have fallen on the shield of Minerva. She bowed coldly and slipped into her study with her singing teacher Louise d'Armilly.

The banker returned. His first look was for Monte Cristo, his second for Andrea, his third — a husband's bow — for his wife. Have not the ladies invited you to join them at the piano? — Alas, no, sir. Danglars opened the study door. The two girls were at the piano, each playing with one hand. Mademoiselle d'Armilly was exquisitely formed, with large curls falling on a neck rather too long, as Perugino sometimes makes his Virgins; she was said to have a weak chest, and like Antonia in the Cremona Violin, she would die one day while singing. Danglars led Andrea in. From within came a Corsican song that made the count lose sight of Andrea in the recollection of Benedetto.

Madame Danglars boasted of her husband's fortitude — that very morning he had lost three or four hundred thousand francs in a Milan failure. Hem, thought the count; he begins to conceal his losses; a month ago he boasted of them. — You share a common error: M. Danglars never speculates. — Truly, madame, were I a banker's wife, I should secure an independent purse, even if I placed my interests in hands unknown to him. The baroness coloured; the count seemed not to notice.

The valet announced the Vicomte Albert de Morcerf. The baroness rose to fly to the study; Danglars stopped her. Let her alone. Albert asked after Mademoiselle Danglars. She is at the piano with M. Cavalcanti, snapped the banker. They suit each other remarkably well. The baroness blushed; Albert pretended not to hear. Danglars insisted on the title: the prince and my daughter were universally admired yesterday. — Pardon me, I was not aware he was a prince. I had promised my mother a German concert at the Château-Renauds'.

Danglars drew Monte Cristo aside. What do you think of our lover? — Cool. But your word is given. — I promised my daughter to a man who loves her, not one who does not. He is cold as marble and proud like his father. — Do not lose your head; it is barely a month you have thought of this Cavalcanti. — Need I inquire? His appearance speaks for him, and he is rich. — Fifty thousand livres is a trifle. Would the count speak to Morcerf, positively, no more delay? — I will give it my attention.

The baroness pushed the study door. Cavalcanti sprang up like a jack-in-the-box. Albert bowed to Eugénie with a smile her cool nod returned in kind, and to Cavalcanti with the most impertinent look possible. They passed to tea. Danglars came back visibly agitated. I have just received my courier from Greece. — How is King Otho getting on? asked Albert in his sprightliest tone. The banker shot him a suspicious look; the count turned aside to conceal an expression of pity.

As the company broke up, Danglars stooped to the count's ear. Your advice was excellent. There is a whole history connected with the names Fernand and Yanina. Take this young man away — I cannot endure his presence. — He is going with me. Shall I send his father to you? — Immediately. They took their leave — Albert indifferent to Mademoiselle Danglars's contempt, Monte Cristo repeating his advice on the prudence a banker's wife should exercise in providing for the future. M. Cavalcanti remained master of the field.

Chapter 77 — Haydée

Scarcely had the count's horses cleared the boulevard when Albert burst into a fit of laughter rather too loud not to be forced. Well, count, I will ask you the question Charles IX put to Catherine de Medici after Saint Bartholomew: how have I played my little part? — To what do you allude? — To the installation of my rival at M. Danglars's — your protégé Andrea Cavalcanti. — No joking, viscount; I do not patronize him in that quarter. — He is paying his addresses; I am repulsed on all sides. Eugénie scarcely answers me, Mademoiselle d'Armilly does not speak to me at all. — But the father has the greatest regard for you. — He has plunged a thousand daggers into my heart. — Jealousy indicates affection. — But I am not jealous. — He is. Of you. He has charged me to obtain from your father a definite arrangement. — You surely will not? — Certainly I shall, as I have promised. — Then it seems you are determined to marry me. — I am determined to be on good terms with everybody. — And Debray? I have not seen him at the baron's lately. — There has been a misunderstanding. — With the baroness? — No, with the baron. — Has he perceived anything? — That is a good joke! — Where have you come from, my dear count? — From Congo, if you will. — Husbands are pretty much the same everywhere.

The carriage stopped at the count's house. Come in; my carriage shall take you back. — No, my coupé will follow. In the lighted drawing-room Baptistin produced the tea-tray as if it sprang from the ground, like the repasts of fairy-tales. — What I admire in you, said Albert, is not your riches nor even your wit, but your manner of being served as if your servants guessed your wishes. The count struck the gong once: Ali appeared with two chibouques of fine latakia. — It is wonderful. — It is as simple as possible — Ali knows my habits, knows I have brought you home, and knows that in his country hospitality is shown by smoking together.

Then a sound of a guzla through the wall. Ma foi, said the count, you have escaped from Mademoiselle Danglars's piano only to be attacked by Haydée's guzla. — Haydée — what an adorable name! Are there really women who bear that name anywhere but in Byron? — Certainly. In Albania it is as common as Chastity, Modesty, Innocence — a kind of baptismal name. — And she is your slave? said Albert, intrigued. — A slave does not dictate to a master, said the count gravely; and the poor child was born to treasures beside which the Thousand and One Nights would seem poverty. She is a princess — one of the greatest in her country. — Then how did she become a slave? — How did Dionysius the Tyrant become a schoolmaster? The fortune of war.

Then, lower: You know the history of the Pasha of Yanina? — Of Ali Tepelini? It was in his service that my father made his fortune. — True; I had forgotten that. Well — Haydée is his daughter. Albert was thunderstruck. Daughter of Ali Pasha and the beautiful Vasiliki — and my slave? I bought her one day passing through the slave-market at Constantinople. He pressed: Present me to your princess. — On two conditions. The first: that you will never tell anyone I have granted the interview. The second: that you will not tell her that your father ever served hers. Albert swore both. The count struck the gong; Ali came; the tapestried hanging was drawn back.

Haydée awaited them in the first room of her apartments, sitting cross-legged on a sofa in a kind of nest of Indian silks, her guzla beside her. She rose and welcomed Monte Cristo with that smile which expressed at once the most implicit obedience and the deepest love. Albert remained at the door rooted in fascination. Whom do you bring? she asked in Romaic. — A friend — Count Albert, the man I rescued from the bandits at Rome. — In what language shall I speak? The count chose Italian. You are most welcome, she said in excellent Tuscan, as the friend of my lord and master. The pipes and coffee were brought; she took her cup without sugar, with the innocent artlessness of a child.

Albert begged Monte Cristo to ask her to relate her history; he longed to hear his father's name from such beautiful lips. The count turned to her and said, in Greek, Tell us the fate of your father, but neither the name of the traitor nor the treason. Haydée sighed and bowed her head, then began.

She had been three years old when her mother Vasiliki — Vasiliki, which means royal — first led her veiled through the streets of Yanina to beg alms for the prisoners. She remembered sitting at her father's feet on the lakeshore, playing with his long white beard and the diamond hilt of his scimitar; from time to time an Albanian came and spoke to him, and he answered always in one of two words, Kill — Pardon. — My father was that illustrious man whom Europe knew as Ali Tepelini, pasha of Yanina, and before whom Turkey trembled.

Then the night of flight: she had been four years old, snatched from her cushions by her weeping mother, carried down the great staircase amid servants hurrying away with bags and jewels, and twenty Palikares with long guns. Quick! came her father's voice from behind, the voice that made everyone bow as the wind bows wheat. They reached the lake; a boat with muffled oars carried them out to a kiosk on an island. Beneath it, in a great vault, lay sixty thousand purses of gold and two hundred barrels of gunpowder — twenty-five millions in coin, thirty thousand pounds of powder. Beside the barrels stood Selim, the pasha's young favorite, with a flaming lance, sworn to fire the magazine at the first signal — kiosk, guards, women, gold, and Ali Tepelini himself.

They waited, days and nights without count, while the slaves prayed and groaned. The pasha had treated, through a French officer he trusted absolutely, with the Seraskier Kourchid sent against him by the sultan. — And the officer's name? asked Albert. The count's eyes flashed at Haydée. — I do not remember it just now, said she; if it should occur to me, I will tell you. Albert was on the point of pronouncing his father's name when the count silently held up a finger.

One morning the pasha sent for Vasiliki. Today the firman of the master arrives, and my fate is decided. If pardoned, we return triumphant; if not, we fly tonight. — And if our enemies stop us? — Selim and his lance will settle that. They would be glad to see me dead, but not to die with me. He drank his iced water; she anointed his beard with perfumed oil and lit his chibouque. Suddenly he reached for his telescope. A boat — two — three — four! He primed his pistols. Vasiliki, in half an hour we shall know. Take Haydée to the cavern. — I will not leave you; if you die, I die with you. — Take away Vasiliki! he ordered the Palikares. The child ran to him; he stooped and pressed his lips to her forehead — the last he ever gave me, and I feel it still warm there.

In the cavern Selim stood at his post, smiling sadly. The orders were these: if the pasha sent his poniard, the powder was to be fired; if his ring, the match extinguished. And if he sends the poniard, said Vasiliki, kill us first with that same poniard. — Yes, Vasiliki, said Selim quietly. Cries of joy rose above; the name of the French officer was on every Palikare's lips; the answer of the emperor was favorable.

A figure descended into the gray twilight at the mouth of the cavern. Long live the emperor! He grants Ali a full pardon and restores his fortunes! Vasiliki uttered a cry and clasped her child. — Stop, said Selim; I have not received the ring. The messenger was made to lay it in the patch of light and retire. Selim went forward, took it up — It is well; it is my master's ring — kissed it, threw down the match, and trampled it out. The messenger clapped his hands. At that signal four soldiers of Kourchid burst from the shadows, and Selim fell pierced by five blows. They fell to rolling on the bags of gold while Vasiliki snatched up her child and slipped away by a private passage known only to themselves.

She came to a small door of the kiosk. Through a crack mother and daughter saw their last sight of Ali Tepelini, surrounded by men holding out a paper of gold characters. His highness demands your head. The pasha answered with a fearful laugh and fired both his pistols, killing two men; the Palikares sprang up, fire and smoke filled the room. Selim! Selim, guardian of the fire, do your duty! — Selim is dead, came a voice from below the floor; and you are lost, Ali! The flooring was torn up by shots from beneath. The grand vizier plunged his fingers into the holes the bullets had made and tore up a plank with his bare hands; through the opening twenty more shots came up like fire from the crater of a volcano. Two reports more fearfully distinct — and two shrieks. The whole flooring gave way; the pasha fell on one knee, twenty hands armed with sabres and pistols and poniards stretched up at him at once; he disappeared in a whirlwind of fire and smoke. Vasiliki fainted; the child fell beside her.

When her mother came to herself they were before the seraskier. Kill — but spare the honor of the widow of Ali. — It is not to me you must address yourself, but to your new master. — Who and where is he? — He is here. And Kourchid pointed out one who had more than any other contributed to the pasha's death. He did not dare to keep them; they were sold to merchants bound for Constantinople. At the imperial gates the crowd was thick around something hideous; Vasiliki looked once, gave a piercing cry, fell, and pointed to a head set above the arch with this inscription: This is the head of Ali Tepelini, Pasha of Yanina. The child cried bitterly and tried to raise her mother — but she was dead.

I was sold to a rich Armenian, who had me instructed, and at thirteen sold me to the Sultan Mahmoud. — Of whom I bought her, said Monte Cristo, with the emerald that matches the one I had made into a box for my hashish pills. — Oh, you are good, you are great, my lord, said Haydée, kissing his hand; I am very fortunate to belong to such a master. Albert remained quite bewildered. — Come, finish your cup of coffee, said Monte Cristo; the history is ended.

Chapter 78 — We Hear from Yanina

Two hours after Franz had quitted Noirtier's chamber Villefort received this letter: After the disclosures made this morning M. Noirtier de Villefort must see the impossibility of any alliance between his family and that of M. d'Épinay. M. d'Épinay must say that he is shocked and astonished M. de Villefort, who appeared aware of these circumstances, did not anticipate him in the announcement. The harsh formality cut Villefort to the bone. Noirtier had never deigned to confide the truth to his son; the procureur had always believed that General de Quesnel had been assassinated, not killed in fair duel.

Madame de Villefort, who had been left under the eyes of the notary and the bewildered witnesses while everything dissolved around her, now took her own report back into the drawing-room: M. Noirtier had been seized by a sort of apoplectic fit at the very beginning of the discussion; the affair must be deferred for some days. The auditors, this fresh misfortune coming after two real ones, withdrew without a word. Valentine, having embraced and thanked her grandfather for breaking with one blow the chain she had thought irrefragable, was ostensibly going to her room — and went straight by the gallery into the garden. Maximilian had long been waiting at the gate; he had followed Franz from the cemetery and known a conference was in progress. We are saved! she cried through the partition. — Saved? By whom? — By my grandfather. Oh, Morrel, pray love him for all his goodness to us. He swore he would worship the old man like a god. But how, Valentine — by what means? — At some future time I will tell you all. — When? — When I am your wife.

Meanwhile Madame de Villefort had paid Noirtier a visit. The old man received her with his customary stern look. Sir, the marriage is broken off; I will not pretend you are not glad of it. I have always opposed it; the contract was entered into entirely without my consent. The eyes of Noirtier did not know what to make of this. Now I come on an errand which neither M. de Villefort nor Valentine could undertake — I, who will receive no benefit from it. I beg you to restore your fortune to your granddaughter. The eyes searched her in vain for a motive; then assented. The next day a notary was sent for, the first will torn up, and a new one drawn — the entire fortune to Valentine, on condition she should never be separated from her grandfather. It was soon reported in the world that Mademoiselle de Villefort, already heiress of the Saint-Mérans, had regained her grandfather's good graces and would in time enjoy three hundred thousand livres a year.

Even as the contract was being undone in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Monte Cristo was paying his promised visit to Morcerf. The general had donned his uniform of lieutenant-general with all his crosses and driven in his finest carriage to the Chaussée d'Antin. Danglars was balancing his monthly accounts; the moment was not the most auspicious. Morcerf, usually so stiff, came in smiling, sure of his welcome, and went straight to the point.

Well, baron, here I am at last; some time has elapsed since our plans were formed. Danglars's brow only darkened. To what do you allude, monsieur? — I see you are a stickler for forms. And Morcerf rose, bowed low, and said: Baron, I have the honor to ask the hand of Mademoiselle Eugénie Danglars for my son the Vicomte Albert de Morcerf. — It will be necessary to reflect, sir, before I give you an answer. — Reflect? You have had eight years. — Things are constantly occurring in the world, sir, to remodel established opinions; during the last fortnight unforeseen circumstances — — Excuse me, but is it a play we are acting? Let us come to the point.

The point would not come. Danglars muttered of imperative necessity and would say no more. Morcerf bit his lips till the blood almost started, swallowed his pride, and turned back. We have been acquainted many years; you owe me an explanation. Is it Madame de Morcerf? My fortune? My opinions? — Nothing of the kind; were that so I should be to blame, having known these things from the first. Let us drop the subject and adopt the middle course of delay — neither rupture nor engagement. My daughter is only seventeen, your son twenty-one; in time the most cruel calumnies are sometimes brought to light by a single word. — Calumnies, did you say? Does anyone dare to slander me? — Monsieur, I told you it is best to avoid all explanation. — Enough, sir; we will speak no more on the subject. He clutched his gloves and went out. Danglars noted that during the entire conversation Morcerf had never once dared to ask whether it was on his own account that the word was being recalled.

That evening Danglars conferred with several friends; Cavalcanti remained in the drawing-room with the ladies and was the last to leave. The next morning Danglars called for the newspapers, set aside three or four, and opened L'Impartial — the journal of which his ally Beauchamp was chief editor. He passed contemptuously over the Paris jottings to the miscellaneous intelligence and stopped with a malicious smile at a paragraph headed We Hear from Yanina: A correspondent at Yanina informs us of a fact of which until now we had remained in ignorance. The castle which formed the protection of the town was given up to the Turks by a French officer named Fernand, in whom the grand vizier Ali Tepelini had reposed the greatest confidence. — Very good, said Danglars; here is a little article on Colonel Fernand which renders the explanation Morcerf required of me perfectly unnecessary.

At nine that morning Albert, in a black coat buttoned to the chin, was at the count's gate. The count was out — at Gosset's shooting-gallery. Albert found him there and was shown by the curious waiter the count's target: not bullseyes but playing cards — aces and twos which my shots have turned into threes, fives, sevens, eights, nines, and tens; the bullets had pierced the cards exactly where the painted pips would have been. On the floor lay two or three swallows that had ventured into range. Diable! said Morcerf.

In the carriage, then in the count's study: I am to fight today. — For what? — In the cause of honor; will you be my second? He showed the paper. I see in it nothing to annoy you, said the count. — It signifies to my father, the Count of Morcerf, whose Christian name is Fernand! — My dear viscount, do talk reason. Who in France should know that the officer Fernand and the Count of Morcerf are one and the same? And who cares about Yanina, taken in 1822 or 1823? But Albert was determined; Beauchamp must retract the assertion before two witnesses. The count counselled him otherwise. Before going to Beauchamp, seek further information. — From whom? — From Haydée. — Why mix a woman in the affair? — She can declare to you that your father had no hand in the death of the vizier — or, if by chance he had, indeed, the misfortune to — — I would not for one moment admit such a proposition. — Then take this last advice: go to Beauchamp alone, without witnesses. — Why? — Because if Beauchamp is disposed to retract, you ought to give him the chance to do it of his own free will. The friends of today are the enemies of tomorrow — Beauchamp, for instance. Albert agreed. But if I must fight, you will be my second? — My dear viscount, the service you ask is one which it is out of my power to render. Perhaps one day you will know why. — Then I will have Franz and Château-Renaud. — Do so. — And you will not even give me a fencing lesson? — That too is impossible. — What a singular being you are.

