I am a heritage because I brioCi you years oj tboupbt arri tbe lore of time — I Impart yet I can pot speak- I have traveled armory tbe peoples of tbe eartb -^ I am a rover^ Oft- tiroes I str^y jtorr? tbe fireside, of tbe one u;bo loves and cberisbes n?e-u;bo rr/isoes me ujber; I an? qor?e^5bould you /tn<3 | me vagrant please send rr?e home - among my brothers -on tbe book_ shelves of ALmpSANTtlL / The Count of Monte-Cristo THE COUNTOF MONTE-CRISTO ALEXANDRE DUMAS WITH NEARLY FIVE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DESIGNS BY G. STAAL, J. A. BEAUCE, AND OTHER EMINENT FRENCH ARTISTS IN FIVE VOLUMES Vol. GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS LONDON AND NEW-YORK 1888 Copyright, 1887. Bj ]o 1 ph L Blam .,.■-,<■ Stack Annex T.\ BLE OF CONTEXTS Page Chap. I. Marseilles — The Arrival 1 II. Father and Son 1:5 III. The Catalans j:j IV. Conspiracy .'J4 V. The Marriage Feast 4:! VI. The Deputy Procureur du Boi 63 VII. The Examination 75 VIII. The Chateau dTf 89 IX. The Evening of the Betrothal 1<>- X. The Small Cabinet of the Tuileries 109 XI. The Ogre of Corsica 1l!> XII. Father and Son 130 XIII. The Hundred Days 138 XIV. The Two Prisoners 14'.) XV. Number :!4 and Number 21 H\2 XVI. A Learned Italian 180 XVII. The Abbe's Chamber l!Hi XVIII. The Treasure 215 XIX. The Third Attack 230 XX. The Cemetery of the Chateau d'If i'41 XXI. The Isle of Tiboulex J4!> XXII. The Smuo< ileus 261 XXIII. The Isle of Monte-Cristo .71 XXIV. The Secret Cave 279 XXV. The Unknown 290 XXVI. The Auberge of Pont du Gard 301 XXVII. The Recital :S17 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page Dantes Cast into the Sea Frontispiece My Name is Edmund Dantes xv Edmund Dantes 3 The •• Phabaon" 5 Dantes and Morrel 7 Mercedes 9 Father and Son 15 Caderousse 17 Dantes' Father 19 Dantes and Mercedes 21 Eernand and Mercedes l'.~> Danglars 31 The Conspiracy 36 Eernand and Dantes 37 Fernand and the Letter 39 By her Side walked Daxtes' Father 45 The Marriaue Breakfast 49 The Procureur dtj Eoi 51 Eernand .">:; The Arrest of Edmond Dantes 55 What News ? 59 Mercedes and Dante's Father 61 M. de \ illefort 65 The Marquise de Saint-Meran 67 Renee de- Saint-Meran 71 The Dinxer 7:'. Villefort and Morrel 77 VlLLKFURT AND DaNTES 7!l The Isle of Elba 83 Burning the Letter The Chateau d'If ->7 Taken to the Chateau d'If 91 xii LIST OF I 1. 1. USTRA II <>\s. Page Dantks in the Di ngeon 93 The Arrival \t the Prison 99 DANTES \m> THE .1x11.1:1; 100 Villeport ami Saint-Meran 103 Mercedes usd Villeport 105 Mercedes \m> Fernand 107 B \i;<>\ D \Mii,-i: 113 King Loi is Will, &nd M. de Villeport ... 117 M. i>k Blacas 1-1 'I'm. ( \i:im it Meeting 125 Tin: King Conferring the Cross 127 Villeport \m> Eis Father 128 Noir pier 131 Tin. Changed Clothes 135 Napoleon's Return prom Elba 139 vlllefort and morre1 141 •• Be Carefi l of Yourself, for if You \kk Kjlled 1 Shall be Alone" 145 Dantes and the Inspector 153 The Akkk Paria 155 "YOU WILL NOT ACCEPT MY GOLD ; I WILL KEEP IT FOR .MlsKl.l" . 157 Examining the Register 159 Dantks Throwing his Meals into the Ska 165 Dantes \ni> the Jailer L69 The Br< iken Jug 171 Dantes Undermining the Cell 17:! Paria Enters Dantes' Cell 177 Dantes \ni> Paria isi Paria Disheartened 187 Paria Abandons Eope 189 Paria in 1 1 is Chamber 1<):J The Needle 195 Paria Cries for Kelp 209 Paria's Paralyzed Arm 213 M \rco Spada 219 Paria GrTES Dantks the Letter 223 The Cardinal's Secretary 225 Paria's Farewell to Dantes 235 Paria's Death 2:i7 Tin Death Test : . . 239 Dantes Enters the Sack 24:: Tin Sea is the Cemetery of the Chateau i>Tk 247 Tin. Paint Report of a Gun was Beard 257 Jacopo 259 Dantks VIEWS EmSELF 263 Jeune A.mkkik 2G5 The Isi.k of Monte-Cristo 269 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii Page Dantes on the Isle of Monte-Cristo 27.") The Cave at Monte-Cristo i»,Sl Blasting the Rock 2*3 Alone with the Countless, these Unheard-of Fabulous Treasures 287 Dantes Selling the Diamonds 291 Dantes' Yacht 293 Removing the Treasure 29;") Dantes Revisits His Father's Room 297 " You are Welcome, Sir," said Caderousse 299 Caderousse and His Wipe 303 The Abbe Busoni 30.") Busoni and Caderousse 307 La Carconte 309 Caderousse Tells the Story 31."> The Death of Dantes' Father 32] Fernand Enlists 325 " Suppose it is False ? " 329 Mercedes Marries Fernand 331 : THE COUNT OF MOXTE-CRISTO rilAPTEE I MARSEILLES — THE ARRIVAL N the '24th of February, 1815, the watch-tower of Notre-Dame de La Garde signaled the three-master, the Pharaon, from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples, As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and, round- ing the < Ihateau d'lf, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and the Isle of Rion. Immediately, and as usual, the platform of Fort Saint Jean was covered with lookers-on; it is always a great evenl at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharaon, had been built, rigged, and laden on the stocks of the old Phoccea, and belonged to an owner of the city. The ship drew on; she had safelypassed the straitwhich some volcanic shock has made between the Isle of < !alasareigne and the Isle of Jaros ; had doubled Poinegue, and approached the harbor under topsails, jib, and foresail, but so slowly, and in so cheerless a manner, that the idlers, with that instinct which foresees misfortune, asked one another what accident could have happened on hoard. Eowever, those experienced in navigation saw plainly that if any accident had occurred, it was no! to the Vessel herself, for she holV doWD with all the evidence of being skillfully handled, the anchor ready t<> be dropped, tl e bowsprit-shrouds loose, and beside the pilot who was steering the Pkaraon through the 2 THE col ST OF MONTE-GRISTO. narrow entrance of the porl of Marseilles, was a young man, with rapid gestures and vigilant eye, who superintended every motion of the ship, and repeated each order of the pilot. The vague disquietude which prevailed amongsl the spectators bad so much affected of the crowd on the ten-ace of Saint .lean, thai he lid nol await the arrival of the vessel in harbor, but, jumping into a small skiff, desired to be pulled alongside the Pharaon, which he readied as she rounded the creek of La Reserve. When the young sailor saw this man approach, he left his station by the pilot, and came, hat in hand, to the side of the ship's bulwarks: lie was a fine, tall, slim young fellow, of from eighteen to twenty years, with beautiful black eyes, ami hair like ebony; and his whole appearance bespoke that calmness and resolution peculiar to men accus- tomed from their cradle to contend with danger. "Ah! is it yon, Dantes?" cried the man in the skiff. "What's the matter .' and why have you such an air of sadness aboard?" " A great misfortune, M. Morrel !" replied the young man, — "a great misfortune, for me especially! off Civita Vecchia we lost our brave ( iaptain Leclere." " And the cargo?" inquired the owner, eagerly. "Is all safe, M. Morrel; and I think you will he satisfied on that head. Bu1 poor Captain Leclere " " What happened to him .'" asked the owner, with an air of consider- ate relief. " What happened to the worthy captain!" " He died." " fell into the sea?" " No, sir; he died of tlie brain-fever, in dreadful agony." Then, turning to the crew, he said: "Look out there! all ready to drop anchor!" All hands obeyed. At the same moment eight or ten seamen sprang some to the main-sheets, others to the braces, others to the halliards, others to the jib-ropes, and others to the topsail-brails. The young sailor gave a look to see that his orders were promptly and accurately obeyed, and then turned again to the owner. "Ami how did this misfortune occur.'" inquired he, resuming the conversation suspended for a moment. ■• Ala-! sir, in the most unexpected manner. After a long conver- sation with the harbor-master, Captain Leclere left Naples greatly disturbed in ins mind. At the end of twenty-four hours he was attacked by a i'cycy, and died three days afterward. We performed the usual burial service, and lie is at his rest, sewn up in his hammock with two balls of thirty-six pounds each at his head and feet, off the THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. 3 island of El Giglio. We bring to his widow his sword and cross of honor. It was worth while, truly," added the young man with a melancholy smile, "to make war against the English for ten years, and to die at last, like everybody else, in his bed." Edmonfl Dantes. "Why, you see, Edtnond," replied the owner, who appeared more comforted at every moment, "we arc all mortal, and the old must make way for the young. If not, why, there would be no promotion : and as you have assured me that the cargo " 4 Till: COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8I0. "Is all safe and sound, M. Morrel, take my word for it ; ami 1 advise you not to take 100,000 francs for the profits of the voyage." Then, as they were just passing the Round Tower, the young man shouted out : " Beady, there, t>> lower topsails, foresail, and jib ! " Tl rder was executed as promptly as if on board a man-of-war. "Lei go! and brail all!" At this last word all the sails werelowered, and the bark moved almost imperceptibly onward, advancing only under the impulse already given. " Now. if you will come on board, M. Morrel," said Dantes, observing the owner's impatience, "here is your supercargo, M. Danglars, coming out of bis cabin, who will furnish you with every particular. As for me, i must look after the anchoring, and dress the ship in mourning." Tl wnerdid no1 wail to be twice invited. He seized a rope which Dantes Hum;- to him, and, with an activity that would have done credit to a sailor, climbed up the side of the ship, whilst the young man, going to his task, left the conversation to the individual whom he had announced under the name of Danglars, who now coming out of the cabin advanced toward the owner. He was a man of twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, of unprepossessing countenance, ohseqiiious to his superiors, insolent to liis inferiors; and then, besides his position as responsible agent on hoard, which is always obnoxious to the sailors, he was as much disliked by the crew as Edmond Dantes was beloved by them. ■• Well, M. Morrel," said Danglars, "you have heard of the misfortune that has befallen us .'" "Yes — yes! poor Captain Leclere! He was a brave and an honest man !" " And a first-rate seaman, above all, grown old between sky and ocean, as should a man charged with the interests of a house so important as that of Morrel and Son," replied Danglars. "But," replied the owner, following with his look Dantes, who was watching the anchoring of his vessel, "it seems to me that a sailor ueeds not to he so old as you say, Danglars, to understand his business; for our friend Edmond there does his, it seems to me, like a man who has no I,,. ( 'd to ask instruction from any one." " Ye-.," said Danglars, casting toward Edmond a look in which a feeling of hate was strongly visible. "Yes, he is young, and youth is invariably self-confident. Scarcely was the captain's breath out of his body than he assumed the command without consulting any one, and he caused us to lose a day and a half at the Isle of Elba, instead of making for .Marseilles direct." THE (<>l XT OF MONTE-CRISTO. "As to taking the command of the vessel," replied Morrel, ''that was his duty as first mate; as to Losing a day and a half off the Lsle of Ell>a he was wrung, unless the ship wanted some repair." Thp Pharaon. "The ship was as well as I am, and as, 1 hope, yon are, M. Morrel, and this day and a half was lost from pure whim, for the pleasure of going ashore, and nothing else." "Dantes!" said the shipowner, turning toward the young man, "come this way!" <; ill i: COUNT OF MOFTE-CRISTO. " In a moment, sir," answered Dantes, "and I'm with you !" Thru, calling to t lie crew, be said, " Lei go ! " The anchor was instantly dropped, and the chain ran rattling through the port-hole. Dantes continued at his post, in spite of the presence of the pilot, until this manoeuvre was completed, and then he added: "Lower the pennant half-mast high; put the ensign in a weft, and slope the yards ! " " Ymi see," said Danglars, "he fancies himself captain already, upon my word." " And so, in fact, be is," said the owner. " Except your signature and your partner's, M. Morrel." " Ami why should lie not have this.'" asked the owner; " he is young, it is true, hut he seems to me a thorough seaman, and of full experience." A cloud passed over Danglars's brow. " Your pardon, M. Morrel," said Dantes approaching ; " the ship now rides at anchor, and I am at your service. You called me, I think ?" Danglars retreated a step or two. " I wished to impure why you stopped at the Isle of Elba." "1 do not know, sir; it was to fulfill a last instruction of Captain Leclere, who, when dying, gavemea packet for the Marechal Bertram!." "Then, did yon see him, Edmond ?" " Who!" " The marechal." "Yes." Morrel looked around him, and then, drawing Dantes on one side, be said suddenly — " And how is the Emperor ! " " Very well, as far as I could judge from my eyes." " You saw the Emperor, then :'" '• lie entered the marechal's apartment whilst I was there." "And you spoke to him .'" " Why, it was he who spoke to me, sir," said Dantes, with a smile. " And what did he say to yon '. " " A.sked me questions about the ship, — the time she left Marseilles, the course she had taken, and what was her cargo. I believe, if she had been in ballast, and I had been her master, he would have bought her. But 1 told him I was only mate, and that she belonged to the firm of Morrel and Son. 'Ah! ah !' he said, ' I knoAV them ! The Morrels have been shipowners from father to son; and there was a Morrel who served in the same regiment with me when I was in garrison a Valence.'" THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. u Pa/rdieu! and that is true!" cried the owner, greatly delighted "And that was Policar Morrel, my uncle, who was afterward a captain. Dantes, you must tell myuncle that the Emperor remembered him, and you will see it will bring tears into theold soldier's eyes. Conic, come ! " continued he, patting Edmond's shoulder kindly, "yon did very right, Dantes, to follow Captain Leclere's instruction, and touch at the Isle of Elba, although if it were known that you had conveyed a packel to the marechal, and had conversed with the Emperor, it might bring yon into trouble." 8 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. "How could that bring me into trouble, sir ?" asked Dantes; "for I did not even know of what I was the bearer; and the Emperor merely made such inquiries as he would of the first-comer. But, your pardon, here arc the officers of health and the customs coming alongside. You will excusi in "Certainly, certainly, my dear Dantes!" The young man went to the gangway, and, as he departed, Danglars approached, and said — " Well, it appears that he has given you satisfactory reasons for his landing at Porto-Ferrajo ?" " Yes, most satisfactory, my dear Danglars." "Well, so much the better," said the supercargo; "for it is always painful to sec a comrade who does not do his duty." " Dantes lias done his," replied the owner, "and there is nothing- to say ahout it. it was Captain Leclere who gave orders for this delay." "Talking of Captain Leclere, has not Dantes given you a letter from him ! " "To me :' — no — was there one '. " "1 believe that, besides the packet, Captain Leclere had confided a letter to his care." "Of what packet are you speaking, Danglars!" Why, that which Dantes left at Porto-Ferrajo." •• Dow do you know he had a packet to leave at Porto-Ferrajo ? " Danglars turned very red. "I was passing close to the dour of the captain's cabin, which was half-open, and I saw him give the packet and letter to Dantes." '"Me did no! speak bo me of it," replied the shipowner ; "but if there be any Letter he will give it to me." Danglars reflected for a moment. "Then, M. Morrel, I beg of you," said he, "not to say a word to Dantes on the subjeel ; 1 may have been mistaken." At this momenl the young man returned, and Danglars retreated. "Well, my dear Dantes, are you now tree:'" inquired the owner. " Yes, sir." " You have not been long detained." " No. I gave the custom-house officers a copy of our manifest ; and as to the consignment, they sent a man off with the pilot, to whom 1 gave our papers." "Then you have nothing more to do here '." Dantes cast a glance around. " Xo ; nil is arranged now." "Then you can come and dine with me .'" THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CBI8T0. g "Excuse me, M. Morrel, excuse me, if you please; bul my first visit is due to myfather, though I am not the Less grateful for the honor you have done me." " Eight, Dantes, quite right. I always knewyouwere a good Bon." Merced&s. "And," inquired Dantes, with some hesitation, " he is well, as far as you know .' My father is well .' " "Well, 1 believe, my dear Edmond, though I have not seen him lately." 10 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. " $es, he likes to keep himself shut up in his little room." "That proves, at Least, that he has wanted for nothing during your absence." Dantes smiled. " My father is proud, sir; and if he had not a meal left, I doubt if he would have asked anything from any one in the world, except God." •• Well thru, after this first visil has been made we rely on you." "Imust again excuse myself, M.Morrel; for after this firsl visit has been paid I have another, which I am no less anxious to pay." "True, Dantes, I forgol that there was at the Catalans some one who expects you no less impatiently than your father — the lovely Mercedes." Dantes Mushed. " Ah ! ah ! ■' said the shipowner, " that does not astonish me, for she has been to me three times, inquiring if there were any news of the Pha/raon. Peste ! Edmond, you are a lucky fellow, you have a very bands »me mistress ! " " She is not my mistress," replied the young sailor, gravely ; " she is my betrothed." " Sometimes one and the same thing," said Morrel, with a smile. "Not with us, sir," replied Dantes. " Well, well, my dear Edmond," continued the owner, " do not let me detain you. You have managed my affairs so well that I ought to allow you all the time you require for your own. Do you want any money?" " No, sir ; 1 have all my pay to take — nearly three months' wages." " You are a careful fellow, Edmond." " Say I have a poor father, sir." " Yes, yes, 1 know how good a son you are, so now haste away to see your father. I have a sou too, and I should be very wroth with those who detained him from me after a three months' voyage." " Then I have your leave, sir ?" said the young man, with a salute. " Yes, if you have nothing more to say to me." " Nothing." "Captain Leclere did not, before he died, give you a letter for me?" " He was unable to write, sir. But that reminds me that I must ask your leave of absence for some days." " To get married ?" " Yes. first, and then to go to Paris." " Very good; have what time you require, Dantes. It will take quite six weeks to unload the cargo, and we cannot get you readyforsea until three mouths after that : only be hack again in three months, for the PharaoHf added the owner, patting the young sailor on the back, "can- not sail without her captain." THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. \\ " Without her captain .' " cried Dantes, his eyes sparkling with anima- tion; " pray mind what you say,foryou are touching on the most secrel wishes of my heart. Is it really your intention to nominate me captain of 1 he Pharaon /'' "If I were sole owner I would give yon my hand, my dear Dantes, and say, ' It is settled'; but I have a partner, and you know th< [talian proverb — Chi ha compagno ha padrone — 'He who has a partner has a master.' But the thing is at least half done, as you have one out of two voices. Rely on me to procure you the other; I will do my b< "Ah! M. Morrel," exclaimed the young seaman, with tears in his eyes, and grasping the owner's hand, "M. .Morrel, I thank you in the name of my father and of Mercedes." "Good, good! Edmond. There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft that keeps a good watch for good fellows! Go and see your father; go and see Mercedes, and come to me afterward." " Shall I row you on shore :' " "No, I thank you; I shall remain and look over the accounts with Danglars. Have you been satisfied with him this voyage .' " "That is according to the sense you attach to the question, sir. Do you mean, he is a good comrade? No, for I think he never liked me since the day when I was silly enough, after a little quarrel we had, to propose to him to stop for ten minutes at the isle of Monte-( Iristo to set- tle the dispute — a proposition which I was wrong to suggest, and he quite right to refuse. If you mean as supercargo that you ask me the question, I believe there is nothing to say against him, and that you will be content with the way in which he has performed his duty." " But tell me, Dantes, if you had the command of the Pharaon, should you be glad to retain Danglars .'" " Captain or mate, M. Morrel," replied Dantes, "I shall always ha v.' the greatest respect for those who possess our owners' confidence." "Good! good! Dantes. I see you are a thorough good fellow, and will detain you no longer. Go, for I see how impatient you arc." "Then I have leave " Go, I tell you." "May I have the use of your skiff :'" " Certainly." " Then, for the present, M. Morrel, farewell, and a thousand thanks!" "I hope soon to see you again, my dear Edmond. Good luck to you ! " The young sailor jumped into the skiff, and sat down in the stem, desiring to be put ashore at the Cannebiere. The two rowers benl to their work, and the little boat glided away as rapidly as possible in the 12 Till: cor XT OF MOFTE-CRISTO. midst of the thousand vessels which choke up the kind of narrow street which leads between the two rows of ships from the mouth of the harbor to the Quai d'Orleans. Tin' shipowner, smiling, followed him with his eyes until he saw him spring out on the quay and disappear in the midst of the motley throng, which, from five o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at night, choke up this famous street of La Cannebiere, of which the modern Phoceens are so proud, and say with all the gravity in the world, and with that accent which gives so much character to what is said, "If Paris had ha Cannebiere, Paris would be a little Marseilles." ( >n turning round, the owner saw Danglars behind him, who apparently attended his orders, 1ml in reality followed, as he did, the young sailor with his eyes. Only there was a great difference in the expression of the looks oi the two who thus watched the movements of the same man. CHAPTER II PATH EB AND SON E will leave Danglars struggling with the feelings of hatred, and endeavoring to insinuate in the ear of the shipowner some evil suspicions againsl his comrade, and follow Dantes, who, after having traversed the Cannebiere, took the Rue de NoaUles, and entering into a small house situated on the lefi side of the Alices de Meilhan, rapidly ascended four stories of a dark staircase, holding the baluster in one hand, whilst with the other he repressed the beatings of his heart, and paused before a half-opened door, which revealed all the interior of a small apartment. This apartment was occupied by Dant&s' father. The news of the arrival of the Pharaon had not yet reached the old man, who, mounted on a chair, was amusmg himself with staking, with tremulous hand, some nasturtiums which, mingled with clematis, formed a kind of trellis at his window. Suddenly, he felt an arm thrown round his body, and a well-known voice behind him exclaimed, "Father ! dear father I " The old man uttered a cry, and turned round: then, seeing his son, he fell into his arms, pale and trembling. '• What ails y o\\, my dearest father?" inquired the young man. much alarmed, "Are you ill .' " "No, no, my dear Edmond — my boy — my son! — do; hut 1 did not expect you; and joy, tin 1 surprise of seeing you so suddenly Ah ! I really seem as if I were going to die." "Come, come, cheer up, my dear father: "Tis I — really 1! They say joy never hurts, and so I come to you without any warning. Come now, look cheerfully al me, instead of gazing as you do with your eyes so wide. Here I am hack again, and we will now lie happy." !4 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. "Yes, yes, my boy, so we will — so we will," replied the old man; " but how shall we I"' happy? Will you never leave me again.' Conic, tell in.' all the g I fortune that has befallen you." "Grod forgive me," said the young man, "for rejoicing at happiness derived from the grief of others; but, Heaven knows, I did not desire this good fortune: it has happened, and I really cannot affect to lament it. The g I Captain Leclere is dead, father, and it is probable that. with the aid of M. Morrel, I shall have his place. Do you understand, father.' Only imagine me a captain at twenty, with a hundred louis pay, and a share in the profits! Is this not more than a poor sailor like me could have hoped for J" '• Yes, my dear hoy," replied the old man. "It is great good fortune." " Well, then, with the first money I touch, I mean you to have a small house, with a garden to plant your clematis, your nasturtiums, and your honeysuckles. But what ails you, father? Are not you well .'" ""Pis nothing, nothing; it will soon pass away." And as he said so the old man's strength failed him, and he fell backward. "Come, come," said the young man, "a glass of wine, father, will revive you. Where do you keep your wine .'" "No, no; thank ye. You need not look for it; I do not want it," said the old man. " Yes, yes, father, tell me where it is," and he opened two or three cupboards. " It is no use," said the old man, " there is no more wine." " What ! no more wine :' " said Dantes, turning pale and looking alter- nately at the hollow and pallid cheeks of the old man and the empty cupboards. " What ! no wine :' Have you wanted money, father?" "I want nothing since I see you," said the old man. "Yet," stammered Dantes, wiping the perspiration from his brow, — " yet 1 gave you two hundred francs when I left, three months ago." "Yes, yes, Edmond, that is true, but you forgot at that time a little debt to our neighbor, Caderousse. He reminded me of it, telling me if I did not pay for yon, he would go and get paid by M. Morrel; and so, you see, lest he might do yon an injury " •Well — " " Why, I paid him." "But," cried Dantes. "it was a hundred and forty francs I owed < laderousse." "Yes," stammered the old man. " And you paid him out of the two hundred francs I left you?" The old man made a sign in the affirmative. THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 15 "So that you have lived for three months on sixty francs?'' muttered I lie young man. "You know how little I require," said tl M man. "Heaven pardon me," cried Edmonds going on his knees before the old man. " What are you doing .' " " You have wounded my very heart." "Never mind it, for I see you once more," said the old man; "and now all is forgotten — all is well again." "Yes, here I am," said the young man, "with a happy future and a little money. Here, father! here!" he said, "take this — take it. and send for something immediately." Ki THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. And lie emptied his pockets on the table, whose contents consisted of ;i dozen pieces of gold, five or six crowns, and some smaller coin. The countenance of old Dantes brightened. •• Whom does this belong to .'" he inquired. "Tome! to you! to us."' Take it; buy some provisions ; be happy, and to-moiTO"w we shah have more." "Gently, gently," said the old man, with a smile; "and by your leave i will use your purse moderately, for they would say, if they saw me buy too many things a1 a time, thai I had been obliged to await your return, in order to he able to purchase them." " Do as you please; hut, first of all, pray have a servant, father, i will not have you lefl alone so long. I have .some smuggled coffee and most capital tobacco, in a small chest in the hold, which you shall have to-morrow. But, hush! here comes somebody." "'Tis Caderousse, who has heard of your arrival, and no doubt comes to congratulate you on your fortunate return." "Ah! lips that say one thing, whilst the heart thinks another," mur- mured Edmond. "But, never mind, he is a neighbor who has done us a service on a time, so he's welcome." As Edmond finished his sentence in a low voice, there appeared, framed by Hie door of the landing, the black and bearded head of Caderousse. He was a man of twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, and hehl in his hand a morsel of cloth, which, in his capacity as a tailor, he was about to turn into the lining of a coat. "What! is it you, Edmond, returned.'" said he, with a broad Marseil- laise accent, and a broad grin that displayed his teeth as white as ivory. "Yes, as you see, neighbor Caderousse ; and ready to be agreeable to you in any and every way," replied Dantes, but ill-concealing his cold- ness under this appearance of civility. "Thanks — thanks; but, fortunately, I do not want for anything; and il chances that at times there are others who have need of me." Dantes made a gesture. "1 do not allude to you, my boy. No! — do! I lent you money, and you returned it; that's like good neighbors, and we are (puts." "We are never quits with those who oblige us,'' was Dantes' reply; " for when we do not owe them money, we owe them gratitude." " What's the use of mentioning that ? What is done is done. Let tis talk of your happy return, my boy. I had gone on the quay to match a piece of mulberry cloth, when I met friend Danglars. "'What! yon at Marseilles ?'—' Yes,' says he. ' ' I thought you were at Smyrna.' — ' I was ; but am now back again.' "'And where is the dear boy, our little Edmond?' THE cor XT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 17 " ' Why, with his father, no doubt,' replied Danglars. And sol came," added Caderousse, "as fast as I could to have the pleasure of shaking hands with a friend." " Worthy Caderousse I" said the old man, "he is so much attached to us ! » -7~;-^S, '".V ■ - ' - ' »* "Yes, to be sure I am. I love and esteem you, because honesl folk arc so rave! But it seems you have come back rich, my boy," continued the tailor, looking askance at the handful of gold and silver which Dantes had thrown on the table. The youngman remarked the greedy glance which shone in the dark eves of his neighbor. 18 TEE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. "Eh!" he said, negligently, "this money is not nunc: 1 was express- ing to my father my fears that he had wanted many things in my absence, and to convince me he emptied bis purse on the table. Come, father," added Dantes, "put this money back in your box — unless neighbor Caderousse wants anything, and in that case it is at his service " " No, my boy, no," said Caderousse. "lam not in any want, thank Cod! the trade keeps me. Keep your money — keep it, I say; — one never lias too much; — but, at the same time, my boy, I am as much obliged by your offer as if I took advantage of it." " It was offered with good-will," said Dantes. " No doubt, my boy ; no doubt. Well, you stand well with M. Morrel, I hear, — yon insinuating dog, you ! " " .M. Morrel has always been exceedingly kind to me," replied Dantes. " Then you were wrong to refuse to dine with him." •'What! did you refuse to dine with him:'" said old Dantes; "and did he invite you to dine .' ,1 " Yes, my dear father," replied Edmond, smiling at bis father's aston- ishment at the excessive honor paid to bis son. " And why did you refuse, my son ?" inquired the old man. " That I might the sooner be with you again, my dear father," replied the young man. "I was most anxious to see you." "But it must have vexed M. Morrel, good, worthy man," said Cade- rousse. " And when yon arc looking forward to lie captain, it was wrong to vex the owner." "But T explained to him the cause of my refusal," replied Dantes; "and 1 hope he fully understood it." " Yes, but to be captain one must give way a little to one's patrons." " f hope to he captain without that," said Dantes. " So much the better — so much the better! Nothing will give greater pleasure to all your old friends; and I know one down there behind the citadel of Saint Nicolas who will not be sorry to bear it." " Mercedes :'" said the old man. " 5Tes, my dear father, and with your permission, now I have seen you, and know you are well, and have all von require, 1 will ask your consent to go and pay a visit to the Catalans." " Co, my deal- boy," said old Dantes; " and Heaven bless you in your wife, as it has blessed me in my son!" "His wife!" said Caderousse; "why, how fast you go on, father Dantes; she is not his wife yet, I fancy." "No, but according to all probability she soon will be," replied Edmond. THE COUNT OF MONTJE-CRISTO. 19 " Y& — yes," s ;ii'l Caderousse; " bu1 you were righl t" !"• in a hurry, my boy." "And why?" I in Hi i'>' father. " Because Mercedes is a very fine girl, and tine girls never lack lovers; slic, particularly, has them by dozens." "Really!" answered Edmond, with a smile which had in it traces i>\' slight uneasiness. 20 THE COUNT OF WONTE-CRISTO. ••Ah, 5 ■■>," continued Caderousse, "and capital offers, too; but, you know, you will lie captain, and who could refuse you then :'" "Meaning to say," replied Dantes, with a smile which hut ill-con- cealed his trouble, "that if I were nol a captain " " Eh — eh !" said < 'aderousse, shaking his head. "Conic, come, " said the sailor, "I have a better opinion than you of women in general, and of Mercedes in particular; and I am certain that, captain <>r not, she will remain ever faithful to me." "So much the better — so much the hotter," said Caderousse. "When one is going to he married, there is nothing like implicit confidence; hut never mind that, my hoy, — hut go and announce your arrival, and let her know all your hopes and prospects." " I will go directly," was Bdmond's reply. Then, embracing his father, and saluting Caderousse, he left the apartment. Caderousse lingered for a moment; then, taking leave of old Dantes, he went downstairs to rejoin Danglars, who awaited him at the corner of the hue Senac. "Well," said Danglars, "did you see him :'" "Ihavejusi left him," answered Caderousse. "Did he allude to his hope of being- captain .'" •• I fe spoke of it as a thing already decided." " Patience !" said Danglars; " he is in too much hurry, it appeal's to me." "Why, it seems M. Morrel has promised him the thing." "So that he is quite elate about it !" "That is to say, he is actually insolent on the matter — has already offered me his patronage, as if he were a grand personage, and proffered me a loan of money, as though he were a banker." " Which you refused ?" " .Most assuredly; although I might easily have accepted it, for it was 1 who put into his hands the first silver he ever earned; but now M. Dantes has no longer any occasion for assistance — lie is about to become a captain." "Pooh!" said Danglars; "he is not one yet." "Ma foil — and it will he as well he never should lie," answered Caderousse; "for, if he should be, there will be really no speaking to him." "If we choose," replied Danglars, "he will remain what lie is; and perhaps become even less than he is." " What do you mean ? " "Nothing — I was speaking to myself. And is lie still in love with the fair Catalane :'" /'///: corxr of monte-cristo. 11 "Over head and cars; but, unless I am much mistaken, there will be a storm in that quarter." "Explain yourself." "Why should If" "It is more important than you think, perhaps. You do not like Dantes?" "I never like upstarts." "Then tell me all you know relative to the Catalane." " I know nothing for certain; only I have seen things which induce me to believe, as I told you, that the future captain will find some annovance in the environs of the road of the Vieilles Cnfirmeries." 22 THE COUNT OF \l<> X / ' E - G B I S T 0. ■■ What have you seen .' — come, tell me!" - Well, every time I have seen Mercedes come into the city, she has heen accompanied by a tall, strapping, black-eyed Catalan, with a red complexion, brown skin, and tierce air, whom she calls cousin." " Really ; and you think this cousin pays her attentions ?" " 1 suppose so. What else can a strapping chap of twenty-one mean with a fine lass of seventeen ?" "And you say Dantes lias gone to the Catalans?" "He went before I came down." '■ he us go the same way; we will stop at La Reserve, and we can drink a glass of La Malgue, whilst we wait for news." '•( 'nine along," said Caderousse; " but mind you pay the shot." "I lertainly," replied Danglars. The two walked quickly to the spot alluded to; on their reaching it, they called for a bottle of wine and two glasses. Pere Pamphile had seen Dantes pass not ten minutes before. Assured that Dantes was at the Catalans, they sat down under the budding foliage of the planes and sycamores, in the branches of which the birds were joyously singing on one of the first fair days in spring. CHAPTER III THE CATALANS ^5.(^1 s£ BOUT a hundred paces from the spol where the two friends fywiGJi were, with their looks fixed on the distance, and their cars Kyfnlgaiffl attentive, whilst they imhibed the sparkling wine of ha i/sfS^mi Malgue, behind a bare wall, torn and worn by sun and storm, was the small village of the Catalans. One day a mysterious colony quitted Spain and settled on the tongue of land on which it is to this day. It arrived from no one knew where, and spoke an unknown tongue. One of its chiefs, who understood Provencal, begged the commune of Marseilles to give them this I .are and barren promontory, on which, like the sailors of the ancient times, they had run their boats ashore. The request was granted; and three months afterward, around the twelve or fifteen small vessels which had brought these gypsies of the sea, a small village sprang up. This village, constructed in a singular and picturesque manner, half Moorish, half Spanish, is the one we behold at the present day inhabited by the descendants of those men who speak the language of their fathers. For three or four centuries they remained faithful to this small promontory on which they had settled like a flight of sea-birds, without mixing with the Marseillaise population, intermarrying and preserving their original customs and the costume of their mother- country, as they have preserved its language. Our readers will follow us along the only street of this little village, and enter with us into one of the houses, on the outside of which the sun had stamped that beautiful dead-leaf color peculiar to the buildings of the country, and within, a coat of limewash, of that white tint which forms the only ornament of Spanish posadas. A young and beautiful girl, with hair as black as jet, her eves as velvety as the gazelle's, was leaning with her back against a partition, rubbing in her slender fingers, 24 TEE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. molded after the antique, an innoceul spray of heath, the flowers of which she was picking off and strewing on the floor; her arms, bare to the elbow, embrowned, bu1 which seemed modeled after those of the Venus ;ii Aries, moved with a kind of restless impatience, and she tapped the earth with herplianl and well-formed foot, so as to display the pure and full shape of her well-turned leg, in its red cotton stock- ing with gray and blue docks. At three paces from her, seated in a chair which he balanced on two legs, Leaning his elbow on an old worm-eaten table, was a tall young man of twenty or two-and-twenty, who was looking at her with an air in which vexation and uneasiness were mingled. He questioned her with his eyes, hut the firm and steady gaze of the young girl controlled his look. "You see, Mercedes," said the young man, "here is Easter come round again ; it is the time for a wedding; what do you say .'" "I have answered you a hundred times, Fernand; and really you must be your own em my to ask me again." - Well, repeat it,— repeat it, I beg of you, that I may at last believe ii ! Tell me for the hundredth time that you refuse my love, which had your mother's sanction. .Make me fully comprehend that you are tri- fling with my happiness, that my life or death is immaterial to you. Ah! to have dreamed for ten years of being your husband, Mercedes, and to lose that hope, which was the only object of my existence!" "At least it was not I who ever encouraged you in that hope, Fer- nand," replied Mercedes; "yon cannot reproach me with the slightest coquetry. I have always said to you, 'I love you as a brother; but do not ask from me more than sisterly affection, for my heart is another's.' is not this true. Fernand ?" " \'es, 1 know it well, Mercedes," replied the young man. " Yes, you have been cruelly frank with me; but do you forget that it is among the < iatalans a sacred law to intermai ry :'" •■ You mistake, Fernand, it is not a law, but merely a custom; and, J praj of you. do not cite this custom in your favor. You are included in the conscription, Fernand, and are only at liberty on sufferance, liable at any moment to be called upon to take up arms. Once a soldier, what -would you do with me, a poor orphan, forlorn, without fortune, with nothing but a hut, half in ruins, containing some ragged nets, a miserable inheritance left by my father to my mother, and by my mother to me.' She has been dead a year, and you know, Fernand, I have been living almost on public charity. Sometimes you pretend I am useful to you, and that is an excuse to share with me the produce of your fishing, and T accept it, Fernand. because yon are the son of my father's brother, because we were brought up together, and still more because it THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRIBTO. 25 would give you so much pain if I refuse. Bui I feel very deeply that this fish which I go and sell, and with the produce of which I buy the flax I spin,— I feel very keenly, Fernand, that this is charity." Fernand and Mere6dds. "And if it were, Mercedes, poor and lone as you are, you suit me as well as the daughter of the first shipowner, or the richest banker of Marseilles! What do such as we desire bul a good wife and careful housekeeper, and where can I look for these better than in you .'" I III: COUNT OF M0NTE-CR1ST0. "Fernand," answered Mercedes, shaking her head, "a woman becomes a bad manager, and who shall say she will remain an honesl woman when she loves another man better than her husband! Rest content with my friendship, for I repeal to yon thai is all I ran promise, and I will promise no more than I ran bestow." ••I understand," replied Fernand, "you can endure your own wretched- ness patiently, bu1 yon are afraid of mine Well, Mercedes, beloved by von, I would tempi fortune; yon would bring me good luck. I might gel a place as clerk in a warehouse, and become myself a merchant in time." "You could do ao such thing, Fernand; yon are a soldier, and if you remain at the Catalans it is because there is not a war; so remain a Bsherman, cherish Ireams thai will make the reality still more ter- rible; be contented with my friendship, as I cannot give you more." "Well, you are right, Mercedes. I will be a sailor; instead of the costume of our fathers, which you despise, I will wear a varnished hat, a striped shirt, and a blue jackel with an anchor on the buttons. Would not thai dress please you .'" " What do you mean .'" asked Mercedes, darting at him an imperious glance,— "whal do you mean .' I do not understand yon." " 1 mean, Mercedes, that you are thus harsh and cruel with me, because yon are expecting some one who is thus attired; but, perhaps, be i horn yon await is inconstant, or, it' he is not, the sea is so to him." ■• F( nand !" cried Mercedes, " I believed you were good-hearted, and I wa~. mistaken ! Fernand, you are wicked to call to the aid of your jeal- ousy the anger of God ! Yes, I will not deny it, I do await, and I do Love him to whom you allude; and, if he does not return, instead of accusing him of the inconstancy which you insinuate, I will tell you that he died loving me, and me only." The young < latalan made a gesture of rage. " I understand you, Fernand : you would be revenged on him because I d t love you; you would cross your Catalan knife with his dirk. What end would that ans. er ? To lose you my friendship if you were conquered, and see thai friendship changed into hate if you were con- queror. Believe me, to seek a quarrel with a man is a bad method of pleasing the woman who loves that man. No, Fernand, you will not thus give way to evil thoughts. Unable to have me for your wife, you will content yourself with having me for your friend and sister; and besides," she added, her eyes troubled ;,l!il , m is ,,.,„.,] ^ftj tearS) U w& ^ wait. Fernand; you said just now that the sea was treacherous, and he has been gone four months, and during these four months T have counted many, many storms." THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 27 Fernand made no reply, nor did he attempt to check the tears \\ hich flowed down the cheeks of Mercedes, although for each of these tears be would have given a cupful of his heart's blood; but these tears flowed for another. He arose, paced awhile up and down the but, and then, suddenly stopping before Mercedes, with his eves stern and his bands clenched, "Say, Mercedes," be said, "once for all, is this your final determina- tion .'" "I love Edniond Dantes," the young girl calmly replied, "and none but Edniond shall ever be my husband." " And you will always love him ? " " As long as I live." Fernand let fall his head like a defeated man, heaved a sigh which resembled a groan, and then suddenly looking her full in the face, with clenched teeth and expanded nostrils, said: " But if be is dead ?" " If be is dead, I shall die too." " If he has forgotten you ? " " Mercedes !" cried a voice, joyously, outside the house, — " Mercedes ! " "Ah!" exclaimed the young girl, blushing with delight, and springing up with love, "you see he has not forgotten me, for here he is ! " And rushing toward the door, she opened it, saying, " Here, Edniond, here I am!" Fernand, pale and trembling, receded Like a traveler at the sight of a serpent, and fell into a chair beside him. Edniond and Mercedes were clasped in each other's arms. The burning sun of Marseilles, which penetrated the room by the open door, covered them with a Mood of light. At first they saw nothing around them. Their intense happiness isolated them from all the rest of the world, and they only spoke in broken words, which are the tokens of a joy so extreme that they seem rather the expression of sorrow. Sud- denly Edniond saw the gloomy countenance of Fernand, as it was defined in the shadow, pale and threatening, and by a movement, for which lie could scarcely account to himself, the young Catalan placed his hand on the knife at his belt. "Ah! your pardon," said Dantes, fi'Owning in his turn; "I did not perceive that there were three of us." Then, turning to Mercedes, he inquired, "Who is this gentleman .'" "One who will be your best friend, Dantes, for lie is my friend, my cousin, my brother; it is Fernand — the man whom, after you, Edniond. I love the best in the world. Do you not remember him .'" "Yes!" said Edniond, and without relinquishing Mercedes' hand TEE COl NT OF MO A TM-CRISTO. clasped in one of his own. he extended the other to the Catalan with a cordial air. Bui Fernand, instead of responding to this amiable gest- Ulv< remained mute and motionless as a statue. Edmond then cast his eye's scrutinizingly at Mercedes, agitated and embarrassed, and then again on Fernand, gloomy ami menacing. This look told him all, ami his brow became suffused and angry. •■ | did not know, when 1 came with such haste to you, that I was to meel an enemy lien'."' •■An enemy!" * - 1 i * * I Mercedes, with an angry look at her cousin. •■ An enemy in my house, do you say. Edmond! If I believed that, I would place my arm under yours and go with you to Marseilles, leaving the house to return to it no more." Fernand'- eye darted hghtning. "And should any misfortune occur t<> you. dear Edmond," she continued, with the same implaca- ble calmness which proved to Fernand that the young girl had read the very innermost depths of his sinister thought, "if misfortune should occur to you. 1 would ascend the highesl point of the Cape de Morgion, and casl myself headlong from it on the rocks In-low." Femand became deadly pale. " Bu1 you are deceived, Edmond," she continued. " You have no enemy here — there is no one but Fernand. my brother, who will grasp your hand a- a d'-\ "ted friend." And at these words the young girl fixed her imperious look on the Catalan, who. as if fascinated by it. came slowly toward Edmond, and offered him his hand. His hatred, like a powerless though furious wave, was broken against the strong ascendency which Mercedes exercised over him. Scarcely, however, had he touched Edmond's hand than he felt he had done all he could do. and rushed hastily out of the house. " ( »h !" he exclaimed, running furiously and plunging his hands in his hair — " < >h ! who will deliver me from this man .' Wretched — wretched thai 1 am!" "Halloo. Catalan! Halloo. Fernand! where are you running to?" exclaimed a voice. The young man slopped suddenly, looked around him, and per- ceived Caderousse sitting at table with Danglars under an arbor. " Well," said Caderousse, "why don'1 yon com,'.' Are you really in such a hurry that you have no time to say 'how do' to your friend's " Particularly when they have still a full bottle before them," added Danglars. Fernand looked at them both with a stupefied air, but did not say a word. "He looks sheepish," said Danglars, pushing Caderousse with bis knee. - Are we mistaken, and is Dantes triumphant in spite of all we have believed .'" THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 29 "Why, we must inquire into that," was Caderousse's reply; and, turning toward the young man. said, "Well, Catalan, can't you make up your niind .'" Fernand wiped away the perspiration steaming from his brow, and slowly entered the arbor, whose shade seemed to restore somewhat of calmness to bis senses, and whose coolness somewhat of refreshment to his exhausted body. "Good-day," said he. "You called me, didn't you?" And he fell, rather than sat down, on one of the seats which surrounded the table. "I called you because you were running like a madman, and I was afraid you would throw yourself into the sea," said Caderousse, laugh- ing. "Why! when a man lias friends, they are not only to offer him a glass of wine, but, moreover, to prevent his swallowing thr r four pints of water unnecessarily ! " Fernand gave a groan, which resembled a sob, and dropped bis head into his hands, crossed over each other, on the table. "Well, Fernand, I must say," said Caderousse, beginning the conver- sation, with that brutality of the common people in which curiosity destroys all diplomacy, " you look uncommonly like a rejected lover"; and he accompanied this joke with a hoarse laugh. " Bah !" said Danglars, " a lad of his make was not born to be unhappy in love. You are laughing at him, ( laderousse .' " " No," he replied ; " only hark how he sighs ! Come, come, Fernand ! " said Caderousse, "hold up your head, and answer us. It's not polite qo1 to reply to friends who ask news of your health." "My health is well enough," said Fernand, clenching his hands with- out raising his head. "Ah! you see, Danglars," said Caderousse, winking at his friend, "this is how it is: Fernand, whom you see here, is a good and brave ( iatalan, one of the best fishermen in Marseilles, and he is in love with a very fine girl, named Mercedes; but it appears, unfortunately, that the fine girl is in love with the second in command on hoard the Pharaon : and, as the Pharaon arrived to-day — why, you understand !" "No, I do not understand." said Danglars. "Poor Fernand has been dismissed," continued Caderousse. "Well, and what then .' " said Fernand. lifting up his head, and look- ing at Caderousse like a man who looks for sonic one on whom to vent his anger; " Mercedes is not accountable to any person, i-- she .' Is she not free to love whomsoever she will :'" "Oli! if you take it in that sense," said Caderousse, "it is another thing! But I thought you were a Catalan, and they told me the Catalans were not men to allow themselves to be supplanted by a rival. It was even told me that Fernand. especially, was terrible in hi- vengeance." 30 THE COl \ ■■/■ OF M0NTE-GRI8T0. Fernand smiled piteously. " A lover is never terrible," he said. "Pool fellow! "remarked Danglars, affecting to pity the young man from the bottom of his heart. " Why, you see, he did not expect to see Dantes return so suddenly! he thoughl he was dead, perhaps ; orper- chance faithless! These things always come on as more severely when thej come suddenly." •■.\li, mafoi, under any circumstances ! " said Caderousse, who drank as he spoke, and on whom the fumes of the wine of La Malgue began to take effect,— " under any circumstances Fernand is not the only person put "lit by the fortunate arrival of Dantes; is he, Danglars?" "No, yon are righl — and I should say thai would bring hi m ill-luck." - Well, never mind," answered Caderousse, pouring out a glass of wine for Fernand, and filling his own for the eighth or ninth time, whilst Danglars had merely sipped his. " Never mind — in the meantime he marries Mercedes — the lovely Mercedes — at least, he returns to do that," During this lime Danglars fixed his piercing glance on the young man, on whose heart Caderousse's words fell like molten lead. '• Ami when is the wedding to lie .' " he asked. "Oh, it is not yet fixed!" murmured Fernand. "No, hnt it will he," said Caderousse, "as surely as Dantes will be captain of the Pharaon — eh, Danglars?" Danglars shuddered at this unexpected attack, and turned to Cade- rousse, « hose countenance he scrutinized, to try and detect whether the blow was premeditated ; but he read nothing but envy in a countenance already rendered almost stupid by drunkenness. •■ Well," said he, filling the glasses, " let us drink to Captain Edmond Dantes, husband of the beautiful Catalane!" Caderousse raised his glass to his month with unsteady hand, and swallowed the contents at a gulp. Fernand dashed his on the ground. '" Eh ! eh ! eh I " stammered ( laderousse. " What do 1 see down there bythe wall, in the direction of the Catalans .' Look, Fernand! your eyes are better than mine. I believe I see double. You know wine is a deceiver; hnt I should say it was two lovers walking side by side, and hand in hand. Heaven forgive me! they do not know that we can see them, and they are actually embracing!" Danglars did not Los te pang that Fernand endured. " I >o yon know them, M. Fernand .'" he said. " 5Tes," was the reply, in a l..v, voice. " It is M. Edmond and Made- moiselle Mercedes !" "Ah! see there, now!" said Caderousse: "and I did not recognize them! Halloo, Dantes! halloo, lovely damsel ! Come this way, and let Til V COUNT OF MONTE-GRIHTO. ::i us know when the wedding is to he, for M. Fernand here is so obstinate he will not tell us ! " " Hold your tongue, will you ?" said Danglars, pretending to restrain Caderousse, who, with the tenacity of drunkards, leaned oul of the Danglars. arbor. "Try to stand upright, and Let the lovers make love without interruption. See, look at .M. Fernand, and follow his example; he is well-behaved ! " Fernand, probably excited beyond bearing, pricked by Danglars, as the bull is by the bandilleros, was aboul to rush out; for he had risen 32 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CBISTO. from his seat, and seemed to be collecting himself to dash headlong upon his rival, when Mercedes, smiling and graceful, lifted up her Lovely head, and showed her clear and brighl eye. At this Fernand recollected her threat of dying if Edmond died, and dropped again despairingly on his scat. Danglars looked at the two men, one after il ther, the one brutalized by liquor, the other overwhelmed with love. •• 1 shall extracl uothingfrom these fools," he muttered; "audi am very much afraid of being here between a drunkard and a coward. Bere is a man deservedly crazy, who fuddles himself with wine, while he on-Iii to intoxicate himself with gall; there is a great idiot whose mis- tress is taken from under his very eyes, and who does nothing mrl weep and whine like a baby. Vet this Catalan has eyes thai glisten, like the Spaniards, Sicilians, and Calabrians, who practice revenge sowed; he has lists that would crush the sknll of an ox as surely as the butcher's ax. Unquestionably, Edmond's star is in the ascendant, and he will marry the splendid girl — he will he captain, too, and laugh at us all, unless — " a sinister smile passed over Danglars' lips — " unless I mingle in the affair," he added. '• Hallo,,!" continued Caderousse, half rising, and with his fist on the table, "halloo, Edmond! do yon not see your friends, or are you too proud to speak to them ;'" " No, my dear fellow !" replied Dantes,"] am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, 1 think, more than pride." "Ah! very well, that's an explanation!" said Caderousse. "Well, good-day, .Madame I >antes ! " Mercedes court esieil gravely, and said — "That is not my name, and in my country it bodes ill-fortune, they say, to call young girls by the name of their betrothed before he becomes their husband. Call me, then, .Mercedes, if yon please." "We ii nisi excuse our worthy neighbor, Caderousse," said Dantes, " he is so easily mistaken." " So, then, the wedding is to take place immediately, M. Dantes:'" said Danglars, bowing to the young couple. "As soon as possible, M. Danglars; to-day all preliminaries will be arranged at my father's, and to-morrow, or next day at latest, the wed- ding festival here at La Reserve. My friends will be there, I hope; that is to say, you are invited, M. Danglars, and you, Caderousse." "And Fernand," said Caderousse with a chuckle: " Fernand, too, is invited ! " " My wife's brother is my brother," said Ecbnond; "and we, Mercedes and 1, should he very sorry if he were absent at such a time." Fernand opened his mouth to reply, hut his voice died on his lips, ami he could not utter a word. THE COUXT OF MOXTE-CRISTO. 33 "To-day the preliminaries, to-morrow or next day the ceremony! you are in a hurry, captain ! " " Danglars," said Edmond, smiling, " I will say to you as Mercedes said just now to Caderousse, ' Do not give me a title which does not belong to me ' ; that may bring me bad luck." "Your pardon," replied Danglars, "I merely said you seemed in a hurry, and we have lots of time; the Pharaon cannot be under way again in less than three months." "We are always in a hurry to be happy, M. Danglars; for when we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune. But it is not selfishness alone that makes me thus in haste : I must go to Paris." "To Paris! really! and will it he the first time you have ever been there, Dantes .' " " Yes." " Have you business there I " "Not of my own; the last commission of poor Captain Leclere; you understand, Danglars, — it is sacred. Besides, I shall only take the time to go and return." "Yes, yes, I understand," said Danglars, aloud; and then in a low- tone he added, "To Paris, no doubt, to deliver the letter which the Grand Marshal gave him. Ah ! this letter gives me an idea — a capita] idea! Ah! Dantes, my friend, you are not yet registered number one on board the good ship Pharaon " ; then, turning toward Edmond, who was walking away, "Good journey." he cried. "Thank ye," said Edmond, with a friendly nod, and the two lovers continued their route, calm and joyous as two blessed souls that ascend to heaven. CHAPTER IV CONSPIRACY ANGLARS followed Edmund and Mercedes with his eyes until the two lovers disappeared behind one of the angles of Fort Saint Nicolas; then, turning round, he perceived Fernand, who had fallen, pale and trembling, into his chair, whilst Caderousse stammered out the words of a drinking-song. " Well, my dear sir," said Danglars to Fernand, " here is a marriage which does not appear to make everybody happy." " It drives me to despair," said Fernand. "Do you, then, love Mercedes .'" "I adore her!" "Have you loved her long?" "Ever since I have known her." "And you sit there, tearing your hair, instead of seeking to remedy your condition; I did not think it was thus the men of your nation acted." " What would yon have me do ;' " said Fernand. '■ Eow do I know .' Is it my affair? 1 am not the one who is in love with Mademoiselle Mercedes ; bul you. Seek, Nays Scripture, and you shall find." " I have found already. "What .'" " I would stab the man, but the woman told me that if any misfortune happened to her betrothed, she would kill herself." "Pooh! women say those things, but never do them." " You do not know Mercedes; what she threatens she will do." "Idiot!" muttered Danglars; " whether she kill herself or not, what matter, provided Dantes is not captain :'" "Before Mercedes should die," replied Fernand, with the accents of unshaken resolution, "I would die myself!" THE COUNT OF MONTE-C RISTO. 35 "That's what I call love!" said Caderousse, with a voice more tipsy than ever. "That's love, or I don't know what love is." •■ I !ome," said Danglars, " you appear to me a good sort of fellow, and hang me! but I should like to help you, but " "Yes," said Caderousse, "bu1 bow?" "My dear fellow," replied Danglars, "you are three-parts drunk; finish the bottle, and you will I ompietely so. Drink, then, and do not meddle with what we arc doing, for what we are doing requires all one's wits." "I — drunk!'' said Caderousse; "well, that's a g I one! I eould drink four more such bottles; they are no bigger than Eau-de-Cologne flasks. Pere Pamphile, more wine!" And Caderousse, to add the proof to the proposition, rattled his glass upon the table. "You were saying, sir " said Fernand, awaiting with great anxiety the end of the interrupted remark. "What was I saying! 1 forget. This drunken Caderousse has made me lose the thread of my thoughts." "Drunk, if you like; so much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have some bad thoughts which they arc afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts." And Caderousse began to sing the last two lines of a song very popular at the time : "'Les mediants sunt beuveurs d'eau; Bieu prouve par li- deluge."" "You said, sir, resumed Pernand, "you would like to help me, but » "Yes; but 1 added, to help you it would be sufficient that Dantes did not marry her you love; and the marriage may easily be thwarted. methinks, and yet Dantes need not die." •• Death alone can separate them," remarked Pernand. "You talk like a noodle, my friend," said Caderousse ; ••and here is Danglars, who is a wide-awake, clever, deep fellow, who will prove to you that you are wrong. Prove it, Danglars. I have answered for you. Say there is no need why Dantes should die: it would, ind 1, he a pity he should. Dantes is a good fellow ; 1 like Dantes! Dantes, your health." Fernand rose impatiently. "Let him run on," said Danglars, restraining the young man; "drunk •All the bad are water-drinkers; X, .all's deluge is a proof. 3U THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. as he is, he is not much out in what he says. Absence severs as well as death, and it' the walls of a prison were between Edmond and Mercedes fchey would be as effectually separated as if he lay under a tombstone." "Yes; <»nly people gel oul of prison," said Caderousse, who, with what sense was left him, hstened eagerly to the conversation, "and when they get out, and their names are Edmond Dantes, they revenge " " What matters that?" muttered Fernand. " And why, I should like to know," persisted Caderousse, " should they put Dantes in prison ? he has neither robbed, nor killed, nor murdered." " Hold vour tongue ! " said Danglars. THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 37 "I won't hold my tongue!" replied Caderousse; "1 say I want to know why they should put Dantes in prison; I like Dantes; Dantes, vour health ! " And he swallowed another glass of wine. Danglars saw in the muddled look of the tailor the progress of his intoxication, and, turning toward Fernand, said: " Well, yon understand there is no need to kill him." 38 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. " ( lertainly Qot, if, as you said just now, you have the means of having Dantes arrested. Have you that means .'" '•It is to he found for the searching. But why should I," he con- tinued, "meddle in the matter? it is no affair of mine." "I know not why you meddle," said Fernand, seizing his arm; '•hut this I know, you have some motive of personal hatred against Dantes, for lie who himself hates is never mistaken in the sentiments of others." ■■ I ! motives of hatred against Dantes ? None, on my word ! I saw you were unhappy, and your unhappiness interested me; that's all; but the moment yon believe 1 act for my own account, adieu, my dear friend, get out of the affair as best you may." Danglars made a pretense of rising. " No, no,'* said Fernand, restraining him, ''stay! It is of very little consequence to me, after all, whether you have any angry feeling or not against Dantes. I hate him! I confess it openly. Do you find the means, I will execute it, provided it is not to kill the man, for Mercedes has declared she will kill herself if Dantes is killed." Caderousse, who had let his head drop on the table, now raised it, and, looking at Fernand with his dull and fishy eyes, he said: " Kill Dantes ! who talks of killing Dantes .' I won't have him killed — I won't ! He's my friend, and this morning offered to share his money with me. as I shared mine with him. I won't have Dantes killed — I won't ! " " And who has said a word about killing him, muddlehead .'" replied Danglars. "We were merely joking: drink to his health," he added, filling Caderousse's glass, "and do not interfere with us." " Yes, yes, Dantes' good health ! " said. ( laderousse, emptying his glass, "here's to his health ! his health ! — hurrah!" "But the means — the means:''' said Fernand. " Have you not hit upon any 1'" " Xo ! — -you undertook to do so." "True," replied Danglars; "the French have this superiority over the Spaniards, that the Spaniards ruminate, whilst the French invent." " Invent, then!" said Fernand, impatiently. " Waiter," said Danglars, "pen, ink, and paper." "Pen, ink, and paper!" muttered Fernand. "Yes; I am a supercargo; pen, ink, and paper are my tools, and without my tools I am fit for nothing." " Pen, ink, and paper ! " called Fernand, in his turn. "All you require is on that table," said the waiter, pointing to the writing materials. T1IE COL XT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 39 "Bring them here." The waiter took the pen, ink, and paper, and placed them on the table where they were drinking. "When one thinks,'' said Caderousse, letting his hand drop on the paper, "there is here wherewithal to kill a man more surely than it' we waited at the corner of a wood to assassinate him ! 1 have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper, than of a sword or pistol." "The fellow is not so drunk as he appears to he," said Danglars. "Give him some more wine, Fernand." 