Morcerf went straight to Beauchamp's office. The journalist greeted him merrily; Albert at once trampled the loose newspapers under foot. I desire that a statement in your journal be rectified — the story from Yanina. Beauchamp read the paragraph aloud, surprised. Is the officer referred to a relation of yours? — He is my father — Fernand Mondego, Count of Morcerf. — Ah! that is quite another thing. But the paper does not name the count; only Fernand. — Others will see the connection. I insist on a retraction. — I insist? — I insist. — Permit me to remind you you are not in the Chamber. — Then we must fight. — Wait. The article was not inserted by me — I was not aware of it. But the step you have just taken calls my attention to it; it shall remain till someone with the right contradicts or confirms it. I require three weeks. I am not so good a swordsman as you; I shoot about as well; we are both brave. I do not wish either to kill or be killed without cause. At the end of three weeks I will come to you and say either: the assertion is false and I retract it — or, the assertion is true, and I shall draw the sword from the cane.

Three weeks! cried Albert; they will pass like three centuries while I suffer dishonor. — Had you been on amicable terms with me I should have said: patience, my friend; but you have made yourself my enemy. Today is the 29th of August; the 21st of September will be the term, and till then we will refrain from growling at each other like two dogs. Beauchamp bowed coldly and went to the press-room. Albert vented his rage by lashing the loose newspapers about the office with his stick, then departed.

Crossing the boulevard he saw Morrel walking with a quick step and a bright eye, coming from the direction of the Porte Saint-Martin. There goes a happy man, thought Morcerf — and he was not mistaken.

Chapter 79 — The Lemonade

Morrel was happy. Noirtier had sent for him, and he had set off on foot from the Rue Meslay at such a pace that poor Barrois was left panting behind him.

Barrois brought him in by the private entrance, and the rustling of a dress announced Valentine, marvellously beautiful in her deep mourning. Noirtier rolled in, and Valentine, by her grandfather's wish, repeated his message of three days before. My grandfather intends leaving this house. I shall not leave him; my apartment will be close to his. M. de Villefort must give his consent or refuse it; in the first case I shall go directly, in the second I shall wait the ten months till I am of age. Then I shall be free, and with my grandfather's consent I shall fulfil the promise I have made you. Once under the old man's roof Morrel might visit freely. Until then we will be guided by our friends so long as their wishes do not separate us. We will wait. — I swear to make every sacrifice that word imposes, not only with resignation but with cheerfulness. — And no more rash projects, she added playfully; you would not compromise one who from this day regards herself as destined to bear your name?

How hot you look, my good Barrois. — I have run very fast, but M. Morrel ran still faster. Noirtier directed their attention to a decanter of lemonade beside him, of which he had drunk a little. Take some, Barrois. — I am dying with thirst. He bore the waiter out and in the corridor threw back his head and emptied the glass to the dregs.

A bell. Past noon, Saturday — the doctor. Valentine sent Morrel out with a last command not to take any rash step. I promised to wait, and I will wait. But Barrois reappeared staggering, clutching a chair. He is going to fall! cried Morrel. The rigors increased; the features altered; the eyes started from their sockets. A thousand fiery darts pierce my brain. Do not touch me. He stumbled and fell at Noirtier's feet, grasping the old man's knee. My master, my good master!

Villefort, attracted by the noise, appeared on the threshold; Morrel slipped behind a curtain. The procureur sprang for the door, calling for the doctor. Madame de Villefort came down deliberately, smelling-salts in hand. Her first look was at Noirtier — who was in good health; her second at the dying man. She paled. He is having a fit of apoplexy, said her husband. — Has he eaten anything? — Nothing, said Valentine, but a glass of grandpapa's lemonade. Madame de Villefort started; Noirtier scrutinized her with a glance the depth of which would not bear measuring. He has such a short neck, she remarked, and went off after her husband to find d'Avrigny — who was with little Edward, not quite well. I cannot endure the sight of blood, she said, and retired upstairs. Morrel emerged. Go quickly, Maximilian; stay till I send for you. He kissed Valentine's hand and slipped down the back stair.

D'Avrigny entered. Barrois was rallying; they laid him on a couch. Water and ether — and let everyone retire. — Even me? asked Valentine. — You especially. She kissed her grandfather and went out; the doctor closed the door with a gloomy air.

How do you feel, Barrois? — A little better — but do not touch me; if you touched me with the tip of your finger the fit would return. He drank half the glass. Everywhere — cramps over the whole body, dazzling before the eyes, frightful noise in the ears. Just now, like a clap of thunder. Nothing yesterday. — What have you eaten today? — Only a glass of my master's lemonade. — Where? — In the kitchen. D'Avrigny bounded down the stair, almost knocking over Madame de Villefort, seized the half-empty decanter, and was back in an instant. It has a bitter taste. He tasted a few drops and spat into the fireplace. Did you drink some too, M. Noirtier? — Yes. — And bitter? — Yes.

A second attack, more violent. The patient writhed on the floor; a pen would not pass the clenched teeth. The doctor turned to Noirtier: Did Barrois make your lemonade? — Yes. — Did you ask him to drink? — No. — M. de Villefort? — No. — Madame? — No. — Your granddaughter? — Yes. A yawn from Barrois cracked his jaw. Who made the lemonade? — I did. — And brought it directly? — No, I left it in the pantry. — Who carried it into this room? — Mademoiselle Valentine. D'Avrigny struck his forehead. Gracious heaven!

The emetic came, but Barrois could no longer swallow. You will soon cease to suffer. — Ah, I understand. My God, have mercy upon me. He fell back as if struck by lightning. D'Avrigny laid a hand on the heart, set a glass at the lips. Send to the kitchen for some syrup of violets.

He took Villefort aside. He is dead. — Dead — and so soon? — People die very suddenly in your house, M. de Villefort. There is a poison which destroys life almost without trace; I recognized it in Madame de Saint-Méran, and now in Barrois. It restores blue to litmus reddened by acid, and turns syrup of violets green.

The chambermaid brought the cup. A few drops of the lemonade: a cloudy sediment, then from blue to opal to emerald, and no further. The unfortunate Barrois has been poisoned, said d'Avrigny, and I will maintain this assertion before God and man. Villefort clasped his hands, opened his haggard eyes, and sank into a chair.

Chapter 80 — The Accusation

Death is in my house! cried Villefort. — Say rather, crime! I can no longer bear these secrets without seeing the victims revenged. You have in your family one of those frightful monstrosities of which each century produces only one — Locusta, Agrippina, Brunhilda: all beautiful, bearing on their brow that flower of innocence which still blossoms on the brow of the culprit in your house.

Seek whom the crime profits. M. de Saint-Méran first. Then Madame — a double fortune to inherit. Then M. Noirtier, who had made a will against you in favor of the poor; he was spared while nothing was expected from him, but the moment he tore it up and made a second, he was struck down for fear he should make a third. The lemonade was meant for him; he is alive only because for twelve months I have given him brucine in doses, unknown to the assassin.

Have mercy on my child. — It is yourself who first named her. Mademoiselle packed the medicines for M. de Saint-Méran — he is dead. She prepared the draughts for the marchioness — she is dead. She took from Barrois the lemonade for Noirtier. I denounce Mademoiselle de Villefort: do your duty.

Spare my honor! — If she had killed one, I would say a convent. If two, I would put a poison in your hand, for it is your life she aims at next. But she has knelt by three corpses. To the scaffold with the poisoner!

Villefort fell on his knees. I have not your strength — or rather that you would not have, if instead of my Valentine your Madeleine were concerned. The doctor turned pale. If you were mistaken, and I came one day pale as a spectre to say, Assassin, you have killed my child! — though I am a Christian, I should kill myself.

I will wait. Only — if anyone falls ill in your house, do not send for me; I stop at the foot of the scaffold. Adieu. — What shall be reported of Barrois? — True. We will return.

The terrified servants were on the stair. Poor Barrois, said d'Avrigny loud enough for all to hear, has led too sedentary a life; the monotonous walk around that armchair has killed him — short thick neck, apoplexy, called in too late. And low: Throw away that cup of syrup of violets in the ashes.

That evening the servants came in a body to give notice. We must go, for death is in this house. They left, regretting only Mademoiselle Valentine, so good, so kind, so gentle. Villefort looked at his daughter — she was in tears. He looked at his wife: it appeared to him that a slight gloomy smile passed over her thin lips, like a meteor seen inauspiciously between two clouds in a stormy sky.

Chapter 81 — The Room of the Retired Baker

The very evening Morcerf had left Danglars's house in shame, M. Andrea Cavalcanti — curled, moustachioed, immaculately gloved — entered the same courtyard. Ten minutes in the drawing-room, and he had drawn the banker into a bow-window for the declaration Danglars had been awaiting two or three days. His warmest affections had centred upon Mademoiselle Danglars. Are you not rather young? — In Italy the nobility marry young; life is uncertain. — And by whom shall the preliminaries be settled? — My father left me at his departure a letter promising 150,000 livres a year from the day of my marriage — about a quarter of his revenue. — I have always intended giving my daughter 500,000 francs as her dowry, and she is my sole heiress. — If I could persuade my father to give me my capital — two or three millions — we would place it in your hands, where your talent might make ten per cent. — I never give more than four; to my son-in-law I would give five. — Very good, father-in-law! slipped Andrea, then corrected himself; hope alone makes me almost mad.

And the inheritance from your mother? — I have never thought of it; but it must be at least two millions. Danglars felt the joy of a miser who finds a lost treasure. Consider it settled. Why did your patron Monte Cristo not propose for you? Andrea blushed imperceptibly. He is delightful but inconceivably peculiar; he will never make proposals officially, but will answer any questions. Then, with his most charming smile: Having finished with the father-in-law, I must address the banker. The day after tomorrow I shall draw upon you for four thousand francs; the count, expecting my outlays to exceed my bachelor's allowance, has offered me a draft for twenty thousand. — Bring me a million such, said Danglars, pocketing it; my cashier shall call on you at ten tomorrow.

The next morning the eighty thousand were placed in his hands. He left two hundred francs for Caderousse and went out for the day to avoid the dangerous old comrade — but on his return the porter handed him a sealed note: You know where I live; I expect you tomorrow morning at nine. Andrea burnt it, borrowed his groom Pierre's livery, took a cabriolet to the Cheval Rouge at Picpus, slept there, and walked next morning to the third house on the left in the Rue Ménilmontant. Monsieur Pailletin, the retired baker? Third floor, end of the yard, on the left, said the fruit-seller.

The hare's-foot bell-pull rang ill-temperedly; Caderousse's face appeared at the grating. You are punctual! — Confound you and your punctuality! The old innkeeper had laid out a Provençal breakfast — pilchards, garlic and fat, fresh butter on vine leaves, two bottles of wine, brandy, fruit on a cabbage leaf, the whole reeking of cloves and musk. I am weeping with joy, said Caderousse, peeling onions; one could not say whether joy or onions were the cause. Hold your tongue, hypocrite; you love me! — Yes, may the devil take me; it is a weakness.

Caderousse was no longer satisfied with two hundred francs a month. It is humiliating to receive an uncertain supply. I know your prosperity is great, you rascal — you are to marry the daughter of Danglars. Baron Danglars; I might as well say Count Benedetto. He was an old friend of mine before he had a bad memory; he was an under-clerk to good M. Morrel. Perhaps one day I may put on my best coat and present myself at the great gate.

His new idea: I would ask for six months in advance, pretending to buy a farm, then with my six months I would decamp. — Why not act on the advice yourself? — On twelve hundred francs? — Two months ago you were dying with hunger. — The appetite grows by what it feeds on. Caderousse showed his teeth like a tiger. I have formed a plan. Can you, without spending a sou, put me in the way of thirty thousand francs? With less I cannot become an honest man. — Do you want me to commit a robbery? — It would make little difference to me if I were retaken. Andrea turned pale.

A new monthly allowance: five hundred francs. I have a fancy to get a housekeeper. — True, my protector is very kind. — How much does he give you? — Five thousand a month. Caderousse goggled. I want capital too. — From your prince? — I must wait — for his death. He has made his will in my favor — five hundred thousand. Are you my friend? Then I will tell you a secret. I think I have discovered my father. — Old Cavalcanti? — No, he has gone again. Monte Cristo. He cannot acknowledge me openly; he does it through Cavalcanti, and gives him fifty thousand francs for it. — Fifty thousand for being your father? I would have done it for fifteen!

And he is rich? — He does not himself know the amount of his fortune. The other day a banker's clerk brought him fifty thousand francs in a portfolio about the size of your plate. — And you go into that house? — When I like. A long thoughtful pause. How I should like to see all that. Champs-Élysées, No. 30 — a fine house between courtyard and garden? Have you seen the Tuileries? It surpasses them. It must be worth one's while to stoop, Andrea, when that good M. Monte Cristo lets fall his purse. Sketch me the plan.

Andrea took the pen with an imperceptible smile. High walls? — Eight or ten feet. — Steel-traps? — None. — Stables? — On either side of the gate. — Ground floor? — Dining-room, two drawing-rooms, billiard-room, hall staircase and a back stair. — Windows? — So large a man of your size could pass through each frame. — Shutters? — Never used. The count is an original who loves to look at the sky even at night. — Servants? — Over the coach-house on the right; the bells correspond with the apartments. — A dog? — He kept one in the yard at night, but it has been taken to Auteuil. I told him: when you go to Auteuil and take your servants, the house is left unprotected. He answered: what do I care? — A spring-secretaire? — Simple mahogany, the key always in it; the servants are devoted. — Where? — On the first floor. Andrea sketched: anteroom, drawing-room; right a library and a study; left a bedroom and a dressing-room with two windows, where the famous secretaire stood. Does he often go to Auteuil? — Two or three times a week. Tomorrow he is going to spend the day and night there; he has invited me to dine.

Caderousse demanded the twelve hundred francs at once. Andrea offered louis. — Yellow boys? No. He who changes them will follow friend Caderousse. Silver only. He would call at the porter's tomorrow morning; meanwhile he would secure his housekeeper on the strength of it. And — last extortion — the diamond on your finger. You are wearing livery and a four-thousand-franc stone; you will ruin both of us. Andrea quietly resigned the ring. Caderousse examined it: It is a false diamond. He went to the window and tried it on the glass; the cut was clean. Confiteor! He slipped it on his own little finger. I was mistaken. Those thieves of jewellers imitate so well it is no longer worth robbing one.

They parted at the door with hollow good wishes: Happy rogue, you are going to find your servants, your horses, and your betrothed! Caderousse waited till Andrea had crossed the court below, then went back, shut the door carefully, and began to study, like a clever architect, the plan Andrea had left him. Dear Benedetto, he who hastens the day when he can touch his five hundred thousand will not be his worst friend.

Chapter 82 — The Burglary

The next day Monte Cristo set out for Auteuil. Bertuccio had returned from Normandy: the house was ready, the sloop at anchor with her crew of six. I may need to go in one night from Paris to Tréport; let eight fresh horses be in readiness. — Your orders were anticipated.

Baptistin entered, dust-covered, with a letter. Important and urgent. It read: M. de Monte Cristo is apprised that this night a man will enter his house in the Champs-Élysées to carry off papers supposed to be in the secretaire in the dressing-room. The count's well-known courage will render unnecessary the aid of the police, whose interference might seriously affect him who sends this advice. The count's first thought was a trap; his second, that here was an enemy whom only he could recognize. They do not want my papers — they want to kill me; they are no robbers but assassins. I will not allow the prefect to interfere with my private affairs.

Baptistin, bring all the household to Auteuil; only the porter remains. Close the shutters of the ground floor; the first floor stays as it is. — But thieves might strip the house. — That would annoy me less than to be disobeyed.

He dined alone, then at twilight circled back through the Bois de Boulogne and let himself in by the servants' staircase. He locked the secretaire, removed the staples of the bedroom bolt so it could not be locked from inside, and Ali brought a carbine, pistols, and an Arabian hatchet. He slid a panel aside to see the dressing-room. Two hours passed. The clock of the Invalides struck a quarter to twelve.

A faint grinding came from the dressing-room — one, two, three, four: a firm hand cutting the four sides of a pane with a diamond. Inured as a man may be to danger, he understands by the fluttering of the heart the difference between project and execution. A sheet of paper was stuck on the outside; the square cracked without falling; an arm came through, and the window swung in. A man entered, alone. That's a daring rascal, whispered the count.

Ali pointed to the street window. Two of them; one works, the other watches. The intruder bolted both doors — not knowing the staples were removed. He went to the secretaire, and the count heard the rattling of skeleton keys — which thieves call nightingales, doubtless from the music of their nightly song against the bolt. — Ah, ha — he is only a thief. The man pressed a spring on his lantern; a pale light fell on his face. By heavens — it is — Ali raised his hatchet. Don't stir; we shall need no arms. Ali fetched a black cassock, wig, and three-cornered hat. The count slipped off his coat — beneath it he wore a tunic of pliant steel mail, the last in France, where daggers are no longer dreaded, worn by Louis XVI, whose head was cleft by an axe — and pulled the cassock over it. In a moment the count had become the Abbé Busoni.

He took a taper and let the light fall full on the thief's face. Good evening, my dear M. Caderousse. What are you doing here at such an hour?

The Abbé Busoni! Caderousse let fall his keys, stupefied. A pane of glass out, a dark lantern, false keys, a secretaire half forced. You are still the same — an assassin. — Reverend sir, it was La Carconte; I was only sent to the galleys. — Your time is expired? — No; I was liberated by Lord Wilmore, an Englishman, who was protecting a Corsican comrade, Benedetto, a foundling. We swam away from Saint-Mandrier and parted at Hyères. — You lie. This man is still your friend; you live on his money. — True. Benedetto has become the natural son of the Count of Monte Cristo, the very same in whose house we stand — four thousand francs a month, five hundred thousand by his will. — What name? — Andrea Cavalcanti. — The man who is to marry Mademoiselle Danglars? You suffer that, wretch — you who know his crime? — Why should I stand in a comrade's way? — Then it is not you who shall apprise M. Danglars; it is I.

Caderousse drew an open knife and struck at the count's breast. The blade flew back blunted from the steel mail. The count seized his wrist, wrung it till the knife dropped, and bore him flat on the floor; he set his foot upon his head. I know not what restrains me from crushing thy skull, rascal. — Mercy!

Take this pen and write what I dictate. Caderousse wrote: The man you receive in your house, to whom you intend to marry your daughter, is a felon who escaped with me from Toulon. He was No. 59, I was No. 58. He was called Benedetto, but is ignorant of his real name. — Sign. Address it to Monsieur the Baron Danglars, Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin.