40 THE COUNT OF MONTJE-CBISTO. Fernand filled Caderousse's glass, who, toper as lie was, lifted his hand from the paper and seized the glass. The Catalan watched him mitil Caderousse, almost overcome by this fresh assault on his senses, rested, or rather allowed his glass to fall upon the table. " Well !" resumed the Catalan, as he saw the final glimmer of Cade- rousse's reason vanishing before the last glass of wine. " Well, then, 1 should say, for instance," resumed Danglars, "that if after a voyage such as Dantes has just made, and in which he touched at Naples and the isle of Elba, some one were to denounce him to the king's procureur as a Bonapartist agent " " I will denounce him!" exclaimed the young man, hastdy. "Yes, but they will make you then sign your declaration, and con- front you with him you have denounced; I will supply you with the means of supporting your accusation, I am quite sure. But Dantes eannof remain forever in prison, and one day or other he will leave it, and the day when he conies out, woe betide him who was the cause of his incarceration !" " Oh, 1 should wish nothing better than that he would come and seek a quarrel with me." "Yes, and Mercedes ! Mercedes, who will detest you if you have only the misfortune to scratch the skin of her dearly beloved Edmond ! " " True ! " said Fernand. "No! no!" continued Danglars; "if we resolve on such a step, it would be much better to take, as I now do, this pen, dip it into this ink, and simply write with the left hand (that the writing may not be recog- nized) a little denunciation like this." And Dantdars, uniting practice with theory, wrote with his left hand, and in a back-hand that had no analogy to his usual writing, the following lines, winch he handed to Fernand, and which Fernand read on in undertone: •' The Procureur du Roi is informed by a friend of the throne and religion that one Edmond Dantes, mate of the ship Pharaon, arrived this morning: from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been intrusted by Murat with a letter for the usurper, and by the usurper with a letter for the Bonapartist Committee, in Paris. " Proof of this crime will be found on arresting him, for the letter will be found upon him, or at his father's, or in his cabin on board the Pliar/nm." " Very good," resumed Danglars ; " now your revenge looks like com- mon sense, for in no way can it revert to yourself, and the matter will thus work its own way; there is nothing to do now but fold the letter THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 41 as I am doing, and write upon it, 'To .M. Le Procureur Royal,' and all would be settled." And Danglars wrote the address as he spoke. "Yes, all would be settled!" exclaimed Caderousse, who, by a last effort of intellect, had followed the reading of the letter, and instinct- ively comprehended all the misery which such a denunciation musl entail. " Yes, and all that would be settled: only it will be an infamous deed"; and he stretched out his hand to reach the letter. " Moreover," said Danglars, taking it from beyond his reach, " and as what I say and do is merely in jest, and as I, amongst the fust am! foremost, should be sorry if anything happened to Dantes — the w< >rt try Dantes — look here!" And taking the letter, he squeezed it up in his hands and threw it into a corner of the arbor. "All right!" said Caderousse. "Dantes is my friend, and I won't have him ill-used." "And who thinks of using him ill? Certainly neither I nor Fer- nand!" said Danglars, rising and looking at the young man, who still remained seated, but whose sidelong looks were fixed on the denuncia- tory sheet of paper flung into the corner. "In this case," replied Caderousse, "let's have some more wine. I wish to chink to the health of Edmond and the lovely Mercedes." " You have had too much already, drunkard," said Danglars; "and if you continue, you will be compelled to sleep here, because unable to stand on your legs." " I ? " said Caderousse, rising with all the fatuous dignity of a drunken man, " I can't keep on my legs ! Why, I'll bet a wager I go up into the 1 lelfry of the Accoules, and without staggering, too ! " "Well, done!" said Danglars, "I'll take your bet; but to-morrow — to-day it is time to return. Give me your arm, and let us go." "Very well, let us go," said Caderousse; "but I don't want your arm at all. Come, Fernand, won't you return to Marseilles with us!" "No," said Fernand; " I shall return to the Catalans." "You're wrong. Come with us to Marseilles — come along." "I have nothing to do at Marseilles, I don't want to go there." "What do you mean? you will not? Well, just as you like, my prince; there's liberty for all the world. Come along, Danglars, and let the young gentleman return to the Catalans if he chooses." Danglars took advantage of Caderousse's temper at the moment, to take him off toward Marseilles, only to give Fernand a shorter and easier road. In place of returning by the quay of the Efceve Neuve, he returned by the Porte Saint Victor. Caderousse followed, staggering, and holding on by his arm. 42 TEE COUNT OF M0NTE-GRI8T0. When they had advanced about twenty yards, Danglars looked back and saw Fernand stoop, pick up the crumpled paper, and, putting it into his pocket, then rash out of the arbor toward Pillon. •• WV1I," said Caderousse, " why, what a lie he told! He said he was going to the Catalans, and he is going to the city. Halloo, Fernand! You are coming, my boy ! " "Oh, it is you who see wrong," said Danglars; "he's gone right by the road to the Vieilles [nfirmeries." •• Well," said Caderousse, " 1 should have sworn that he turned to the righl — how treacherous wine is!" "Come, come," said Danglars to himself, "now the thing is well started, and there is nothing to be done but let it go on by itself." CHAPTER V THE MAIUUAGE FEAST HE next day was a beautiful one. The morning sun rose clear and resplendent, and his first rays of red and purple studded with their rubies the foamy eresl of the waves. The plenteous feast had been prepared on the first door of La Reserve, with whose arbor the reader is already familiar. The apartment destined for the purpose was spacious, and lighted by five or six windows, over each of which was written in golden letters — explain the phenomenon if you can — the name of one of the principal cities of France; beneath these windows a wooden balcony extended the entire length of the house. And although the entertainment was fixed for twelve o'clock at noon, an hour previous to that time the balcony was filled with impatient and expectant guests, consisting of the favored part of the crew ol thi Pharaon, and some soldier friends of Dantes, the whole of whom had arrayed themselves in their choicest costumes, in order to do greater honor to the day. Various rumors were afloat among the guests to the effect that the owners of the Pharaon had promised to attend the nuptial feast of its mate, hut all seemed unanimous in doubting that an act of such rare and exceeding condescension could possibly he intended. Danglars, however, who now made his appearance, accompanied bj Caderousse, effectually confirmed the report, stating tli.it he had recently conversed with M. Morrel, who had himself assured him lie intended joining the festive party at La Reserve. A moment afterward an enthusiastic burst of applause from lie crew of the Pharaon announced the presence of M. Morrel. The visit of the shipowner was to them as a sure indication that the man whose wed- ding-feast he thus delighted to honor would ere long be firsl in com- 44 THE <'<>r XT OF MOXTTE-CRISTO. maml lit' the Pharaon; and as Dantes was universally beloved on board his vessel, the sailors pul no restraint on the tumultuous joy at finding the opinion and choice of the owner so exactly coincide with their own. This noisy though hearty welcome over, Danglars and Caderousse were dispatched to the residence of the bridegroom to convey to him the intelligence of the arrival of the important personage who had caused such a sensation, and to desire he would hasten. Dan-las and Caderousse stalled off upon their errand at full speed; luil ere they had -one many steps they perceived at the powder maga- zine the little troop advancing toward them. This little troop was com- posed of a party of young girls in attendance on the bride, who leaned on the arm of Dantes. By her side walked Dantes' father ; last, came Fernand, with his evil smile. Neither .Mercedes nor Edmond observed this evil smile. Happy in their innocent love, they saw only themselves and the clear, pure sky that blessed them. Having acquitted themselves of then- errand, and exchanged a hearty shake of the hand with Edmond, Danglars and Caderousse took their places beside Fernand and old Dantes, — the latter of whom attracted universal notice. The old man was attired in a suit of black, trimmed with steel but- tons beautifully cut and polished. His thin but still powerful legs were arrayed in a pair of richly embroidered clocked stockings, evidently of English manufacture, and smuggled, while from his three-cornered hat depended a Ion-- streaming knot of white and blue ribbons. Thus he came along, supporting himself on a stick, twisted its whole length like the ancient pedum. He might have been one of those mascadins who, in 17!»(i, promenaded in the newly reopened gardens of the Luxemborg and Tuileries. Beside him crept Caderousse, whose desire to partake of the good things provided for the wedding party had induced him to become reconciled to the Dantes, father and son, although there still lingered in his mind a faint and imperfeci recollection of the events of the pre- ceding night; just as the brain retains on waking the dim and misty outline of tlie dream that has "murdered sleep." As Danglars approached the disappointed lover, he cast on him a look of deep meaning, while Fernand, as he slowly paced behind the happy pair, completely forgotten hy the bride, who, with the juvenile and charming egotism of love, had eyes only for her Edmond, was pale, with occasional deep flushes that disappeared only to give place to her ever-increasing pallor. From time to time he looked toward Marseilles, THE cor XT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. \~ and then a nervous, involuntary trembling made him quiver. Fernand seemed to expect, or at leasl anticipate, some greal event. Dantes himself was simply, though becomingly, clad in the dress peculiar to the merchant service — a costume somewhal between a uni- form and a civil garb; and his fine countenance, radiant with joy and happiness, was in keeping with this garb. Lovely as the Greeks of ( lyprus or < !eos, Mercedes boasted the same eyes of jet and coral lips, while she walked with thai free, frank step thai distinguishes the women of Aries and Andalusia. One more prac- ticed in the arts of greal cities would have hid her joy beneath a veil, or, at least, beneath her thickly-fringed lashes; but Mercedes, on the contrary, smiled and looked at those around her. Her look and her smile said, as plainly as words could have done, "If you are my friends, rejoice with me, for, in truth, I am very happy." As soon as the bridal cortege came in sight of La Reserve, M. Morrel came forth to meet it, followed by the soldiers and sailors there assem- bled, to whom he had repeated the promise already given, thai Dantes should he the successor to the late Captain Leclere. Edmond, at the approach of Ins patron, respectfully placed the arm of his affianced bride within that of M. Morrel, who, forthwith conducting her up theflighl of w len steps leading to the chamber in which the feast was prepared, was gayly followed by the guests, beneath whose thronging numbers the slight structure creaked and groaned as though alarmed a1 the unusual pressure. " Father," said Mercedes, stopping when she had reached th nterof the table, "sit, I pray you, on my right hand; on my left I will place him who has ever been as a In-other to me," pointing with a sweetue - that struck Fernand to his inmosl hearl like the blow of a dagger. Hi- lips became ghastly pale, and even beneath the dark hue of his com- plexion the blood might be seen retreating as though driven back to the heart. During this time, Dantes, at the opposite side of the table, had been occupied in similarly placing his most honored guests. M. .Morrel was seated at his right hand, Danglars at his left; while, al a sign from Edmond, the rest of the company ranged themselves as they found it most agreeable. Already there passed round the table sausages of Aries, with their brown meat and piquant flavor; lobsters in their dazzling red cuirasses ; prawns of brilliant color, the sea-urchins looking like chestnut-burrs, with their prickly outside; the clams, esteemed by the epicm*es of the south as more than rivaling the exquisite flavor of the oyster, north. All these, in conjunction with the numerous delicacies cast up by the wash 48 TEE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. of waters on the sandy beach, and styled by the grateful fishermen "sea fruits," served to furnish forth this marriage table. " A pretty silence, truly !" said the old father of the bridegroom, as he carried to his lips a --lass of wine of the hue of the topaz, aud which had just been placed before Mercedes by Father Pamphile himself. "Now, would anybody think that this room contained thirty people who desire nothing better than to laugh .'" " Ah !" sighed Caderousse, "a man cannot always feel happy because he is about to he married." " The truth is," replied Dantes, " that I am too happy for noisy mirth ; if that is what you meant by your observation, my worthy friend, you are right; joy takes a strange effect at times: it oppresses like sorrow." Danglars looked toward Edmond, whose impressionable nature received and betrayed each fresh emotion. " Why, what ails you ? " said he. " Do you fear any approaching evil .' I should say that you were the happiest man alive at this instant." " And t hat is the very thing that alarms me," returned Dantes. " Man does not appear to me to be intended to enjoy felicity so unmixed ; hap- piness is like the palaces of the enchanted isles, where dragons guard the doors. We must right to win it. I do not know how I have deserved the honor of being the husband of Mercedes." "Husband, husband," cried Caderousse, laughing, "not yet, captain. Just try to play the husband, and see how you are received." The bride blushed. Fernand, restless and uneasy, started at every sound, occasionally wiping away the large drops of perspiration that gathered on his brow like the first rain-drops of a storm. '•Well, neve mind that, neighbor Caderousse," said Dantes; "it is not worth while to contradict me for such a trifle as that. 'Tis true that Mercedes is not actually my wife; but," added he, drawing out his watch, "in an hour and a half from this she will be." A general exclamation of surprise ran round the table, with the exception of the elder Dantes, whose laugh displayed the still perfect beauty of his large white teeth. Mercedes looked pleased without a blush, while Fernand grasped the handle of his knife with a convulsive clutch. "In an hour ?" inquired Danglars, turning pale. " How is that, my friend f» " Why, thus it is," replied Dantes. "Thanks to the influence of M. Morrel, to whom, next to my father, I owe every blessing I enjoy, every difficulty has heeii removal. We have got the license, and at half-past two o'clock the Mayor of Marseilles will be waiting at the Hotel de Ville. Now, as a quarter-past one has already struck, I do not consider THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. V.) I have asserted too much in saying, that in another hour and thirty minutes Mercedes will be called Madame Dantes." Fevnand closed his eyes, a cloud of flame scorched his eyelids, and he leaned on the table to prevent his falling; but, in spite of all his i; efforts, he could not refrain from uttering a deep groan, which, however, was lost amid the noisy felicitations of the company. "Upon my word," cried the old man, "you make short work of this kind of affairs. Arrived here only yesterday morning, and married to-day at three o'clock! Commend me to a sailor for going the quick way to work ! " "But," asked Danglars, in a timid tone, "how did you manage aboul the other formalities — the contract — the settlemenl V "Oh, bless you," answered Dantes, laughingly, "our papers were soon 50 Till: COUNT OF MONTE-CBISTO. drawn up. Mercedes has nothing, nor have I. We settle our property in common. So, you see, our papers were quickly written out, and certainly do nol come very expensive." This joke elicited a fresh burst of applause. " So that what we presumed to be merely the betrothal feast turns out to be the actual wedding dinner!" said Danglars. "No, no!" answered Dantes; "you'll lose nothing. Take it easy. To-morrow morning I start for Paris: four days to go, and four days to return, with one day to discharge the commission intrusted to me, and I shall be back here by the first of March; the next day I give my real marriage feast." This prospect of fresh festivity redoubled the hilarity of the guests to such a degree, that the elder Dantes, who, at the commencement of the repast, complained of the silence that prevailed, now made vain efforts, amid the general din of voices, to drink to the health and pros- perity of the bride and bridegroom. Dantes, perceiving the wish of his father, responded by a look of grateful pleasure; while Mercedes began to look at the clock, and made a slight gesture to Edmond. Around the festive board reigned that noisy hilarity and mirthful freedom which is usually found at the termination of social meetings among those of inferior station. Such as had not been able to seat themselves according to their inclination, rose and sought other neigh- bors. All spoke at the same time, and yet none cared to reply to what his interlocutor said, but merely to his own thoughts. The paleness of Fernand appeared to have communicated itself to Danglars. As for Fernand himself, he seemed one of the damned in the burning lake; he was among the first to quit the table, and, as though seeking to close his ears to the roar of songs and the clink of glasses, he continued to pace backward and forward. Caderousse approached him just as Danglars, whom Fernand seemed most anxious to avoid, had joined him in a corner of the room. " Upon my word," said Caderousse, from whose mind the friendly treatment of Dantes, united with the effect of the excellent wine of Father Pamphile, had effaced every feeling of envy at Dantes' good fortune, — "upon my word, Dantes is a downright good fellow, and when I see him sitting there beside his pretty wife that is so soon to be, I cannot help thinking it would have been a great pity to have served him that trick you were planning yesterday." "Well," said Danglars, "you saw that it ended in nothing. Poor Fernand was so upset that I was sorry for him at first; but, as he has gone so far as to be his rival's best man, there is nothing more to say." THE COUNT OF MOKTE-CRISTO. 51 Caderousse looked full al Fernand — he was ghastly pale. "Certainly," continued Danglars, "the sacrifice was do trifling one when the beauty of the bride is concerned. Upon my soul, thai future captain of mine is a lucky dog! Gad! I only wish he would lei me take his place." " Shall we not set forth?" asked the sweet, silvery voice of Mercedes : "two o'clock has just struck, and you know we are expected at the Hotel de Ville in a quarter of an hour." "Yes! yes!" cried Dantes, eagerly quitting the table; "let us go" " Let us go," said the whole party in chorus. 52 THE COUNT OF M0NTE-GRI8T0. At tliis moment Diino-liirs, who had been mcessantly observing Fer- iian-1. perceived him open Ins haggard eyes, rise with an almost convul- sive spasm, and fall back againsl a seat placed near one of the open windows. At the same instant the ear caught an indistinct sound on the stairs, a measured tread, a confused murmur of voices, mixed with the clanking of arms, deadening even the mirth of the party, and attracting general curiosity, which displayed itself almost instantaneously by a restless stillness. Nearer and nearer cam.' the sounds. Three knocks, against the door, resounded. Kadi looked inquiringly in the countenance of his neighbor. "In the name of the law!" said a harsh voice, to which no voice replied. The door was opened, and a magistrate, wearing his official scarf, presented himself, followed by four soldiers and a corporal. Oheasiness now yielded to dread. " .May I venture to inquire the reason of this unexpected visit f " said ML Morrel, addressing the magistrate, whom he knew; "there is doubt- less some mistake." "If it he so," re] .lied the magistrate, "rely upon every reparation being made; meanwhile, I am the bearer of an order of arrest, and although I most reluctantly perform the task assigned me, it must, nevertheless, be fulfilled. Who among the persons here assembled answers to the name of Edmoud Dantes?" Every eye was turned toward the individual so described, who, spite of agitation, advanced with dignity, and said: " I am he; what is your pleasure with me?" " Edmond Dantes," replied the magistrate, " I arrest you in the name of the law!" "Me!" repeated Edmond, slightly changing color, " and wherefore, I pray .' " " I cannot inform yon, but you will be duly acquainted with the reasons that have rendered such a step necessary at your first exami- nation." 31. Morrel felt that further resistance was useless. An officer, girt with his scarf, is n<> longer a man; he is the statue of law, cold, deaf, and dumb. Old Dantes, on the other hand, rushed toward the officer. There are things which the heart of a father or mother can never comprehend. He prayed and supplicated, but tears and prayers were useless. Still his despair was so deep that the officer was touched. " My worthy friend," said he, " let me beg of you to calm yourself. Your son has probably THE COUNT OF UONTE-CRISTO. 53 neglected some prescribed form in registering Ins cargo, and it is more than probable he will be set at liberty directly he has ;_ci \*-i i the infor- mation required," " What is the meaning of all this f" inquired Caderousse, Erowningly, of Danglars, who had assumed an air of utter surprise. "How can I tell you?" replied he; "I am, like yourself, utterly bewildered at all that is going on, not a word of which do 1 understand.'' Caderousse then looked around for Fernand, but he had disappeared. 54 I'll i: COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. The scene of the previous night now came back to his mind with startling accuracy. The painful catastrophe appeared to have rent away the veil which the intoxication of the evening before had raised between himself and his memory. "So! so!" said he, in a hoarse voice, to Danglars, "this, then, I sup- pose, is a part of the trick you were concerting yesterday? All I can say is, that if it be so, woe to him who has done it, for it is a foul one ! " " Nonsense ! " returned Danglars. " You know very well that I tore the paper to pieces." "No, you did not!" answered Caderousse, "you threw it in a corner. There's the whole matter." " Hold your tongue, you fool ! — what should you know about it f — why, you were drunk ! " "Where is Fernanda " inquired Caderousse. " How do I know f " replied Danglars ; " after his own affairs, most likely. Never mind where he is ; let us try and help our poor friends in this their affliction." During this conversation, Dantes, after having exchanged a shake of the hand with all his friends, had surrendered himself, merely say- ing, with a smile, "Make yourselves quite easy, there is some little mistake to clear up, and very likely I may not have to go so far as the prison." " Oh, to be sure ! " responded Danglars, who had now approached the group, " nothing more than a mistake." Dantes descended the staircase, preceded by the principal officer of police, and followed by the soldiers. A carriage awaited him at the door ; he got in, followed by two soldiers and the officer ; the door was shut, and the vehicle drove off toward Marseilles. " Adieu ! adieu ! dearest Edmond ! " cried Mercedes, leaning forward from the balcony. The prisoner heard her cry, as it were a sob from the lacerated heart of his beloved, thrust his head out of the carriage window and cried, " Good-bye — we shall soon meet again ! " and disappeared round one of the turnings of Fort Saint Nicolas. " Wait for me here ! " cried M. Morrel ; I will take the first convey- ance I find, and hurry to Marseilles, whence I will bring you word how all is going on." " Go ! " exclaimed a multitude of voices ; " go, and return as quickly as you can ! " This second departure was followed by a long and fearful state of terrified silence on the part of those who were left behind. The old father and Mercedes remained for some time apart, each THE AKK'KST OF EDMOND DANTES. THE cor XT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 57 absorbed in their separate griefs; but al length the two poor victims of the same blow raised their eyes, and mth a simultaneous bursl of feeling rushed into each other's arms. Meanwhile Fernand made his reappearance, poured oul for himself a glass of water, which he drank, and went to sit down on a chair. This was, by mere chance, placed next to the seat <>u which | Mercedes had fallen when released from the embrace of "Id Dantes. Instinctively, Fernand drew back his chair. "He has done it," whispered Caderousse, who had never taken his eyes off Fernand, to Danglars. "I do not think so," answered the other; "he is too stupid. In any case, let the mischief fall upon the head of whoever wroughl it." "You don't mention him who advised it," said < laderousse. "Pooh !" replied Danglars; "who can be responsible for every random word I " " But if the random word hits the mark .' *' Meantime the subject of the arrest was being canvassed in every different form. "What think you, Danglars," said one of the party, "of the affair .'" "Why," replied he, "I think he may have brought in some smuggled goods." "But how could he have done so without your knowledge, Danglars, who were the ship's supercargo! " "Why, as for that, I could only know what I was told respect inn- the merchandise. I know she was loaded with cotton, and that she took in her freight at Alexandria from the magazine of M. Pastret, ami at Smyrna from M. Pascal's. Don't ask me anything more." "Now I recollect!" said the afflicted old father; " my poor hoy told me yesterday he had got a small case of coffee, and another of tobacco for me ! " "There, you see ! " exclaimed Danglars. The custom-house people have been to the ship in our absence, and discovered poor Dante's' hidden treasures." Mercedes, however, did not believe a word of this. Her grief, hitherto restrained, now burst out in sobs. "Come, come — hope!" said the old man, hardly knowing W hat he said. "Hope!" repeated Danglars. "Hope!" faintly murmured Fernand; but the word choked him, his lips quivered, and no sound escaped them. "Good news!" shouted forth one of the party stationed in the balcony on the look-out, "Here comes M. Morrel hack. No doubt, now. he brings us good news." 58 THE COUNT OF M OXTE-CRIHTO. Mercedes ami the old man rushed to meet him at the door. He was deadly pale. ■• What news .' " exclaimed a general burst of voices. " Alas! my friends," replied M. Morrel, with a shake of his head, "the thing has assumed a more serious aspect than I expected." ••oh! indeed — indeed, sir, he is innocent!" sol/bed forth Mercedes. '•That I believe!" answered M. Morrel; "but still he is charged " "With what :'" inquired the elder Dantes. "With being a Bonapartist agent!" Many of my readers may be able tn recollect how formidable such an accusation became in the period at which our story is dated. A cry escaped the lips of Mercedes, while the old father fell into a chair. "Ah, Danglars!" whispered Caderousse, "you have deceived me — the trick has been played; but I cannot suffer a poor old man or an innocent girl to die of grief. I will tell them all." "Be silent, you simpleton!" cried Danglars, grasping him by the arm, "or I will not answer even for your own safety. Who can tell whether Dantes be innocent or guilty t The vessel did touch at Elba, where he (putted it, and passed a whole day at Porto-Ferrajo. Now, should any letters of a compromising character be found upon him, will it not be taken for granted that all who uphold him are his accom- plices .'" With the rapid instinct of selfishness, Caderousse readily perceived the solidity of this mode of reasoning; he gazed with eyes of grief and terror on Danglars, and then for every step forward he had taken, he t( x >k two back. "Let us, then, wait !" said he. " To be sure ! " answered Danglars. " Let us wait, by all means. If he be innocent, of course he will be set at liberty; if guilty, why, it is no use involving ourselves in his conspiracy." " Then let us go hence. I cannot stay longer here." "With all my heart!" replied Danglars, but too pleased to find a partner in his retreat. "Come, let us leave them to get out of it as they best can." After their departure, Fernand, who had now again become the support of Mercedes, led the girl back to the Catalans, while some friends of Dantes conducted his father, nearly lifeless, to the Allees de Meilhan. The rumor of Edmond's arrest as a Bonapartist agent was not slow in circulating throughout the city. "Could you ever have credited such a thing, my dear Danglars?" asked M. Morrel, as he overtook his supercargo and Caderousse, on his THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. 59 return to the port for the purpose of gleaning fresh tidings of Dantes from the deputy Proeureur du Roi, M. de Villefort, w1k.hi he knew slightly. "Could you have believed such a thing possible .'" "Why, you know I told you," replied Danglars, "thai I considered the circumstance of his having anchored in the isle of Elba as a very suspicious circumstance." "And did you mention these suspicions to any person beside myself!" "Certainly not!" returns I Dau-lars • then a. hid, in a low whisper, 60 THE cor XT OF MOXTE-VUISTO. "You understand thai, mi account of your uncle M. Policar Morrel, who served under the other, and who does not conceal what he thinks, you arc suspected of regretting Napoleon. I should have feared to injure both Edmond and yourself, had I divulged my own appre- hensions to a soul. There are things which a subordinate is bound to acquaint the shipowner with, and to conceal from all else." "Yes! yes! Danglars," replied M. .Morrel. "You are a worthy fellow ; and I had already thought of you in the event of poor Edmoud having become captain of the Pharaon? " Eow so.'" "Yes, indeed ; I previously inquired of Dantes what was his opinion of you, and if he should have any reluctance to continue you in your post, for somehow I had perceived a sort of coolness between you two." " And what was his reply f " That he certainly did think he had given you offense in an affair which he did not speak about, but that whoever possessed the confidence of the ship's owners would have his also." "The hypocrite ! " murmured Danglars between his teeth. " Poor Dantes ! " said Caderousse. " No one can deny his being a noble-hearted young fellow ! " " But, meanwhile," continued M. Morrel, "the Pharaan has no captain." " Oh ! " replied Danglars, " since we cannot leave this port for the next three months, let us hope that by that period Dantes will be set at liberty." " Xo doubt ; but in the mean time what are we to do .' " " I am entirely at your service, M. Morrel," answered Danglars. " Sou know that I am as capable of managing a ship as the most experienced captain in the service; and it will be so far advantageous to you to accept my services, that upon Edmond's release from prison there will be no one to dismiss. Dantes and myself each will resume our respective posts." ■•Thanks, Danglars — that will smooth all difficulties. Assume the command of the I'l/aram/, and look carefully to the unloading. Private misfortunes must never induce us to neglect business." " All right, M. Morrel; but when shall we be allowed to see him, at least, poor Edmond." " I will let you know that directly I have seen M. de Villefort, whom I shall endeavor to interest in Edmond's favor. I am aware he is a furious loyalist; but, in spite of that, and of his being the king's pro- cureur, he is a man, and I fancy not a bad one ! " " Perhaps not," replied Danglars ; " but he is said to be ambitious, and that is much the same." THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CBI8T0. 61 "Well, well!" returned M. Morrel, "we .shall see! Bui now hasten on board ; I will join you there ere long." So saying, the shipowner quitted the two allies, and proceeded in the direction of the Palais de Justice. "You see," said Danglars, addressing Caderousse, "the turn things have taken. Do you still feel any desire to stand up in bis defen "Not -the slightest, bul yel it is a shocking thing a joke should lead to such consequences." "But who perpetrated that joke? Let me ask; neither you nor myself, but Fernand : you know very well that I threw the paper into a corner of the room, — indeed, I fancied I had destroyed it." 62 THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. " Oh, no ! " replied Caderousse, " that I can answer for, yon did not. I only wish I could sec it now as plainly as I saw it lying all crushed and crumpled in a corner of the arbor." " Well, then, if you did, depend upon it, Fernand picked it up, and either copied it or caused it to be copied; perhaps, even, he did not take the trouble of reeopying it. And now I think of it, by Heavens ! he may have sent the letter itself ! Fortunately, for me, the handwriting was disguised." " Then you were aware of Dantes being engaged in a conspiracy f " " Not a bit in the world ! As I before said, I thought the whole thing was a joke, nothing more. It seems, however, that, like Harlequin, I have unconsciously stumbled upon the truth." " All the same," argued Caderousse, " I would give a great deal if nothing of the kind had happened ; or, at least, that I had had no hand in it. You will see, Danglars, that it will turn out an unlucky job for both." " Nonsense ! If any harm comes of it, it should fall on the guilty per- son ; and that, you know, is Fernand. How can harm come to us ? All we have got to do is, to keep quiet, not breathing a word to any living soul; and you will see that the storm will pass away without the thun- der-holt striking." "Amen!" responded Caderousse, waving adieu to Danglars, and bending his steps toward the Alices de Meilhan, moving his head to and fro, and muttering as he went, after the manner of one thoroughly preoccupied. " So far, then," said Danglars, " all has gone as I would have it. I am, temporarily, commander of the Pharaon, with the certainty of being permanently so, if that fool of a Caderousse can be persuaded to hold his tongue. My only fear is the chance of Dantes being released. But, 1 »ah ! " addi si 1 he, with a smile, " Justice is justice ; I'll leave it to her." So saying, he leaped into a boat, desiring to be rowed on board the Pharaon, where M. Morrel, it will be remembered, had appointed to meet him. CHAPTER VI THE DEPUTY PEOCUEEUB DTJ BOI X one of those old aristocratical mansions, built byPuget, situated in the Rue du Grand Cours opposite the fountain of Medusa, a second marriage feast was being celebrated, on the same day and at the same hour; only, while the actors in one scene were plain people, sailors and soldiers, in the other they belonged to the heads of Marseillaise society, — magistrates who had resigned then' office during the usurper's reign : officers who had deserted ovu' ranks to join the army of Conde; youths win > had been brought up by then- family, hardly yet assured of their existence, in spite of the substitutes they had paid for, to hate and execrate the man whom five years of exile ought to have converted into a martyr, and fifteen of restoration elevated to a demi-god. The guests were at table, and the conversation was animated and heated with all the passions of the epoch — passions more terrible, active, and hitter in the south, because for five years religious hatreds had reenforced political hatreds. The emperor, now king of the petty isle of Elba, after having held sovereign sway over one half of the world, counting us, his subjects, a population of five or six thousand. — after having been accustomed to hear the Five Napoleons of one hundred and twenty millions uttered in ten different languages, — was looked upon as a man ruined forever for France and the throne. The magistrates talked of political blunders; the military talked of Moscow and Leipsic, and the women of his divorce from Josephine. It seemed to this royalist world, joyous and triumphant, less at the fall of the man than at the annihilation of the principles he represented, as if life were again beginning after a peaceful dream. An old man, decorated with the cross of Saint Louis, now rose and 64 THE corxr OF M0NTE-CR1ST0. proposed the health of King Louis XVIII. II" was the Marquis de Saint-Meran. This toast, recalling at oner the patient exile of Hartwell and the king and pacificator of Prance, excited great applause; glasses were elevated in the air a PAnglaise, and the ladies, detaching their bouquets, strewed the table with them. In a word, poetical enthusiasm prevailed. "Ah! they would own, were they here," said the Marquise de Saint- Meran, a woman with a hard eye, thin lips, and aristocratic mien, though still elegant-looking, despite her fifty years — "ah! these revolu- tionists, who drove us out, and whom we leave now in our turn to con- spire at their ease in the old chateaux which they purchased for a mere trifle during the Reign of Terror, would be compelled to own, were they here, that all true devotion was ou our side, since we attached ourselves to a falling monarch, while they, on the contrary, worshiped the rising sun, and made their fortunes while we lost ours. Yes, yes, they could not help admitting that the king, our king, was in truth 'Louis the well-beloved,' while their emperor was never anything but 'Napoleon the accursed.' Am I not right, Villefort I " "I beg your pardon, madame, but — in truth — I was not attending to the conversation." ".Marquise, marquise!" interposed the same elderly personage who had proposed the toast, "let the young people alone; on their wedding day they naturally have to speak of something else than politics." "Pardon me, dearest mother," said a young and lovely girl, with a profusion of light brown hair, and eyes that seemed to float in liquid crystal, " I yield to you M. de Villefort, whom I had seized for a mo- ment. M. Villefort, my mother speaks to you." "If Madame la Marquise will deign to repeat the words I but imper- fectly caught, I shall be delighted to answer," said M. de Villefort. "Never mind, Renee," replied the marquise, with such a look of tenderness as all were astonished to see on her harsh features; for a woman's heart is so constituted that, however withered it be by the blasts of prejudice and etiquette, there is always one spot fertile and smiling, the spot consecrated by Clod to maternal love. " I forgive you. What I was saying, Villefort, was, that the Bonapartists had neither our sincerity, enthusiasm, nor devotion." " They had, however, what supplied the place of those fine qualities," replied the young man, "and that was fanaticism. Napoleon is the Mahomet of the West, and is worshiped by his commonplace but ambi- tious followers, not only as a leader and lawgiver, but also as a type, as the personification of equality." "Of equality!" cried the marquise, '"Napoleon the type of equality! THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRIBTO. 