Now begone by the way you came. If you reach home safely, leave Paris, leave France, and so long as you conduct yourself well I will send you a small annuity; then I shall believe God has forgiven you, and I will forgive you too.

Caderousse climbed out. The count brought the candle to the window, that the Champs-Élysées might see a man getting out while another held a light. Suppose a watchman should pass? Caderousse blew the taper out and slid down. He set his ladder at a different point of the garden wall and climbed slowly. Once started, he could not stop. The clock of the Invalides struck one. Halfway down he saw a man start from the shadow, an arm raised — in vain. A blow struck him in the back; he fell crying Help! A second caught him in the side; a third, by the hair, in the chest. The murderer lifted his head — eyes closed, mouth distorted — supposed him dead, and disappeared. Caderousse raised himself on his elbow and with a dying voice called Murder! I am dying! Help, reverend sir, help! The mournful appeal pierced the darkness. The back-stair door opened, the side gate of the garden opened: Ali and his master were on the spot with lights.

Chapter 83 — The Hand of God

Help! I am murdered! The wounded man fainted as the count and Ali bore him in. My God, thy vengeance is sometimes delayed, but only that it may fall the more effectually. Ali was sent for a surgeon and for the procureur.

When Caderousse opened his eyes the count looked at him with mournful pity. A surgeon cannot save me; but he may strengthen me to give evidence against Benedetto. He gave me the plan, hoping I should kill the count, or that the count would kill me; then he waylaid me. The count dropped three drops from a phial onto the purple lips. Oh, that is life — more! — Two more would kill you. He wrote: I die, murdered by the Corsican Benedetto, my comrade in the bagne of Toulon, No. 59. Caderousse signed. He calls himself Andrea Cavalcanti; he lodges at the Hôtel des Princes.

And you did not warn me! — Remember my words: if you returned safely, I should believe God had forgiven you. I saw his justice placed in the hands of Benedetto, and thought it sacrilege to oppose Providence. God gave you health, strength, employment, friends. You gave yourself up to sloth and ruined your best friend. In his mercy he spared your life by transportation; an Englishman freed you and restored your fortune; and you tempted God a third time. He has punished you.

Yet Benedetto will escape! — No one will escape. — Then you too should have prevented him. — I? said the count with a smile that petrified the dying man, when you had just broken your knife against the coat of mail that protected my breast? Had I found you humble and penitent I might have prevented him; but I found you proud and bloodthirsty, and left you in the hands of God.

But who are you, then? The count brought the light to his face. The Abbé Busoni. He pulled off the wig; the black hair fell. But for that hair, I should say you were Lord Wilmore. — I am neither. Think again. The dying man's powers revived. Who, then, are you? and why, if you knew me, do you let me die? — Because nothing can save you; I swear it by my father's tomb. — By your father's tomb! Who are you?

The count leant over and whispered a name so low he himself seemed afraid to hear it. Caderousse, supported by a supernatural power, raised himself on his knees and clasped his hands. Oh, my God, pardon me for having denied thee; thou dost exist! Pardon me! He fell back with a groan; the blood flowed no more. He was dead.

One! said the count mysteriously, his eyes fixed on the corpse. Ten minutes later the surgeon and the procureur arrived; they were received by the Abbé Busoni, praying beside the body.

Chapter 84 — Beauchamp

The attempt to rob the count was the talk of Paris for a fortnight. Caderousse's deposition had named Benedetto, but the police found nothing. The count told everyone the story as he had it from the Abbé Busoni, who by mere chance had asked to spend the night. Bertuccio alone turned pale at Benedetto's name. Three weeks passed; the murder was almost forgotten in anticipation of Mademoiselle Danglars's marriage to Count Andrea Cavalcanti. M. Cavalcanti the elder approved highly and promised a hundred and fifty thousand livres; the three millions were to be entrusted to Danglars. The baron adored Andrea; Eugénie, who had suffered him only to be rid of Morcerf, now betrayed an entire dislike — her father attributed it to caprice.

The three weeks Beauchamp had demanded were nearly out. No one had connected the officer of Yanina with the peer in the House of Peers, but Albert was not soothed; Beauchamp himself had been away on an unexplained journey.

One morning he appeared pacing the smoking-room. May I shake your hand and say, acknowledge you have injured me and retain my friendship? — or must I propose a choice of arms? — Morcerf, before I discharge a pistol at a man I have lived with three years, I must know why. I have just returned from Yanina.

From Yanina! He drew out his passport: Geneva, Milan, Venice, Delvino, Yanina. Beauchamp hesitated. I would gladly apologize — but the paragraph was correct. The traitor who surrendered the castle of the man in whose service he was — pardon me, that man was your father.

He held out a sworn attestation by four citizens of Yanina, that Colonel Fernand Mondego, in the service of Ali Tepelini, surrendered the castle for two million crowns. The family name was written in full. Albert tottered into a chair and gave way to tears. The contrary is proved. In this changing age, the faults of a father cannot revert upon his children. No human power can force me now to a duel which your conscience would reproach you with as criminal. Do you wish these proofs destroyed? Albert threw himself on his neck. Ah, noble fellow! He tore the papers and burnt every scrap at the wax-light kept lit for cigars. Let it vanish as the last sparks from blackened paper, and disappear as the smoke from those silent ashes.

The joy was brief. How shall I now approach my father? My poor mother — if she knew! — How came that first note to be inserted in your journal? Some invisible foe. Bear your grief as the cloud bears ruin and death — a fatal secret known only when the storm bursts. — You think all is not over? — All things are possible. Are you going to marry Mademoiselle Danglars? — The engagement is broken off. — Good. Let us walk — we will call on M. de Monte Cristo. He never asks questions, and those who ask none are the best comforters. — Gladly — I love him.

Chapter 85 — The Journey

Monte Cristo gave a joyful exclamation at seeing the young men together. All is settled. — The absurd reports have died away, said Beauchamp. — I am finishing the most execrable morning's work — M. Cavalcanti's papers. — Who is to marry Mademoiselle Danglars in my place, said Albert with a forced smile. — Silence, purveyor of gossip. I warned Danglars this Cavalcanti was either charmed by his nurse, stolen by gypsies, or lost by his tutor — the father had lost sight of him for ten years. All useless. I send the papers, but like Pilate I wash my hands.

He noticed Albert's pallor. I propose an infallible remedy: a change. Let us go to sea. I was rocked in old Ocean's arms; I love the sea as a mistress. — To sea? I accept. — To Normandy. A travelling britzka in my courtyard at five. Beauchamp, will you come? — Thank you, I have just been to the Borromean Islands. And lower, to Albert: I must remain in Paris to watch the paper. — Watch — discover the enemy who made this disclosure.

Beauchamp gone, the count asked: Shall you be allowed? — My mother takes the deepest interest in you. — Woman is fickle, said Francis I; like a wave, said Shakespeare. — My mother is not woman but a woman. She says: the count has a noble nature, try to gain his esteem. — Indeed? sighed the count. He rang for Bertuccio; a courier was sent to Pontoise; Haydée received the count's instructions. Albert was punctual at five.

Thirty-two horses in seven stages brought them to their destination in eight hours. Ali, the child of the desert, with his black face and sparkling eyes appeared in the cloud of dust like the genius of the simoom and the god of the hurricane. — Six years ago I bought a horse in Hungary; the thirty-two we use tonight are its progeny — all black with a star on the forehead. When I no longer want them Bertuccio will sell them to some Eastern vizier, who will empty his coffers and refill them with the bastinado on his subjects. — Bertuccio must be the richest gentleman in Europe after you. — He has not a franc. He is the best servant over whom one has the power of life and death. — You possess that right? — Yes. There are words which close a conversation with an iron door; such was the count's yes.

At midnight they reached a beautiful park. Bathed and fed, Albert slept lulled by the surf. In the morning he saw a sloop in the creek bearing the Monte Cristo arms — a mountain or, on a sea azure, a cross gules in chief — which might allude to his name recalling Calvary, or some personal remembrance of suffering and regeneration buried in the night of his past life. The village fishing-boats lay around like humble subjects awaiting orders from their queen.

The day passed in shooting pheasants, taking trout, dining in a summerhouse over the ocean, taking tea in the library. Towards evening of the third day Albert was dozing near the window while the count drew up plans with his architect, when the sound of a horse at full speed made him look up — his own valet Florentin, whom he had not brought. Florentin here! Is my mother ill?

Florentin had a sealed parcel from Beauchamp — a newspaper and a letter. Albert gave a shriek at the first line, seized the paper; his sight dimmed; Florentin caught him. Poor young man, murmured the count; the sin of the father shall fall on the children to the third and fourth generation. — The house when you left? — All quiet, but madame was in tears; she first held out her arms to keep me, then said: Yes, go, and may he come quickly.

Albert returned a different man. Count, I thank you for your hospitality; I must return to Paris. Lend me a horse. — You will kill yourself. Take a chaise. — No; I need the fatigue. He reeled into a chair. Ali — a horse for M. de Morcerf, quick! The words restored him. As he flung himself into the saddle: Read this, that you may not witness my anger. He spurred his horse like an arrow.

The count picked up the paper: The French officer in the service of Ali Pasha alluded to three weeks since — who surrendered the castle and sold his benefactor to the Turks — styled himself at that time Fernand; he has since added a title of nobility and a family name. He now calls himself the Count of Morcerf, and ranks among the peers. The secret Beauchamp had destroyed had appeared again like an armed phantom; another paper, drawing from some malicious source, had printed it two days after Albert's departure.

Chapter 86 — The Trial

At eight in the morning Albert was at Beauchamp's door. Two days before, the article had appeared in a government paper besides L'Impartial. Beauchamp had hurried to the editor, who said: A man came yesterday from Yanina with a formidable array of proofs; when we hesitated, he said it should appear in some other paper. Beauchamp had gone straight to despatch Florentin.

The rest had only happened after. That day the House of Peers was in agitation. Morcerf was no favorite — the true nobility laughed at him, the talented repelled him, the honorable instinctively despised him; he was in the unhappy position of the victim marked for sacrifice. Ignorant of the news, he had arrived with proud insolence, never noticing the door-keepers' coldness.

A hostile peer ascended the tribune. At the words Yanina and Colonel Fernand the count turned frightfully pale; the article was read in painful silence. Asked when he could prepare his defence: It is not by time that I will repel enemies hidden in obscurity, but by a thunderbolt. Today I am at your service. A committee of twelve was named for eight that evening.

Beauchamp had managed admission in a side gallery. Morcerf entered at the last stroke of eight, dressed with great care in his uniform, buttoned to the chin; several of the committee came forward to shake his hand. He produced documents proving the vizier had honored him with absolute confidence, charging him with a negotiation of life and death with the emperor and giving him his ring as the mark of authority. The negotiation had failed; he had returned to find his benefactor dead. So great was Ali Pasha's confidence that on his deathbed he resigned his favorite mistress and her daughter to my care. Albert started — he remembered Haydée's story.

The president was carelessly opening a letter just brought in, and read it twice. Count, you say the vizier confided his wife and daughter to your care? — Yes. On my return Vasiliki and Haydée had disappeared. I heard they had fallen victims to grief and poverty; my life was in constant danger; I could not seek them. — Have you witnesses? — Alas, no — all who surrounded the vizier are dead or scattered. I have only his letters and his ring, and the absence of any witness against the purity of my military life. A murmur of approbation rose around him; had nothing more transpired, the cause would have been won.

Gentlemen, an important witness has presented himself in the lobby. The president read: I was on the spot at the death of Ali Pasha. I know what is become of Vasiliki and Haydée. — Who is this witness — or this enemy? asked the count, his voice altered. A woman with a servant. — Bring her in.

Behind the doorkeeper came a woman in a long veil. The president asked her to throw it back, and she stood in Grecian dress, remarkably beautiful. — It was she, said Albert. — Haydée. Morcerf had fallen into his chair — his legs refused to support him.

You were an eyewitness? — I was four years old, but the events deeply concerned me. I am Haydée, daughter of Ali Tepelini, Pasha of Yanina, and Vasiliki his beloved wife. The blush of mingled pride and modesty produced an indescribable effect. Can you prove it? From a perfumed satin satchel she drew her birth register signed by her father and his officers, her baptismal record sealed by the grand primate of Macedonia and Epirus, and the record of the sale of my person and my mother to the Armenian merchant El-Kobbir, by the French officer who in his infamous bargain had reserved the wife and daughter of his benefactor for four hundred thousand francs.

The Arabic record was read aloud: I, El-Kobbir, slave-merchant and purveyor to the harem, acknowledge having received from the Count of Monte Cristo an emerald valued at eight hundred thousand francs as the ransom of a young Christian slave of eleven, Haydée, the daughter of the late Ali Tepelini and Vasiliki his favorite — sold to me seven years previously, with her mother who died on arriving at Constantinople, by a French colonel in the service of Ali Tepelini, named Fernand Mondego. The seal of the sublime emperor stood beside the merchant's signature.

May reference be made to the Count of Monte Cristo? — My foster-father has been in Normandy these three days and knows nothing of my proceedings. It is a glorious day for me, on which I find at last an opportunity of avenging my father.

M. de Morcerf, do you recognize this lady as the daughter of Ali Tepelini? — No, said the count, struggling to rise; it is a base plot. Haydée turned at his voice. You do not know me? Well, I know you! You are Fernand Mondego, the French officer who led my father's troops; who surrendered Yanina; who brought back a false mandate from Constantinople; who stabbed Selim the fire-keeper; who sold us — my mother and me — to El-Kobbir! Assassin, assassin, assassin — you have still on your brow your master's blood! Look, gentlemen, all!

Every eye fixed on the count's forehead; he passed his hand across it as if he felt the blood there. My mother said: look well at his right hand; if you forgot his features you would know him by that hand, into which fell, one by one, the gold pieces of the merchant El-Kobbir! The count thrust his mutilated hand into his bosom and fell back overwhelmed.

Count of Morcerf, shall two members be sent to Yanina? Speak. He did not reply. Has the daughter of Ali Tepelini spoken the truth? He looked round with an expression that might have softened tigers, then raised his eyes to the ceiling and withdrew them quickly, as if he feared the roof would open and reveal that other tribunal called heaven, and that other judge named God. He tore open his coat and flew from the room like a madman; the rattle of his carriage was heard down the street. Is the Count of Morcerf convicted of felony, treason, and conduct unbecoming a member of this House? — Yes, said all twelve in one voice.

Haydée had stayed to the close. She heard the sentence without joy or pity, drew her veil down, and bowed majestically to the councillors and went out with that dignified step which Virgil attributes to his goddesses.

Chapter 87 — The Challenge

Beauchamp had slipped out by a private door. I will find the man who pursues us, and I shall kill him or he will kill me. There is something I did not tell you from Yanina. The chief banker of the town said: A fortnight since I was questioned on the same subject by a Paris correspondent — Danglars.

He! cried Albert. He, who would be popular, cannot forgive my father for being made a peer; this broken marriage — all the same cause. Before this day closes, if M. Danglars is guilty, he shall cease to live, or I shall die — pardieu, mine shall be a splendid funeral!

In the courtyard they recognized Cavalcanti's phaeton. Parbleu — if Danglars will not fight, his son-in-law will. Albert forced the door of the study. Sir, am I no longer at liberty to receive whom I choose? — I propose a meeting in some retired corner where, of two men, one will remain on the ground. He turned on Cavalcanti: And you too, monsieur; you have a claim, being almost one of the family.

Danglars stepped between. If you come to quarrel because I have preferred this gentleman, I will resign the case to the king's attorney. — I am not referring to matrimony. I am ready to quarrel with everyone today, but you have the first claim. — When I meet a mad dog I kill it. Is it my fault your father has dishonored himself? — Yes, it is your fault. You hypocritically provoked this exposure. Who wrote to Yanina? — When about to marry my daughter, it is not only a right but a duty to make inquiries. — You wrote knowing what answer you would receive! — I solemnly declare I should never have thought of writing, did I know anything of Ali Pasha's misfortunes. I said the origin of your father's fortune was obscure; my interlocutor said: where did he acquire his property? — In Greece. — Then write to Yanina. — Who advised you? — No other than your friend, Monte Cristo.

Albert and Beauchamp looked at each other. The count is absent, said Beauchamp. — I accuse no one; I relate. — Did he know my father's Christian name was Fernand, his family name Mondego? — Yes; I had told him long since.

Albert felt the blood mount to his brow. Danglars spoke with the assurance of a man telling the truth at least in part, not for conscience but for fear. Everything forgotten before came together. Monte Cristo knew all — he had bought the daughter of Ali Pasha; he had advised Danglars to write to Yanina; he had let the conversation turn on Ali's death, warning Haydée in Romaic to spare Morcerf; he had begged Albert not to mention his father's name before her; he had taken Albert to Normandy when the final blow was at hand. — Danglars is only a secondary agent, whispered Beauchamp; it is of Monte Cristo that you must demand an explanation. — Sir, said Albert, I do not take a final leave; I am going now to the Count of Monte Cristo.

Chapter 88 — The Insult

At the door Beauchamp tried once more. Do you not fear to find him a bully? — I only fear to find a man who will not fight. — He will be too strong for you. — That is what I wish. The happiest thing would be to die in my father's stead.

They drove to No. 30 Champs-Élysées. The count was in his bath, then would dine, then sleep, and at eight go to the Opera. He went home, then looked in on his mother. Mercédès pressed his hand and sobbed; she noticed he no longer said my father. Mother, do you know if M. de Morcerf has any enemy? You noticed at our ball that M. de Monte Cristo would eat nothing in our house? It is the custom of the Orientals to secure liberty for revenge by neither eating nor drinking under the roof of their enemies. — Do you say Monte Cristo is our enemy? she cried, paler than her sheet. He saved your life. I entreat you — retain his friendship. — Mother, you have special reasons for telling me to conciliate that man. She blushed and grew paler still. He bowed and went out. She called a servant to follow him.

At ten to eight Beauchamp arrived; they picked up Château-Renaud. The count's box remained obstinately closed through the first act. At the beginning of the second Monte Cristo entered, all in black, with Morrel. He met Albert's pale face and threatening eyes, recognized him, and looked away. The approaching storm is intended to fall on me, he thought.

The door opened. Albert came in pale and trembling with his two friends. Well, said the count with benevolent politeness, my cavalier has attained his object. Good evening, M. de Morcerf.

We are not come to exchange politenesses, but to demand an explanation. — At the Opera? — If people shut themselves up because they are bathing or dining, we must avail ourselves of opportunities. — You do not appear in possession of your senses. I am at home here. Leave the box. — I shall know how to make you leave your home! He clenched his glove. — Display is in poor taste, M. de Morcerf, said the count quietly. At the name a murmur rose — they had spoken of nothing but Morcerf all day.

Albert was about to throw his glove. Morrel seized his hand. The count leaned forward and took the damp, crushed glove from his fingers. I consider your glove thrown, and will return it wrapped about a bullet. Now leave me. Albert stepped back; Morrel closed the door.

The count took up his glass — his face was like marble and his heart was like bronze. — What have you done to him? whispered Morrel. — Nothing personally. It was through Haydée that the Chamber was informed of his father's treason. — What will you do with him? — As certainly as I press your hand now, I shall kill him before ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Morrel shuddered to feel how cold and steady his hand was. — His father loves him so much! — Do not speak to me of that, said the count with the first anger he had betrayed; I will make him suffer. Then with ironical calm: Listen how Duprez sings — O Mathilde! idole de mon âme!

A rap at the door. Beauchamp entered. I come to apologize. I believe you too gentlemanly to refuse some explanation concerning Yanina. — You wish to make me a Lara, a Manfred, a Lord Ruthven; just as I am arriving at the climax, you bring me down to your level. The Count of Monte Cristo bows to none but the Count of Monte Cristo himself. — Honest men require honorable guaranties. — I am a living guaranty. We have both blood in our veins which we wish to shed; that is our mutual guaranty. Tomorrow before ten I shall see what color his is.

Though I am the insulted party, I leave him the choice — since I am sure to gain. Otherwise I would not fight. — Pistols at eight in the Bois de Vincennes, said Beauchamp, disconcerted. — Very well. Tell your friend not to come back tonight.

Beauchamp left amazed. Morrel, I may depend upon you? — Certainly — but I should like to know the real cause. — The young man acts blindfold; the cause is known only to God and me, and God will be on our side. Who is your second? — My brother Emmanuel. — Tomorrow at seven. Hush, the curtain is rising. I never lose a note of William Tell.

Chapter 89 — The Night

Monte Cristo waited for Duprez's Suivez-moi! before rising. At home he said: Ali, bring me my pistols with the ivory cross. He was examining the iron plate when Baptistin opened the door behind a veiled woman who, seeing the pistol, rushed in. The stranger half-knelt: Edmond, you will not kill my son!

The count let fall the pistol. What name did you pronounce, Madame de Morcerf? — Yours. It is not Madame de Morcerf who comes — it is Mercédès. — Mercédès is dead; I know no one now of that name. — She lives, and alone recognized you by the simple sound of your voice. — Fernand, you mean? He pronounced it with such hatred she felt a thrill in every vein. — Spare my son! I followed him to the Opera and have seen all. — Then you know his son publicly insulted me. It is a punishment. Providence strikes him, not I.

If I have sworn revenge, it is not on the Count of Morcerf but on the fisherman Fernand, husband of Mercédès the Catalane. — I had not fortitude to bear your absence. — Why was I absent? The day before our wedding, in the arbor of La Réserve, a man named Danglars wrote this letter, and Fernand himself posted it. He opened a drawer by a spring and laid the rusty paper in her hands — bought for two hundred thousand francs from M. de Boville's files: The king's attorney is informed that one Edmond Dantès, second of the Pharaon, is the bearer of a letter from Murat to the usurper, and another from the usurper to the Bonapartist club. — Fourteen years in a dungeon; every day I renewed my vow, not knowing you had married my calumniator and my father had died of hunger. I have risen from my tomb by the grace of God to punish that man.

She fell on her knees. Forgive, Edmond, for my sake who love you still! — Abandon my purpose at the very moment of accomplishment? Impossible. — Edmond — why do you not call me Mercédès? — Mercédès! I have uttered it frozen on the straw, consumed with heat on the stones — I must revenge myself, for I suffered fourteen years. — Let your vengeance fall on him, on me — but not on my son! — It is written that the sins of the fathers shall fall upon the children; why should I make myself better than God?

For ten years I dreamed each night that you had been thrown alive from the Château d'If, and the cry you uttered as you struck the rocks first revealed to your jailers that they were your murderers. — Have you known what it is to see your father starve in your absence? To see the woman you loved give her hand to your rival while you perished? — No, said Mercédès, but I have seen him whom I loved on the point of murdering my son.

The count could not restrain a sob. The lion was daunted; the avenger was conquered. — Your son shall live! She kissed his hand. Now you are the man I always loved. — That poor Edmond will not have long to be loved by you. Since you command me, I must die. Publicly outraged in a whole theatre, I cannot wish to live. Strength was my life; with one word you have crushed it. — But if you forgive, the duel will not take place. — It will; but instead of your son's blood, mine will flow. She shrieked. My son shall live? — He shall live.

I am grown old with grief more than years. But what you have done is sublime. — Suppose the Supreme Being, after creating the world, had snuffed out the sun and tossed the world back into eternal night — even then you could not imagine what I lose. — Adieu — I have nothing more to ask of heaven.

She was gone before he recovered from his reverie. The clock of the Invalides struck one as her carriage rolled away. What a fool I was, said Monte Cristo, not to tear my heart out the day I resolved to avenge myself!

Chapter 90 — The Meeting

After Mercédès left him, Monte Cristo fell into profound gloom. This edifice I have been so long preparing is to be crushed by a word, a breath. It is not the death of the body I regret, but the ruin of projects so slowly carried out. Folly! to put myself up as a mark for that young man's aim! He drew his will and added a codicil explaining the nature of his death. Danglars, Villefort, Morcerf himself must not imagine that chance has freed them; they are only exchanging time for eternity.

At five he found Haydée fallen asleep on a chair, her watch at his door overtaken. She remembered she had a son; I forgot I had a daughter. He wrote: I bequeath to Maximilian Morrel, son of my former patron Pierre Morrel, twenty millions concealed in my grotto at Monte Cristo. If his heart is free, and he will marry Haydée, daughter of Ali Pasha, whom I have brought up with the love of a father, he will accomplish my last wish. By this will Haydée is already heiress of the rest of my fortune, sixty millions.

A cry made him start. Haydée — did you read it? — Are you going to leave me? — I am going on a journey; if any misfortune should happen, I wish my daughter to be happy. — If you die I shall require nothing. She tore the paper into four and dropped fainting. He raised her — and the idea occurred to him for the first time that perhaps she loved him otherwise than as a daughter. Alas — I might then have been happy yet. He carried her to her room and copied the destroyed will. Wheels in the courtyard — it was time — he sealed it with three seals.

Maximilian had come twenty minutes early. I have not closed my eyes all night; I need to see you firm. The count flew to him with open arms. Ali — take this to my solicitor. It is my will, Morrel. When I am dead you will examine it. — You — dead? — What did you do yesterday? — I hoped to substitute the sword for the pistol; the pistol is blind. But your skill with the sword is so well known. — Who betrayed me? — The skilful swordsman whom you conquered.

Have you ever seen me fire a pistol? Look. He fixed an ace of clubs against the iron plate and with four shots took off the four sides of the club. Astonishing, said Morrel. Count, in the name of all that is dear to you — do not kill Albert! He has a mother. — You are right; and I have none. — You fire first — twenty paces. A smile of terrible import passed over the count's lips. Morrel, do not forget what you have just seen.

Break his arm; wound him; do not kill him. — I do not need entreating; he shall be so well spared that he will return quietly, while I shall be brought home. M. de Morcerf will kill me. The same thing has happened to me as to Brutus the night before Philippi: I have seen a ghost — and the ghost told me I had lived long enough.

Passing through the passage, Maximilian and Emmanuel thought they heard him answer with a sigh to a sob from within. As the clock struck eight they reached the ground. The count drew Morrel aside. Maximilian — are your affections disengaged? — I love a young girl more than my life. — Another hope defeated, sighed the count; poor Haydée. I know the world is a drawing-room from which we must retire politely, with our debts of honor paid.

Beauchamp and Château-Renaud had brought new pistols. Franz and Debray arrived, also summoned by Albert. Then a horseman at full gallop. Albert sprang down, pale, red-eyed, a shade of melancholy gravity not natural to him. I have two words to say to the Count of Monte Cristo — before all. Morrel went for the count.

I trust he is not going to tempt me by some fresh insult, said Monte Cristo. They stopped at three paces. Sir, said Albert, voice first tremulous then firmer, I reproached you with exposing M. de Morcerf in Epirus; I thought you had no right to punish him. I have since learned you had that right. It is not Fernand Mondego's treachery toward Ali Pasha, but the treachery of the fisherman Fernand toward you, and the unheard-of miseries that followed, which induce me to excuse you. I proclaim publicly you were justified in revenging yourself; and I, his son, thank you for not using greater severity.

Had a thunderbolt fallen, the spectators could not have been more astonished. The count's eyes rose to heaven with infinite gratitude; he understood at once the influence of Mercédès. If you think my apology sufficient, give me your hand. An angel alone could have saved one of us from death; that angel came from heaven, if not to make us friends — which fatality renders impossible — at least to make us esteem each other. The count extended his hand; Albert pressed it with respectful fear.

Gentlemen, M. de Monte Cristo accepts my apology. I had acted hastily; my fault is repaired. If anyone should think me cowardly, drawing himself up, I shall endeavor to correct his mistake. Had I ten Yaninas in my family, muttered Franz to Debray, I should consider myself the more bound to fight ten times. The count, bowing under twenty-four years of memory, thought only of that courageous woman who had pleaded for her son's life and now saved it by a revelation that would destroy in the young man's heart every feeling of filial piety. Providence still, he murmured; now only am I fully convinced of being the emissary of God.

Chapter 91 — Mother and Son

The count drove off with Maximilian and Emmanuel. Allow me to congratulate you, said Beauchamp; this is an unhoped-for conclusion. Château-Renaud tapped his boot with his cane. As for me, I should have been incapable of it. — Every simpleton will not understand your heroism. Set out for Naples, St. Petersburg — calm countries where the point of honor is better understood. — Thank you; I had already intended to leave France. Albert's look was a whole poem of restrained anger, proud disdain, and generous indignation. He galloped to Paris.

He thought he saw his father's pale face behind the curtain of the count's bedroom, turned away, and went up. He took down his mother's portrait, arranged his Turkish arms and English guns, threw all his money and jewels into a drawer he left open, and made a careful inventory.

His servant came in. The Count of Morcerf has called me; what shall I answer? — The truth. Say I apologized to the Count of Monte Cristo. He soon heard his father drive away and went to his mother's room.

As if the same idea had animated these two beings, Mercédès was doing in her apartments what he had just done in his. My mother! he cried. — What are you doing? — I have come to bid adieu to your house and to you. — I also am going, and had counted on your accompanying me. — Mother, I must live without rank or fortune; I must borrow from Franz the loaf I shall eat. — You — suffer poverty? — I am young, strong, courageous. From this moment I have done with the past — even with my name; your son cannot bear the name of a man who ought to blush for it. — That is the counsel I would have given. Take my father's name — Herrera. For me the grave opens when I pass the threshold of this house.

He went for a carriage. As he alighted a man put a letter in his hand: From the count, said Bertuccio. He took it to his mother: I hope to convince you of my delicacy. Spare your mother the trial of poverty. Twenty-four years ago I returned proud to my country, bringing a betrothed whom I adored one hundred and fifty louis, painfully amassed, which I buried in the garden of my father's house at Marseilles, on the Allées de Meilhan. A short time since I went and dug, under the fig-tree my father had planted the day I was born; the iron box was there. This money, formerly designed for the woman I adored, may now be devoted to the same purpose. If you refuse, it is ungenerous to refuse the life of your mother at the hands of a man whose father your father allowed to die in poverty and despair.

Albert stood pale and motionless. Mercédès raised her eyes to heaven. I accept it, she said; he has a right to pay the dowry, which I shall take with me to some convent. She put the letter in her bosom, took her son's arm, and went down with a firmer step than she herself expected.

Chapter 92 — The Suicide

Monte Cristo returned to town with Morrel and Emmanuel. Return to your charming wife, he told Emmanuel; I keep Maximilian. Morrel murmured: Albert is brave — how can you reconcile that with what he did this morning? — All owing to your influence, said the count. — An apology on the ground, said the young captain, shaking his head. — Do not entertain the prejudices of ordinary men; if Albert is brave, he cannot be a coward; his conduct is more heroic than otherwise.

They parted; the count hastened to Bertuccio. She is going to leave her house; Florentin thinks the son is going to do the same. He wrote the letter we have seen. Haydée ran down at the sound of the carriage, radiant. Every transport of a daughter finding a father, all the delight of a mistress seeing an adored lover — the count was beginning to think, what he had not dared to believe for a long time, that there were two Mercédès in the world, and he might yet be happy. He kissed her forehead; two hearts throbbed, the one violently, the other secretly. Shall I then be permitted to love again?

M. de Morcerf! announced Baptistin. The viscount or the count? — The count. Haydée exclaimed: Is it not yet over? — You have nothing more to fear. He led her to a private staircase and turned to receive the general, pacing the room for the third time.

It is M. de Morcerf — I thought I had not heard aright. — You had a meeting with my son? He considered you the cause of his father's dishonor. — A secondary cause, not the principal. — You made some apology? — I explained nothing; it was he who apologized to me. — Why? — To the conviction that there was one more guilty than I — his father. A tremor of rage. My son is a coward! — M. Albert de Morcerf is no coward. — Since the young will not fight, it remains for us. — When I told you I had foreseen the result, it is the honor of your visit I alluded to.

We shall fight till one of us is dead, said the general through clenched teeth. Let us start; we need no witnesses. — Very true; we know each other so well! — On the contrary; we know so little. — Let us see. And with indomitable coolness: Are you not the soldier Fernand who deserted the eve of Waterloo? The Lieutenant Fernand who served as guide and spy to the French army in Spain? The Captain Fernand who betrayed, sold, and murdered his benefactor Ali? And have not all these Fernands, united, made the Count of Morcerf, peer of France?

Wretch — I know you only as an adventurer sewn up in gold. It is your real name I want, that I may pronounce it at the moment I plunge my sword through your heart. The count leaped to his dressing-room; in a moment he returned in a sailor's jacket and hat, his long black hair rolling out, formidable and implacable. The general felt his teeth chatter and his legs sink.

Fernand! Of my hundred names I need only tell you one to overwhelm you — a face you must often have seen in your dreams since your marriage with Mercédès, my betrothed!

The general glided along the wall and out of the door, uttering this single, mournful cry: Edmond Dantès! He dragged himself across the courtyard and fell into the arms of his valet. Home, home. He reached the Rue du Helder. The door was open; a hackney-coach stood in the courtyard — a strange sight. He crept into an alcove; two persons were coming down the stair. Mercédès, leaning on Albert's arm, passed so close he almost felt her dress brush against the curtain, and heard Albert's voice: Courage, mother! Come, this is no longer our home.

The steps died away; the clatter of the iron coach-step, the coachman's voice, the rolling of the heavy wheels. He darted to his bedroom, but neither head appeared at the window for a last look. And at the very moment when the coach crossed the gateway a report was heard, and a thick smoke escaped through one of the panes of the window, broken by the explosion.

Chapter 93 — Valentine

We may easily conceive where Morrel's appointment was. He walked slowly to Villefort's, knowing the hour when Valentine gave Noirtier his breakfast. He arrived; Valentine, almost crazed by the report of the Morcerf affair (the duel was universally expected, and Morrel was known to be Monte Cristo's friend), seized his hand and led him to her grandfather. The news that the affair had ended peacefully filled her with indescribable joy.

Then she grew grave. Grandpapa is again thinking of leaving this house and taking an apartment. — What reason? — He pretends the air of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré is not good for me. — In that he may be right; you have not seemed well for the last fortnight. — It must not be called suffering; I feel a general uneasiness, loss of appetite; my stomach seems to struggle to accustom itself to something. — And what do you take? — A spoonful of grandpapa's mixture every morning. When I say one, I began by one — now I take four. Grandpapa says it is a panacea. She smiled, but it was evident she suffered; her pallor had increased, her eyes more brilliant, her hands white as wax with a yellowish hue.

But this mixture was prepared for M. Noirtier? — It is very bitter; all I drink after appears to have the same taste. Just now before I came down I drank a glass of sugared water and left half — it seemed so bitter. Noirtier turned pale and made a sign to speak. Oh, she cried, this is singular — I cannot see! Did the sun shine in my eyes? — The sun is not shining, said Morrel, more alarmed by Noirtier's expression than by Valentine's words. She leaned against the window; the moment passed. She heard a carriage — Madame Danglars and Eugénie, come to call. Good-bye; stay with grandpapa, Maximilian.

When she was gone, Noirtier had Morrel fetch the dictionary. Slowly, laboriously: Fetch the glass of water and the decanter from Valentine's room. The servant brought them. Both were completely empty. Valentine said she drank only half. The servant asked the housemaid: Valentine had finished the rest in passing through; as for the decanter, Master Edward had emptied it for his ducks.

Noirtier raised his eyes to heaven, like a gambler who stakes his all on one stroke; from that moment his gaze was fixed on the door.

Valentine returned from the Danglars visit; she was within three steps of the bottom of the little staircase when a cloud passed over her eyes, her foot missed the step, and she toppled to the floor. Morrel bounded from the door, raised her, and placed her in a chair. What a clumsy thing I am — I forgot there were three more steps. But the giddiness returned. Oh, indeed, Maximilian, you are too timid for a soldier who never knows fear! Ha, ha, ha! She burst into a forced, melancholy laugh — her arms stiffened and twisted, her head fell back, and she remained motionless. The servants came running; Madame Danglars and Eugénie, who were just leaving, heard the cry. I told you so! exclaimed Madame de Villefort. Poor child!