65 For mercy's sake, then, what would you call M. de Robespierre .' It seems to me that you rob him of his place and give it to the Corsican." "Nay, madame; I would place each on his right pedestal — thai of Robespierre on his scaffold in the Place Louis ; that of Napoleon on M. de Villefort. the column of the Place Yendome ; only the one made the equality that elevates, the other the equality that depresses; the one brings a king to the level of the guillotine, the other the people to a level with the throne. Observe," said Villefort, smiling, "I do not mean to deny that both were revolutionary scoundrels, and that the !>th Thermidor and 66 THE <(>r NT OF MOXTE-CRIHTO. the 4th of April, 1814, were lucky days for France, worthy of being equally remembered by every friend to monarchy and order; and that explains how, fallen as 1 trust he is forever, Napoleon has still pre- served a train of fanatical adherents. Still, marquise, it has been so with other usurpers: Cromwell, who was not half of a Napoleon, had his." "Do you know, Villefort, that you are talking in a revolutionary strain '. But I excuse it; it is impossible to be the son of a Girondin and lie free from a spice of the old leaven." A deep crimson suffused the countenance of Villefort. "'Tis true, madame," answered he, "that my father was a Girondin, but lie did not vote for the king's death; he was an equal sufferer with yourself during the Reign of Terror, and had well-nigh lost his head on the same scaffold as your own father." " True," replied the marquise, without the tragical remembrance producing the slightest change in her features; "only our respective parents underwent proscription from diametrically opposite principles; in proof of which I may remark, that while my family remained adher- ents of the exiled princes, your father lost no time in joining the new government; and that after the Citizen Noirtier had been a Grirondin, the Count Noirtier became a senator." " Dear mother," interposed Renee, " you know very well it was agreed that all these disagreeable reminiscences should be spoken of no more." "Suffer me, also, madame," rejoined Villefort, "to add my earnest request that you will kindly forget the past. What avails recrimina- tion touching circumstances before which even the will of God himself is powerless? God can change the future; he cannot modify the past. What we human beings can do is not to deny, but to cast a veil over it. For my own part, I have laid aside the name of my father, as well as his principles. He was — nay, probably may still be — a Bonapartist, and is called Noirtier; I, ou the contrary, am a royalist, and style myself de Villefort. Let what may remain of revolutionary sap die away with the old trunk, and only regard the young shoot which has stalled up from this trunk, without having the power, any more than the wish, to separate itself entirely." "Bravo, Villefort!" cried the marquis; "excellently well said! I, too, have always preached to the marquise oblivion of the past without ever obtaining it. You, I hope, will be more fortunate." " With all my heart," replied the marquise; "let the past be forever forgotten ! I ask no more. All I ask is, that Villefort will be inflexible for the future. Remember, also, Villefort, that we have pledged our- selves to his majesty for you, and that at our recommendation the king THE cor ST OF M0NTE-CRI8T0 67 consented to forget it" (and here she extended to him her hand), "as I now do at your entreaty. Only, if there fall in your way some con- spirator, remember that there are so many more eyes on you, as Li U known you belong to a family winch, perhaps, is in sympathy with these conspirators." The Marquise de Saint-Mi-ran. "Alas! madame," returned Villefort, " my profession, as well as the times in which we live, compel me to be severe. 1 shall be so. I have already successfully conducted several public prosecutions, and proved my faith. But we have not done with the thing yet." 68 THE COUNT OF MOXTE-CRISTO. " Do you, indeed, think so ? " inquired the marquise. " I am, at least, fearful of it. Napoleon, in the island of Elba, is too near France, and his presence, almost in sight of our coasts, keeps up the hopes of his partisans. Marseilles is filled with half-pay officers, who arc daily, under one frivolous pretext or other, getting up quarrels with the royalists; hence duels among the higher classes, and assassi- nations in the lower." " You have heard, perhaps," said the Count de Salvieux, one of M. de Saint-Meran's oldest friends, and chamberlain to the Count d'Artois, " that the Holy Alliance purpose removing him from thence?" " Ah ! " they were talking about it when we left Paris," said M. de Saint-Meran ; " and where is it decided to transfer him ! " " To Saint Helena." " Saint Helena ! where is that ? " asked the marquise. " An island situated on the other side of the equator, at least two thousand leagues from hence," replied the count. " So much the better ! As Villefort observes, it is a great act of folly to have left such a man between Corsica, where he was born, Naples, of which his brother-in-law is king, and Italy, the sovereignty of which he coveted for his son." " Unfortunately," said Villefort, " there are the treaties of 1814, and without violating them Napoleon cannot be touched." " They will be violated," said the Count de Salvieux. " Did he regard treaty-clauses when he shot the hapless Due d'Enghien ? " " Well," said the marquise, " the Holy Alliance will free Europe of Napoleon, and, M. de Villefort, Marseilles of his partisans. The king cither reigns or does not. If he reigns, his government must be strong, and his agents inflexible. This is the way to prevent mischief." "Unfortunately, madame," answered Villefort, a deputy Procureur du Roi only appears when the mischief is done." " Then all he has got to do is to endeavor to repair it." " Nay, madame, we cannot repair it ; we can only avenge the wrong done." " Oh ! M. de Villefort," cried a beautiful young creature, daughter to Count Salvieux, and the cherished friend of Mademoiselle de Saint- Meran, "do try and get up some famous trial while we are at Mar- seilles. I never was in a law-court ; I am told it is so very amusing ! " " Amusing, certainly," replied Villefort, " for, in place of a fictitious tragedy, you have a real drama ; in place of theatrical woes, real woes ; the man whom you see there, instead of going home when the curtain falls, and supping with his family, and sleeping peacefully to begin again another day, goes back to prison, where he finds the executioner. THE COUNT OF M0NTS-CBI8T0. 69 You will see that for nervous persons who seek emotions no spectacle can be more attractive. Be assured, mademoiselle, if the circumstance presents itself, I will give you an opportunity." " He makes us shudder — and he smiles ! " said Renee, becoming quite pale. "Why, it is a duel. I have already recorded sentence of death, five or six times, against political criminals, and who can say how many daggers may be now sharpening or already directed againsl me?" "Gracious heavens! M. de Villefort," said Renee, becoming more and more terrified ; " you surely are not in earnest ! " "Indeed I am," replied the young magistrate with a smile; "and in the interesting trial that young lady desires, to satisfy her curi< >sity, and I to satisfy my ambition, the case would only be still more aggravated. All these soldiers of Napoleon, accustomed to charge the enemy blindly, what did they think about burning a cartridge or rushing on a bayonet .' Will they think a bit more about killing a man whom they believe their personal enemy, than about killing a Russian, Austrian, or Hungarian whom they have never seen? It is this — it is this which justifies our profession ! I, myself, when I see the eye of the accused gleaming with the flash of rage, I feel myself encouraged and elevated. It is n<> longer a trial, it is a combat; I thrust at him, he lunges back; I thrust again, and all is ended, as in all combats, by a victory or a defeat ! This is what I call pleading ! This is the power of eloquence ! A prisoner who smiled at me after my reply woidd make me believe that I had spoken badly — that my address was colorless, feeble, insufficient. Think, then, of the sensation of pride which is felt by a prosecutor, convinced of the guilt of the accused, when he sees the prisoner blanch and crouch beneath the weight of his proofs and the thunders of his eloquence! That head drops ; that head will fall ! " Renee uttered a low cry. "Bravo!" cried one of the guests; " that is what I call talking." "Just the person we require at a time like the present," said a second. "What a splendid business that last cause of yours was, my dear Villefort!" remarked a third; "I mean the trial of the man formurder- ing his father. Upon my word, you killed him ere the executioner had laid his hand upon him." "Oh! as for parricides," interposed Renee, "it matters very little what is done to them; but, as regards poor political cr imin a ls " "But it is still worse, Renee, as the king is father of his people, to wish to overthrow or kill the father of thirty-two millions of souls." "I don't know anything about that," replied Renee; "but, M. de Villefort, you promise to show mercy to those I plead for ? " 70 THE COENT OF MOWTE-CRISTO. " Make yourself quite easy on that point," answered Villefort, with one of his sweetest smiles ; " you and I will always consult upon our verdicts." " My love," said the marquise, "attend to your humming-birds, your lap-dogs, and embroidery ; let your husband mind his business. Nowa- days the military profession has rest ; the long robe is in credit. There is a Latin proverb about it, very profound." Cedant arma togce, said Villefort, with a bow. " 1 would not dare to speak Latin," replied the marquise. " Well," said Renee, "I cannot help regretting you were not a physi- cian. Uo you know I always felt a shudder at the idea of even a destroying angel, angel though he be :'" " Dear, good, Renee ! " whispered Villefort, as he gazed with tender- ness on the speaker. " Let us hope, my child," cried the marquis, " that M. de Villefort may prove the moral and political physician of this province; if so, he will have achieved a noble work." "And one which will go far to efface the recollection of his father's conduct," added the incorrigible rnarquise. " Madame," replied Villefort, with a mournful smile, " I have already had the honor to observe that my father has — at least I hope so — abjured his past errors, and that he is, at the present moment, a firm and zealous friend to religion and order — a better royalist, possibly, than his son ; for he is one, with repentance ; I, only with passion." Having made this well-turned speech, Villefort looked carefully round to mark the effect of his oratory, much as he would have done in the court after a like phrase. " Do you know, my dear Villefort," cried the Count de Salvieux, "that is as nearly as possible what I myself said the other day at the Tuileries, when questioned by his majesty's principal chamberlain touching the singularity of an alliance between the son of a Griron- din and the daughter of an officer of the Duke de Conde. He under- stood it thoroughly. This system of fusion is that of Louis XVIII. Then the king, who, without our suspecting it, had overheard our con- versation, interrupted us by saying, 'Villefort,' — observe that the king did not pronol^nee the word Noirtier, but, on the contrary, placed consid- erable emphasis on that of Villefort — 'Villefort,' said his majesty, 'is a young man of discretion, who will make a figure ; I like him much, and it gave me great pleasure to hear that he was about to become the son- in-law of M. le Marquis and Madame la Marquise de Saint-Meran. I should myself have recommended the match, had not the noble marquis anticipated my wishes by requesting my consent to it.' " " The king said that, Count ! " asked the enraptured Villefort. THE (OIXT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 71 " I give you his very words ; and if the marquis chooses to be candid he will confess that they perfectly agree with whal his majesty said to him, when he went, six months ago, to consult him upon the subjecl of your espousing his daughter." Ren6e de Saint-M6ran. "Certainly," answered the marquis. - Bow mucli do I owe this gracious prince! What would I aol do to evince my gratitude!" "That is right," cried the marquise. " 1 love to see you thus. Now, 72 THE COUNT OF M0NTH-CBI8T0. then, were a conspirator to fall into your hands, lie would be most welcome." " For my part, dear mother," interposed Renee, "I hope God will not bear you, and that Providence will only permit petty offenders, poor debtors, and miserable cheats to fall into M. de Villefort's hands; then I shall be contented." ".Inst the same as though," said Villefort, laughing, "you prayed that a physician might only be called upon to prescribe for headaches, measles, and the stings of wasps, or any other slight affection of the epidermis. If you wish to see me the king's procureur, you must desire for me some of those violent and dangerous diseases from the cure of which so much honor redounds to the physician." At this moment, and as though the utterance of Villefort's wish had stifficed to effect its accomplishment, a servant entered the room and whispered a few words in his ear. Villefort immediately rose from table and quitted the room upon the plea of urgent business : he soon, however, returned, his whole face beaming with delight. Renee regarded him with fond affection ; for, with his blue eyes, olive complexion, and the black whiskers which framed his face, he was truly a handsome, elegant young man, and the whole soul of the young girl seemed hanging on his lips till he explained the cause of his sudden departure. " You were wishing just now," said Villefort, addressing her, " that I were a doctor instead of a lawyer. Well, I at least resemble the disciples of Esculapius in one thing [people spoke in this style in 1815], that of not being able to call a day my own, not even that of my betrothal." "And wherefore were you called away just now?" asked Made- moiselle de Saint-Meran, with an air of interest. " For a patient who is, according to the report given me, near his end. A serious case, likely to end in the scaffold." " How dreadful ! " exclaimed Renee. " Is it possible I " burst simultaneously from all. " Why, if my information prove correct, a sort of Bonapartist con- spiracy has just been discovered." " Can I believe my ears ? " cried the marquise. " I will read you the letter containing the accusation, at least," said Villefort: " ' The procureur du roi is informed by a friend to the throne and the religious institu- tions of his country, that an individual, named Edmond Dantes, second in command on board the Pharaon, this day arrived from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been the bearer of a letter from Murat to the usurper, and from the usurper to the Bonapartist Club in Paris. Proof may be obtained by arresting him, for tin- litter is in the possession either of him or his father, or on board the Pharaon in his cabin.'" Till: COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 73 "But," said Renee, "this letter, which, after all. is but an anonymous scrawl, is not even addressed to you, but to the procureur du roi." "True; but that gentleman being absent, bis secr< tary, by his orders, opened his letters: thinking this one of importance, he sent for me, but. not finding me, took upon himself to give the necessary orders arresting the accused party." "Then th<> guilty person is in custody .'" said the marquise. "Say the accused person," cried Renee. for 74 TEE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. "He is in custody," answered Villefort; "and if the letter alluded to is found, as I just said to Mademoiselle Renee, the patient is very sick." " And where is the unfortunate being ?" asked Renee. " He is at my house." "Conic, my friend," interrupted the marquise, "do not neglect your duty to linger with us. You are the king's servant, and must go whithersoever that service calls you." "Oli, M. de Villefort !" cried Renee, clasping her hands, "be merciful on this the day of our betrothal." The young man passed round to the side of the table where the fair pleader sat, and, leaning over her chair, said tenderly : " To give you pleasure," he whispered, " I promise, dear Renee, to show all the lenity in my power; but if the charges are correct, the accusation proved, we must cut short this rank growth of Bonapartism." Renee shuddered at the word cut, for the growth in question had a head. " Never mind that foolish girl, Villefort," said the marquise ; " she will soon gei over these things." So saying, Madame de Saint-Meran extended her dry hand to Ville- fort, who, while kissing it, looked at Renee, saying with his eyes, "It is your hand I kiss, or would fain be kissing, at least." '• Sad auspices!" sighed Renee. " Upon my word, child!" exclaimed the angry marquise, "your folly exceeds all bounds. I shoidd be glad to know what connection there can possibly be between your sickly sentimentality and the affairs of the slat.'!" u ( >h, mother ! " murmured Renee. "Pardon, marquise," said Villefort; "for this bad royalist, I promise to act conscientiously, that is, to be horribly severe." But while he addressed these words to the old marquise, he east a glance at his betrothed which said, " Have no fear, Renee ; your love will make me mercifid." Renee replied to the look by a smile, and Villefort departed with paradise in his heart. CHAPTER VII THE EXAMINATION sooner had Villefort left the saloon than he dropped the mask of gayety and assumed the grave air of a man who holds the balance of life and death in his hands. But, in spite of the mobility of his features, a mobility which he had more than once studied, as a clever actor does, before his mirror, it was on this occasion a labor for him to contract his brows and make his countenance stern and judicial Except the recollection of the line of politics his father had adopted, and which might interfere, unless he acted with the greatest prudence, with his own career, Villefort was as happy as a man could be. Already rich, he held a high official situa- tion, though only twenty-seven. He was about to marry a young and charming woman, whom he loved, not passionately, but discreetly, as a magistrate ought to love; and besides her personal attractions, which were very great, Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran's family possessed con- siderable political influence, which her parents, having no other child, would, of course, exert in his favor. The dowry of his wife amounted to thirty thousand dollars, besides the prospect of inheriting one hun- dred thousand more at her father's death. At the door he met the commissary of police, who was waiting for him. The sight of this officer recalled Villefort from the third heaven to earth; he composed his face as we have before described, and said : "I have read the letter, monsieur, and you have acted rightly in arresting this man; now inform me what you have discovered concern- ing him and the conspiracy." " We know nothing as yet of the conspiracy, monsieur; all the papers found have been sealed up and placed on your bureau. The prisoner himself is named Edmond Dantes, mate on board the three-master, the 7<; THE COUNT OF M OXT E-C h'ISTO. Pharaon, trading in cotton with Alexandria and Smyrna, and belonging to Morrel and Son, of Marseilles." "Before he entered the merchant service, had he ever served in the navy :'" "Oh, no, monsieur; he is very young." "How old?" " Nineteen or twenty at the most." At this moment, and as Villefort, following the Grand Rue, had arrived at the corner of the Rne dcs Conseils, a man, who seemed to have been waiting for him, approached : it was M. Morrel. " Ah ! M. de Villefort," cried he, " I am delighted to see you. Some of your people have committed the strangest, most unheard-of mistake — they have just arrested Kdmond Dantes, the mate of my ship." "1 know it, monsieur," replied Villefort, "and I am now going to examine him." " Oh," said Morrel, carried away by his friendship, " you do not know him, and 1 do. He is the most estimable, the most trustworthy man, and, I will venture to say. the man who knows his business best in all the merchant service. Oh, M. de Villefort, I beseech your indulgence for him." Villefort, as we have seen, belonged to the aristocratic party at Mar- seilles ; Morrel to the plebeian. The first was an ultra royalist ; the other suspected of Bonapartism. Villefort looked disdainfully at Morrel, and replied coldly : "You are aware, monsieur, that a man may be estimable and trust- worthy in private life and his commercial relations, and the best seaman in the merchant service, and yet be, politically speaking, a, greal crim- inal. Is it not true :'" The magistrate laid emphasis on these words, as if he wish e< I to apply them to the owner himself, whilst his eyes seemed to plunge into the heart of him who, whilst he interceded for another, had himself i d of indulgence. Morrel reddened, for his own conscience was not quite clear on poli- tics; besides, what Dantes had told him of his interview with the ^rand-marshal, and what the emperor had said to him, embarrassed him. He replied, however, in a tone of deep interest : " I entreat you, M. de Villefort, be just, as is your duty, and, as you always are, kind, and give him back to us soon." This give us sounded revolutionary in the sub-prefect's cars. " Ah, ah ! " murmured he, " is Dantes then a member of some Car- bonari society, that his protector thus employs the collective form? He was, if I recollect, arrested in a cabaret, in company with a great nianv others." Then he added aloud : THE COUNT OF M02TTE-CRIBT0. 77 "Monsieur, you may resl assured I shall perform my duty impartially, and that if lie he innocent you shall nol have appealed to mein vain; should he, however, be guilty, in this presenl epoch, impunity would furnish a dangerous example, and I must do my duty." As lie had now arrived at the door of his own house, which adjoined the Palais de Justice, he entered with an air of majesty, after having saluted with freezing politeness the shipowner, whostoocLas if petrified, on the spot where Villefort had lefi him. The antechamber was full of agents of police and gendarmes, in the 78 THE COT NT OF MOXTE-Ch'ISTO. midst of whom, carefully watched, but calm and smiling, stood the prisoner. Yillefort traversed the antechamber, cast a side glance at Dantes, and, taking a packet which a gendarme ottered him, disappeared, saying : " Bring in the prisoner." Rapid as had been Villefort's glance, it had served to give him an idea of the man he was about to interrogate. He had recognized intelli- gence in the high forehead, courage in the dark eye and bent brow, and frankness in the thick lips that showed a set of pearly teeth. Villefort's first impression was favorable ; but he had been so often warned to mistrust first impulses, especially if they were good, that he applied the maxim to the impression, forgetting the difference between the two words. He stifled, therefore, the better instincts that were ris- ing, composed his features before the glass into a grave and menacing aspect, and sat down at his bureau. An instant after, Dantes entered. He was pale, but calm and smiling, and, saluting his judge with easy politeness, looked round for a seat, as if he had been in the saloon of M. Morrel. It was then that he encoun- tered, for the first time, Villefort's look, — that look peculiar to lawyers who do not wish their thoughts to be read. This look told him he was in presence of the stern figure of justice. " Who and what are you ! " demanded Villefort, turning over a pile of papers, containing information relative to the prisoner, that an agent of police had given to him on his entry, and which within an hour had become voluminous, so rapidly does the unhappy man, styled the accused, become the object of detective corruption. " My name is Edmond Dantes," replied the young man calmly ; " I am mate of the Pharaon, belonging to Messrs. Morrel and Son." " Your age f " continued Villefort. " Nineteen," returned Dantes. " What were you doing at the moment you were arrested ! " " I was at the festival of my marriage, monsieur," said the young man, his voice slightly tremulous, so great was the contrast between that happy moment and the painful ceremony he was now undergoing ; so great was the contrast between the somber aspect of M. de Villefort and the radiant face of Mercedes. " You were at the festival of your marriage ? " said the deputy, shud- dering in spite of himself. " Yes, monsieur, I am on the point of marrying a young girl I have been attached to for three years." Villefort, impassive as he usually was, was struck with this coinci- dence ; ami the tremulous voice of Dantes, smprised in the midst of his THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. 7!' happiness, struck a sympathetic chord in his own bosom ; — he also was on the point of being married, ami he was summoned from his own happiness to destroy that of a man who, like himself, bad happiness at his grasp. "This philosophic reflection," thought he, "will make a greal sensa- tion at M. de Saint-Meran's." Ami he arranged mentally, whilsl I >antes awaited further questions, the antithesis by which orators often create those phrases which sometimes pass for real eloquence. When this speech was arranged, Villefort turned to Dantes. 80 THE COT XT OF MOXTE-CKISTO. •■ Continue, sir," said lie. " What would you have me continue :'" " To give all the information in your power." "Tell mi' on whirl] poinl you desire information, and I will tell all 1 know ; only," added be, with a smile, "I warn you I know very little." •• Eave you served under the usurper?" " I was about to he incorporated in the naval forces when he fell." "It is reported your political opinions are extreme," said Villefort, who had never heard anything- of the kind, but was not sorry to make this inquiry, as if it were an accusation. " .My political opinions ! " replied Dantes. "Alas ! sir, I never had, I am almost ashamed to say, any opinions. I am hardly nineteen; I kimw nothing; I have no part to play. What I am and what I shall be, if 1 obtain the situation I desire, 1 shall owe to M. Morrel. Thus all my opinions — I will not say public, but private — are confined to these three sentiments: 1 love my father, I respect M. Morrel, and I adore Mercedes, This, sir, is all I can tell you, and you see how uninteresting it is." As Dantes spoke, Villefort gazed at his ingenuous and open counte- nance, and recollected the words of Renee, who, without knowing who the culprit was, had besought his indulgence for him. With the deputy's knowledge of crime and criminals, every word the young man uttered convinced him more and more of his innocence. This lad, — for he was scarcely a man, — simple, natural, eloquent with that eloquence of the heart never found when sought for ; full of affection for every- body, because he was happy, and because happiness renders even the wicked .u'ood, extended, even to his judge, the affabibty which over- flowed his heart. Edinond, in his looks, his tones, and his gestures, seven- and harsh as Villefort had been, displayed only gentleness and respect. " Pardieu /" said Villefort to himself, "he is a noble fellow ! I hope I shall gain Renee's favor easily by obeying the first command she ever imposed on me. I shall have at least a pressure of the hand in public, ami a sweet kiss in private." Full of this idea, Villefort's face became so joyous, that when he turned to Dantes, the latter, who had watched the change on his physi- ognomy, was smiling also. " Sir," said Villefort, " have you any enemies, at least that you know ? " "I have enemies ?" replied Dantes ; "my position is not sufficiently elevated for that. As for my character, that is, perhaps, somewhat too hasty; but I have striven to repress it toward my subordinates. I have had ten or twelve sailors under me; and if you question them, THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 81 they will tell you that they Love and resped me, nol as a father, for I am too young, but as an elder brother." "But, instead of enemies, you may have excited jealousy. Eon are about to become captain at nineteen — an elevated post in your profes- sion; you are about to marry a pretty girl, who loves yon, a happiness raiv in any position ; and these two pieces of good fortune may have excited the envy of some one.' 1 "You are right; you know men better than I do, and what yon say may possibly be the case, I confess ; but if they are among my friends I prefer not knowing them, because then I should be forced to hate them." "You are wrong; you should always strive to see clearly around you. You seem a worthy young man ; I will depart from the strict line of my duty to aid you in throwing light on the matter, by communicating to you the information which has brought you here. Here is the paper; do you know the writing .' " As he spoke, Yillefort drew the letter from his pocket, and presented it to Dantes. Dantes read it. A cloud passed over his brow as he said: "No, monsieur, I do not know the writing. It is disguised, and yet it is tolerably plain. Whoever did it writes well. I am very fortunate," added he, looking gratefully at Yillefort, "to be examined by such a man as you; for this envious person is a real enemy." And by the rapid glance that the young man's eyes shot forth, A'ille- fort saw how much energy lay hid beneath this mildness. " Now," said the deputy, "answer me frankly, not as a prisoner t<> a judge, but as one man in a false position to another who takes an interest in him, what truth is there in the accusation contained in this anonymous letter .' " And Yillefort threw disdainfully on his bureau the letter Dantes had just given back to him. '• Xone at all. I will tell you the real facts. I swear by my honor a< a sailor, by my love for Mercedes, by the life of my father " " Speak, monsieur," said Yillefort. Then, internally, " If Renee could see me, I hope she would be satisfied, and would no longer call me a decapitator." " Well, when we quitted Naples, Captain Leclere was attacked with a brain-fever. As we had n<> doctor on board, and he was so anxious to arrive at Elba that he would not touch at any other port, his disorder rose to such a height that at the end of the third day. Heeling he was dying, he called me to him. 'My dear Dantes,' said he. 'swear to per- form what I am going to tell you, for it is a matter of the deepest importance.' "'I swear, captain,' replied I. 82 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. "'Well, as after my death the command devolves on you as mate, assume the command, and hear up for the isle of Elba, disembark at Porto-Ferrajo, ask for the grand-marshal, give him this letter; — per- haps he will give you another letter, and charge you with a commis- sion. You will accomplish the mission that I was to have done, and derive all the honor from it.' " 'I will do it, captain; but, perhaps, I shall not be admitted to the grand-marshal's presence as easily as you expect ." " 'Here is a ring that will obtain audience of him, and remove every difficulty,' said the captain. At these words he gave me a ring. It was time ; — two hours after he was delirious ; the next day he died." "And what did you do then V " What I ought to have done, and what every one would have done in my place. Everywhere the last requests of a dying man are sacred ; but with a sailor the last requests of his superior are commands. I sailed for the isle of Elba, where I arrived the next day; I ordered everybody to remain on board, and went on shore alone. As I had expected, I found some difficulty in obtaining access to the grand-marshal ; but I sent the ring I had received as my credentials, and was instantly admitted. He questioned me concerning Captain Leclere's death; and, as the latter had told me, gave me a letter to carry in person to Paris. I undertook it because it was what my captain had bade me do. I landed here, regulated the affairs of the vessel, and hastened to visit my affianced bride, whom I found more lovely than ever. Thanks to M. Morrel, all the forms were got over; in a word, I was, as I told you, at my marriage feast; and I should have been married in an horn-, and to-morrow I intended to start for Paris, when, on this accusation which you now seem to despise as much as I do, I was arrested." " Ah ! " said Villefort, " this seems to me the truth. If you have been culpable, it was imprudence, and this imprudence was legitimized by the orders of your captain. Give up this letter you have brought from Elba, and pass your word you will appear should you be required, and go and rejoin yoiu- friends." " I am free, then, sir ? " cried Dantes, joyfully. " Yes ; but first give me this letter." "You have it already; for it was taken from me with some others which I see in that packet." " Stop a moment," said the deputy, as Dantes took his hat and gloves. " To whom is it addressed ? " " To Monsieur Noirtier, Rue Coq-Heron, Paris. n Had a thunder-bolt fallen into the room, Villefort could not have hecu more stupefied. He sank into his seat, and, hastily turning over THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. >:, the packet, drew forth the fatal letter, at which be glanced with an expression of terror. "M. Xoii-ticr, Rue Coq-Heron, No. 13," murmured he, growing still paler. " Yes," said Dantes ; " do yon then know him .'" " No," replied Yillefort ; " a faithful servant of the king does not know conspirators." "It is a conspiracy, then? "asked Dantes, who, after believing hum- 84 THE COUNT OF M0NTE-GBI8T0. self free, now began to feel a tenfold alarm. " I have already told you, however, sir, I was ignorant of the contents of the letter." •' Yes, hut you knew the name of the person to whom it was addressed," said Yillefort. " 1 was forced to read the address to know to whom to give it." •• II;, ve you shown this letter to any one :' " asked Yillefort, becoming still more pale. " To no one, on my honor." " Everybody is ignorant that you are the hearer of a letter from the isle of Elba, and addressed to M. Nbirtier "?" " Everybody, except the person who gave it to me." " This is too much," murmured Yillefort. Villefort's brow darkened more and more, his white lips and clenched teeth filled Dantes with apprehension. After reading the letter, Villefort covered his face with his hands, and remained for an instant overpowered. "Oh !" said Dantes, timidly, "what is the matter?" Villefort made no answer, but raised his head at the expiration of a few seconds, and again perused the letter. "You give me your honor that you are ignorant of the contents of this Letter!" " I give you my honor, sir," said Dantes; "but what is the matter? You are ill ; — shall I ring for assistance ? — shall I call \ " " No," said Yillefort, rising hastily ; " stay where you are. Don't say a word ! It is for me to give orders here, and not you." "Monsieur," replied Dantes, proudly, "it was only to summon assist- ance for yon." " I want none ; it was a temporary indisposition. Attend to yourself; answer me." Dantes waited, expecting a question, but in vain. Yillefort fell back on his chair, passed his hand over his brow, moist with perspiration, and, for the third time, read the letter. "Oh! if he knows the contents of this!" murmured he, "and that Noii-tier is the father of Villefort, I am lost !" And he fixed his eyes upon Edmond as if he woidd have penetrated his thoughts. " Oh ! it is impossible to doubt it," cried he suddenly. " In heaven's name!" cried the unhappy young man, "if voir doubt me, question me ; I will answer you." Villefort made a violent effort, and in a tone he strove to render firm : " Sir," said he, " your examination has resulted in very grave charges against you. I am no longer able, as I had hoped, to restore yon immedi- ately to liberty; before doing so, I must consult the judge of instruc- tion ; but you see how I behave toward you." THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. 35 "Oh! monsieur, and I thank you," cried Dantes; "you have been rather a friend than a judge." "Well, I must detain you some time Longer, but I will strive to make it as short as possible. The principal eharyv against you is this letter aud you see " Villefort approached the fire, cast it in, and waited until it was entirely consumed. "You see, 1 destroy it?" " Oh !" exclaimed Dantes, " you are goodness itself." " Listen," continued Villefort ; "you can now have confidence in me after what I have dour." "()h! order me, and I will obey." 86 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. " Listen ! this is not an order, but a counsel, I give yon." •• Speak, and I will follow your advice." " I shall detain you until this evening in the Palais de Justice. Should any one else interrogate you, tell him all you have told me, only do not breathe a word of this Letter." " 1 promise." It was Villefort who seemed to entreat, and the prisoner who re-assured him. " You see," continued he, looking at the ashes which still retained the shape of the paper and were dancing above the flames, "the letter is destroyed; you and I alone know of its existence; should you, therefore, he questioned, deny all knowledge of it." " Fear nothing; I will deny it." "Good," said Villefort, laying his hand on the bell-rope, and then checking himself. " It was the only letter you had ? " " It was." '■ Swear it." " I swear it." Villefort rang. An agent of police entered. Villefort whispered some words in his ear, to which the officer replied by a motion of his head. " Follow him," said Villefort to Dantes. Dantes saluted Villefort and retired. Hardly had the door closed, than Villefort threw himself into a chair, nearly fainting. " Alas ! alas ! " murmured he, " on what chances life and fortune depend ! if the proeureur de r<>i had been at Marseilles ! if the judge of instruction had been called instead of me, I should have been ruined. This paper, this accursed letter, would have destroyed all my hopes. Oh ! my father, will you always be an obstacle to my happiness, and have I forever to struggle against your past?" Suddenly a light seemed to pass over his spirit and illuminate his face; a smile played round his mouth, and his lips became unclenched, and his haggard eyes seemed to pause on some new thought. " This will do," said he, " and from this letter, which might have ruined me, I will make my fortune." And after having assured himself the prisoner was gone, the deputy proeureur hastened to the house of his bride. THE CHATEAU DTP. CHAPTEB VIII THE CHATEAU l>'lF HE commissary of police, as he traversed the antechamber, made a sign to two gendarmes, who placed themselves one on Dantes' righl and the other on his left. A door thai com- municated with the Palais de Justice was opened, and they traversed a long range of gloomy corridors, whose appearance might have made even the boldest shudder. The Palais de .lustier communi- cated with the prison, — a somber edifice, that from its gaping windows looks on the clock-tower of the Accoules rising before it. After num- berless windings, Dantes saw an iron door and wicket. Th mmis- sary knocked thrice, every Mow seeming to Dantes as if struck on his heart. The door opened, the two gendarmes gently pushed him for- ward, and the door closed with a loud sound behind him. The air he inhaled was no longer pure, hut thick and mephitic, — he was in prison. Me was conducted to a tolerably neat chamber, hut grated and barred, and its appearance, therefore, did not greatly alarm him; besides, the words of Villefort, who seemed to interest himself so much, resounded still in his ears like a promise of hope, it was four o'clock when Dantes was placed in this chamber. It was, as we have said, the 1st of March, and the prisoner was soon buried in darkness. The obscurity augmented the acuteness of his hearing: at the slightest sound In' rose and hastened to the door, convinced they were aboul to liberate him; but the sound died away, and Dantes sank again into his seat. At last, aboul ten o'clock, ami just as Halites began to despair, sounds were again heard and seemed to approach his cham- ber; steps echoed in the corridor and stopped at his door, a key turned in the lock, the holts creaked, the massy oaken door tlew open, and a flood of light from two torches pervaded the apartment. By the torchlight Dantes saw the glittering sabers and carbines of 90 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRI&TO. four gendarmes. He had advanced at first, but stopped at sight of this fresh accession of force. " Are you come to fetch me?" asked he. "Yes," replied a gendarme. " By the orders of the deputy of the king's proeureur ?" " I believe so." " Well," said Dantes, "I am ready to follow you.' 1 The conviction that they came from M. de Villefort relieved all Dantes' apprehensions; he advanced calmly, and placed himself in the center of the escort. A carriage waited at the street door, the coach- man was on the box, and an exempt seated behind him. "Is this carriage for me ?" said Dantes. " It is for yon," replied a gendarme. Dantes was about to speak, but feeling himself urged forward, and having neither the power nor the intention to resist, he mounted the steps, and was in an instant seated inside between two gendarmes ; the two others took their places opposite, and the carriage rolled heavily over the stones. The prisoner glanced at the windows — they were grated ; he had changed his prison for another that was conveying him he knew not whither. Through the close-barred grating, however, Dantes saw they were passing through the Rue Caisserie, and by the Quay Saint-Laurent and the Rue Taramis, to the quay. Soon he saw, through the grating of the coach and the railing of the edifice, the gleam of the lights of La ( lonsigne. The carriage stopped, the exempt descended, approached the guard- house, a dozen soldiers came out and formed themselves in order; Dantes saw the reflection of their muskets by the light of the lamps on the quay. " Can all this military force be summoned on my account '! " thought he. The exempt opened the door, which was locked, and, without speak- ing a word, answered Dantes' question; for he saw between the ranks of the soldiers a passage formed from the carriage to the port. The two gendarmes who were opposite to him descended first, then he was ordered to alight, and the gendarmes on each side of him followed his example. They advanced toward a boat, which a custom-house officer held near the quay by a chain. The soldiers looked at Dantes with an air of stupid curiosity. In an instant he was placed in the stern-sheets of the boat, between the gendarmes, whilst the exempt stationed himself at the bow; a shove sent the boat adrift, and four sturdy oarsmen impelled it rapidly toward the Pilou. At a shout from the boat, the chain that closes the THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 9] mouth of the port was lowered, and in a second they were outside the harbor. The prisoner's first feeling was joy at again breathing the pure air — for air is freedom, and he eagerly inhaled the fresh breeze thai brings on its wings all the unknown scents of the night and the sea. Bu1 he soon sighed, for he passed before I>a Reserve, where he had thai morn- ing been so happy, and now through the open windows came the laughter and revelry of a ball. Dantes folded Ins hands, raised his eyes to heaven, and prayed fervently. 92 THE COUNT OF M ON T E-V R I STO. The boat continued her voyage. They had passed the Tete de More, were now in front of the light-house, and about to double the bat- fcery. This manoeuvre was incomprehensible to Dantes. " Whither are you taking me?" asked he. "You will soon know." "But, still " " We are forbidden to give you any explanation." Dantes was half a soldier and knew that nothing would be more absurd than to question subordinates, who were forbidden to reply, and remained silent. The most vague and wild thoughts passed through his mind. The boat they were in could not make a long voyage; there was no vessel at anchor outside the harbor; he thought perhaps they were going to leave him on sonic distanl point and tell him he was free. He was not bound, nor had they made any attempt to handcuff him; this seemed a good augury. Besides, had not the deputy, who had been so kind to him, told him that, provided he did not pronounce the dreaded name of Noirtier, he had nothing to apprehend f Had not Villefort in his pres- ence destroyed the fatal letter, the only proof against him ? He waited silently, striving to pierce through the obscurity of the night with his sailor's eye, accustomed to darkness and distance. They had left the He Eatonneau, where the light-house stood, on the right, and were now opposite the Point des Catalans. His eyesight redoubled its vigor, and it seemed to the prisoner that he could dis- tinguish a female form on the beach, for it was there Mercedes dwelt. How was it that a presentiment did not warn Mercedes her lover was near her ! One light alone was visible; and Dantes recognized it as coming from the chamber of Mercedes. She was the only being awake in the little colony. A loud cry could be heard by her. He did not utter it. A false shame restrained him. What would his guards think if they heard him shout like a madman '! He remained silent, his eyes fixed upon the light; the boat went on, but the prisoner only thought of Mercedes. A rising ground hid the light. Dantes turned and perceived that they had got out to sea. Whilst he had been absorbed in thought, they had hoisted the sail, and the hark was borne onward by the wind. in spite of his repugnance to address the guards, Dantes turned to the nearest gendarme, and, taking his hand, " Comrade," said he, " I adjure you, as a Christian and a soldier, to tell me where we are going. I am Captain Dantes, a loyal Frenchman, though accused of I know not what treason; tell me where you are con- ducting me, and I promise you, on my honor, I will submit to my fate." TEE COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 95 The gendarme scratched his ear and looked irresolutely al his com- panion, who returned for answer a sign thai said, " I see no greal harm in telling him now," and the gendarme replied : "You are a native of .Marseilles, and a sailor, and yet yon do qoI know where you are going .' " "On my honor, I have no idea." "And yon cannot guess ?" " I cannot." "That is impossible." " I swear to you it is true. Tell me, I entreat." " But my orders." " Your orders do not forbid your telling me what I must know in ten minutes, in half an hour, or an hour. Yon will merely spare me ages of uncertainty. I ask yon as it you were my friend. Yon see 1 cannot escape, even if I intended." " Unless you are hlind, or have never Keen outside the harbor, you must know." "I do not." "Look round you then." Dantes rose and looked forward, when he saw rise within a hundred yards of him the black and frowning rock on which stands the I lhateau d'If. This strange mass, this prison around which such dee]) terror reigns, this fortress that for three hundred years has tilled .Marseilles with it> gloomy traditions, appearing thus suddenly to Dantes, who was not thinking about it, seemed to him what the scaffold seem- to the con- demned prisoner. " The Chateau d'If.'" cried he, " what are we going there for!" The gendarme smiled. "lam not going there to he imprisoned," said Dantes; "i1 is only used for political prisoners. I have committed no crime. Are there any magistrates or judges at the Chateau d'If .' " "There are only," said the gendarme, "a governor, a garrison, turn- keys, and good thick walls. Come, come, do not look so astonished, or you will make me think you are laughing at me in return for my good nature." Dantes pressed the gendarme's hand as though he would crush it. "You think, then," said he, "that lam conducted to the chateau to he imprisoned there :' " " It is probable ; bul there is no occasion t<> squeeze so hard." " Without any further formality .' " " All the formalities have been gone through." 96 THE Cor XT OF MONTE-CRISTO. " In spite of M. de Villefort's promises \ " " I do not know what M. de Villefort promised you," said the gen- darme, " but 1 know we are taking you to the Chateau d'If. But what are you doing l — Help ! comrades, help ! " By a rapid movement, which the gendarme's practiced eye had per- ceived, Dantes sprang forward to precipitate himself into the sea; but four vigorous arms seized him as his feet quitted the rlooi*ing of the boat. He fell back, foaming with rage. " Good ! " said the gendarme, placing his knee on his chest ; " this is the way ynu keep your word as a sailor ! Believe soft-spoken gentlemen again ! Hark ye, my friend, I have disobeyed my first order, but I will not disobey the second; and if you move, I lodge a bullet in your brain." And he leveled his carbine at Dantes, who felt the muzzle touch his head. For a moment the idea of struggling crossed his mind, and of thus ending the unexpected evil that had overtaken him. But just because it was unexpected, he believed it would not last long, and he bethought him of Villefort's promise; and, besides, death in a boat from the hand of a gendarme seemed too repulsive. He remained motionless, but gnashing his teeth with fury. At this moment a violent shock made the bark tremble. One of the sailors leaped on the rock which the bow had just touched, a cord creaked as it ran through a pulley, and Dantes guessed they were at the end of the voyage and mooring the boat. His guardians, taking hold of his arms and collar, forced him to rise and land, and dragged him toward the steps that lead (<> the gate of the fortress, whilst the exempt followed, armed with a carbine and bayonet. Dantes made no resistance; he was dazed and tottering like a drunken man; he saw soldiers who stationed themselves on the sides; he felt himself forced up fresh stairs; he perceived he passed through a door, and the door (dosed behind him; but all this as mechanically as through a mist, nothing distinctly. He did not even see the sea, that terror of prisoners who regard its expanse with the awful feeling that they cannot ctoss it. They halted for a minute, during which he strove to collect his thoughts. He looked around: he was in a square court surrounded by four high walls ; he heard the measured tread of sentinels, and as they passed before the liyhl reflected on the walls from two or three lamps in the interior of the fortress, he saw the barrels of their muskets shine. They waited upward of ten minutes. Certain Dantes could not Till: COIXT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0 97 escape, the gendarmes released him. They seemed awaiting orders. The orders arrived. " Where is the prisoner .'" said a voice. "Here," replied the gendarmes. "Let him follow me; I am going to conducl him to his room." "Gk>!"said the gendarmes, pushing Dantes. The prisoner followed his conductor, who led him into a room almosl under ground, whose bare and reeking walls seemed as though impreg- nated with tears. A Lamp placed on a stool, its wick floating in stinking fat, illumined the apartment faintly, and showed Dantes the features of his conductor, an under-jailer, ill-clothed, and of sullen appearance. "Here is your chamber for to-night," said he. ,- It is late, and Mon- sieur le Q-ouverneur is asleep. To-morrow perhaps, when he awakes and has examined the orders concerning you, he may change you. In the mean time there are bread, water, and fresh straw; and that is all a prisoner can wish for. GrOod-night." And before Dantes could open his mouth, before he had noticed where the jailer placed his bread, or where the water was, before he had glanced toward the corner where the straw was, the jailer disap- peared, taking with him the lamp, whose dull rays showed him the dripping walls of his prison. Dantes was alone in darkness and in silence, mute as the vault above him, and cold as the shadows that fell on his burning forehead. With the first dawn of day the jailer returned, with orders to leave Dantes where he was. He found the prisoner in the same position, as if lixed there by an iron hand, his eyes swollen with weeping. Ee had passed the night standing, and without sleep. The jailer advanced; Dantes appeared not to perceive him. He touched him on the shoulder. Edmond started. "Have you not slept .'" said the jailer. "1 do not know," replied Dantes. The jailer stared. "Are you hungry .'" continued he. " I do not know." "Do you wish for anything .' " " [ wish to see the governor." The jailer shrugged his shoulders and left the chamber. Dantes followed him with his eyes, ami stretched forth his hands toward the open door; but the door closed All his emotion then bursl forth, tears streamed from his swollen lids in rivulets: he casl himself on the ground, praying, recalling all his past life, and asking himself what crime he had committed that he. <\\W so young, was thus punished. 98 THE cor. XT OF MOHTTE-CRISTO. The day passed thus; he scarcely tasted food; at times he sat rapt in thought, at times he walked nuiml and round the cell like a wild beast in its cage. One thought in particular tormented him, — namely, that during his journey hither he had sat so still, whereas he might, a dozen times, have plunged into the sea, and, thanks to his powers of diving, for which he was famous, have disappeared beneath the water, eluded his keepers, have gained the shore, concealed himself until the arrival of a Genoese or Spanish vessel, and escaped to Spain or Italy, where Mercedes could have joined him. He had no fears as to how he should live — good seamen are welcome everywhere. He spoke Italian like a Tuscan, and Spanish like a Castilian ; he would then have been free and happy with Mercedes and his father, for his father must come too, whereas he was now confined in the Chateau d'lf, ignorant of the future destiny of his father and Mercedes; and all this because he had trusted to Villefort's promise. The thought was maddening, and Dantes threw himself furiously down on his straw. The next morning the jailer made his appearance. " "Well," said the jailer, "are you more reasonable to-day ?" Dantes made no reply. "Come, take courage; do you want anything in my power to do for you t " " I wish to see the governor." " I have already told you it was impossible." "Why so.'" " Because it is not allowed by the rules." "What is allowed then?" " Better fare, if you pay for it, books, and leave to walk about." "I do not want books, I am satisfied with my food, and I do not care to walk about ; but I wish to see the governor." " If you worry me by repeating the same thing, I will not bring you any more to eat." ""Well, then," said Edmond, "if you do not, 1 shall die of famine — that is all." The jailer saw by his tone he would be happy to die; and as every prisoner is worth sixpence a day to his jailer, the man, after reflecting on the loss his death would cause him, replied in a more subdued tone: "What you ask is impossible. Do not ask it again. The governor never comes to a prisoner's cell ; but if you are very well behaved, you will be allowed to walk about, and some day you will meet the governor. You can ask him, and if he chooses to reply, that is his affair." " But," asked Dantes, " how long shall I have to wait f " 77//: COUNT OF M02TTE-CRIST0. 99 "Ah! a month — six months — a year." "It is too long a time. I wish to see him a1 once." " Ah," said the jailer, "do not always brood over whal is impossible, of yim will lie mad in a fortnight." "You think so .' " "Yes; they all begin iii this way. We have an instance here: it was by always offering a million of francs to the governor for his liberty that the abbe" who was in this chamber before you 1 ame mad." 100 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CBISTO. "How long has he Left il ?" " Two years." •• Was he Liberated then?" "No; he was put in a dungeon.'' " Listen ! " said Dantes. " I am not an abbe, I am not mad; perhaps I stall be, but at present, unfortunately, I am not. I will make you another offer." " What is that f " " I do not offer you a million, because I have it not ; but I will give you a hundred crowns if, the first time you go to Marseilles, you will THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 101 sock out a young girl named Mercecles, al the Catalans, ami give her a Letter — no, not even a letter; just two lines from me." " If I took them, and were detected, I should lose my place, which i- worth two thousand francs a year; so that I should be a great fool to run such a risk for three hundred." " Well," said Dantes, "mark this: If you refuse to tell the governor that I wish to speak with him; if you refuse at least to tell Mercedes I am here, I will sonic day hide myself behind the door, and when you enter I will dash out your brains with this stool." "Threats!" cried the jailer, retreating and putting himself on the defensive; "you are certainly going mad. The abbe* began like you, and in three days you will want a strait-waistcoat; hut, fortunately, there are dungeons here." Dantes whirled the stool round his head. " Oh ! " said the jailer, " you shall see the governor at once." " That is right," returned Dantes, dropping the stool and sitting on it as if he were in reality mad. The jailer went out, and returned in an instant with a corporal and four soldiers. "By the governor's orders," said he, "conducl the prisoner to the story beneath." "To the dungeon, then," said the corporal. "Yes; we must put the madman with the madmen." The soldiers seized Dantes, who followed passively. Ee descended fifteen steps, and the door of a dungeon was opened, and he entered, murmuring, " He is right; the madman with the madmen!" The door dosed, and Dantes advanced with outstretched hands until he touched the wall; he then sat down in the corner until his eyes became accus- tomed to the darkness. The jailer was right : Danles wanted hut little of being utterly mad. CHAPTER IX THE EVENING OF THE BETROTHAL *y>ij ELLEFOET had, as we have said, hastened back to the Place Cm 7^ ' m ''' '"' '' '""' "" (,|l,, ' 1 'i |l K ^"' house found all tin- guests in the salmi at coffee. Pence was, with all the resl of the company, anxiously awaiting him, and his entrance was followed by a general exclamation. "Well, Decapitator, Guardian of the State, royalist Brutus, what is the matter ;' " said one. "Are we threatened with a fresh Peign of Terror '. " asked another. "Has the Corsican ogre broke loose f cried the third. " Madame la Marquise," said Yillefort, approaching his future mother- in-law, " I request your pardon for thus leaving you. M. le Marquis, honor me by a few moments' private conversation ! " " Ah ! this affair is really serious, then ? " asked the marquis, remarking the cloud on Villefort's brow. " So serious, that Imust take leave of you for a few days; so," added he, turning to Pence, "judge for yourself if it be not important." " You are going to leave us !" cried Pence, unable to hide the emotion caused by this unexpected intelligence. " Alas! " returned Yillefort, " I must ! " "Where, then, are you going!" asked the marquise. " That, madame, is the secret of justice; but if you have any commis- sions for Paris, a friend of mine is goiug there to-night, and will gladly Mull them." The guests looked at each other. " You wish to speak to me alone ? " said the marquis. " Yes ; let us go into your cabinet." The marquis took his arm and left the salon. " Well ! " asked he, as soou as they were in his closet, " tell me, what is it 1 " ////.' COUNT or MONTE-GRISTO. 103 "An affair of the greatest Importance, thai demands my Immediate presence in Paris. Now, excuse the indiscretion, marquis, but have yon any funded property '!" "All my fortune is in the funds; — sis <>r seven hundred thousand francs." "Then soil out — sell out, marquis, as soon as yon can." "Eh! how .-an I sell out here?" " You have a broker, have yon not .' " "Yes." "Then give me a letter to him, and tell him to sell out without an instant's delay; perhaps, even now I shall arrive too late." " What say you .' " said the marquis, " Let us lose no time, then ! " And, sitting down, he wrote a Letter to his broker, ordering him to sell out at any loss. 104 ill i: COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. "Now, then," said Villefort, placing the letter in his pocket-book, " write another." "To whom?" "To the king." " I dare n<>1 write to his majesty." " I do not ask you to write to his majesty, but ask M.de Salvieux to do so. I want a letter that will enable me to reach the kind's presence without all the formalities of demanding an audience; that would occasion a loss of time." "But address yourself to the keeper of the seals; he has the right of entry, and can procure yon audience with the king, day <»• night." " Doubtless ; but there is no occasion to divide the merit of my dis- covery with him. The keeper would leave me in the background, and take all the honor to himself. I tell you, marquis, my fortune is made if I only reach the Tuileries tin- first, for the king will not forget the service I do him." "In thai case make your preparations, and I will call Salvieux and get him to write the letter of introduction."' " Be as quick as possible ; 1 must be en route in a quarter of an hour." "Make your carriage stop at the door." " You will present my excuses to the marquise and Mademoiselle Hence, whom I leave on such a day with great regret." " They are both in my room; you can say all this for yourself." "A thousand thanks — busy yourself with the letter." The marquis rang, a servant entered. " Inform the Counl de Salvieux I am waiting for him." " Now, then, go ! " said the marquis to Villefort. '• I only go for a few moments." Villefort hastily quitted the apartment, but reflecting that the sighl of the deputy procureur running through the streets would be enough to throw the whole city into confusion, he resumed his ordinary dig- nilied pace. At his door he perceived in the shade, as it were, a white phantom, erect and motionless, that seemed to wait for him. It was Mercedes, who, hearing no news of her lover, had come herself at night- fall from the Pharos to impure after him. As Villefort drew near, she advanced and stood before him. Dantes had spoken of his bride, and Villefort instantly recognized her. Her beauty and high bearing surprised him, and when she inquired what had becon f her lover, it seemed to him that she was the judge, and he the accused. " The young man you speak of," said Villefort abruptly, "is a. great criminal, and I can do nothing for him, mademoiselle." THE COUNT OF M0WTE-CRI8T0. L05 Mercedes bursl into tears, and, as Villeforl strove to pass her, addressed him. "But, at least, tell me where he is, thai I may learn if ho is alive or dead.*' said she. AJ - I do not know; he is no longer in my hands," replied '\ illefort. And. desirous of putting an end to the interview,he pushed by her, and closed the door, as if to exclude the pain he felt. Bui remorse is n«.t thus banished; like the wounded hero of Virgil the arrow remained in tlic wound, and when he arrived al the saloD his limbs failed him. 106 THE COUNT OF M0NTE-GBI8T0. Villi tort, in his turn, uttered a sigh that resembled a sob, and sank into a chair. At the bottom of his diseased heart, the first roots of a mortal ulcer wen- forming. The man he sacrificed to his ambition, that innocent victim he made pay the penalty of his father's faults, appeared to him pale and threatening, leading his affianced bride by the hand, and bring- ing with him remorse, not such as the ancients figured, furious and terrible, but that slow and consuming agony which, at times, strikes the heart and lacerates it with recollections of past deeds, — a laceration whose poignant pangs increase and deepen the evil till death comes. Then he had a moment's hesitation. He had frequently called, without any other emotion than that of the struggle between the prosecution and defense, for capital punishment on criminals, and owing to his irresisti- ble eloquence they had been condemned, and yet the slightest shadow of remorse had never clouded Villefort's brow, because they were guilty, or, at least, he believed so; but here the case was different. He was about to send into perpetual imprisonment an innocent man, an inno- cent man with a happy future before him, and was destroying not only his liberty, but his happiness. In this case he was not the judge, but the executioner. As he thus reflected, he felt the sensation we have described, and which had hitherto been unknown to him, arise in his bosom and fill him with vague apprehensions. It is thus that a wounded man trembles instinctively at the approach of the finger to his wound until it be healed, but Villefort's was one of those that never close, or, if they do, only close to re-open more agonizing than ever. If at this moment the sweet voice of Renee had sounded in his ears pleading for mercy, or the fair Mercedes had entered and said, "In the name of Grod, I conjure you to restore me my affianced husband," his cold and trembling hands would have signed his release at any risk ; but no voice broke the still- ness of the chamber, and the door was opened only by Villefort's valet, who came to tell him the traveling-carriage was in readiness. Villefort rose, or rather sprang, from his chair, hastily opened one of the drawers of his secretaire, emptied all the gold it contained into his pocket, stood motionless an instant, his hand pressed to his head, muttered a few inarticulate sounds, and then, perceiving his servant had placed his cloak on his shoulders, he sprang into the carriage, ordering the postilions to go, Rue du Grand Cours, to the house of M. de Saint- Meran. The wretched Dantes was condemned. As the marquis had promised, Villefort found the marquise and Renee in the parlor. He started when he saw Renee, for he fancied she •/•///•; COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO in? was again about to plead for Dantes. Alas ! she was thinking only of Villefort's departure. She Loved Villefort, and he left her at the momenl In- was about to become her husband. VilleforJ knew nol when he should return, an.l Renee, far from pleading for Dantes, hated the man whose crime separated her from her lover. What had Mercedes to say .' Merc&les had me1 Fernand at the corner of the Eue de la Loge: 108 THE COUNT <>F MONTE-GRISTO. she had returned to the Catalans, and had despairingly cast herself on her couch. Fernand, kneeling by her side, took her hand and covered it with kisses thai MercMes did not even feel. She passed the night thus; the Lamp died <>nt for want of oil, she saw neither light nor dark, and the day returned withoul her noticing it. Grief had made her blind to all but one object — that was Edmond. "Ah ! you are there," said she, at length. "I have not (putted you since yesterday," returned Pernand sorrow- fully. M. Morrel had learned that Dantes had been conducted to prison, and he had gone to all his friends and the influential persons of the city, but the report was already in circulation that Dantes was arrested as a Bonapartist agent; and as the most sanguine looked upon any attempt of Napoleon to remount the throne as impossible, he met with nothing but coldness, alarm, and refusal, and had returned home in despair, confessing that Dantes was in a dangerous position, beyond his aid. Caderousse was equally restless and uneasy, but, instead of seeking to aid Dantes, he had shut himself up with two bottles of wine, in the hope of drowning reflection. But he did not succeed, and became too intoxicated to fetch any more wine, and yet not so intoxicated as to for- get what had happened, and as he leaned on his shaky table, opposite his two empty bottles, he saw in the flare of his dull candle all the specters of Hoffmann's punch-inspired tales. Danglars alone was content and joyous — he had got rid of an enemy and preserved his situation on board the Pharaon. Danglars was one <>f those men born with a pen behind the ear and an inkstand in place of a heart. Everything with him was multiplication or subtraction, and he estimated the life of a man as less precious than a figure, when that figure could increase, and that life would diminish, the total of the amount. Villefort, after having received M. de Salvieux's letter, embraced Renee, kissed the marquise's hand, and shaken hands with the marquis, started for Paris. Old Dantes was dying with anxiety, and, as regards Edmond, we know what had become of him. CHAPTER X THE SMALL CABINET OF THE TUILERIES E will leave Villefort on the road to Paris, traveling with all speed, and, penetrating the two or three apartments which precede it, enter the small cabinet of the Tuileries with the arched window, so well known as having been the favorite cabinet of Napoleon and Louis XVIIL, as also that of Louis Philippe. There, in this closet, seated before a walnut-tree table he had brought with him from Hartwell, and to which, from one of those fancies aol uncommon to great people, he was particularly attached, the king, Louis XVIIL, was carelessly listening to a man of fifty or fifty-two years of age, with gray hairs, aristocratic bearing, and exceedingly gentlemanly attire, whilst he was making a note in a volume of Horace. Qryphius's edition, — a bad one, hut precious, — which was much indebted to the sagacious observations of the philosophical monarch. " You say, sir, " said the king. " That I am exceedingly disquieted, sire." "Really, have you had a visit of the seven fat kine and seven lean kine:'" "No, sire, for that would only betoken for us seven years of plenty and seven years of scarcity; and with a king as full of foresight as your majesty, scarcity is not a thing to be feared." " Then of what other scourge are you afraid, my dear Blacas I ' "Hire, I have every reason to believe that a storm is brewing in the south." " Well, my dear duke," replied Louis XVI 1 1 . " 1 think you are wrongly informed, and know positively that, on the contrary, it is very line weather in that direction." Man of ability as he was, Louis XV ill. liked a pleasant jest. "Sire," continued M. de Blacas, " if it only be to re-assure a faithful HO Till: COUNT OF M0NTE-0BI8T0. servant, will your majesty send into Languedoc, Provence, and Dau- ]iliinc trusty nirii who will bring you back a faithful report as to the feeling in these three provinces .'" Canimus surdis, replied the long, continuing the annotations in his Horace. " Sire," replied the courtier, laughing, in order thai he might seem to comprehend the quotation, "your majesty may be perfectly righ1 in relying on the good feeling of France, bul T fear! am not altogether wrong in dreading some desperate attempt." •• By \\ horn ?" •• By Bonaparte, or, at least, Ins party." " My dear Blacas," said the king, " you with your alarms prevenl me from working." " And you, sire, prevenl me from sleeping with your security." ■• Wait, my dear sir, wait a moment ; for I have such a delightful note on the Pastor quum traheret — wait, and 1 will listen to you afterward." There was a brief pause, during "which LouisXVIII. wrote, in a hand as small as possible, another note on the margin of his Horace, and then, looking at the duke with the air of a man who thinks he has an idea of his own, whilst he is but commenting upon the idea of another, he said : "G-< , my dear duke, go on — I listen." " Sire," said Blacas, "who had for a, moment the hope of sacrificing Yillefort to his own profit,"] am compelled to tell yon that these are not mere rumors destitute of foundation which thus disquiet me; hut a reflective man, deserving all my confidence, and charged by me to watch over the south" (the duke hesitated as he pronounced these words), "has arrived post to tell me a ureal peril threatens the king, and then I hastened to you, sire." Main duds iir) (Ionium, continued Louis XYIIL, still annotating. " Does your majesty wish me to cease as to this subject ?" " By no means, dear duke ; hut just stretch out voiir hand." "Which?" " Whichever you please — there to the left." " Here, sire :' " " I tell you to the left, ;illd you Seek the right J I llieail oil 111V right yes, there. You will find the report of the minister of police of yester- day, lint here is M. Dandre himself." And M. Dandre, announced by the chamhei-la in-in- waiting, entered. "Did you not say M. Dandre.'" said the king- to the servant who announced the minister of police. "Yes, sire, the Baron Dandre," the man replied. - n\' course, the Baron," said Louis XYIIL, with an imperceptible Til I J cor XT OF MONTE-CRIBTO. Ill smile, " come in, baron, and tell the duke all you know — the latest news of M. de Bonaparte; do not conceal anything, however serious, — Lei us see, the island of Elba is a volcano, and we may expect to have issuing thence flaming and bristling war — bella, horrida bella. 