Chapter 94 — Maximilian's Avowal

Morrel hid in the closet where he had once before taken refuge. Villefort rushed in: A physician! M. d'Avrigny! — or rather I will go for him myself. The moment they were gone Morrel darted out the other door, struck by a frightful recollection — the conversation he had overheard between the doctor and Villefort on the night of Madame de Saint-Méran's death; these symptoms, to a less alarming degree, were the same that had preceded the death of Barrois. At the same moment Monte Cristo's voice rang in his ear: Whatever you want, come to me; I have great power. He flew to the Champs-Élysées.

Villefort meanwhile had reached d'Avrigny's door. My house is accursed! — Who is now dying in your house? — It is Valentine's turn! — Your daughter! You see you were deceived. Come — on her bed of agony, entreat her pardon for having suspected her. — Each time you have applied to me it has been too late; still I will go. With the enemies you have to do with there is no time to be lost. — This time, doctor, you shall not reproach me with weakness. I will know the assassin and I will pursue him. — Let us try first to save the victim.

At the same instant Morrel burst into Monte Cristo's study. Valentine de Villefort, who is being murdered at this moment! — You love her? — I love her; and I ask God and you how I can save her. Monte Cristo uttered a cry that only those who have heard the roar of a wounded lion can conceive. Unhappy man — you love Valentine, that daughter of an accursed race! Then, closing his eyes as if dazzled by internal light, he mastered himself in twenty seconds. See how God punishes the most indifferent men — I, who was watching like a wicked angel, laughing at the evil committed protected by secrecy, am in my turn bitten by the serpent. — Come, he continued, I tell you to hope. Do you understand me? I never uttered a falsehood and am never deceived. It is noon: if Valentine is not now dead, she will not die. — How so, when I left her dying? The count pressed his hands to his forehead. — Maximilian, return home. I command you not to stir, not to let your countenance betray a thought, and I will send you tidings. Go.

Valentine had not revived. D'Avrigny examined her and at last slowly uttered: She is still alive! — Still? — And I am astonished at it. His glance met Noirtier's eyes — glistening with extraordinary joy. He seated the girl again and turned to the old man. Have you something to tell me — privately? — Yes. Villefort was sent to the chemist. Alone with Noirtier: Did you anticipate this? — Yes. — Did Barrois die a natural death? — No. — Was he poisoned? — Yes. — Was the poison intended for him? — No. — Has the same hand now attacked Valentine? — Yes. — Will she die? — No. — You hope? — Yes. — Not that the assassin will be tried? — No. — That the poison will have no effect? — Noirtier's eyes were fixed steadily on the bottle containing the mixture the doctor gave him every morning. — It has occurred to you to prepare her system by accustoming her to the poison? — Yes, yes, yes! — Of course; I told you there was brucine in your mixture, and by giving her your dose — — And you have succeeded! cried d'Avrigny. Without that precaution Valentine would have died before help arrived. The dose has been excessive, but she has only been shaken by it — and this time, at any rate, Valentine will not die.

At this moment Villefort returned with the medicine. D'Avrigny tasted it, then ordered Valentine carried to her room. He instructed Villefort to go personally to the chemist and to see that no one deviated from his prescriptions. Madame de Villefort, with tears and every mark of maternal affection, took Valentine's hand; Noirtier watched her, his eyes dilating, his cheeks pale, the perspiration standing on his forehead. D'Avrigny noticed the direction of that terrible look — fixed on Madame de Villefort — and said to himself: Ah.

Valentine was borne away. That same evening an Italian priest of serious demeanor hired the house adjoining Villefort's. The lease was drawn up for three, six, or nine years, the tenant paying six months in advance. He was called Il Signor Giacomo Busoni. Workmen were immediately called in, and that same night carpenters and masons were occupied in repairing the lower part of the tottering house.

Chapter 95 — Father and Daughter

The morning of the day Madame Danglars was to pay her formal visit to the Villeforts, Eugénie had summoned her father to the gilded drawing-room — not the study, because those gilded cashbooks and heaps of bank-bills have generally a strange influence on a father's mind, and make him forget that there is an interest greater and more sacred than the good opinion of his correspondents. Danglars had obeyed, perplexed.

I will not marry Count Andrea Cavalcanti, she said. — Unhappy girl! murmured Danglars. — Unhappy? No, indeed. I am beautiful, witty, somewhat talented, and rich — that is happiness, sir. I love no one; I see no reason to encumber my life with a perpetual companion. Nothing too much, as the ancients said. I am determined to live perfectly alone, and consequently perfectly free. The obstacle was as solid as Danglars had expected from long experience.

My daughter, you have explained the sentiments of a girl determined not to marry; now hear the motives of a father who has decided that she shall marry. It is not for grandchildren — family joys have no charm for me. I proposed this marriage not for your sake — I did not think of you in the least — but because it suited me, on account of certain commercial speculations. Eugénie became uneasy. The credit of a banker is his physical and moral life; as credit sinks, the body becomes a corpse. And this must happen soon to the banker who is proud to own so good a logician as you for his daughter. — Ruined? — Exactly.

Eugénie drew herself up. You are a bad physiognomist if you imagine I deplore on my own account. I have my talent — I can acquire, like Pasta or Malibran, a hundred and fifty thousand livres a year by my own art; and I have that ardent love of independence which in my mind supersedes even the instinct of self-preservation. — Hear me, said Danglars. M. Cavalcanti is about to place three millions in my hands. I and a brother-banker have obtained a grant of a railway; I need four millions for my share. Cavalcanti's three, added to the confidence his fortune lends, will restore my credit. If I do not get them, I am a bankrupt — for the five million and a half in treasury drafts you saw in my study the other day are not mine; they belong to charitable institutions, deposited with me on trust. — You pledge me for three millions? — The greater the sum, the more flattering to you. — One word more: do you promise to make use only of the report of the fortune, without touching the money? I am willing to help rebuild, but not to be an accomplice in the ruin of others. — I hope so, if the marriage confirms my credit. — Very well — I am ready to marry M. Cavalcanti.

But what are you up to? — That is my affair. If knowing your secret I were to tell you mine, what advantage should I have over you? — And the contract — in three days? — Yes. — Then, in my turn, I also say, very well. He pressed her hand; neither said thank you; the daughter did not smile. Five minutes later the piano was sounding under Mademoiselle d'Armilly's fingers, and Eugénie was singing Brabantio's malediction on Desdemona. Then the carriage was brought: the baroness is waiting. We have seen them at Villefort's.

VOLUME FIVE

Chapter 96 — The Contract

Three days later, towards the day fixed for the signature of the contract between Mademoiselle Eugénie Danglars and Andrea Cavalcanti — whom the banker persisted in calling prince — Andrea, decked up and gay as if he were going to marry a princess, called on Monte Cristo. The contract is signed at nine o'clock at my father-in-law's. — You are fortunate; she is handsome and rich. It is said the baron conceals at least half his fortune; without reckoning the railway by which he is to gain ten millions. Andrea hinted that the count had done a great deal for him. You are mistaken. I patronized you only after the fortune of your father was ascertained. Personally, I do not know you. The young man pressed: would the count, in his father's absence, take the paternal part? Ask me to lend you half a million and you would annoy me less. I, who have a seraglio at Cairo, one at Smyrna, and one at Constantinople, preside at a wedding? Never! But like all Paris, I shall be there, and I shall sign. As Andrea departed he asked whether it was safer to leave the dowry in the notary's hands or take it directly. Because I heard my father-in-law say he meant to embark our property in that famous railway scheme. — That, everybody says, is the way to treble a fortune in twelve months. Baron Danglars knows how to calculate.

At half past eight the salons of the Chaussée d'Antin blazed with light, and a perfumed crowd filled the four drawing-rooms — flowers which attract inconstant butterflies, famished bees, and buzzing drones. Madame Danglars chatted with Debray, Beauchamp, and Château-Renaud; Debray was admitted on the same plane as everyone else, without privilege. The baron, surrounded by deputies, was explaining a new theory of taxation. Eugénie wore elegant simplicity — a figured white silk dress and a single white rose in her jet-black hair — but her eyes betrayed that perfect confidence which contradicted the girlish simplicity of her modest attire.

At the stroke of nine, the count's name resounded, and as if by an electric shock the assembly turned. He was in black, the deadly paleness of his face set off by his black stock; his only jewel a chain so fine it was scarcely perceptible. He paid his three social duties — to the baroness, to Eugénie (who thanked him for letters of introduction Mademoiselle d'Armilly would use in Italy), and to Danglars — and stopped with the expression that said I have done my duty; now let others do theirs.

The notaries arranged their papers on a gilt table supported on lions' claws. The contract was read in profound silence. The baron signed first, then the representative of Cavalcanti senior. The baroness approached on Madame de Villefort's arm — is it not vexatious? An unexpected incident in the affair of murder and theft at the Count of Monte Cristo's deprives us of the pleasure of seeing M. de Villefort. — I am much afraid that I am the involuntary cause of his absence, said Monte Cristo, advancing. Everyone listened eagerly: the count, who so rarely opened his lips, was about to speak.

You remember that the unhappy wretch who came to rob me died at my house — supposedly stabbed by his accomplice on attempting to leave it. In undressing him to examine his wounds, his clothes were thrown into a corner; the police picked them up — all but the waistcoat, which they overlooked. This waistcoat was discovered today, covered with blood and with a hole over the heart. My valet found a paper in the pocket — a letter addressed to you, baron. Legal methods are the safest in criminal cases. I sent waistcoat and letter to the king's attorney; it was perhaps some plot against you. Andrea looked steadily at the count and disappeared into the second drawing-room. Was not this murdered man an old galley-slave? asked Danglars, slightly pale. Yes — a felon named Caderousse. Andrea reached the anteroom beyond.

But go on signing, said the count, apologizing for the agitation he had caused. The baroness signed and returned the pen. Prince Cavalcanti — where are you? Andrea, Andrea! — Call the prince, cried Danglars to a floorkeeper.

At that very instant the crowd of guests rushed in alarm into the principal salon, as if some frightful monster had entered the apartments, quærens quem devoret. There was indeed reason to retreat. An officer was placing two soldiers at the door of every drawing-room and was advancing toward Danglars, preceded by a commissary of police girded with his scarf. Madame Danglars uttered a scream and fainted. Danglars — for certain consciences are never calm — even before his guests showed a countenance of abject terror.

Which of you answers to the name of Andrea Cavalcanti? asked the magistrate, without even replying to the count. — But who, then, is Andrea Cavalcanti? asked Danglars in amazement. — A galley-slave escaped from confinement at Toulon, accused of having assassinated the man named Caderousse, his former companion in prison, at the moment he was making his escape from the house of the Count of Monte Cristo. Monte Cristo cast a rapid glance around. Andrea was gone.

Chapter 97 — The Departure for Belgium

Within minutes of the gendarmes' intrusion, the Danglars mansion emptied as though plague had swept the rooms. The guests fled down every staircase; the banker locked himself in his study to dictate his statement; the baroness collapsed in her boudoir. Only two souls kept their composure — Eugénie Danglars and her inseparable Louise d'Armilly, who withdrew to Eugénie's chamber and bolted the door behind them.

Louise dropped into a chair, pale with horror. Andrea Cavalcanti, a murderer, a galley-slave escaped, a convict! Who could have suspected it? An ironic smile curled Eugénie's lip. In truth, I was fated, said she; I escaped the Morcerf only to fall into the Cavalcanti. The men are all infamous, and I am happy now to do more than detest them — I despise them. — What shall we do? asked Louise. — The same we had intended doing three days since — set off. I hate this life of the fashionable world, always ordered, measured, ruled like our music-paper. God sends me this, and I hail it joyfully!

The post-chaise had been bought. The passport — M. Léon d'Armilly, twenty years of age; profession, artist; travelling with his sister — had been procured from the count himself when Eugénie begged letters for the theatres at Rome and Naples. Twenty-three thousand francs in notes and as much again in jewels lay ready. We are rich, Eugénie cried; with forty-five thousand francs we can live like princesses two years!

She dressed in a man's complete costume, cut off her magnificent black hair with a pair of long scissors, and surveyed herself with sparkling eyes. And am I not a hundred times better thus? Come, let us fly — to Brussels, then Aix-la-Chapelle, the Rhine, Switzerland, Italy!

At midnight they slipped down the side staircase. The porter slept in his lodge. A passing porter shouldered their trunk to the Rue de la Victoire, where a laundress roused a postilion. At Eugénie's command he cracked his whip, and the britzka rolled out beneath the Barrière Saint-Martin.

Here we are out of Paris, breathed Louise. — Yes, my dear, replied Eugénie, the abduction is an accomplished fact — and without violence. — I shall bring that forward as an extenuating circumstance.

The two fugitives burst out laughing as the carriage rolled over the pavement of La Villette. M. Danglars no longer had a daughter.

Chapter 98 — The Bell and Bottle Tavern

Let us now return to poor Andrea Cavalcanti, so inopportunely interrupted in his rise to fortune. At the first rumour in the salon, the wily youth had drifted toward the door and, passing through the room where the bride's corbeille was displayed, helped himself to the most valuable of its ornaments — cashmere shawls, diamonds, English lace — before leaping from a window into the night. Thus provided, he strode through the Rue du Mont-Blanc, crying to himself, My safety is now a mere question of speed.

At the top of the Faubourg Poissonnière he hired a cab, promising forty francs if they overtook an imaginary friend's green cabriolet on the road to Louvres. The driver whipped his tired horse, and the cab rattled through the barrier. Once a calash drawn by two post-horses swept past them — Andrea sighed, not knowing it carried Eugénie and Louise. At Louvres he paid off the cabman, walked two leagues afoot, and at Chapelle-en-Serval knocked up an innkeeper, hiring a horse under the pretext of a fall. He dropped a visiting-card bearing the name of the Count of Mauléon, and was soon trotting toward Compiègne on Le Blanc.

By four in the morning he reached the Bell and Bottle inn. The waiter asked no questions. The fowl was tender, the Bordeaux old, and though Andrea ought to have felt remorse, he did not. He bolted the door, laid his long-pointed knife upon the table, and fell into the deep sleep of a man of twenty. His plan was simple: rise before dawn, reach the forest, buy a woodcutter's clothes, darken his hair, and walk by night to the frontier, where his diamonds would turn into some fifty thousand livres.

At seven a ray of sunlight woke him. Andrea ran to the window — and saw a gendarme crossing the court. Then a second at the foot of the stairs. Then a third on horseback at the street-door, blocked by a crowd of idlers.

They're after me! Diable! A pallor overspread his forehead. I am lost! But a smile returned to his pale lips. He seized pen and paper: I have no money to pay my bill, but I am not a dishonest man; I leave behind me this pin, worth ten times the amount. He drew the pin from his cravat, left the door ajar as though he had forgotten it, and slipped up the chimney. When the brigadier, finding the room empty, filled the hearth with sticks and straw and set them alight, Andrea was already crouched among the chimney-pots on the roof.

The head of a gendarme appeared at a window of the Hôtel de Ville. Andrea looked about him; the roof offered no escape. He spied a chimney from which no smoke rose and, swift as a cat, disappeared down its throat. Two-thirds of the way down his foot slipped, and he tumbled into a room with more speed and noise than he intended. Two ladies, sleeping in one bed, sat up shrieking — and Andrea, looking up in terror, beheld Eugénie Danglars and Louise d'Armilly.

For pity's sake, do not call — save me! I will not harm you! — Andrea, the murderer! cried Eugénie, while Louise seized the bell-rope and rang with all her strength. — Conceal me somewhere, he cried, clasping his hands; you can turn their suspicions and save my life! — Return by the same road you came, said Eugénie at length, and we will say nothing about you.

But it was already too late. The brigadier had put his eye to the keyhole, the musket-butt burst the lock, and three blows drove in the door. Andrea ran for the gallery, was caught short, and stood pale, his useless knife in his clenched hand.

Fly! cried Louise, her pity returning with her fears. — Or kill yourself! said Eugénie, in a voice a Vestal might have used urging a gladiator. Andrea shuddered at so fierce an honour, and threw down his blade. Kill myself? Why should I do so? One has friends.

He held out his hands for the manacles, and as the two girls covered their faces he turned with an impertinent smile. Have you any message for your father, Mademoiselle Danglars? For in all probability I shall return to Paris. You need not be ashamed, even though you did post after me. Was I not nearly your husband?

An hour later the two girls were driven from the inn in female dress, through a throng of whispering, jeering spectators. Oh, why is not the world a wilderness! Eugénie cried, her eyes sparkling with the rage of a fallen empress.

That night they reached Brussels; and the same evening Andrea was incarcerated in the Conciergerie.

Chapter 99 — The Law

While her husband contemplated bankruptcy in his study, Madame Danglars sought out the one man she had leaned upon — Lucien Debray. She had long seen Eugénie's marriage as a means of ridding herself of a burdensome guardianship over a girl whose sagacity she feared. Debray was not at home; at his club he was listening half-heartedly to a friend suggesting he might yet marry Eugénie and her two millions. When he thought of her proud, independent spirit, he dismissed the idea — but the thought kept returning to his heart.

The baroness waited in the little green room, seated between two baskets of flowers Debray himself had watered, and for whose sake his absence was half excused. At twenty to twelve she gave it up and went home, supposing her daughter asleep behind the bolted door. The maid confirmed that Mademoiselle and Louise had taken tea together and dismissed her. The baroness therefore went to bed without suspicion. Lying awake, however, she reviewed the evening, and saw at last that what she had taken for confusion was a tumult, what she had thought distressing was disgrace. The only ally left to her, she decided, was Villefort. He had acted not as an executioner but as a surgeon; she would obtain at least indulgence.

At nine the next morning she drove to the procureur's house, which for a month had worn the aspect of a lazaretto. The concierge parleyed through a barely opened door. She was at length ushered into the study, where Villefort raised so sad a face that her complaints died on her lips.

Forgive my servants, he said; from being suspected they have become suspicious. She began to beg for Benedetto. Impostor? Villefort corrected her coldly. M. Andrea Cavalcanti, or rather M. Benedetto, is nothing more nor less than an assassin! You are too late, madame; the orders are issued. — At least keep him in prison till my daughter is married. — Impossible; justice has its formalities — for all, even for myself.

She paled; and Villefort, reading the unspoken thought in her eye, pressed both hands to his desk. Yes, I know what you mean. You refer to the deaths that have kept me in mourning these three months. You are saying, you who pursue crime so vindictively, why are there unpunished crimes in your own dwelling? There are crimes unpunished because the criminals are unknown, he went on, extending his hand toward the crucifix; but when they are discovered, I swear by all I hold most sacred, whoever they may be, they shall die. Now dare you ask mercy for that wretch?

He named Benedetto's record — condemned at sixteen for forgery, then runaway, then assassin — a vagabond, a Corsican, parents unknown.

But he is an orphan, she urged weakly. — So much the better; he will have none to weep his fate. — His dishonour reflects upon us. — Is not death in my house? Madame, all the world is wicked; let us therefore strike at wickedness.

At that moment the valet entered with a dispatch from the Minister of the Interior. Villefort tore it open, and his pale face lit with joy. Arrested! he exclaimed. He was taken at Compiègne, and all is over.

Madame Danglars rose cold and trembling and withdrew. Villefort, almost cheerful, bowed her out. Then, turning to his desk, he struck the letter with the back of his hand. I had a forgery, three robberies, and two cases of arson; I only wanted a murder, and here it is. It will be a splendid session!

Chapter 100 — The Apparition

Valentine had not recovered. She heard the tale of Eugénie's flight and Benedetto's arrest as in a dream. By day Noirtier watched beside her; at night the nurse brought d'Avrigny's draught and left the key with Villefort. Morrel called each morning on Noirtier and was told she yet lived — for Monte Cristo had sworn she would be saved.

On the evening she had learned of the scandal, the nurse turned the key at eleven. Ten minutes later, by the flickering of the night-lamp, Valentine saw the library door — in the recess by the chimney — open slowly without a sound.

A human figure appeared. She did not cry out; she was too used to her visions. The figure moved swiftly forward, stopped her hand as she reached for the glass, took the glass itself, carried it to the lamp, poured out about a spoonful, drank it, and set the glass down again.

Now you may drink, said the man in an agitated voice. — The Count of Monte Cristo! she whispered. — Do not call anyone. The man before you, Valentine, is nothing more than the tenderest father and the most respectful friend you could dream of. For four days I have not closed my eyes, watching to preserve you — for Maximilian.

The name brought the blood to her cheeks. Has he then owned all to you? — Everything. He told me your life was his, and I have promised him you shall live. He pointed to the library. I was hidden behind that door, which leads into the next house — a house I have rented. When your beverage seemed dangerous, I entered and substituted a healthful draught. — Poison — death! she cried.

He took a little bottle from his pocket, poured a few drops of red liquid into the glass, drank half, and gave her the rest. She recognized the flavour of her nightly refreshment.

Are you the first this hand has stricken? he asked. Have you not seen the Saint-Mérans, Barrois, all fall? Noirtier would have fallen too, had his three years of treatment not accustomed him to the poison. — Oh, Heaven! she cried. Is that why grandpapa has made me share his beverages? — He fortified you against the poison; it failed only because you were already impregnated with it. But against a stronger dose four days ago, even that would not have saved you. Midnight is the hour murderers choose. Valentine, summon all your courage; feign to be asleep, and you shall see.

She seized his hand. I think I hear a noise — leave me. — Not a movement — not a word; let them think you asleep, or you may be killed before I have power to help you.

The count disappeared through the library door, which closed without a sound.

Chapter 101 — Locusta

Valentine counted the seconds. She dared not ring the bell, for through the library door she seemed to see the count's luminous eye. The half-hour struck.

A slight grating at the library door told her the count still watched. From Edward's side, the floor creaked; the lock turned. Valentine threw herself flat and breathed the regular respiration of sleep.

Valentine! whispered a low voice. Then a liquid was poured into her glass. Through her lashes she saw a woman in a white dressing-gown holding a phial — the fair arm of a woman of twenty-five who yet spread death around her. It was Madame de Villefort. She retired as silently as she had come.

The library door grated again. The Count of Monte Cristo reappeared. Do you still doubt? — I saw, but I cannot believe! — Would you rather die, and cause Maximilian's death? He raised the glass to his lips. Brucine is no longer employed, but a simple narcotic in alcohol. Had you drunk what she poured — you would have been doomed. — But why? — Because you are rich. Your two hundred thousand livres a year prevent her son from enjoying them. That is why the Saint-Mérans died; that is why Noirtier was sentenced the day he made you his heir. — Edward? Poor child! Heaven grant it may not be visited on him! — Do you recollect, in the arbour of the Hôtel des Postes at Perugia, seeing a man in a brown cloak whom your stepmother questioned upon aqua tofana*? Since then the project has been ripening in her brain. But fear nothing — you will live. Only, you must confide in no one, not even your father. Spectre against spectre!* he muttered.

Whatever happens — though you lose sight, hearing, consciousness, though you should awake in a sepulchral vault — say to yourself: At this moment, a friend, a father, watches over me.

From his waistcoat pocket he drew the little emerald box, took out a pastille the size of a pea, and gave it to her. Yes, he said. Valentine swallowed it. He watched till she slept, then emptied three-quarters of the glass into the fireplace, replaced it, and was gone.

Chapter 102 — Valentine

The night-lamp burned low. The door of Edward's room opened; Madame de Villefort glided in. Valentine's glass was a quarter full; she emptied it into the ashes, rinsed it, wiped it, and replaced it.

Drawing back the curtain she leaned over the pillow. Valentine no longer breathed; her lips did not quiver; the lashes rested on a cheek white as wax; the fingers were rigid, the nails turning blue. The reverie of crime is remorse. She could not drop the curtain. The clock struck half-past four; the lamp expired; she groped her way back to her room.

At eight the nurse brought the draught, noted the empty glass, lit the fire, and dozed. Waking later, she saw the arm still hanging, ran to the bed, and screamed.

D'Avrigny and Villefort rushed up together. What — this one too? cried the doctor, raising her in his arms. I say that Valentine is dead!

Villefort, as though the words had struck him down, staggered to the bed and buried his face among the coverings; and through the house — along the corridors, down the great staircase — the servants fled one after another, as from a dwelling that had been marked out for destruction, carrying the rumour to every quarter of the street that the procureur's roof stood accursed.

Madame de Villefort appeared in her dressing-gown, the corners of her handkerchief pressed to eyes that tried to call up tears. Suddenly her glance fell upon the table, and she bounded forward. D'Avrigny was examining the glass — the glass she had so carefully emptied — and it stood once more a third full, exactly as when she had poured the poison. Some miracle out of heaven had spared the proof. He dipped a finger to taste.

It is no longer brucine! From a medicine cupboard he took a bottle of nitric acid and let a drop fall into the liquor. It turned blood-red. Ah! he cried, in a voice that blended the horror of a judge with the delight of a student.

Madame de Villefort staggered from the room; the muffled fall of a heavy body followed. D'Avrigny lifted the drapery and saw her lifeless on her chamber floor.

Go to the assistance of Madame de Villefort, he told the nurse; she is ill. — But Mademoiselle? — Mademoiselle de Villefort no longer requires help. She is dead. — Dead! Who said Valentine was dead? repeated a third voice.

Morrel stood in the doorway, pale and terror-stricken. He had found Noirtier's room empty of servants, and in the old man's terrified eyes had read a single word — Valentine. Now he heard that word returned to him like an echo: Dead! Dead!

Chapter 103 — Maximilian

Who are you, sir? Go! cried Villefort. But Morrel could not tear his eyes from the pale corpse. He went out at last with his hands in his hair, and Villefort and d'Avrigny exchanged a glance that said — He is mad.

But in five minutes the staircase groaned. Morrel, with superhuman strength, was carrying Noirtier upstairs in his armchair. He rolled it to the bedside. See what they have done, my father! See!

Villefort drew back, astonished to hear this stranger call Noirtier his father. The old man's veins swelled; the cry issued from his pores in silence.

They ask who I am, cried Morrel, seizing the paralytic's hand. Tell them I am her betrothed — my beloved, my only blessing in the world! That corpse belongs to me!

He fell on his knees. Villefort spoke at last of a priest and farewell.

You are mistaken, Morrel cried. Valentine requires not only a priest but an avenger. You, M. de Villefort, send for the priest; I will be the avenger. Valentine has been assassinated! Her life was attempted by poison four days ago, and escaped by Noirtier's precautions; the dose has been doubled and the poison changed. And you know it, for d'Avrigny has forewarned you. — Oh, you rave, sir! — I appeal to M. d'Avrigny — ask him of the words he uttered in the garden the night of Madame de Saint-Méran's death. They fell into my ears. If thy father abandon thee, Valentine, it is I that shall pursue the assassin!

His voice broke; he threw himself weeping beside the bed. D'Avrigny at last spoke. I unite with M. Morrel in demanding justice. My blood boils at having encouraged a murderer by my cowardly concession.

Noirtier's eyes gleamed. He asked to be left alone with Villefort. A quarter of an hour later Villefort reappeared, livid, fingers shredding a torn quill.

Gentlemen, give me your word of honour that this horrible secret shall for ever remain buried amongst ourselves. My father thirsts for revenge as much as you, yet he too conjures you to keep the secret. Within three days my revenge for the murder of my child shall make the boldest heart tremble.

Noirtier closed his eyes: Yes. D'Avrigny murmured assent. Morrel pressed his lips upon Valentine's cold mouth and fled. The servants had all gone; Villefort sent d'Avrigny to summon the nearest priest. The district doctor, who came to certify death, mentioned a good Italian abbé lodging next door.

They found him on the threshold, already expecting them. I was about to offer myself, sir; it is our mission to forestall our duties. I have already prayed for the young girl; her name, I know, is Valentine.

D'Avrigny led him into the house and presented him to Noirtier, whose eyes rested on the abbé with a curious recognition. When d'Avrigny had gone, the priest rose and carefully bolted both the door the doctor had left by and the one leading to Madame de Villefort's room.

Chapter 104 — Danglars' Signature

The morning dawned dull and cloudy. The undertakers had wrapped the corpse in its cambric sheet. Noirtier had slept almost smiling in his armchair; d'Avrigny said grief had stunned him. Villefort had not slept at all, filling his desk with the accusation against Benedetto.

Work, work — my passion, my joy, my delight! he cried, grasping d'Avrigny's hand. It is for thee to alleviate my sorrows!

At eleven the mourning coaches rolled into the court. Debray, Château-Renaud and Beauchamp gathered in a little group. Poor girl, said Debray, so young, so rich, so beautiful. I am seeking the Count of Monte Cristo. — I met him on the boulevard, replied Beauchamp; he was going to his banker.

At that very hour the count was at the house of Danglars, who met him with an affable, sad smile. Misfortune has taken possession of my house. Morcerf dishonoured and dead; the puritanical procureur who has lost his daughter; myself covered with ridicule through Benedetto; and my daughter Eugénie has left us. — Still, baron, said Monte Cristo, family griefs are not the worst that may befall a millionaire. — Yes; I am rich. — So rich, dear sir, that your fortune resembles the pyramids; if you wished to demolish them you could not, and if you could, you would not dare.

Danglars smiled. That reminds me: when you came in I was about to sign five little bonds. Each was an order on the Bank of France for a million francs, payable to bearer. One, two, three, four, five — five millions — why, what a Crœsus you are! — This is how I transact business. — It is really wonderful, said the count, above all if payable at sight. I will make the experiment myself. I am credited on you for six millions; I have drawn nine hundred thousand; you still owe me five millions and a hundred thousand francs. I will take these five bonds, and here is a receipt in full. I had prepared it beforehand, for I am much in want of money today.

He placed the bonds in his pocket and held the receipt out with the other hand. If a thunderbolt had fallen at his feet Danglars could not have shown greater terror. But — I owe this money to the charity fund! — Oh, well then, pay me differently. And he held the bonds back out.

Danglars seized them like a vulture, then a smile widened his troubled features. Certainly, he said, your receipt is money. He could refuse no longer without confessing himself broken.

Then I may keep this money? — Yes, Danglars gasped, the perspiration starting; yes, keep it — keep it.

The count replaced the notes with an expression that seemed to say, If you repent, there is still time. But Danglars laughed nervously and waved off the bonds. The count bowed and turned to leave. At that moment the valet announced: M. de Boville, Receiver-General of the Charities.

Ma foi, said Monte Cristo, I arrived just in time to obtain your signatures, or they would have been disputed with me.

Danglars paled and hurried the count out. To Boville he explained airily that M. de Monte Cristo had just carried off the five millions on an unlimited credit; drawing ten millions on the same day would look strange at the bank, but two days would be a different thing. The receipt — which Danglars displayed with carelessness — was as good as money. Boville, half incredulous, agreed to return at noon tomorrow. Danglars, to save face after Boville's words of sympathy, volunteered the story that poor Eugénie had retired into a convent.

The door had barely closed when the banker, with the energy of Robert Macaire, exclaimed: Fool! and added, placing the count's receipt in his pocket-book, Yes, come at twelve o'clock; I shall then be far away.

He double-locked his door, gathered about fifty thousand francs in notes, burned some papers, began a letter To Madame la Baronne Danglars — I will place it on her table myself tonight — and drew a passport from his drawer. Good; it is available for two months longer.

Chapter 105 — The Cemetery of Père-Lachaise

The weather was cold and dull. The procession wound from the Faubourg Saint-Honoré to Père-Lachaise, where Villefort had purchased a vault inscribed The families of Saint-Méran and Villefort. Fifty private carriages followed the mourning-coaches; five hundred more walked behind on foot — all the young men whom Valentine's death had struck like a thunderbolt.

As they neared the gates, Monte Cristo's equipage drew up; the count alighted and mingled with the crowd. His piercing eye searched until, at last, among the yews, he caught the shadow he sought — Morrel, with coat buttoned to the throat, livid, leaning against a tree above the mausoleum. The count barely heard the eulogies; he saw nothing but Maximilian's dreadful calm.

When the crowd dispersed, Morrel knelt beside the stone and murmured: Oh, Valentine! Monte Cristo laid a hand on his shoulder. I was looking for you, my friend. Morrel turned calmly: You see I was praying.

Morrel refused a carriage and walked slowly to the Rue Meslay, crossing the canal and threading the boulevards with the count following a hundred paces behind. Five minutes after Morrel entered, Monte Cristo was at the door. Julie greeted him with delight; he begged leave to go up at once.

The door of Maximilian's room was panelled with glass, but a red curtain hung across it. All was still within. The count hesitated — then struck the glass with his elbow, shivering it to atoms, and pushed through. Morrel had leaped up from his desk. Pistols lay beside an unfinished letter.

My friend, my dear Maximilian, do not make a hasty resolution! — Is there anything extraordinary in a journey? Morrel shrugged. — Let us both lay aside the mask. You are going to destroy yourself. The count took the letter from beneath its covering sheet and read it in spite of Morrel's attempt to snatch it back.

Well, and if I do? cried Morrel. My hopes are blighted, my heart broken. Who shall prevent me? — I, said the count. Listen: I am the only man in the world having the right to say to you, Morrel, your father's son shall not die today. I am he who saved your father's life when he wished to destroy himself as you do today; I am he who sent the purse to your young sister and the Pharaon to old Morrel; I am the Edmond Dantès who nursed you, a child, on my knees.

Morrel staggered, crushed, and fell at his feet. Then he rushed to the landing and cried — Julie! Emmanuel! On your knees — he is our benefactor — the saviour of our father! The count stopped him before he could add the name. Julie threw herself into his arms, Emmanuel embraced him as a guardian angel. The iron-hearted man wept. Julie ran to fetch the red silken purse from beneath its crystal globe.

Alone with Morrel again, the count spoke of his own despair in the dungeon of the Château d'If, of old Morrel with the pistol at his head, of how an hour could change a man's heart. Morrel answered only that to possess Valentine would have been too infinite a happiness for this world, and that without her the earth was desolate.

Hope, said the count. — Have a care, count; if you persuade me I shall lose my reason, for I should hope to see Valentine again. — After today you must live with me; in a week we shall have left France. If I do not cure you in a month, to the day, to the very hour, I will place before you loaded pistols and a cup of the deadliest Italian poison — a poison more sure and prompt than that which killed Valentine. — You swear it? — I swear it — in a month, to the hour. And mark, Maximilian, the date is sacred; this is the 5th of September; it is ten years today since I saved your father's life.

Morrel seized his hand and kissed it. I also swear not to attempt my life before that day. — And now you will come and live with me. You can occupy Haydée's apartment, and my daughter shall be replaced by my son. — Haydée? said Morrel. — She departed last night — to wait for me.

Maximilian bowed his head and obeyed with childlike reverence.

Chapter 106 — Dividing the Proceeds

In a discreet apartment in the Rue Saint-Germain-des-Prés a mysterious lodger let himself in each day at four; twenty minutes later a veiled lady would follow with a particular tap at his door. The concierges had never clearly seen either face. On the morning after Monte Cristo's call, the lodger came at ten; a cab arrived almost at once, and the lady rushed up the stairs.

Oh, Lucien — oh, my friend! she cried. The concierge heard the lodger's name for the first time. What is the matter? — A great event. M. Danglars left last night. She drew a letter from her pocket.

Madame and most faithful wife, Debray read, when you receive this, you will no longer have a husband. I shall be travelling on one of the thirty or forty roads leading out of France. I received this morning five millions which I paid away; almost immediately another demand for the same sum was presented to me. I put this creditor off till tomorrow, and I intend leaving today to escape that tomorrow. You were rich when I married you, but little respected; I leave you, therefore, as I took you — rich, but little respected. Adieu. — Baron Danglars.

Debray folded the letter. It inspires me with the idea that M. Danglars has left suspiciously. — What do you advise? — I would recommend you to travel. Let the world believe you poor; give up your jewels and jointure, and your disinterestedness will be praised.

With the calm of a stockbroker he drew papers from his pocket-book — the accounts of their six-month partnership: her hundred thousand francs invested in April, 2,400,000 made and divided — 1,200,000 to each, plus interest. From a chest he himself had hidden beneath a closet he lifted out eight hundred thousand-franc notes, a certificate in the funds, and a check, and laid them before her. She took them with tearless eyes, heaving breast, and waited for one kind word of consolation. She waited in vain.