1 ' M. Dandre leaned very respectfully on the back <>f a chair with his two hands, and said : "Has your majesty perused yesterday's reporl :'" "Yes, yes; but tell the count himself, who cannot And anything, what the report contains — give him the particulars of what the usurper is doing in his islet." "Monsieur," said the baron to the count, "all the servants of his majesty must approve of the latest intelligence which we have from the island of Elba. Bonaparte " M. Dandre looked at Louis XVIIL, who, employed in writing a note, did not even raise his head. "Bonaparte," continued the baron, "is mortally wearied, and passes whole days in watching his miners at work at Porto Longone." "And scratches himself for amusement," added the king. "Scratches himself?" inquired the count ; "what does your majesty mean I " "Yes, indeed, my dear count. Did you forget that this greal man, this hero, this demi-god, is attacked with a malady of the skin which worries him to death, prurigo .' " "And, moreover, M. le Comte," continued the minister of police, " we are almost assured that, in a very short time, the usurper will lie insane." " Insane I " " Insane to a degree ; his head becomes weaker. Sometimes he weeps bitterly, sometimes laughs boisterously; at other times he passes hours on the sea-shore, flinging stones in the water, and when the flint makes ' duck-and-drake ' five or six times, he appeals as delighted as it' he hail gained another Marengo or Austerlitz. Xow, you must agree these are indubitable symptoms of weakness ?" "Or of wisdom, M. le Baron — or of wisdom," said Louis XVIIL, laughing; "the greatest captains of antiquity recreated themselves with casting pebbles into the ocean — see Plutarch's life of Scipio Africanus." M. de Blacas pondered deeply on this blind repose of monarch and minister. Villefort, who did not choose to reveal the whole secret, lest another slxmld reap all the benefit of the disclosure, had yet communi- cated enough to cause him the greatest uneasiness. "Well, well, Dandre," said Louis XVIIL, "Blacas is no! yd con- vinced; let us proceedj therefore, to the usurper's conversion." The minister of police bowed. 112 THE COUNT OF MOWTE-CRISTO. "The usurper's conversion!" murmured the count, looking at the king and Dandre, who spoke alternately, like Virgil's shepherds. "The usurper converted ! " " Decidedly, my dear count." " In what way converted ?" "To good principles. Explain all about it, baron." " Why, this it is, M. le Comte," said the minister, with the graves! air in the world: " Napoleon lately had a review, and as two or three of his old grumblers, as he calls them, testified a desire to return to France, he gave them their dismissal, and exhorted them to 'serve their g I king.' These were his own words, M. le Cointe; I am certain of that." " Well, Blaeas, what think you of this ?" inquired the king triumph- antly, and pausing for a moment from the voluminous scholiast before him. '* I say, sire, that M. the minister of police or I am greatly deceived; and as it is impossible it can lie the minister of police, as he has the guardianship of the safety and honor of your majesty, it is probable 1 am in error. However, sire, if I might advise, your majesty will inter- rogate the person of whom I spoke to you, and I will even urge your majesty !>> do him this honor." "Most willingly, count; under your auspices I will receive any per- son you please, but with arms in hand. M. le Ministre, have you any report more recent than this, dated the 20th February, and this is the 3d of March?" "No, sire, lint I am hourly expecting one; it may have arrived since 1 left my office." " Go thither, and if there be none — well, well," continued Louis XVIII., laughing, " make one ; that is the usual way, is it not .' " "Oh, sire," replied the minister, "we have no occasion to invent any: every day our desks are loaded with most circumstantial denunciations, coming from crowds of individuals who hope for some return for ser- vices which they seek to render, but cannot; they trust to fortune, and rely that some unexpected event will give a kind of reality to then pre- dictions." " Well, sir, go," said bonis XVTIL, "and remember that I am wait- ing for yon." "I will but go and return, sire; I shall be back in ten minutes." " And I, sire," said M. de Blaeas, " will go and find my messenger." " Wait, sir, wait," said Louis XVIII. "Really, M. de Blaeas, I must change your armorial bearings; I will give you an eagle with out- stretched wings, holding in its claws a prey which tries in vain to escape, and bearing this device — Tenax." Till: COUNT OF MONTE-GBIBTO. 113 " Siiv, I listen," said de Blacas, biting bis nails with impatience. "I wish to consull you on this passage, Molli fugis anhelitu; you know it refers to a stag flying from a wolf. Arc you not a sportsman and a. great wolf-hunter? Well, then, wliaf do you think of tin- molli Baron Dandr6. " Admirable, sire; but my messenger is like the stag you refer to, for he has posted two hundred and twenty leagues in little more than three days." " Which is undergoing greal fatigue and anxiety, my dear count, when 114 Till: COUNT OF M <> XT E-0 BISTO. we have a telegraph which corresponds in three or four hours, and that withoul putting it the leasl in the world out of breath." " All, sire, yon recompense but badly this poor young man, who has come so Ear, and with so much ardor, to give your majesty useful infor- mation. If only for l lie sake of M. de Salvieux, who recommends him to me, I entreat your majesty to receive him graciously." "M. de Salvieux, my brother's chamberlain ?" •• Fes, sire." " He is at Marseilles." " Ami w rites me thence." " Dues he speak to you of this conspiracy f" •' No, but strongly recommends M. de Villefort, and begs me to pre- sent him to your majesty." "M. de Villeforl !" cried the king; "is the messenger's name M. de Villeforl .'" " Yes, sire." "And he comes from Marseilles .'" " In person." "Why did you not mention his name at once ?" replied the king, betraying some uneasiness. " Sire, I thought Ins name was unknown to your majesty." " No, no, Blacas; he is a man of strong and elevated understanding, ambitious too, and, pardieu ! you know his father's name!" " His father?" " Yes, Noirtier." " Noirtier the Grirondin ? — Noirtier the senator f" " He himself." "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, and to attain this ambition ViUefort would sacrifice everything, even his father." "Then, sire, may I present him ?" " This instant, count ! Where is he ! " " Waiting below, in my carriage." " Seek him at once." " I hasten to do so." The count left the royal presence with the speed of a young man: his really sincere royalism made him youthful again. Louis XVIII. remained alone, and, turning his eyes on his half-opened Horace, mut- tered : Justum et tenacem propositi virum. M. de Blacas returned with the same rapidity lie had descended, but THE COT XT OF MONTE -CRI ST 0. 115 in the antechamber he was forced to appeal to the king's authority. Villefort's dusty garb, his costume, which was nol of courtly cut, excited the susceptibility of M. de Brez6, who was all astonishmenl at finding that this young man had the pretension to enter before the king in such attire. The count, however, superseded all difficulties with a word — "His majesty's order," and, in spite of the observations which the mas- ter of the ceremonies made for the honor of his office and principles, Villefort was introduced. The king was seated in the same place where the count had left him. On opening the door, Villeforl found himself facing him, and the young magistrate's first impulse was to pause. "Come in, M. de Villefort," said the king, "come in." Villefort bowed, and, advancing a few steps, waited until the king should interrogate him. " M. de Villefort," said Louis XVIII., "the Count de Blacas assures me you have some interesting information to communicate." "Sire, the count is right, and I believe your majesty will think it equally important." "In the first place, and before everything else, sir, is the bad news as great in your opinion as it is wished to make me believe .' " " Sire, I believe it to be most urgent, but I hope, by the speed 1 have used, that it is not irreparable." " Speak as fully as you please, sir," said the kin*;, who began to give way to the emotion which had changed the face of M. de Blacas and affected Villefort's voice. " Speak, sir, and pray begin at the beginning ; I like order in everything." "Sire," said Villefort, "I will render a faithful report to your majesty, but I must entreat your forgiveness if my anxiety creates some obscurity in my language." A glance at the king after this discreet anil subtle exordium assured Villefort of the benignity of his august auditor, and he continued: "Sire, I have come as rapidly to Paris as possible, to inform your majesty that I have discovered, in the exercise of my duties, not a com- monplace and insignificant plot, such as is everyday got up in the lower ranks of the people and in the army, hut an actual conspiracy — a storm which menaces no less than the throne of your majesty. Sire, the usui per is arming three ships; he meditates some project, which, how- ever mad, is yet, perhaps, terrible. At this moment he will have left Elba, to go whither I know not, but assuredly to attempt a landing either at Naples or on the coast of Tuscany, or perhaps on the shore of France. Your majesty is well aware that the sovereign of the isle of Elba has maintained his relations with Italv and France .' " ]1( ; THE COUNT OF M0NTE-GRI8T0. "I am, sir," said the king, much agitated; "and recently we have had information thai the Bonapartisl clubs have had meetings in the Rue Saint-Jacques. Bui proceed, I beg of you. Eow did you obtain these details f" " Sire, they are the results of an examination which I have made of a man of Marseilles, whom I have watched for sonic time, and arrested on the day of my departure. 'Phis person, a sailor, of turbulent character, and whom I suspected of Bonapartism, has been secretly to the isle of Elba. There he saw the grand-marshal, who charged him with a verbal mission to a Bonapartisl in Paris, whose name I could not extract from him ; hut this mission was to prepare men's minds for a return (it is the man who says this, sire) — a return which will soon occur." " And where is this man .' " " In prison, sire." "And the matte]- seems serious to you .'" "So serious, sire, that when the circumstance surprised me in the midst of a family festival, on the very day of my betrothal, I left my bride and friends, ] lost i ton inn' everything, that I might hasten to lay at your majesty's feet the fears that impressed me, and the assurance of my devotion." "True," said Louis XVIII., "was there not a marriage engagement between you and Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran ? " " Daughter of one of your majesty's most faithful servants." " Yes, yes; but let us talk of this plot, M. do Villefort." " Sire, I fear it is more than a plot; I fear it is a conspiracy." " A conspiracy in these times," said Louis XVIIL, smiling-, "is a thing- very easy to 1 Iitate,bu1 more difficult to conduct to an end; inasmuch as, reestablished so recently on the throne of our ancestors, we have our eyes open at once upon the past, the present, and the future. For the last ten months my ministers have redoubled their vigilance, in order to watch the shore of the Mediterranean. If Bonaparte landed at Naples, the whole coalition would he on foot before he could even reach Piom- bino; if he land in Tuscany, he will be in an unfriendly territory ; if he land in France, it must he with a handful of men, and the result of that is easily foretold, execrated as he is by the population. Take courage, sir; but at the same time rely on our royal gratitude." "Ah, here is M. Dandre" :"' cried de Blacas. At this instant the minister of police appeared at the door, pale, trembling, and as if ready to faint. Villefort was about to retire, but M. de Blacas, taking his hand, restrained him. CHAPTER XI THE OGRE OF CORSICA T the sight of this agitation Louis XVIII. pushed from hiin violently the table at which he was writing. "What ails you, M. le Baron?" he exclaimed. "You appear quite aghast. This trouble — this hesitation — have they anything to do with what M. de Blacas has told me, and M. de Villefort has just confirmed .'" M. de Blacas moved suddenly toward the baron, but the fright of the corn-tier precluded the triumph of the statesman; and besides, as matters were, it was much more to his advantage that the prefect of police should triumph over him than that he should humiliate the prefect. " Sire, " stammered the baron. " Well, what is it t " asked Louis XVIII. The minister of police, giving way to an impulse of despair, was about to throw himself at the feet of Louis XVIIL, who retreated a step and frowned. "Will you speak ?" he said. "Oh! sire, what a dreadful misfortune! I am, indeed, to be pitied. I can never forgive myself ! " " Monsieur," said Louis XVIIL, "I command you to speak." "Well, sire, the usurper left Elba on the 26th of February, and landed on the 1st of March. " " And where '! In Italy '! " asked the kino- eagerly. " In France, sire, — at a small port, near Antibes, in the Gulf of Juan." "The usurper landed in France, near Antilles, in the Gulf of Juan, two hundred and fifty leagues from Paris, on the 1st of March, and you only acquired this information to-day, the 3d of March ! Well, sir, what 120 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. \,,u id] mi' is impossible. You musi have received a false report, or you have gone mad." •• Alas ! sire, it is 1ml too time ! " Louis made a gesture of indescribable anger ami alarm, ami then drew himself up as if this sudden blow hail struck him at the same momenl in heart ami countenance. "iu Prance!" he cried, " the usurper in France! Then they did nol watch over this man. Who knows .' they were, perhaps, in league with him." "<)h, siiv!" exclaimed the Comte de Blacas, "M. Dandre is nol a man to be accused of treason! Sire, we have all I a blind, and the minister of police has shared the general blindness; that is all." "But " said VTUefort, ami then, suddenly checking himself, he was silent ; then he continued. "Your pardon, sire," he said, bow- ing, "my zeal carried me away. Will your majesty deign to excuse mi .' " " Speak, sir, speak boldly," replied Louis. " Von alone forewarned us of the evil ; now try ami aid us with the remedy ! " "Sire," -aid Yillefort, "the usurper is detested in the south; and it seems to me that if he ventured into the south, it would be easy to raise Languedoe am! Provence againsl him." " Yes, assuredly," replied the minister; "but he is advancing by Gap ami Sisteron." "Advancing! he is advancing!" said Louis XVIII. "Is lie then advancing on Paris?" The minister of police kept a silence which was equivalenl to a complete avowal. "And Dauphine, sir ?" inquired the king of Yillefort. "Do you think it possible to rouse that as well as Provence .' " " Sire, I am sorry to tell your majesty a cruel fact ; but the feeling in Dauphine is far from resembling that of Provence or Languedoe. The mountaineers are Bonapartists, sire." " Then," murmured Louis, " he was well informed. Ami how many men had he with him .' " "I do not know, sire," answered the minister of police. " What ! you do not know t Have you neglected to obtain informa- tion of this circumstance:' It is true this is of small importance," he added, with a withering smile. "Sire, it was impossible to learn; the dispatch simply stated the fact of the landing and the route taken by the usurper." "Ami how did this dispatch reach you?" inquired the king. The minister bowed his head, and whilst a deep color overspread his cheeks, he stainmereil out : TEE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. 121 "By the telegraph, sire." Louis XVIII. advanced a step, and folded his arms over his chest as Napoleon would have done. " So then !" he exclaimed, turningpale with anger, "seven conjoined and allied armies overthrew that man. A miracle of Heaven replaced me M. de Blacas. on tin- throne of my fathers after five-and-twenty years of exile. 1 have, during those five-and-twenty years, studied, sounded, analyzed the men and things of that France which was promised to me; and when I have attained the end of all my wishes, the power I hold in my hands bursts and shatters me to atoms ! " -[•>._> T1IK C<> I' XT OF MONTE-CBISTO. "Sire, it is fatality!" murmured the minister, feeling that such a pressure, however lighl for destiny, was sufficient to overwhelm a man. " What our enemies say of us is then true. We have learned noth- ing, forgotten nothing ! If I were betrayed as he was, I would console myself; bul to be in the midst of persons elevated by myself to dignities, who ought to watch over me more preciously than over themselves; for my fortune is theirs! — before me they were nothing — after me they will be nothing, and perish miserably from incapacity — ineptitude ! Oh, yes, sir ! you are right — it is fatality!" The minister was bowed beneath this crushing sarcasm. M. de Blacas wiped the moisture from his brow. Villefort smiled within himself, for he felt his increased importance. " To fall ! " continued King Louis, who at the first glance had sounded the abyss on which the monarchy hunt;' suspended, — "to fall, and learn that fall by the telegraph ! Oh ! I would rather mount the scaffold of my In-other, Louis XVI., than thus descend the staircase of the Tuileries driven away by ridicule. Ridicule, sir — why, you know not its power in France, and yet you ought to know it ! " " Sire, sire," murmured the minister, "for pity's " " Approach, M. de Villefort," resumed the king, addressing the young man, who, motionless and breathless, was listening to a conversation on which depended the destiny of a kingdom. "Approach, and tell mon- sieur that it is possible to know beforehand all that he has not known." " Sire, it was really impossible to learn secrets which that man con- cealed from all the world." "Really impossible! Yes — that is a great word, sir. Unfortunately, there are great words, as there are great men; I have measured them. .Really impossible for a minister who has an office, agents, spies, and fifteen hundred thousand francs for secret service money, to know what is going on at sixty leagues from the coast of France ! Well, then, see, here is a gentleman who had none of these resources at his disposal — a gentleman, only a simple magistrate, who learned more than you with all your police, and who would have saved my crown, if, like you, he had the power of directing a telegraph." The look of the minister of police was turned with concentrated spite on Villefort, who bent his head with the modesty of triumph. "I do not mean that for you, Blacas," continued Louis XVIIL; "for if you have discovered nothing, at least you have had the good sense to persevere in your suspicions. Any other than yourself would have con- sidered the disclosure of M. de Villefort as insignificant, or else dictated by a venal ambition." THE COUNT OF MONTE-CBISTO. 123 These words were meant to allude to those which the minister of police had uttered with so much confidence an hour before. Yillefort understood the drift of the king. Any other person would, perhaps, have boon too much overcome by the intoxication of praise; but he feared to make for himself a mortal enemy of the police minis- ter, although he perceived Dandre was irrevocably lost. In fact, the minister, who, in the plenitude of his power, had been unable to pene- trate Napoleon's secret, mighl in the convulsions of his dying throes penetrate his, Villefort's, secret, for which end he had hut to interrogate Dantes. He therefore came to the rescue of the crest-fallen minister, instead of aiding to crush him. "Sire," said Yillefort, "the rapidity of the event must prove to your majesty that God alone can prevent it, by raising a tempest; what your majesty is pleased to attribute to me as profound perspicacity is simply owing to chance ; and I have profited by that chance, like a good and devoted servant — that's all. Do not attribute to me more than I deserve, sire, that your majesty may never have occasion to recall the first opinion you have been pleased to form of me." The minister of police thanked the young man by an eloquenl look, and Yillefort understood that he had succeeded in his design ; that is to say, that without forfeiting the gratitude of the king he bad made a friend of one on whom, in case of necessity, he might rely. "'Tis well !" resumed the king. " And now, gentlemen," he continued, turning toward M.de Blacas and the minister of police, "1 have no further occasion for you, and you may retire; what now remains to do is in the department of the minister of war." " Fortunately, sire," said M. de Blacas, " we can rely on the army ; your majesty knows how every report confirms their loyalty and attachment." " Do not mention reports, sir, to me ! for I know now what confidence to place in them. Yet, apropos of reports, M. le Baron, what intelligence have you as to our affair in the Rue Saint-Jacques ?" "The affair in the Rue Saint-Jacques!" exclaimed Yillefort, unable to repress an exclamation. Then, suddenly pausing, he added, "Your pardon, sire, but m\ devotion to your majesty has made me forget, not the respect I have, for that is too deeply engraven in my heart, hut the rules of etiquette." " Say and act, sir I" replied the king; " you have acquired the right to inquire." " Sire," replied the minister of police,"! came this moment to give your majesty fresh information which 1 had obtained on this head, when your majesty's attention was attracted by this terrible affair of the Gulf, and now these facts will cease t<» interest your majesty." 124 rui: coi xt <>f mofte-cristo. ••<>n the coiii vary. sir. — on the contrary," said Louis XyjJLL, " this affair seems to me to have a derided connection with thai which occu- pies our attention: and the death of General Quesnel will, perhaps, put us on the direel track of a great internal conspiracy." At the name of < reneral Quesnel, Villefort trembled. " All combines, sir," said the minister of police, "to insure the proba- bility that this deatli is not the result of a suicide, as we at first believed, but of an assassination. General Quesnel had quitted, as it appears, a Bonapartist club when lie disappeared. An unknown per- son had been with him that morning, and made an appointment with him in the Rue Saint-Jacques; unfortunately, the general's valet-de- chambre, who was dressing Id* hair at the moment when the stranger entered, heard the street mentioned, hut did not catch the number." As the police minister related this to the king, Villefort, who seemed as if his very existence bung on his lips, turned alternately red and pale. The king looked toward him. '•Do you not think with me, M. de Villefort, that General Quesnel, whom 1 1 11 'y believed attached to the usurper, but who was really entirely devoted t<> me, has perished tin' victim of a Bonapartist ambush .'" "It is probable, sire," replied Villefort. "But is this all that is known :'" "They are on the traces of the man who appointed the meeting with him." "On his traces .'" said Villefort. "Yes, the servant has given his description. lie is a man of from fifty to fifty-two years of age, brown, with black eyes covered with shaggy eyebrows, and a thick mustache. He was dressed in a blue frock-coat, buttoned up to the chin, and wore at his button-hole the rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honor. Yesterday an individual was followed exactly corresponding with this description, but he was lost sight of at the corner of the Rue de la Jussienne and the Rue Coq- Heron." Villefort leaned on the hack of an arm-chair; for, in proportion as the minister of police spoke, he felt his legs bend under him; but when he learned that the unknown had escaped the vigilance of the agent who followed him, he breathed again. " ( 'oiitinue 1u seek for this man. sir," said the king to the minister of police; "for if, as all conspires to convince me, General Quesnel, who would have been so useful to us at this moment, has been murdered, his assassins, Bonapartists or not, shall lie cruelly punished." It required all Villefort's sang-froid not to betray the terror with which this declaration of tin; king inspired him. Ill i: COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO 125 "How strange!" continued the king, with some asperity; "the police thinks all is said when it says, A murder lias been committed,' and par- ticularly when it adds, 'And we are on the track of the guilty persons.'" "Sire, your majesty will, 1 trust, be amply satisfied on this poini at Least." "We shall see; I will no longer detain you, baron. M. dc Villefort, you must be fatigued after so long a journey; go and repose yourself. Of course you stopped at your father's .' " A faintness came over Villefort. 126 TEE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. " NO, sire," lie replied; "I alighted at the Hotel de Madrid, in the Rue tic Tournon." " But you have seen him ?" " Sire, I went straight to M. le Comte de Blacas." " Biit you will see him, then?" " I think not, sire." "Ali, I forgot," said Louis, smiling in a manner which proved that all these questions were not made without a motive; "I forgot you and .M. Noirtier are not on the best terms possible, and that is another sacrifice made to the royal cause, and for winch you should be recom- pensed." "Sire, the kindness your majesty deigns to evince toward me is a recompense which so far surpasses my utmost ambition that 1 have nothing more to request." "Never mind, sir, we will not forget you; make your mind easy. In the mean while" (the king here detached the cross of the Legion of Honor he usually wore over his blue coat, near the cross of St. Louis, above the order of Notre-du-Mont-Carmel and St. Lazare, and gave it to Villefort) — "in the mean while, take this cross." "Sire," said Villefort, "your majesty mistakes ; this cross is that of an officer." " Ma foil" said Louis XVIII., "take it, such as it is, for I have not the time to procure you another. Blacas, let it lie your care to see that the brevet is made out and sent to M. de Villefort." Villefort's eyes were tilled with tears of joy and pride; he took the cross and kissed it. "And now," he said, "may I inquire what are the orders with which your majesty deigns to honor me '! " "Take what rest you require, and remember that, unable to serve me here in Paris, you may be of the greatest service to me at Marseilles." "Sire," replied Villefort, bowing, "in an hour I shall have quitted Paris." " (lo, sir," said the king; "and should I forget you (kings' memories are short), do not be afraid to bring yourself to my recollection. M. le Baron, send for the minister of war. Blacas, remain." " Ah, sir," said the minister of police to Villefort, as they left the Tuileries, "you enter by the right door — your fortune is made." "Will it lie long first:'" muttered Villefort, saluting the minister, whose career was ended, and looking about him for a hackney-coach. One passed at the moment, which he hailed : he gave his address to the driver, and, springing in, threw himself on the seat and gave loose to dreams of ambition. THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO, 127 Ten minutes afterward Villeforl reached his hotel, ordered his horses in two hours, and desired to have his breakfast brought to him. Be was about to commence his repast when the sound of a bell, rung by a free and firm hand, was heard. The valet opened the dour, and VUleforl heard his name pronounced. " Who could know that I was here already .' " said the young man. The valet entered. "Well," said Yillefort, "what is it? — Who rang? — Who asked for me ?" 128 THE GOV NT OF MONTE-CRISTO. " A stranger who will not send in his name." •• A stranger who will not send in his name! What can lie want with nil- .' '" •• lie wishes i" speak to you." "Tome?" " Yes." " Did lie mention my name ?" " Yes." " What sorl of a person is he?" THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 120 " Why, sir, a man of about fifty." " Short or tall '. " " About your owu height, sir." " Dark or fair '. » "Dark, — very dark: with black eyes, black hair, black eyebrows." "And how dressed :'" asked Villefort, quickly. "In a blue frock-coat, buttoned up close, decorated with the Legion of Honor." "It is he!" said Villefort, turning pale. "Eh, pardieu ."' said the individual, whose description we have twice given, entering the door, "what a great deal of ceremony! Is it the custom in Marseilles for sons to keep their fathers waiting in their anterooms." "Father!" cried Villefort. "Then | was not deceived; I felt sine it must be you." "Well, then, if you felt so sure," replied the new-comer, putting bis cane in a corner and his hat on a chair, "allow me to say, my dear ( lerard, that it was not very filial of you to keep me waiting at the door." " Leave us, Germain," said Villefort. The servant quitted the apartment with evident signs of astonish- ment. CHAPTER XII F AIHEE AND SON XOIRTIER — for it was indeed he who entered — followed with his eyes the servant until he had closed the door, and hen, fearing, no doubt, that he might be overheard in the antechamber, he opened the door again; nor was the pre- caution useless, as appeared from the rapid retreat of Germain, who proved that he was not exemjit from the sin which ruined our first parents. M. Noirtier then took the trouble to close carefully the door of the antechamber, then that of the bedchamber, and then extended his hand to Villefort, who had followed all his motions with surprise which he could not conceal. " \\Y11, now, my dear Gerard," said he to the young man, with a very significant look, "do you know yon seem as if you were not very glad to sec me?" " My dear father," said Villefort, " 1 am, on the contrary, delighted ; but I so little expected your visit that it has somewhat overcome me." " But, my dear fellow," replied M. Xoirtier, seating himself, " I might say the same tiling to you, when you announce to me your wedding for the 28th of February, and on the 4th of March here yon are in Paris." " And if I have come, my dear father," said Gerard, drawing closer to M. Xoirtier, "do not complain, for it is for you that I came, and my journey will save you." "Ah, indeed!" said M. Xoirtier, stretching himself out at his ease in the chair. "Really, pray tell me all about it, M. le Magistrat, for it must be interesting." " Father, you have heard speak of a certain club of Bonapartists held in the Rue Saint-Jacques .'" " No. 53; yes, I am vice-president." "Father, your coolness makes me shudder." THE COUNT OF M0NTE-GRI8T0. 