You have a splendid fortune, madame, he said with a bow. Should you need more, make use of mine. — Thank you, sir. You forget that what you have just paid me is more than a poor woman requires who intends to retire from the world.

At his careless bow she raised her head, and without passion or hesitation ran downstairs, disdaining to address a last farewell to one who could thus part from her.

Bah, said Debray when she was gone, she will stay at home, read novels, and speculate at cards, since she can no longer speculate on the Bourse. I have 1,060,000 francs remaining. What a pity Mademoiselle de Villefort is dead; she suited me in every respect, and I would have married her.

In the room above, Mercédès and Albert, unaware that on those same stairs their fates intersected the Danglars', were counting their riches. The walls were hung with gray economical paper, the floor uncarpeted. Mercédès, fallen from her palace, looked like a queen in a hovel. It was not want of comfort that oppressed her — it was the silence, and the watchful eyes of her son.

Mother, said Albert, let us reckon our riches. I want capital to build my plans upon. — Capital — nothing, replied Mercédès with a sad smile. — No — three thousand francs, buried in the garden of the little house at Marseilles in the Allées de Meilhan. Two hundred francs will take us there. He had sold his watch for a hundred francs, the guard and seals for three hundred. And this, he added, drawing out a thousand-franc note. — But whence? — Listen, mother, and do not yield to agitation. It is decided that you are to live at Marseilles, while I leave for Africa, where I will earn the right to use the name I now bear. I yesterday engaged myself as substitute in the Spahis. I sold myself for two thousand francs; these are half. — The price of his blood! she murmured. — Only if I am killed! Think of your joy when you see me return in an embroidered uniform.

He laid out his plans with soldierly firmness: he would tell his gloomy story to the governor of Algeria, and in six months be either an officer or dead. Let us prove to those who are watching our actions that we are worthy of compassion, Mercédès said at last.

They descended the stairs. Someone walking before them turned at the rustling of her dress — Debray. Morcerf! he exclaimed. — Mother, this is M. Debray, once a friend of mine. — How once? — I have no friends now, and I ought not to have any. Debray pressed his hand warmly. He was mortified by the million in his pocket and by the parallel between the two women who had that day descended the same stairs — one rich and dishonoured with fifteen hundred thousand francs under her cloak, the other unjustly stricken but sublime with a few deniers. He hurried away, muttering civilities. That same evening he was the possessor of a fine house on the Boulevard de la Madeleine and an income of fifty thousand livres.

The next day, about five, Mercédès embraced her son and stepped into the coupé of the diligence. Behind one of the little arched windows of Lafitte's banking-house, a man watched her carriage depart and Albert turn back alone. He passed his hand across a clouded forehead.

Alas, he exclaimed, how can I restore the happiness I have taken away from these poor innocent creatures? God help me!

Chapter 107 — The Lions' Den

One quarter of La Force, where the most dangerous prisoners are kept, is called the court of Saint-Bernard — or, in the tongue of the inmates, the Lions' Den. Into this dismal place Benedetto had been thrown, and he bore it with the elegance of a prince in disgrace. He brushed his fine coat and polished his varnished boots with a cambric handkerchief embroidered with a coroneted monogram.

See, the prince is pluming himself, said one of the thieves.

Andrea approached the wicket. Come, sir, he said to the keeper, lend me twenty francs, that I may buy a dressing-gown. Remember, I have relations who possess more millions than you have deniers. And what a coat, sir, for a prince of the Cavalcanti!

The keeper shrugged. Andrea, stung, replied that he was no comrade of thieves, and for a moment a storm gathered about him. Some screamed La savate!, others proposed the anguille. But Andrea turned, winked, rolled his tongue against his cheek, and smacked his lips in a Masonic sign Caderousse had taught him. The thieves dropped the iron-heeled shoe and the sand-filled handkerchief; the storm subsided.

At that moment a voice at the wicket called, Benedetto! To the visitors' room.

Andrea glided out, his heart leaping. It was too soon for the magistrate; it must be the protector he awaited. Everything, he told himself, proves me to be under some powerful hand. The hand which has retreated will be stretched forth again.

But behind the grating was the dark, intelligent face of Bertuccio.

Good morning, Benedetto, said the steward in his deep, hollow voice. — You — you? murmured Andrea. Bertuccio showed the jailer an order from the governor, and they were led to a whitewashed room.

You have continued your course of villainy, said Bertuccio. You have robbed; you have assassinated. — Let us dispense with useless words. Who sent you? — No one. — Let us talk of my father. In the Champs-Élysées there resides a very rich gentleman. — At whose house you robbed and murdered, did you not? The Count of Monte Cristo? — 'Tis you who have named him, as M. Racine says. Am I to rush into his arms and strain him to my heart, crying My father! like a character in a Pixérécourt melodrama? — Do not jest. Dare not to utter that name as you have pronounced it. He is too highly favoured by Heaven to be the father of such a wretch as you. Benedetto, you are fallen into terrible hands; do not play with the thunderbolt they have laid aside for a moment. — My father — I will know who my father is. I will perish if I must, but I will know it. Come, who is my father? — I came to tell you. — Ah!

Benedetto's eyes sparkled. But just then the door opened and the jailer announced that the examining magistrate was waiting.

I will return tomorrow, said Bertuccio. — Good! Gendarmes, I am at your service. — Tomorrow, then, Andrea added, as he was led to the grated vehicle they call the salad basket. — Tomorrow, replied the steward.

Chapter 108 — The Judge

Since the Abbé Busoni had prayed beside his dead grandchild, Noirtier's despair had yielded to a strange, calm resignation. Villefort, meanwhile, laboured day and night at his case against Benedetto, shutting out the world.

One afternoon he descended into the garden. Looking up, he saw Noirtier at an open window, his glance riveted with hate upon a spot beneath the linden-trees. There sat Madame de Villefort, laughing as she tossed Edward his ball. The old man's fiery eye passed from wife to husband; Villefort felt the reproach and the menace.

It is well, sir, he replied from below; have patience but one day longer; what I have said I will do.

He worked through the night to finish his indictment. Monday dawned dull; he had slept only a few minutes when the flickering lamp woke him and showed his fingers damp as if dipped in blood. Today, he murmured, the man who holds the blade of justice must strike wherever there is guilt.

The valet brought him a cup of chocolate. Who has paid me this attention? — My mistress, sir. She said you would have to speak a great deal in the murder case, and should take something to keep up your strength.

Villefort looked at the cup, then swallowed it at a draught, as though hoping it might be mortal. It was inoffensive. He sent word that he would see madame before leaving, and that she was to wait in her room. Then he dressed in black and crossed the landing.

Ah, here you are, monsieur! she said, turning over pamphlets which Edward was tearing at her feet. Will you take me with you, or shall I take Edward? — Edward, said Villefort with a startling sternness, go and play in the drawing-room. The child hesitated, then obeyed. Villefort shut the door and bolted it.

What is the matter? — Madame, where do you keep the poison you generally use?

A hoarse sound escaped her as she rose from the sofa, then fell back deadly pale. Monsieur, I do not understand you. — I asked you, continued Villefort in a perfectly calm tone, where you conceal the poison by the aid of which you have killed my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, Barrois, and my daughter Valentine. — Is it to the judge or to the husband? — To the judge, madame!

He enumerated his proofs — d'Avrigny's warnings, his own suspicions first fixed on an angel, then made certain by Valentine's death.

Are you, then, a coward? he cried. You, who had courage to witness the death of two old men and a young girl — have you forgotten to calculate where these revelations would lead you? You must have saved some surer poison to escape the scaffold.

But he would not see her dishonoured on the scaffold; he would not let her soil an unblemished name.

What I require is that justice be done. I am on the earth to punish. Any other woman, were it the queen, I would send to the executioner; but to you I shall be merciful. Have you not, madame, put aside some of the surest, deadliest, most speedy poison?

She threw herself at his feet. Pardon me, sir; let me live! Reflect that I am your wife — in the name of the love you once bore me — in the name of our child! — No, no! If I allow you to live, one day you will perhaps kill him as you have killed the others! — I? I kill my son? And a frightful, demoniac laugh finished the sentence in a hoarse rattle.

He stepped toward the door. I am going down to pronounce the sentence of death against a murderer. If I find you alive on my return, you shall sleep tonight in the Conciergerie. Farewell, madame, farewell.

That farewell struck her like the executioner's knife. She fainted. Villefort went out, and double-locked the door behind him.

Chapter 109 — The Assizes

The Benedetto affair had produced a tremendous sensation. The papers had traced the false Cavalcanti from the galleys to the salons. From seven o'clock a crowd stood at the iron gates, and by the appointed hour the hall resembled a drawing-room where the privileged gossiped across the benches.

Beauchamp, Debray and Château-Renaud had persuaded a sergeant to give them places in front.

He will be condemned, will he not? — The president told me something that will surprise you, said Debray. He says Benedetto, thought a serpent of subtlety, is really a commonplace, silly rascal.

Beauchamp fixed his monocle. Stay — surely I am not deceived. It is she! — Mademoiselle Eugénie? — No, her mother. Only ten days after her daughter's flight, three from the bankruptcy of her husband. Debray coloured and turned away.

Talk drifted to the strange mortality at the procureur's house.

Do you know, said Beauchamp, why they die so multitudinously at M. de Villefort's? Because there is an assassin there. — And who is the assassin? — Young Edward! The infant phenomenon, quite an adept in the art of killing. My new servant, lately of that house, tells me the dear child has obtained a bottle of elixir from his mother's laboratory — three drops for Saint-Méran, three for his wife, three for Barrois, three for Valentine of whom he was jealous.

Château-Renaud laughed, Debray pronounced it absurd, but none quite dismissed the story. Monte Cristo, they noticed, was absent — Beauchamp explained that he could not well appear, being himself an actor in the drama: it was leaving his house that Caderousse had been murdered, and the bloody waistcoat with the letter stopping the marriage contract lay on the prosecutor's desk as an exhibit. As for Morrel, Château-Renaud had called three times without seeing him.

The sergeant coughed; a noise was heard; the door-keeper called out, in that shrill voice peculiar to his order ever since Beaumarchais: The court, gentlemen!

Chapter 110 — The Indictment

The judges took their seats in profound silence. Villefort, grave as marble, cast a tranquil glance around him. Bring in the accused.

Benedetto entered, hands steady, eye brilliant. He rested his gaze on the king's attorney. The indictment — polished by Villefort's pen — was long; the accused bore it with Spartan unconcern.

Your name and surname? asked the president. — Excuse me, Mr President; I cannot follow your course of questions. Allow me to answer in a different order. — Your age? — Twenty-one, born on the night of the 27th of September, 1817. Villefort raised his head. — Where were you born? — At Auteuil, near Paris. Villefort looked at him as though gazing upon the head of Medusa, and became livid. — Your profession? — First I was a forger; then a thief; and lately an assassin.

A storm of indignation broke from the assembly.

Will you consent to tell your name? — I cannot tell you my name, since I do not know it; but I know my father's, and can tell it to you. My father is king's attorney, he added calmly. He is named Villefort.

The restrained explosion burst forth like thunder. A lady in a veil fainted in the crowd and was carried out.

Gentlemen, Andrea went on, I owe you the proofs. I was born at No. 28, Rue de la Fontaine, in a room hung with red damask; my father took me from my mother, telling her I was dead, wrapped me in a napkin marked H and N, and carried me into the garden, where he buried me alive. A man who had sworn vengeance against him followed him there, stabbed him, and — thinking he had unearthed a treasure — found me still living. He carried me to the foundling asylum, where I was registered under number 37. Three months later a woman from Rogliano claimed me as her son. — But your mother? — My mother thought me dead; she is not guilty.

From the crowd a piercing cry broke out; the veiled lady fell into hysterics, her veil dropped, and Madame Danglars was recognized.

The proofs! said the president. — The proofs? Benedetto laughed. Well, then — look at M. de Villefort, and then ask me for proofs.

Every eye turned on the procureur. He advanced, staggering, hair dishevelled, cheeks indented with the marks of his nails.

Father, said Benedetto, do you wish me to give the proofs? — No, no, it is useless. I feel it impossible to struggle against this deadly weight. Gentlemen, I know I am in the hands of an avenging God! We need no proofs; everything relating to this young man is true. I acknowledge myself guilty, and from this hour hold myself under the authority of the procureur who will succeed me.

He staggered to the door.

Let them now say that drama is unnatural! whispered Beauchamp. — Ma foi, said Château-Renaud, a pistol-shot is delightful compared with this. — The sitting is adjourned, said the president. — There will be extenuating circumstances, the sergeant whispered, pocketing Debray's louis.

Chapter 111 — Expiation

Villefort left the Palais in stupor. He tore off his robe as a garb of Nessus and threw himself into his carriage.

Turning on the cushions, he felt a fan his wife had left behind. The recollection darted through him like lightning. He had condemned her to death; at this moment she might be preparing to die. That woman became criminal only from associating with me! I carried the infection of crime as a plague. She must live — we will flee from Paris. Faster, faster!

He leaped out. Her inner door was bolted; he burst it. Madame de Villefort stood at the threshold of the boudoir, pale, eyes glaring.

It is done, monsieur. She fell her whole length on the floor. Her hand clasped a crystal bottle. She was dead.

My son! Edward! A servant said madame had sent for the child half an hour before. Villefort stepped over the corpse into the boudoir. Edward lay upon the blue satin couch with his head on a cushion — and for one ray of an instant a wild hope sprang in the father's heart that the boy was only sleeping, that he had only to lift him in his arms and flee. He stooped, gathered him up — and felt the icy limbs and the still heart. A folded paper slipped from the dead child's breast and fell at his feet. He caught it up:

You know that I was a good mother, since it was for my son's sake I became criminal. A good mother cannot depart without her son.

Still the hand of God!

He staggered down to Noirtier's room, longing for someone beside whom to weep. There stood the Abbé Busoni, cold and calm.

You here, sir! Do you never appear but as an escort to death? — I came to pray over your daughter. Now I come to tell you that you have sufficiently repaid your debt. — That is not the voice of the Abbé Busoni!

The priest threw off his wig; his black hair fell about a manly face. It is the face of the Count of Monte Cristo! — You must go farther back. You heard that voice twenty-three years ago, the day of your marriage. You condemned me to a horrible death; you killed my father; you deprived me of liberty and happiness. I am Edmond Dantès! — Edmond Dantès! cried Villefort, seizing him by the wrist. Then come here!

He dragged Monte Cristo upstairs and threw open the door upon the bodies of wife and child. There! See, are you well avenged?

The count grew pale. He felt he had passed beyond the bounds of vengeance; he could no longer say, God is for and with me. In anguish he caught up the child and rushed into Valentine's chamber. Villefort's reason gave way; he laughed a terrible laugh and rushed downstairs.

A quarter of an hour later the count reappeared and laid the child beside its mother. A servant pointed him to the garden. There, with a spade, Villefort was digging the earth with fury.

It is not here! he cried. It is not here! And he moved farther on and dug again.

Sir, said Monte Cristo humbly, you have indeed lost a son; but —

Villefort did not hear. I will find it! Though I dig for ever! — He is mad, murmured the count. And, as though fearing the walls would crumble around him, he rushed into the street, for the first time doubting whether he had done right. Let me save the last!

At his own house he met Morrel wandering like a ghost.

Prepare yourself, Maximilian; we leave Paris tomorrow. — Have you nothing more to do there? — No; God grant I may not have done too much already.

The next day they left, accompanied only by Baptistin. Haydée had taken Ali, and Bertuccio remained with Noirtier.

Chapter 112 — The Departure

All Paris was talking of the three catastrophes — Morcerf, Danglars, Villefort. In their rooms in the Rue Meslay, Julie and Emmanuel spoke of them with wonder while Maximilian sat near in apathy. The doorbell rang, and Monte Cristo appeared on the threshold.

Maximilian, I come to seek you. Did I not tell you yesterday to prepare for departure? — I am ready. I came to wish them farewell. — Whither are you going, count? asked Julie. — To Marseilles. And I take your brother with me.

Julie pressed for an hour's delay; the count refused. His carriage was at the door, and he must be in Rome in five days. He took her hands in his, and told her the gratitude of her heart was fully understood by his own.

Do not forget me, my kind friends, for probably you will never see me again. — Never see you again? cried Emmanuel. It is some angel that leaves us. — Say not so. I am but a man.

Julie whispered as she released his hand: Restore my brother to peace and happiness. He pressed her hand as he had done eleven years before on the staircase of old Morrel's study. Do you still confide in Sinbad the Sailor? — Oh, yes. — Sleep in peace, and put your trust in the Lord.

Half an hour later the carriage stopped on the height of Villejuif. Paris lay below like a sombre sea tossing its phosphoric waves into light. Monte Cristo descended, folded his arms, and gazed upon the great city.

Great city, he murmured, less than six months have elapsed since first I entered thy gates. I believe the Spirit of God led my steps to thee and enables me to quit thee in triumph. I have dug deep into thy entrails to root out evil thence. Now my work is accomplished. Adieu, Paris, adieu!

For ten leagues neither traveller spoke.

Morrel, do you repent having followed me? — Valentine reposes within the walls of Paris, and to leave Paris is to lose her a second time. — The friends we have lost do not repose in the bosom of the earth, Maximilian, but are buried deep in our hearts.

At Châlons the count's steamboat was waiting, swift as a bird on its paddle-wheels. As the distance between them and Paris grew, a superhuman serenity settled upon him; he might have been an exile revisiting his native land. Marseilles rose before them, white and fervid — the younger sister of Tyre and Carthage — and they stopped by common consent on the Canebière. A vessel was setting sail for Algiers.

Here, said Morrel, is where my father stopped when the Pharaon entered the port; here the good old man threw himself into my arms. I yet feel his warm tears on my face. — I was there, said Monte Cristo, pointing to the corner of a street. A groan of grief rose from that very direction, and a woman was seen waving her hand to a passenger on the vessel about to sail. Monte Cristo looked at her with emotion.

Oh, heavens! cried Morrel. That young man in the uniform of a lieutenant — is Albert de Morcerf! — Yes, said Monte Cristo; I recognized him.

He turned again toward the veiled woman, who vanished at the corner. Dear Maximilian, have you nothing to do in this land? — I have to weep over my father's grave. — Go; wait for me there. I also have a pious visit to pay.

The count walked slowly to the Allées de Meilhan, to a little house beneath an avenue of lime-trees — the house old Dantès had lived in, now placed at Mercédès's disposal. He knew the worn stones, the great-headed nail by which to raise the latch. Beyond a brick-paved passage lay a little garden bathed in sunshine. Under an arbor of jessamine sat Mercédès, her face hidden in her hands, giving free scope to the tears she had long restrained before her son. She raised her head and uttered a cry.

Madame, said the count, it is no longer in my power to restore you to happiness, but I offer you consolation. — Alone in the world, I had but my son, and he has left me. — He has acted rightly. You may confide the future to safe hands. — Hate you, blame you — you, Edmond, who spared my son's life? It is myself that I blame, myself that I hate! I once possessed piety, innocence, and love, the three ingredients of the happiness of angels. Now what am I? Misfortune has silvered my hair. You, Edmond, are still young, because you have had faith; I denied God, and he has abandoned me. — You judge yourself too severely, he said. I was but an agent, led on by an invisible Deity. God needed me, and I lived. The most dreadful sufferings formed the trials of my youth, until suddenly I was restored to light and liberty. I felt myself driven on like an exterminating angel. I taught my arm to slay. I launched into the path opened to me, and reached the goal; but woe to those who stood in my pathway. — Enough, Edmond. She who alone recognized you has been the only one to comprehend you. But we must part. I desire but one thing — the happiness of my son. — Pray to the Almighty to spare his life, and I will promote his happiness.

The little sum he had buried would maintain her, she said; she would spend her days in prayer. She would take nothing further; her son would not permit it.

Will you not even say you will see me again? — On the contrary, we shall meet again, said Mercédès, pointing upward.

She pressed his hand, rushed up the stairs, and disappeared. Mercédès did not witness his departure, though she was seated at the little window of old Dantès' garret, her eyes straining after the ship that carried her son. Still her lips murmured softly: Edmond, Edmond, Edmond!

Chapter 113 — The Past

Since Edward's death a great change had come over Monte Cristo. Having reached the summit of his vengeance by a long, tortuous path, he saw an abyss of doubt yawning before him.

I cannot have deceived myself, he said aloud. Can I have followed a false path? Come, then, thou regenerate man, once again review thy past life of starvation and wretchedness. Hide thy diamonds, bury thy gold, exchange riches for poverty, liberty for a prison, a living body for a corpse.

He had himself rowed to the Château d'If. As the boat approached, the clear sky disappeared from his inner eye; the fortress rose like the phantom of a mortal enemy. A concierge led him to his own dungeon. The new stones marking Faria's breach, the spot where his bed had stood — his limbs trembled.

Is there any tradition connected with this cell? — Yes, sir. A dangerous prisoner, clever and industrious, and a poor mad priest who offered millions to anyone who would free him, were confined here together. The young man made a tunnel. One day the old man died; the young one carried the corpse to his own bed and slipped into the sack himself, counting on being buried and digging his way out. But the dead at the Château d'If are not buried — they are thrown into the sea with a cannon-ball at the feet. Those who performed the office said afterward they heard a shriek. — Oh, Villefort, Villefort, this scene must often have haunted thy sleepless hours! Show me the poor abbé's room. — Ah, No. 27. — Yes; No. 27.

He refused the torch. I can see in the dark. Alone, he recognized the stone he had sat upon, the mark of his shoulders, the bloodstain where he had dashed his head against the wall, and on the opposite wall in white letters still visible: Oh, God! preserve my memory!

Oh, God, thou hast preserved it; I thank thee!

The guide returned and led him to the abbé's cell. There was the meridian Faria had drawn, and the remains of the bed on which the abbé had died. Tears fell from the count's eyes.

Have you anything left from those days? — A sort of book, written on strips of cloth. The count gave him some louis and the guide ran for it. Alone, Monte Cristo knelt.

Oh, second father, grant me some sign, some revelation. Remove from me the remains of doubt, which if it change not to conviction must become remorse.

The guide returned. Monte Cristo seized the strips — Faria's great work on the kingdoms of Italy — and his eye fell on the epigraph:

Thou shalt tear out the dragons' teeth, and shall trample the lions under foot, saith the Lord.

Here is my answer. Thanks, father, thanks. He slipped a pocket-book of ten thousand francs into the guide's hand. Do not open it till I am gone.

Back in the boat, he fixed his eyes on the gloomy prison. Woe to those who confined me here, and woe to those who forgot I was there!

As he repassed the Catalans he buried his head in his cloak and murmured a name — Haydée — in a voice amounting almost to love.

He landed and went to the cemetery. Old Morrel lay beside his wife beneath two slabs of marble. Maximilian was leaning against one, half-unconscious with grief.

Maximilian, you should not look on the graves, but there, said the count, pointing upward. You asked to remain some days at Marseilles. Do you still wish it? — I fancy I could pass the time less painfully here. — I must leave you; but I carry your word. I have known a man more unfortunate than you. He was about to marry when fate cast him into a dungeon — where he remained fourteen years. Maximilian shuddered. At the height of his despair God assisted him. One day he miraculously left the prison, transformed, rich, powerful. His first cry was for his father — but his father was dead. — My father too is dead. — Yes, but yours died in your arms, full of years. His died poor, despairing; and when the son sought his grave ten years later, no one could say, There sleeps the father you so well loved. — And the woman? — Dead. Worse than dead — she had been unfaithful, and had married one of his persecutors. — And has he found consolation? — He has at least found peace.

Morrel's head fell on his breast. You have my promise. Only remember — — On the 5th of October, Morrel, I shall expect you at the Island of Monte Cristo. On the 4th a yacht called the Eurus will wait for you at Bastia. Farewell.

Morrel accompanied him to the harbour. A plume of white steam rose from the black chimney, and in an hour the steamer was scarcely distinguishable in the fogs of the night.

Chapter 114 — Peppino

At the moment the count's steamer disappeared behind Cape Morgiou, a Frenchman was travelling post from Florence to Rome. The ribbon of the Legion of Honor was fresh upon his surtout; he knew no Italian beyond the terms of music — Allegro! at every ascent, Moderato! at every descent. At La Storta he drew a paper from his pocket, examined it reverently: Good! I have it still!

The carriage stopped at the Hôtel d'Espagne, where old Pastrini received him hat in hand. He ordered dinner and asked the way to Thomson & French. As he left, a man detached himself from the idlers at the door and followed. At the bank the clerk rose.

Whom shall I announce? — Baron Danglars.

The man who had followed sat down on a bench. Five minutes passed; the clerk looked up. Ah ha, here you are, Peppino! — Yes; you have found out there is something worth having about this large gentleman? — We were informed of it. The clerk vanished through an inner door and returned beaming. The sum is large — five millions, on the receipt of the Count of Monte Cristo. — Then why apply to me? — That I may be sure I have the right man.

Danglars emerged radiant. Peppino followed him, whispered to an urchin who ran toward the Capitol, then stationed himself outside the hotel. The next day Danglars ordered post-horses and rolled out of Rome by the Ancona road, intending to draw his fortune at Venice and then settle in Vienna.

By dusk the night was cold, dull, and rainy; the postilion answered every question with Non capisco, and Danglars dozed.

The carriage stopped. He saw only a ruin and shadows moving like ghosts. The horses were changed without anyone demanding payment; he tried to open the door and a strong hand pushed him back. The carriage rolled on.

Eh, mio caro? he cried. — Dentro la testa! answered a solemn voice — Put in your head!

A man in a cloak galloped on one side, a second on the other. The moon rose, and Danglars saw the aqueducts now on the left, where they had been on the right: they had turned and were bringing him back to Rome. He remembered Albert de Morcerf's story of the Roman bandits. They are robbers! His hair stood on end.

The carriage rolled onto the harder surface of the Appian Way. To the left lay the circular excavation of Caracalla's circus. The carriage stopped.

Scendi!

Four men surrounded him. Di quà, said one, leading him down a narrow path. Then: Avanti! A rude push sent him against his guide, who was Peppino. Peppino dashed into a thicket and vanished into a rock half open beneath thick hedges. Danglars, despite his stomach, slid after him, fell upon his feet, and opened his eyes.

Torchlight revealed a wide dark passage lined with sepulchres hollowed one above another, their black mouths staring like dead eyes. A sentinel struck his carbine rings. Who comes there? — A friend! said Peppino. Where is the captain? — There. — Fine spoil, captain, fine spoil!

Peppino dragged Danglars before the chief, who sat reading Plutarch's Life of Alexander.

Is this the man? — Himself. — Show him to me. Peppino raised the torch; Danglars' face was pale and hideous with terror. The man is tired; conduct him to his bed.

He was led to a small cell cut in the rock, with a bed of dried grass covered with goat-skins in the corner. Oh, God be praised, a real bed! It was the second time in an hour he had named God; he had not done so in ten years. A bolt grated; he was a prisoner.

He had recognized Luigi Vampa — the bandit whose existence he had doubted when Morcerf told his Roman adventures — and the very cell in which Albert had been confined. This comforted him: since they had not killed him, they would ransom him. Morcerf had been taxed at four thousand crowns, and Danglars considered himself of greater importance. He fixed his own at eight thousand — a trifle against his five million. Reassured, he fell asleep as tranquilly as the hero whose life Vampa was studying.

Chapter 115 — Luigi Vampa's Bill of Fare

Danglars awoke. The whitewashed cell seemed a disagreeable dream. He felt himself, fearing wounds; he felt his pockets, fearing robbery; but his hundred louis and his letter of credit for 5,050,000 francs were untouched.

Singular bandits! he thought. They intend me to be ransomed.

At twelve his sentinel was replaced by a gigantic red-haired bandit, who devoured black bread, cheese, and onions with a voracity that soon tormented Danglars' own empty stomach. Four hours later the ogre was relieved by Peppino, who set up before the door a pan of chick-peas with bacon, a basket of Velletri grapes, and a flask of Orvieto. Danglars tapped at the door.

On y va, cried Peppino. — Excuse me, sir, are they not going to give me any dinner? — Does your excellency happen to be hungry? Here you can get anything — by paying for it.

Danglars asked for a fowl. A half-naked boy appeared, bearing one in a silver dish on his head. Danglars took knife and fork, but Peppino stopped his hand.

Pardon me, excellency; people pay here before they eat.

Danglars tossed down a louis. There. — Your excellency has given me a louis on account. You now owe me 4,999 louis.

Danglars opened his enormous eyes. Very droll. But Peppino was solemn as a Quaker.

A hundred thousand francs for a fowl! — Ah, excellency, you cannot imagine how hard it is to rear fowls in these horrible caves! — Go to the devil!

The boy carried off the fowl. Danglars held out half an hour and knocked again.

I want bread. — Four thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight louis. You have paid two on account. — A hundred thousand francs for a loaf? — It signifies nothing whether you eat much or little. It is always the same price. — Are you starving me to death? — Oh no, excellency — unless you intend to commit suicide. Pay and eat. — And with what? Do you suppose I carry a hundred thousand francs in my pocket? — Your excellency has 5,050,000 in your pocket. That will be fifty fowls at a hundred thousand apiece, and half a fowl for the fifty thousand.

Danglars shuddered; the bandage fell from his eyes. If I pay, will you let me eat at my ease? — Certainly. Give me a draft for 4,998 louis on Messrs Thomson & French, and our banker shall take it.

Danglars took the pen and signed. Peppino pocketed the paper and went back to his peas.

Chapter 116 — The Pardon

Wine was twenty-five thousand francs a bottle; water, Peppino said, was even scarcer. Luigi Vampa came at last.

How much for my ransom? — Merely the five million you have. We are forbidden to shed your blood. But when your purse is empty, you must suffer hunger.

Danglars held out two days. On the third he offered a million for a meal, and after that had whatever he asked at the same fabulous prices. In twelve days he had only fifty thousand francs left — and began to hoard, no longer eating, asking only for water, refused even that. He prayed for the first time in ten years; he prayed and bargained and wept, and in his delirium an old man rose before him on a pallet, also wasting away of hunger. Who are you? he cried, and the figure made no answer. He did not yet know that the old man was the father of Edmond Dantès, who had died of starvation in the Allées de Meilhan while he himself, then a clerk in Morrel's house, was sailing the Mediterranean rich.

On the fifth day he was scarcely a man — a yellow shadow, a living corpse — and he crawled to the door.

The chief! The chief! Take my last gold — let me live! — There have been men who suffered more than you — those who died of hunger.

Danglars thought of the old man on the pallet, and struck his forehead on the ground.

Do you repent? asked a deep voice that made his hair stand on end. Behind the bandit, half lost in shadow, stood a man in a cloak. — Oh yes, I repent! — Then I forgive you. The man stepped into the light.

The Count of Monte Cristo! — You are mistaken. I am he whom you sold and dishonoured — whose father you condemned to die of hunger — whom you also condemned to starvation, and who yet forgives you. I am Edmond Dantès!

Danglars fell prostrate.

Rise. Your life is safe; the same good fortune has not happened to your accomplices — one is mad, the other dead. Keep the fifty thousand francs. The five millions you stole from the hospitals have been restored by an unknown hand. Vampa, when this man is satisfied, let him be free.

Vampa set him on the road at nightfall. At dawn, thirsty, Danglars stooped over a stream — and saw that his hair had become entirely white.

Chapter 117 — The Fifth of October

An opal light descended on the blue ocean. A yacht glided toward a dark cone rising from the waves like the hat of a Catalan. On the prow stood a tall man of dark complexion.

Is that Monte Cristo? — Yes, your excellency; we have reached it. — Yes; that is the haven, he repeated sadly.

Morrel fired in the air and waded to land. A hand rested on his shoulder: Good evening, Maximilian; you are punctual.

Inside the grotto: Count, here you laugh. — I forgot that all happiness is fleeting. Do you still feel the devouring thirst that can be quenched only in the grave? — I come to die in the arms of a friend. Today is the fifth of October. He drew his watch. I have yet three hours to live. — Be it so; come.

He led him into the marvellous dining-room where statues bore baskets of fruit.

Is it painful to die? — According to the care we bestow on it, death is a friend who rocks us gently, or an enemy who drags the soul from the body. I have descended from a planet called grief, he added with his finest smile. — Now I understand why you brought me here — because you loved me enough to give me a death without agony, that lets me fade pronouncing Valentine's name. — Do you regret nothing? asked the count. Not even me?

A tear rolled down his cheek, and the count's old doubt returned.

Maximilian, I regard you as my son. I possess nearly a hundred millions — I give them to you. Be even criminal — but live. — Count, I have your word. It is half-past eleven. Let me go, or I shall think you loved me not for my own sake but for yours. — It is well. A miracle alone can cure you.

He unlocked a cabinet, took out a silver casket, and from it a golden box. With a gilt spoon he offered Morrel a portion of a greenish substance. This is what you asked for.

Morrel pressed his hand and swallowed. Ali brought pipes and coffee and vanished. The lamps faded. The count seemed to grow nearly double his usual height against the red tapestry, in the attitude of an avenging angel. A delicious torpor spread through Maximilian's veins.

Friend, I feel I am dying; thanks!

Through his closing lashes he saw a door open and, on the threshold, a woman of marvellous beauty, pale and sweetly smiling — an angel of mercy beseeching the angel of vengeance. That angel resembles the one I have lost. Valentine, Valentine! — He is calling you, said the count. Happily, I vanquished death. Without me, you would both have died. May God accept my atonement.

Valentine kissed his hand. Ask Haydée — who has caused me to wait patiently for this day while talking to me of you. — Valentine, I have a favour. Let Haydée become your sister indeed. Protect her, for henceforth she will be alone in the world. — Alone in the world! Haydée stood pale. And why? — Tomorrow you will be free. Daughter of a prince, I restore to you the name and riches of your father. — Then you leave me, my lord? It is well. She stepped back.

Do you not see how she suffers? cried Valentine. — He is my master and I am his slave, said Haydée; he has the right to notice nothing.

The count shuddered. He laid his hand upon her shoulder, and in his face a long-suppressed tenderness broke at last. Haydée, he said very low, would it please you not to leave me? — I love the life you have made so sweet; I should die if you left me. — Do you then love me? — Oh, Valentine, she cried, turning to her, he asks if I love him!

The count opened his arms; with a low cry she sprang into them and hid her face against his breast. I love you as one loves father, brother, husband — as my life, for you are the noblest of created beings! He held her a long moment in silence.

God has given me this reward, he said at last. I wished to punish myself, but he has pardoned me. Through you, Haydée, I again take hold upon life. Come! With his arm about her waist he pressed Valentine's hand and was gone.

An hour passed before Morrel's eyes opened.

The count has deceived me; I am yet living! He seized a knife.

Dearest, cried Valentine, awake, and look at me!

Morrel fell upon his knees as before a celestial vision.

At daybreak they walked on the seashore while Valentine told how the count had saved her by enabling her to simulate death. Jacopo awaited them with a letter:

My dear Maximilian, — A felucca will carry you to Leghorn, where Monsieur Noirtier awaits his granddaughter. All that is in this grotto, my house in the Champs-Élysées, and my château at Tréport, are the marriage gifts of Edmond Dantès to the son of his old master. I entreat Mademoiselle de Villefort to give to the poor the fortune reverting to her from her father, now a madman, and her brother who died last September with his mother. Tell the angel who will watch over your future to pray sometimes for a man who, like Satan, thought himself for an instant equal to God, but who now acknowledges that God alone possesses supreme power and infinite wisdom. There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living. Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that all human wisdom is summed up in these two words — Wait and hope. — Edmond Dantès, Count of Monte Cristo.

As she read, Valentine learned for the first time of her father's madness and her brother's death. Her happiness had cost her very dear.

But where is the count? Where is Haydée?

Jacopo pointed to the horizon — where, on the blue line dividing sky from sea, they saw a large white sail.

Gone! cried Morrel. Adieu, my friend — adieu, my father! — Gone, murmured Valentine; adieu, my sweet Haydée — adieu, my sister! — Who can say whether we shall ever see them again? — Darling, replied Valentine, has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words:

Wait and hope — Fac et spera.