131 "Why, my dear boy, when a man lias been proscribed by the Mount- ain, has escaped from Paris in a hay-cart, been hunted in the landes of Bordeaux by M. Robespierre's blood-hounds, he becomes accustomed to most things. But, go on; what about the dull in the Rue Saint- Jacques I " "Why, they induced General Quesnel to go there, mid General Ques- neL who quitted his own house at nine o'clock in the evening, was found the next day in the Seine." L32 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. " And who told you this line story f " "The king himself." "Well, then, in return for your story," continued Noirtier, "I will tell you one." " My dear father, I think 1 already know what you are about to tell me." "Ah, you have heard of the landing of the emperor ? " " Not so loud, father, I entreat of you — for your own sake as well as mine. Yes, I heard this news, and knew it even before you could; for three days ago I posted from .Marseilles to Paris with all possible speed, and half desperate because I could not send with a wish two hundred leagues ahead of me the thought which was agitating my brain." " Three days ago ! You are crazy. Why, three days ago the emperor had not landed." "No matter; 1 was aware of his project." " How did you learn it ?" " By a letter addressed to you from the isle of Elba." "To me?" "To you; and which 1 discovered in the pocket-book of the mes- senger. Had that letter fallen into the hands of another, you, my dear father, would probably ere this have been shot." Villefort's father laughed. " Come, come," said he, "it appears that the Restoration has learned from the Empire the mode of settling affairs speedily. Shot, my dear boy! you go ahead with a vengeance. Where is this letter you talk about! I know you too well to suppose you would allow such a thing to pass you." "I burned it, for fear that even a fragment should remain;- for that letter must have effected your condemnation." "And the destruction of your future prospects," replied Noirtier; "yes, I can easily comprehend that. But I have nothing to fear whilst I have you to protect me." "I do better than that, sir — I save you." " You do \ why, really, the thing becomes more and more dramatic — explain yourself." " I must refer again to the club in the Rue Saint-Jacques." " It appears that this club is rather a bore to the police. Why didn't they search more vigilantly? they would have found " " They have not found ; but they are on the track." " Yes, that's the usual phrase ; I know it well. When the police is at fault, it declares that it is on the track ; and the government patiently awaits the day when it comes to say, with a sneaking ah, that the track is lost." THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 133 " Yes, but they have found a corpse ; the general has been killed, and in all countries they call that a murder." "Amurder, do yon call it.' why, there is nothing to prove that the general was murdered. People are found every day in the Seine, hav- ing thrown themselves in, or have been drowned from no1 knowing how to swim.'' "Father, yon know very well that the general was not a man to drown himself in despair; and people do qoI bathe in the Seine in the month of January. No, no, do not mistake; this death was a murder in every sense of the word." "And who thus designated it .' " " The king himself." " The king! I thought he was philosopher enough to allow that there was no murder in politics. In politics, my dear fellow, yon know as well as I do, there are no men, but ideas — no feelings, but interests; in polities we do not kill a man, we only remove an obstacle — that is all. Would you like to know how matters have progressed ? "Well, I will tell you. It was thought reliance might he placed in General Quesnel; he was recommended to us from the isle of Elba. One of us went to him, and invited him to the Rue Saint-Jacques, where he would find some friends. He came there, and the plan was unfolded to him of leaving Elba, the projected landing, etc. When he had heard and comprehended all to the fullest extent, he replied that he was a royalist. Then all looked at each other, — he was made to take an oath, and did so, but with such an ill grace that it was really tempting Providence to swear thus; and yet, in spite of that, the general was allowed to depart free — perfectly free. Yet he did not return home. What could that mean.' why, my dear fellow, that on leaving us he lost his way — that's all. A murder! really, Yillefort, you surprise me. You, a deputy procureur, to found such an accusation on such bad premises ! Did I ever say to you, when you were fulfilling your character as a royalist, and cut off the head of one of my party, 'My son, you have committed a murder' .' No, I said, 'Yery well, sir, you have gained the victory; to-morrow, perchance, it will he our turn.'" " But, father, take care when our turn comes; our revenge will he sweeping." "I do not understand you." " You rely on the usurper's return ? " "We do." "You are mistaken ; he will not advance two leagues into the interior of France without being followed, tracked, and caught like a wild beast." "My dear fellow, the emperor is at this moment on the way to 134 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. Grenoble; on the 10th or 12th he will be at Lyons, and on the 20th or 25th at Paris." " Tin- population will rise." " Yt's, to go and meet him." "He lias bul a handful of men with him; and armies will be dis- patched against him." " Yes, i,i escort him into the capital. Really, my dear Gerard, you are bul a child ; you think yourself well informed because a telegraph has told you three days after the landing, ' The usurper has landed at Cannes with several men. He is pursued.' But where is he? what is he doing \ You do not know well ; and in this way they will pursue him to Paris, without drawing a trigger." " Grenoble and Lyons are faithful cities, and will oppose to him an impassable barrier." "Grenoble will open her gates to him with enthusiasm; all Lyons will hasten to welcome him. Believe me, we are as well informed as you; and our police is as gootl as your own. Would you like a proof of it ? Well, you wished to conceal your journey from me, and yet I knew of your arrival half an hour after you had passed the barrier. You gave your direction to no one but your postilion, yet I have your address, and in proof I am here the very instant you are going to sit at table. Ring, then, if you please, for a second knife, fork, and plate, and we will dine together." " Indeed ! " replied Villefort, looking at his father with astonishment, " you really do seem very well informed." " Eh? the thing is simple enough. You who are in power have only the means that money produces; we who are in expectation have those which devotion prompts." " Devotion ! " said Villefort with a sneer. " Yes, devotion ; for that is, I believe, the phrase for hopeful ambitit >n." And Villefort's father extended his hand to the bell-rope, to summon the servant whom his son had not called. Villefort arrested his arm. " Wait, my dear father," said the young man; " one other word." " Say it." " However ill-conducted is the royalist police, they yet know one terri- ble thing." " What is that ? " " The description of the man who, on the morning of the day when General Quesnel disappeared, presented himself at his house." " Oh, the admirable police have found that out, have they ? And what may be that description ? " " Brown complexion ; hair, eyebrows, and whiskers black ; blue frock- THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CBI8T0. 135 «oat, buttoned up to the chin ; rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honor in his button-hole; a hat with wide brim, and a cane." " Ah ! ah ! that is it, is it ? " said Noirtier ; " and why, then, have they not laid hands on the individual I " %$N "Because yesterday, or the day before, they lost sighl of him at the corner of the Rue Coq-Heron." " Didn't I say your police was good for nothing .' " " Yes; but still it may lay hands on him." "True," said Noirtier, looking carelessly around him, "true, if this 136 THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. individual were not warned as he is." And he added, with a smile, " He will constantly change looks and costume." At these words he rose and put oft* his frock-coat and cravat, went toward a table on which lay all the requisites of the toilette for his son, lathered his face, took a razor, and, with a firm hand, cut off the whiskers that might have compromised him and gave the police so decided a trace. Villefort watched him with alarm, not divested of admiration. His whiskers cut off, Noirtier gave another turn to his hair; took, instead of his black cravat, a colored neckerchief which lay at the top of an open portmanteau; put on, in lieu of his blue and high-buttoned frock-coat, a coat of Villefort's, of dark brown, and cut away in front; tried mi before the glass a narrow-brimmed hat of his son's, which appeared to fit him perfectly, and, leaving his cane in the corner where he had deposited it, he made to whistle in his powerful hand a small bamboo switch, which the dandy deputy used when he walked, and which aided in giving him that easy swagger which was one of his principal characteristics. " Well," he said, turning toward his wondering son, when this dis- guise was completed, "well, do you think your police will recognize me llo\\ .'•• "No, father," stammered Villefort; "at least, I hope not." " And now, my dear boy," continued Noirtier, " I rely on your prudence to remove all the things which I leave in your care." " Oh, rely on me," said Villefort. " Yes, yes ! and now I believe you are right, and that you have really saved my life ; 1 »ut be assured I wall return the obligation to you hereafter." Villefort shook his head. " You are not convinced yet ? " " I hope, at least, that you may be mistaken." " Shall you see the king again .' " " Perhaps." " Would you pass in his eyes for a prophet ! " " Prophets of evil are not in favor at the court, father." " True, but some day they do them justice ; and, supposing a second restoration, you would then pass for a great man." " Well, what should I say to the king :' " " Say this to him : ' Sire, you are deceived as to the feeling in France, as to the opinions of the towns, and the prejudices of the army; he whom in Paris you call the ogre of Corsica, who at Nevers is styled the i;surper, is already saluted as Bonaparte at Lyons and emperor at G-re- THE COT XT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 137 noble. You think he is tracked, pursued, captured; he is advaneii rapidly as his own eagles. The soldiers you believe dying with hunger, worn out with fatigue, ready to desert, increase like atoms of snow about the rolling ball which hastens onward. Sire, go, Leave France to its real master, to him who did not buy, but acquired it ; go, sire, nut that you incur any risk, fur your adversaryis powerful enough to show you mercy, but because it would he humiliating fur a grandson of Saint Louis to owe his life to the man of Areola, Marengo, Austerlitz.' Tell him this, Gerard ; or, rather, tell him nothing. Keep your journey a secret; do not boast of what you have come to Paris to do, or have done. You have made haste to come here, return with all speed ; enter Marseilles at night, and your house by the back door, and there remain, quiet, submissive, secret, and, above all, inoffensive; for this time, I swear to you, we shall act like powerful men who know their enemies. Go, my son — go, my dear Gerard, and by your obedience to my pater- nal orders, or, if you prefer it, friendly counsels, we will keep you in your place. This will be," added Xoirtier, with a smile, " one means by which you may a second time save me, if the political balance should one day place you high and me low. Adieu, my dear Gerard, and at your next journey alight at my door." Noirtier left the room when lie had finished, with the same calmness that had characterized him during the whole of this remarkable and trying conversation. Yillefort, pale and agitated, ran to the window, put aside the curtain, and saw him pass, cool and collected, by two or three ill-looking men at the corner of the street, who were there, per- haps, to arrest a man with black whiskers, and a blue frock-coat, and hat with broad brim. Yillefort stood watching, breathless, until his father had disappeared at the Rue Bussy. Then he turned to the various articles he had left behind him, put at the bottom of his portmanteau his black cravat and blue frock-coat, threw the hat into a dark closet, broke the cane into small bits and flung it in the tire, put on his traveling-cap, and, calling his valet, checked with a look the thousand questions he was ready to ask, paid his bill, sprang into his carriage, which was ready, learned at Lyons that Bonaparte had entered Grenoble, and in the midst of the tumult which prevailed along the road, at length reached .Marseilles, a prey to all the hopes and fears which enter the heart of man with ambition and its first successes. CHAPTER XIII THE II UNDEED DAYS XOIRTIER was a true prophet, and things progressed rapidly, as he had predicted. Every one knows the his- tory of the famous return from Elba, a return which, without example in the past, will probably remain without imitation in the future. Louis XYIII. made but a faint attempt to parry this unexpected blow ; his lack of confidence in men deprived him of his confidence in events; the royalty, or rather the monarchy, he had scarcely recon- structed tottered on its precarious foundation, and it needed but a sign of the emperor to hurl to the ground all this edifice composed of ancient prejudices and new ideas. Villefort, therefore, gained nothing save the king's gratitude, which was rather likely to injure him at the present time, and the Cross of the Legion of Honor, which he had the prudence not to wear, although M. de Blacas had duly forwarded the lire Vet. Napoleon would, doubtless, have depi'ived Villefort of his office had it not been for Noirtier, who was all-powerful at the court of the Hun- dred Days, by the dangers he had faced and the services he had ren- dered, and thus the Girondin of '93 and the senator of 1806 protected him who so lately had been his protector. All Yillefort's influence barely enabled him to stifle the secret Dantes had so nearly divulged. During this re-appearance of the empire, whose second fall could be easily foreseen, the king's procureur alone was deprived of his office, being suspected of royalism. However, scarcely was the imperial power established — that is, scarcely had the emperor reentered the Tuileries and issued his numer- ous orders from that little cabinet into which we have introduced our readers, and on the table of which he found Louis XV ILL'S snuff-box, THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 139 "half full— than Marseilles began to rekindle the flames of civil war, always unextinguished in the south, and it required but Little to excite the populace to acts of far greater violence than the shouts and insults with which they assailed the royalists whenever tln-y ventured abroad. Owing to this natural change, the worthy shipowner became al that moment— we will not say all-powerful, because Morrel was a prudenl and rather a timid man, like all who have made a slow success in busi- ness; so much so, that many of the most zealous partisans oi Bona- !40 Till-: coCXT OF M0WTF-GBI8T0. parte accused him of moderation — bu1 sufficiently influential to make a demand ; and this demand, as may be divined, was in favor of Dantes. Villeforl retained his place in spite of the fall of his superior, but his marriage was put off until a more favorable opportunity. If the emperor remained on the throne, Gerard required a different alliance to aid his career, and his father undertook to find it; if Louis XVIII. returned, the influence of M. Saint-Meran and himself became double, and the marriage must lie still more suitable. The deputy procureur was, therefore, the first magistrate of Marseilles, when one morning his door opened, and M. Morrel was announced. Any one else would have hastened to receive him and revealed his weakness; but Villefort was a man of ability, who, if he had not the experience, had the instinct for everything. He made Morrel wait in the antechamber, although he had no one with him, for the simple reason that the king's procureur always makes everyone wait; and after a quarter of an hour had passed in reading the papers, he ordered Morrel to he admitted. Morrel expected Villefort would be dejected; be found him, as he had found him six weeks before, calm, firm, and full of that glacial politeness, that most insurmountable barrier, which separates the well- bred and the vulgar man. lie had penetrated into VUlefort's cabinet, convinced the magistrate would tremble at the sight of him; on the contrary, he felt a cold shud- der all over him when he beheld Villefort seated, his elbow on his desk, and his head leaning on his hand. He stopped at the door; Villefort gazed at him as if he had some difficulty in recognizing him; then, after a brief interval, during which the honest shipowner turned and turned his hat in his hands, " M. Morrel, I believe .' " said Villefort. " Yes, sir." "Come nearer,' 1 said the magistrate, with a patronizing wave of the hand, "and tell me to what circumstance I owe the honor of this visit." " Do you not guess, monsieur ? " asked Morrel. "Not in the least; but, if I can serve you in any way, I shall be d. 'lighted." " Everything depends on you." " Explain yourself, pray." " Monsieur," said Morrel, recovering his assurance as lie proceeded, encouraged by the justice of his cause, " do you recollect that a few days before the landing of his majesty the emperor, I came to intercede for an unfortunate young man, the mate of my ship, who was accused of being concerned in a correspondence with the isle of Elba \ and what THE <<>r\r OF MOJS "/ 7 : ~ < UI8T0. 141 was the other day a cnme is to-day a title of favor. You then served Louis XVIII., and you did no1 show any favor — it was your du1 day you serve Napoleon, and you ought to protecl him — ii is equally your duty. I come, therefore, to ask what has become of him."' Villefort made a violent effort. " What is his uame ?" said he; "tell me his name." " Edmond Dantes." Villefort would, evidently, have rather stood opposite the muzzle of 142 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. a pistol at five-and-twenty paces than have heard this naine pronounced; I mt he betrayed no emotion. "In this way," said Villefort to himself, "I cannot be accused of making the arrest of this young man a personal question." " Dantes," repeated he, " Edmond Dantes." " Yes, monsieur." Villefort opened a large register, then went to a table, from the table turned to his registers, and then, turning to Morrel, "Are you quite sure you are not mistaken, monsieur.'" said he, in the most natural tone in the world. Had Morrel been a more quick-sighted man, or better versed in these matters, he would have been surprised at the king's procureur answering him on such a subject so entirely out of his line, instead of referring him to the governors of the prison or the prefect of the department. But Morrel, disappointed in his expectations of exciting- fear, saw only, where no fear was visible, condescension. Villefort had calculated rightly. " No," said Morrel, " I am not mistaken. I have known him ten years, and the last four he has been in my service. Do not you recollect, I came about six weeks ago to beseech your clemency, as I come to-day to beseech your justice — you received me very coldly, and answered me rudely? Oh, the royalists were very severe with the Bonapartists in those days." " Monsieur," returned Villefort, " I was then a royalist, because I believed the Bourbons not only the heirs to the throne but the chosen of the nation. The miraculous return which we have seen proves me mistaken; the genius of Napoleon has conquered; the legitimate mon- arch is he who is loved by his people." "That's right !" cried Morrel. " I like to hear you speak thus, and I augur well for Edmond from it." " Wait a moment," said Villefort, turning over the leaves of a regis- ter; "I have it — a sailor, who was about to marry a young Catalan girl. I recollect now, it was a very serious charge." " How so ? " "You know that when he left here he was taken to the Palais de Justice." "Well?" " I made my report to the authorities at Paris, and sent to them the papers found on him, — it was my duty, — and a week after, he was carried off." " ( 'arried off!" said Morrel. " What can they have done with him ? " " Oh, he has been taken to Fenestrelles, to Pignerol, or to the lies. THE COIXT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 143 Sainte-Marguerite. Some fine morning he will return to assume the command of your vessel." " Come when he will, it shall be kept for him. But how is it he is not already returned? It seems to me, the first care of the Bonapartist government should be to set at liberty those who have suffered from that of the Bourbons." "Do not be too hasty, M. Morrel," replied Villefort. " Tl rder of imprisonment came from high authority, and the order for his liberation must proceed from the same source; and, as Napoleon has scarcely been reinstated a fortnight, the letters have not yet been forwarded." " But," said Morrel, " is there no way of expediting all these formali- ties? "We are victorious; I have friends and some influence; I can obtain the canceling of his arrest." " There has been no arrest." "How?" " It is sometimes essential to government to cause a man's disappear- ance without leaving any traces, so that no written forms or documents may defeat their wishes." " It might be so under the Bourbons, but at present " "It is always the same, my dear Morrel, since the reign of Louis XXV., all governments are alike ; we have the Bastile to-day. The emperor is more strict in prison discipline than even Louis himself, and the num- ber of prisoners whose names are not on the register is incalculable.'' Had Morrel even any suspicions, so much kindness would have dis- pelled them. " Well, M. de Villefort, how would you advise me to act .' " asked he. "Petition the minister." "Oh, I know what that is; the minister receives two hundred every day, and does not read four." " That is true ; but he will read a petitiou countersigned and presented by me." " And will you undertake to deliver it ? " " With the greatest pleasure. Dantes was then guilty, and now he is innocent ; and it is as much my duty to free him as it was to condemn him." Villefort foresaw the danger of an inquiry, possible but not probable, which might ruin him beyond retrieval. " But how shall I address the minister \ " "Sit down there," said Villefort, giving up his place to Morrel, "and write what I dictate." " Will you be so good ? " "Certainly. But lose no time; we have lost too much already." 144 THE cor XT OF MONTE-CRISTO. •'That is true. Only think that perhaps this poor young man is pining in despair." Villefort shuddered at this picture of the prisoner cursing him in silence and obscurity, but he was too far gone to recede; Dantes must lie crushed beneath the weight of Villefort's ambition. " I am waiting," said Morrel, pen in hand. ViUefort dictated a petition, La which, from an excellent intention, no doubt, Dantes' services to the Bonapartists were exaggerated, and he was made out one of the most active agents of Napoleon's return, it was evident that at the sight of this document the minister would instantly release him. The petition finished, ViUefort read it aloud. " That will do," said he; " leave the rest to me." " AVill the petition go soon \ " "To-day." " Countersigned by you V " The best thing I can do will be to certify the truth of the contents of your petition." And, sitting down, ViUefort wrote the certificate at the bottom. " What more is to be done ? " " I will answer for everything." This assurance charmed Morrel, who took leave of ViUefort, and hastened to announce to old Dantes that he would soon see his son. As for ViUefort, instead of sending to Paris, he carefully preserved the petition that so fearfully compromised Dantes, in the case of an event that seemed not unlikely, — that is, a second restoration. Dantes remained a prisoner, and heard not the noise of the fall of Louis XVIII.'s throne, nor the more terrible collapse of the Empire. Twice during the brief imperial apparition which is called the Hun- dred Days had Morrel renewed his demand, and twice had Villefort soothed him with promises. At last there was Waterloo, and Morrel came no more : he had done all that was in his power, and any fresh attempt under the second restoration woiild only compromise himself uselessly. Louis XVIII. reim muted the throne, Villefort demanded and obtained the situation of king's procureur at Toulouse, and a fortnight afterward married Eenee, whose father was more influential at court than ever. Thus Dantes, during the Hundred Days and after Waterloo, remained under bolt and bar, forgotten by God and man. Danglars comprehended the full extent of the wretched fate that overwhelmed Dantes, and, like all men of small abilities, he termed this a decree of Providence. But when Napoleon returned to the imperial throne in Paris, Danglars' heart failed him, and he feared at every THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. H7 instant to behold Dantes eager for vengeance. Ee therefore informed M. Morrel of his wish to quit the sea, and obtained a recommendation from him to a Spanish merchant, into whose service be entered ;it the end of March, — that is, ten or twelve days after Napoleon's return to the Tuileries. He then left for Madrid, and was no more beard of. Fernand understood nothing except that Dantes was absent. Whal bad become of him he cared not to inquire. Only, during the respite the absence of his rival afforded him, he reflected, partly on the means of deceiving Mercedes as to the cause of his absence, partly on plans of emigration and abduction, as from time to time be sal sad and motion- Less on the summit of Cape Phavo, at the spot from whence Marseilles and the village of the Catalans are visible, watching for the apparition of a young and handsome man, who was for him also the messenger of vengeance. Fernand's mind was made up: he would shoot Dantes, and then kill himself. But Fernand was mistaken; a man of his disposition never kills himself, for he constantly hopes. During this time the Empire made a last appeal, and every man in France capable of bearing arms rushed to obey the summons of his Einperor. Fernand departed with the rest, heaving with him the terrible thought that perhaps his rival was behind him, and would marry .Mer- cedes. Had Fernand really meant to kill himself, he would have done so when he parted from Mercedes. His devotion, his constant atten- tions, and the compassion he showed for her misfortunes, produced the effed they always produce on noble minds — Mercedes had always had a sincere regard for Fernand, and this was now strengthened by gratitude. "My brother," said she, as she placed his knapsack on his shoulders, "he careful of yourself, for if you are killed I shall be alone in tin- world." These words infused a ray of hope into Fernand's heart. Should Dantes not return, Mercedes might one day be his. Mercedes was Kit alone to gaze on this bare earth that had never seemed so barren, and the sea that had never seemed so vast. Sometimes, bathed in tears, she wandered, without ceasing, around the little village of the Catalans, sometimes she stood mute and motionless as a statue beneath the burn- ing sun of the South, gazing toward Marseilles; at other times gazing on the sea, and debating as to whether it were not better t<> cast herself into the abyss of the ocean, and thus end her woes. It was not want of courage that prevented her putting this resolution into execution; but her religious feelings came to her aid and saved her. Caderousse was, like Fernand, enrolled in the army. l>tit. being married and eight years older, he was merely sent to the coast fortresses. Old Dantes, who was only sustained by hope, lost all hope at Napoleon's 148 THE COUNT OF M01TTE-CRIST0. downfall. Five months after he had been separated from his son, and almost at the very hour at which he was arrested, he breathed his last in Mercedes' arms. Morrel paid the expenses of his funeral and a few small debts the poor old man had contracted. There was more than benevolence in this action; there was courage; for in assist, even on his death-bed, the father of so dangerous a Bona- partist as Dantes was stigmatized as a crime. CHAPTER XIV THE TWO PRISONERS k YEAR after Louis XVIII.V restoration, a visit was made by the inspector-general of prisons. Dantes heard from tin- recesses of his cell the noises made by the preparations for receiving him, — sounds that at the depth where lie lay would lave been inaudible to any but the ear of a prisoner, who could dis- tinguish the plash of the drop of water that every hour fell from the roof of his dungeon. He guessed something uncommon was passing among the living; but he had so long ceased to have any intercourse with the world, that he looked upon himself as dead. The inspector visited the cells and dungeons, one after another, <>f several of the prisoners whose good behavior or stupidity recommended them to the elemency of the government; the inspector inquired how they were fed, and if they had anything to demand. The universal response was that the fare was detestable, and that they required their freedom. The inspector asked if they had anything else to demand. They shook their heads! What could they desire beyond their liberty .' The inspector turned smilingly to the governor. "I do not know what reason government can assign for these useless visits; when you see one prisoner, you see all, — always the same thing, — ill-fed, and innocent. Are there any others .' " "Yes; the dangerous and mad prisoners are in the dungeons." "Let us visit them," said the inspector, with an air of fatigue. "I must fulfill my mission. Let us descend." " Let us first send for two soldiers,'' said the governor. "The pris- oners sometimes, through mere disgust of life, and in order to he sentenced to death, commit acts of useless violence, and you might fall a victim." 150 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. "Take all needful precautions," replied the inspector. Two soldiers were accordingly scut for, and the inspector descended ;i stair so foul, so humid, so dark, that the very sight affected the eye, the smell, and the respiration. "Oh!" cried the inspector, " who can live here .'" "A most dangerous conspirator, a man we are ordered to keep the m »st strict watch over." "He is ah. lie ?» "Certainly." " How long has he been there .' *' " Nearly a year." "Was he placed here when he first arrived ?" "No, not until he attempted to kill the turnkey." " To kill the turnkey ? " "Yes, the very one who is lighting us. Is it not true, Antoine ? ' r asked the governor. " True enough ; he wanted to kill me ! " replied the turnkey. "He must lie mad," said the inspector. " He is worse than that, — he is a devil ! " returned the turnkey. "Shall I complain of him ?" demanded the inspector. " Oil, no ; it is useless. Besides, he is almost mad now, and, to judge from our experience here, in another year he will be quite so." "So much the better for him, — he will suffer less," said the inspector. He was, as this remark shows, a man full of philanthropy, and in every way tit for his office. " Von are right, sir," replied the governor; "and this remark proves that you have deeply considered the subject. Now, we have in a dun- geon about twenty feet distant, and to which you descend by another stair, an old abbe, ancient leader of a party in Italy, who has been here since 1811, and in 1813 he went mad, and the change is astonishing. He used to weep, — he now laughs; he grew thin, — he now grows fat. You had better see him, for his madness is amusing." "I will see them both," returned the inspector; "I must consci- entiously perform my duty." This was the inspector's first visit: he wished to display his authority. " Let us visit this one first," added he. " Willingly," replied the governor ; and he signed to the turnkey to open the door. At the sound of the key turning in the lock, and the creaking of the hinges, Dantes, who was crouched in a corner of the dungeon, raised his head. At the sight of a stranger, lighted by two turnkeys, accompanied by two soldiers, and to whorn the governor spoke bareheaded, Dantes, who guessed the truth, and that the moment 77//: COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 151 to address himself to the superior authorities was come, sprang forward with clasped hands. The soldiers presented their bayonets, for they thought he was about to attack the inspector, and the latter recoiled two or three steps. 1 >ant< - saw he was represented as a dangerous prisoner. Then, infusing all the humility he possessed into his eyes and voice, he addressed the inspector, and sought to inspire him with pity. The inspector listened attentively; then, turning to the governor, observed in a low tone : " He will become religious — he is already more gentle; he is afraid, and retreated before the bayonets — madmen are not afraid of anything; I made some curious observations on this at < 'harentou." Then, turning to the prisoner, " What do you demand .'" said he. " I ask what crime I have committed — I ask to be tried before my judges; and I ask, if I am guilty, to be shot; if innocent, to be set at liherty. 1 ' " Are you well fed ? " said the inspector. "I believe so — I know not; but that matters little. What matters really, not only to me, but to every functionary of justice, every member of the government, is, that an innocent man should languish in prison, the victim, of an infamous denunciation, cursing his murderers.'' "You are very humble to-day," remarked the governor. "Yon are not so always; the other day, for instance, when you tried to kill the turnkey." "It is true, sir, and I beg his pardon; for he has always been very good to me; but I was mad." " And you are not so any longer '! " "No! captivity has subdued, broken, annihilated me; I have been here so long." "So long? — when were you arrested, then .'" asked the inspector. " The 28th of February, 1815, at half-past two in the afternoon." " To-day is the 30th of June, 1816: why, it is hut seventeen months." "Only seventeen months!" replied Dantes. "Oh, you do not know what is seventeen months in prison ! seventeen years, — seventeen ayes rather, especially to a man who, like me, had arrived at the summit of his ambition — to a man who, like me, was on the point of marrying a woman he adored, who saw an honorable career open before him, and who loses all in an instant — who sees his pros] ts destroyed, and is ignorant of the fate of his affianced wife, and whether his aged father be still living! Seventeen months' captivity to a sailor accustomed to the air, the expanse, the immensity of the boundless ocean, is a worse punish- ment than human crime ever merited. Have pity on me, then, and ask 152 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRIS.TO. forme, not indulgence, bu1 atrial — let me see my judges; I ask only for a judge ; you cannot refuse to bring me before a judge." " We shall see," said the inspector; then, turning to the governor: "On my word, the poor devil touches me. You must show me the proof s againsl him." "Certainly; but you will find terrible notes against him." " Monsieur," continued Dantes, "1 know it is not in your power to release me; but you can forward my petition, can obtain an inquiry, can plead for me — you can have me tried; and that is all I ask." " Light me," said the inspector. '• Monsieur," cried Dantes, "I can tell by your voice you are touched with pity ; tell me at least to hope." "I cannot tell you that," replied the inspector; "I can only promise to examine into your case." "Oh, i am free — then I am saved !" " Who arrested you ?" " M. Villefort. See him, and hear what he says." " M. Villefort is no longer at Marseilles; he is now at Toulouse." "I am no longer surprised at my detention," murmured Dantes, " since my only protector is removed." " Had M. de Villefort any cause of personal dislike to you :'" " None ; on the contrary, he was very kind to me." " I can, then, rely on the notes he has left concerning you:" " Entirely." " That is well ; wait patiently, then." Dantes fell on his knees, and prayed earnestly for the man who had descended to this Hades. The door closed ; but this time a fresh inmate was left with Dantes — Hope. " Will you see the register at once," asked the governor, "or proceed to the other cell ? " " Let us visit them all," said the inspector. " If I once mounted the stairs, I should never have the courage to descend." "Ah, this one is not like the other; and his madness is less affecting than the reason of his neighbor." "What is his folly:'" " He fancies he possesses an immense treasure. The first year he offered government a million of francs ($200,000) for his release; the second, two; the third, three; and so on progressively. He is now in his fifth year of captivity; he will ask to speak to you in private, and offer you five millions." " How curious ! — what is his name .' " " L'Abbe Faria." THE COUNT OF M0XTE-CR1 8T0. 153 " No. 27," said the inspector. " It is here; unlock the door, Antoine." The turnkey obeyed, and the inspector gazed curiously into the chamber of the mad inquire if you have anything to ask or complain of." "The food is the same as in other prisons, — that is, very bad; the lodging is very unwholesome, but, on the whole, passable for a dun- geon ; hut it is not that which I speak of, but of a secret I have to reveal of the greatest importance." " We are coming to the point," whispered the governor. "It is for that reason I am delighted to see you," continued the abbe, "although you have disturbed me in a most important calculation, which, if it succeeded, would possibly change Newton's system. Could you allow me a few words in private ! " THE COUNT OF M02TTE-CRIST0. 155 " "What did I tell you f" said the governor. " You knew him," returned the inspector. "What you ask is impossible, monsieur," continued he, addressing Faria. The Abbe Faria. " But " said the abbe, "I would speak to you of a large sum. ami ranting to five millions." "The very figure you named," whispered, in his turn, the inspector. " However " continued Faria, perceiving the inspector was aboul to depart, "it is not absolutely necessary we should lie alone: monsieur the governor can be present." 156 THE COUNT OF M02TTE-CRIST0. " Unfortunately," said the governor, "I know beforehand what yen; are about to say; it concerns your treasures, does it not ?" Faria fixed his eves on him with an expression that would have convinced any else of his sanity. " Doubtless," said he; "of what else shordd I speak .'" " Monsieur I'Inspecteur," continued the governor, "I can tell you the story as well, for it has been dinned in my ears for the last four or five years." "That proves," returned the abbe, "that you are like the people of Holy Writ, who have eyes and see not, and who have ears and hear not.'" " The government does n< >t waul your treasures," replied the inspector; "keep them until you are liberated." The abbe's eyes glistened; he seized the inspector's hand. " But what if I am not liberated," cried he, " and am detained here, contrary to all justice, until my death \ What, if I die without reveal- ing my secret! the treasure will be lost. Had not government better profit by it? I will offer six millions, and I will content myself with the rest." " On my word," said the inspector, in a low tone, " had I not been told beforehand this man was mad, I should believe what he says." " I am not mad!" replied Faria, with that acuteness of hearing pecul- iar to prisoners. "The treasure I speak of really exists; and I offer to sign a treaty with you, by virtue of which you will take me to a spot I shall designate, you shall see the earth dug up under your own eyes, and if I lie, if nothing is found, if I am mad, as you call me, then bring me here again, and I shall die without asking more." The governor laughed. " Is the spot far from here ? " " A hundred leagues." " It is not a bad idea," said the governor. "If every prisoner took it into his head to travel a hundred leagues, and their guardians consented to accompany them, they would have a capital chance of escaping." " The scheme is well known," said the inspector; "and M. l'Abbe has not even the merit of its invention." Then, turning to Faria, "I inquired if you are well fed?" said he. "Swear to me," replied Faria, "to free me, if what I tell you prove true, and I will stay here whilst you go to the spot." " Are you well fed t " repeated the inspector. "Monsieur, you run no risk, for, as I told you, I will stay here; so there is no chance of my escaping." " You do not reply to my question," replied the inspector impatiently. " Nor you to mine," cried the abbe. " Accursed be you like the other li & THE COUNT OF M0NTE-GBI8T0. 159 fools who will not believe me! You will no! accept my gold; I will keep it f or myself. You refuse me my liberty; Grod will give ii me. G-o! I have no more to say." And the abb6, casting away his coverlid, resumed his place and continued his calculations. " What is he doing there :'" said the inspector. "Counting his treasures,'' replied the governor. Faria replied to this sarcasm by a glance of profound contempt. They left the dungeon, and the door dosed behind them. "He has been wealthy once, perhaps," said the inspector. KID THE COUNT OF M0NTE-GBI8T0. •■ < >r dreamed he was, and awoke mad." " Alter all," said the inspector, with the candor of corruption, "if he had been rich, he would not have been here." Tims finished the adventure of the Abbe Faria, He remained in his cell, and this visit only increased the belief of his insanity. < 'a 1 inula or Nero, those treasure-seekers, those desirers of the impos- sible, would have accorded to the poor wretch, in exchange for his wealth, the liberty and the air lie so earnestly prayed for. But the kings of modern ages, retained within the limits of probability, have neither the courage nor the desire. They fear the ear that hears their orders, and the eve that scrutinizes their actions. They do not feel the divinity that hedges a king; they are men with crowns — that is all. Formerly they believed themselves sprung from Jupiter, and shielded by their birth; but, nowadays, they are not inviolable. It has always been against the policy of despotic governments to suffer the victims of their policy to re-appear. As the Inquisition rarely suffered its victims to lie seen with their limbs distorted and their flesh lacerated by torture, sc > madness is always concealed in its cell, from whence, should it de] >art, it is conveyed to some gloomy hospital, where the doctor recognizes neither man nor miud in the mutilated being the jailer delivers to him. The very madness of the Abbe Faria, gone mad in prison, condemned him to perpetual captivity. The inspector kept his word with Dantes: he examined the register, and found the following note concerning him : i Violent Bonapartist ; took an active part in the return Edmond Dantes. from Elba. I The greatest watchfulness and cine to be exercised. This note was in a different hand from the rest, which proved it had been added since his confinement. The inspector could not contend against this accusation; he simply wrote, Nothing to be done. This visit had infused new vigor into Dantes ; he had, till then, for- gotten the date ; but now, with a fragment of plaster, he wrote the date, 30th July, 1816; and made a mark every day, in order not to lose his reck< ming again. Days and weeks passed away, then months — Dantes still waited; he at first expected to be freed in a fortnight. This fort- night expired ; he reflected the inspector would do nothing until his return to Paris, and that he would not reach there until his circuit was finished; he therefore fixed three months; three months passed away, t hen six more. During these ten months no favorable change had taken place; no consoling news came, his jailer was dumb as usual, and I >antes began to fancy the inspector's visit was but a dreain, an illusion of the brain. THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 161 At the expiration of a year the governor was changed; he had obtained the government of Ham. He took with him several of his subordinates, and amongsl them Dantes' jailer. A fresh governor arrived. It would have been too tedious to acquire the names of the prisoners j he learned their numbers instead. This horrible board- ing-house consisted of fifty chambers; their inhabitants were designated by tlic number of their chamber; and the unhappy young man was do longer called Edmond Dantes, — he was now No. 34 CHAPTER XV NUMBER 34 AND NUMBER 27 ANTES passed through all the degrees of misfortune that prisoners, forgotten in their dungeons, suffer. He com- menced with pride, a natural consequence of hope and a consciousness of innocence; then he began to doubt his own innocence, which justified in some measure the governor's belief in his mental alienation; and then, falling into the opposite extreme, he supplicated, not Heaven, but his jailer. Heaveu, which ought to be the first resort of the unhappy, is the last one, only sought when all others have been tried in vain. Dantes entreated to be removed from his present dungeon into another, even if it were darker and deeper, for a change, however dis- advantageous, was still a change, and would afford him some amuse- ment, lie entreated to be allowed to walk about, to have books and instruments. Nothing was granted; no matter, he asked all the same, lie accustomed himself to speak to his fresh jailer, although he was, if possible, more taciturn than the former; but still, to speak to a man, even though a mute, was something. Dantes spoke for the sake of hearing his own voice; he had tried to speak when alone, but the sound of his voice terrified him. Often, before his captivity, Dantes' mind had revolted at the idea of those assemblages of prisoners, composed of thieves, vagabonds, and murderers. He now wished to be amongst them, in order to see some other face besides that of his jailer; he sighed for the galleys, with their infamous costume, their chain, and the brand on the shoulder. The galley-slaves breathed the fresh air of heaven, and saw each other. They were very happy. He besought the jailer one day to let him have a companion, were it even the mad abbe. The jailer, though rude and hardened by the constant sight of so much suffering, was vet a man. At the bottom of Till: COUNT OF MONTE-CBISTO. L63 his heart he had often compassionated the unhappy young man who suffered thus; and be laid the request of No. 34 before the governor: but the latter sapiently imagined that Dantes wished to conspire or attempt an escape, and refused his request. Dantes had exhausted all human resources; and he then turned to God. All the pious ideas that had been so long forgotten, returned ; he recollected the prayers his mother had taught him, and discovered a new meaning in every word; for in prosperity prayers seem but a mere assemblage of words, until the day when misfortune comes to explain to the unhappy sufferer the sublime Language by which he speaks to God. He prayed and prayed aloud, no longer terrified at the sound of his voice; for he fell into a species of ecstasy and saw God at every word he uttered. He laid every action of his life before the Almighty, pro- posed tasks to accomplish, and at the end of every prayer introduced the entreaty oftener addressed to man than to God, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." Spite of his earnest prayers, Dantes remained a prisoner. Then a gloomy feeling took possession of him. He was simple, and without education; he could not, therefore, in the solitude of his dun- geon, and of his own thoughts, reconstruct the ayes that had passed, reanimate the nations that had perished, and rebuild the ancient cities that imagination renders so vast and poetic, and that pass before our eves, illuminated by the fires of heaven, as in Martin's pictures of Babylon. He could not do this, he whose past life was so short, whose present so melancholy, and his future so doubtful. Nineteen years of Light to reflect upon in eternal darkness. No distraction could conic to his aid; Iris energetic spirit, that would have exulted in thus revisit- ing the past, was imprisoned like an eagle in a cage. He chum- to one idea — that of his happiness, destroyed, without apparent cause, by an unheard of fatality ; he considered and reconsidered this idea, devoured it (thus to speak), as dgolino devours the skull of the Archbishop Roger in the Inferno of Dante. Rage succeeded to this. Dantes uttered blasphemies that made his jailer recoil with horror, dashed himself furiously against the wall- of his prison; he was in a fury with everything, and chiefly himself, and the least thine,- — a urain of sand, a straw, or a breath of ail" — that annoyed him. Then the letter of denunciation that he had seen and that Villefort had showed to him recurred to his mind, and every line seemed visible in fiery letters on the wall, like the Mene Tekel Upharsin of Belshazzar. He said that it was the vengeance of man, and not of Heaven, that had thus plunged him into the deepesl misery. Ee devoted these unknown persecutors to the most horrible tortures he 164 TEE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. could devise in his ardent imagination, and found them all insufficient, because after torture came death, and after death, if not repose, at least that insensibility that resembles it. By dint of constantly dwelling on the idea that repose was death, and, in order to punish, other tortures than death must be invented, ho began to reflecl on suicide. Unhappy he, who, on the brink of misfor- tune, broods over these ideas! It is one of those dead seas that seem clear and smooth to the eye; but he who unwarily ventures within its embrace finds himself entangled in the bituminous deposit that draws him down and swallows him. Once thus ensnared, unless the protect- ing band of G-od snatch him thence, all is over, and his struggles but tend to hasten his destruction. This state of mental anguish is, how- ever, less terrible than the sufferings that precede, and the punishment that awaits it — a sort of consolation that points to the yawning abyss, at the bottom of which is nothingness. Bdmond found some solace in these ideas. All his sorrows, all his sufferings, with their train of gloomy specters, fled from his cell when the angel of death seemed about to enter. Dantes reviewed with com- posure his past life, and, looking forward with terror to his future existence, chose that middle line that seemed to afford him a refuge. " Sometimes," said he, " in my voyages, when I was a man and com- manded other men, I have seen the. heavens become overcast, the sea rage and foam, the storm arise, and, like a monstrous bird, cover the sky with its wings. Then I felt that my vessel was a vain refuge that, like a feather in a giant's hand, trembled and shook before the tempest. Soon the fury of the waves and the sight of the sharp rocks announced the approach of death, and death then terrified me, and I used all my skill and intelligence as a man and a sailor to escape. But I did so because I was happy, because I had not courted death, because this repose on a bed of rocks and seaweed seemed terrible, because I was unwilhng that I, a creature made for the service of God, should serve for food to the gulls and vultures. But now it is different : I have lost all that bound me to life ; death smiles and invites me to repose ; I die after my own manner, I die exhausted and broken-spirited, as I fall asleep when I have paced three thousand times round my cell, — that is thirty thousand steps, or about ten leagues.'' No sooner had this idea taken possession of him than he became more composed, arranged his couch to the best of his power, ate little and slept less, and found this existence almost supportable because he felt he could throw it off at pleasure, like a worn-out garment. He had two means of dying : the one was to hang himself with his handkerchief, to the stanchions of the window; the other, to refuse food, and starve THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. 165 himself. But the former means were repugnant to him. Dantes had always entertained the greatest horror of pirates, who are hung up to the yard-arm; he would not die hy what seemed an infamous death. Id- resolved to adopt the second, and began that day to execute his resolve. Nearly four years had thus passed away; at the end of the second he had ceased to mark the lapse of time. Dantes said. " 1 wish to die," and had ehosen the manner of his death: and, fearful of changing his 166 THE COUNT OF WONTE-CRISTO. mind, he had taken an oath to die. " When my morning and evening meals are brought," thought he, " I will cast them out of the window, and J shall be believed to have eaten them." He kept his word : twice a day he cast out, by the barred aperture, the provisions Ins jailer brought him — at first gayly, then with delib- erate and at last with regret. Nothing but the recollection of his oath gave him strength to proceed. Hunger rendered these viands, once so repugnant, acceptable to him; he held the plate in his hand for an hour at a time, and gazed on the morsel of bad meat, of tainted fish, of black and moldy bread. It was the last instinct of life, which occa- sionally vanquished his resolve; then his dungeon seemed less somber, his prospeels less desperate, lie was still young — he was only four or five and twenty — he had nearly fifty years to live. What unforeseen events might not open his prison door and restore him to liberty? Then he raised to his lips the repast that, like a voluntary Tantalus, he refused himself; but he thought of his oath, and he would not break it. He persisted until, at last, he had not sufficient force to cast his supper out of the loop-hole. The next morning lie could not see or hear; the jailer feared he was dangerously ill. Echnond hoped he was dying. The day passed away thus: Edmond felt a species of stupor creep- ingoverhim; the gnawing pain at his stomach had ceased; his thirst had abated; when he closed his eyes he saw myriads of lights dancing before them, like the meteors that play about the marshes. It was the twilight of that mysterious country called Death ! Suddenly, about nine o'clock in the evening, Edmond heard a hollow sound in the wall against which he was lying. So many loathsome animals inhabited the prison that their noise did not, in general, awake him; but whether abstinence had quickened his faculties, or whether the noise was really louder than usual, Edmond raised his head and listened. It was a continual scratching, as if made by a huge claw, a powerful tooth, or some iron instrument attacking the stones. Although weakened, the young man's brain instantly recurred to the idea that haunts all prisoners — Liberty! This sound came just at the time when all sounds were about to cease for him. It seemed to him that Heaven had at length taken pity on him, and had sent this noise to warn him on the very brink of the abyss. Perhaps one of those beloved ones he had so often thought of was thinking of him, and striving to diminish the distance that separated them. No ! no ! doubtless he was deceived, and it was but one of those dreams that forerun death ! Edmond still heard the sound. It lasted nearly three hours; he then heard a noise of something falling, and all was silent. THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 167 Some hours afterward it began nearer and more distinct ; Edmond became already interested in thai Labor, which seemed Like companion- ship, when the jailer entered. For a week that he had resolved to die, and for four days thai he I >nt this resolution into execution, Edmond had not spoken to this man, had not answered him when he inquired what was the matter with him, and turned his face to the wall when he looked too curiously at him; but now the jailer mighl hear this noise and put an end to it, thus destroying a ray of something like bope that soothed hi- las moments. The jailer brought him his breakfast. Dantes raised himself up, and in loud tones began to speak on everything: on the bad quality of his food, on the coldness of his dungeon, grumbling and complaining, in order to have an excuse for speaking louder, and wearying the patience of his jailer, who had solieited some broth and white bread for his prisoner, and who had brought it. Fortunately he fancied Dantes was delirious; and, placing his f 1 on the rickety table, he withdrew. Left alone, Edmond listened, and the sound became more and more distinct. "There can be no doubt," thought he, "it is some prisoner who is striving to obtain his freedom. Oh, if 1 were near him, how I would assist him." Suddenly another idea took possession of his mind, so used to mis- fortune that it could scarcely understand hope; yet this idea possessed him, that the noise arose from the workmen the governor bad ordered to repair the neighboring dungeon. It was easy to ascertain this; but how could be risk the question . It was easy to call his jailer's attention to the noise, and watch his countenance as he listened; hut mighl he not by this ans betray interests far more precious than this short-lived satisfaction .' Unfort- unately, Edmond's brain was still so feeble that he could not bend his thoughts to anything in particular. He saw lmt one mean- of restoring lucidity and clearness to his judgment. He turned his eyes toward the soup his jailer hud brought him, rose, staggered toward it. raised the vessel to his lips and drank off the contents with a feeling of Lndescribal le pleasure. He had the resolution to stop with this. He had often beard thai shipwrecked persons had died through having eagerly devoured too much food; Edmond replaced on the table the bread he was about to devour, and returned to his couch — he did not wish Iodic. He soon felt that his ideas, so vague and intangible, became again collected — he could think, and strengthen his thoughts by reasoning. 'I 'hen hi' -aid to himself: 168 TEE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. " 1 must put this to the test, but without compromising anybody. If it is a workman, I need but knock against the wall, and he will cease to work, in order to find out who is knocking, and why he does so ; but as bis occupation is sanctioned by the governor, he will soon resume it. If, on the contrary, it is a prisoner, the noise I make will alarm him, he will cease, and not recommence until he thinks every one is asleep." Edmond rose again, but this time his legs did not tremble, and his eyes were free from mists; he advanced to a comer of his dungeon, detached a stone, and with it knocked against the wall where the sound came. He struck thrice. At the first Mow the sound ceased as if by magic. Edmond listened intently: an hour passed, two hours passed, and no sound was heard; all was silent there on the other side of the wall. Full of hope, Edmond swallowed a few mouthfuls of bread and water, and, thanks to the excellence of his constitution, found himself well-nigh recovered. The day passed away in litter silence; night came without the noise having recommenced. "It is a prisoner," said Edmond joyfully. His brain was on fire, and life and energy returned. The night passed in perfect silence ; Edmond did not close his eyes. In the morning the jailer brought him fresh provisions — he had already devoured those of the previous day; he ate these, listening anxiously for the sound, fearing it had ceased forever ; walking round and round his cell, shaking the iron bars of the loop-hole, restoring by exercise vigor and agility to his limbs, aud preparing himself thus for his future destiny, as an athlete before entering the arena. At intervals he listened if the noise had not begun again, and grew impatient at the prudence of the prisoner, who did not guess he had been disturbed by a captive as anxious for liberty as himself. Three days passed — seventy-two long tedious hours, collided minute by minute. At length, one evening, as the jailer was visiting him for the last time that night, Dantes, as for the hundredth time he glued his ear to the wall, fancied he heard an almost imperceptible movement among the stones. Edmond recoiled from the wall, walked up and down his cell to collect his thoughts, and replaced his ear against the wall. There could lie no doubt something was passing on the other side ; the prisoner had discovered the danger, and had substituted the lever for the chisel. Encouraged by this discovery, Edmond determined to assist the indefatigable laborer. He began by moving his bed, behind which the THE COUNT <>F MOKTE-CRISTO. L69 work seemed to be going on, and sought with bis eyes for anything with which he could pierce the walL penetrate the cement, and displace a stone. He saw nothing, he had no knife or sharp instrument, the grating of his window alone was of iron, and he had too often assured himself of its solidity. All his furniture consisted of a bed, a chair, a table, a pail, and a jug. The bed had iron clamps, but they were screwed to the wood, and it would have required a screw-driver to take them off. The table and chair had nothing; the pail had had a handle, but that had been removed. 17ii THE COUNT OF MONTE-GBISTO. Dantes had but one resource, which was to break the jug, and with one of the sharp fragments attack the wall. He let the jug fall on his floor, and it broke in pieces. Dantes concealed two or three of the sharpest fragments in his bed, Leaving the resl on the tloor. The breaking of his jug was too natural an accident to excite suspicion. Edniond had all the night to work in, lint in the darkness he could not do much, and he soon felt his instru- ment was blunted against something hard; he pushed back his bed and awaited the day, — with hope, patience had returned. All night he heard the subterranean workman, who continued to mine his way. The day came, the jailer entered. Dantes told him the jug had fallen from his hands in drinking, and the jailer went grum- blingly to fetch another, without giving himself the trouble to remove the fragments of the broken one. He returned speedily, recommended the prisoner to be more careful, and departed. Dantes heard joyfully the key grate in the lock — a sound that hitherto had chilled him to the heart. He listened until the sound of steps died away, and then, hastily displacing his bed, saw, by the faint light that penetrated into his cell, that he had labored uselessly the previous evening in attacking the stone instead of removing the plaster that surrounded it. The damp had rendered it friable, and Dantes saw joyfully the plaster detach itself, — in small morsels, it is true; but at the end of half an hour he had scraped off a handfid. A mathematician might have calculated that in two years, supposing that the rock was not encountered, a passage, twenty feet long and two feet square, might he formei 1. The prisoner reproached himself with not having thus employed the hours he had passed in hopes, prayers, and despair. In six years, the time he had been confined, what might he not have accomplished .' This idea imparted new energy, and in three days he had succeeded, with the utmost precaution, in removing the cement and exposing the stone; the wall was formed of rough stones, t<> give solidity to which were imbedded, at intervals, blocks of hewn stone. It was one < >f these he had uncovered, and which he must remove from its socket, Dantes strove to do so with his nails, but they were too weak. The fragments of the jug broke, and after an hour of useless toil, Dantes paused with anguish on his brow. Was he to be thus stopped at the beginning, and was he to wait inactive until his fellow-workman had completed his toils I Suddenly an idea occurred to him, — he smiled, and the perspiration dried on his forehead. THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 171 Tin' jailer always brought Dantes' soup in an inm saucepan; this saucepan contained the soup of a second prisoner; for Dantes hail remarked thai it was either quite full, or half empty, according as the turnkey gave it to himself or his companion first. The handle of this , ,^>- K k^ saucepan was of iron; Dantes would have given ten year< of his life in exchange for it. The jailer poured the contents of this saucepan into Dantes' plate, who, after eating his soup with a wooden spoon, washed the plate, L72 THE GOV NT OF U0NTE-CBI8T0. which thus served for everyday. In the evening Dantes placed his plate "ii tin' ground near the door; the jailer, as he entered, stepped on it and broke it. This time he could not blame Dantes. He was wrong to leave it there, bu1 the jailer was wrong not to have looked before him. The jailer, therefore, contented himself with grumbling. Then he looked aboul him for something to pour the soup into; Dantes' whole furniture consisted of one plate — there was no alternative. •■ Leave the saucepan," said Dantes; "you can take it away when you bring me my breakfast." This advice was to the jailer's taste, as it spared aim the necessity of ascending, descending, and ascending again. He left the saucepan. Dantes was beside himself with joy. He rapidly devoured his food, and after waiting an hour, lest the jailer should change his mind and return, he removed his bed, took the handle of the saucepan, inserted the point between the hewn stone and rough stones of the wall, and employed it as a lever. A slight oscillation showed to Dantes that all went well. At the end of an hour the stone was extricated from the wall, leaving a cavity of a foot and a hah in diameter. Dantes carefully collected the plaster, carried it into the corners of bis cell, and covered it with earth, which he scratched up with one of the pieces of his jug. Then, wishing to make the best use of this night, in which chance, or rather his own stratagem, had placed so precious an instrument in his hands, he continued to work without ceasing. At the dawu of day he replaced the stone, pushed his bed against the wall, and lay down. T lie breakfast consisted of apiece of bread; the jailer entered and placed the bread on the table. " Well, you do not bring me another plate," said Daub s. " No," replied the turnkey, " you smash everything. First you break your jug, then you make me break your plate ; if all the prisoners fol- lowed your example, the government would be ruined. I shall leave you the saucepan, and pour your soup into that. So for the future, per- haps, you will not be so destructive to your furniture." Dantes raised his eyes to heaven, clasped his hands beneath the coverlid, and prayed. He felt more gratitude for the possession of this piece of iron than he had ever felt for anything. He had, however, remarked that the prisoner on the other side had ceased to labor; no matter, this was a greater reason for proceeding — if his neighbor would not come to him, lie would go to him. All day he toiled on untiringly, and by the evening he had suc- ceeded in extracting ten handfuls of plaster and fragments of stone. When the hour for his jailer's visit arrived, Dantes straightened the Till: COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 173 handle of the saucepan as well as he could, and placed it in its accus- tomed place. The turnkey poured his ration of soup into it, together with the fish, for thrice a week the prisoners were made to abstain from meat: this would have been a method of reckoning time, had not Dantes long ceased to do so. Having poured out the soup, the turnkey retired. Dantes wished to ascertain whether his neighbor had really ceased to work. He listened — all was silent, as it had been for the last three days. Dantes sighed; it was evident that his neighbor distrusted him. However, he toiled on all the night without being discouraged ; bul after two or three hours he encountered an obstacle. The iron made no 174 THE (<>r ST OF M OKTE-CRISTO. impression, but met with a smooth surface; Dantes touched it, and found it was a beam. This beam crossed, or rather blocked up, the bole Dantes had made; it was necessary, therefore, to dig above or under it. The unhappy young man had not thought of this. "0 my God! my God !" murmured he, "I have so earnestly prayed to you, that I hoped myprayers had been heard. After having deprived me of in) liberty, after having deprived me of death, after having recalled me to existence, my God ! have pity on me, and 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, and, deadened by the distance, sounded hollow and sepulchral in the young man's ears. Edmond's hair stood on end, and he rose on his knees. " Ah ! " said he, "I hear a human voice." Edmund had not heard any one speak save his jailer for four or five years; and to a prisoner a jailer is not a man — he is a living door added to his door of oak, a barrier <>f flesh and blood added to his barriers of iron. "In the name of Heaven," cried Dantes, "speak again, though the sound of your voice terrifies me." " Who are you f said the voice. "An unhappy prisoner," replied Dantes, who made no hesitation in answering. " Of what country ' " "A Frenchman." " Your name .' " " Edmund Dailies." " Your profession .'" " A sailor." " How long have you been here ?" " Since the 28th of February, 1815." " Your crime .' " " I am innocent." "But of what are you accused .'" " Of having conspired to aid the emperor's return." " How for the emperor's return? — the emperor is no longer on the throne, then '! " "He abdicated at Pontainebleau in 1814, and was sent to the island of Elba. But how long have you been here that you are ignorant of all this .' " " Since 1811." Dantes shuddered: this man had been four years longer than himself in prison. THE COUNT OF M0KTE-CRI8T0. 175 " Do not dig any more," Baid the voice ; "only tell me how high ap is your excavation .' " "On a level with the floor." " How is it concealed I " " Behind my bed." " Has your bed been moved since yon have been a prisoner .' " "No." '• What does >< >ur chamber open on .'" " A corridor." " And the corridor .' " " On a court." "Alas!" murmured the voice. "Oh, what is the matter.'" cried Dantes. " I am deceived, and the imperfection of my plans has ruined all. An error of a line in the plan has been equivalent to fifteen feet in reality, and I took the wall you are mining for the wall of the fortress." "But then you would end at the sea .' " "That is what I hoped." " And supposing you succeeded .' " "1 should have thrown myself into the sea, gained one of the islands near here, — the Isle de Dauuie orthe Isle deTiboulen, — ami then I was safe." " Could you have swum so far .'*' "Heaven would have given me strength; hut now all i- lost." " All ? " "Yes; stop up your excavation carefully; do not work any more, ami wait until you hear from me." "Tell me, at least, who you are." " I am — I am No. 27." " You mistrust me, then," said Dantes. Edmond fancied he heard a hitter laugh proceed from the unknown. "Oh, I am a Christian." cried Dantes, guessing instinctively that this man meant to abandon him. ''I swear to you by Him who died for us that I will die rather than breathe one syllable of the truth to our jailers ; but, I conjure you, do not abandon me. Let me know you are near, let me hear your voice. If you do abandon me, I swear to you that I will dash my brains out against the wall, and you will have my death to reproach yourself with." "How old are you .' Your voice is that of a young man." "I do not know my age, for I have not counted the years T have been here. All 1 do know i- that I was just nineteen when I was arrested, the 28th of February, 1815." i7t; run cor. XT OF MONTE-GRISTO. " Not quite 1 \wuty-- ix ! " murmured the voice; " at that age be cannot be a traitor." "Oh! uo, uo!" cried Dantes. "1 sweat- to you again, rather than betray you they shall hew me to pieces." ■• You have done well to speak to me and entreat me, for I was about to form another plan, ami leave you; but your age re-assures me. I will not forget you. Expect me." - When .''" " I must ealculateour chances; I will give you the signal." "But you will not leave me; you will come to me, or you will let me come i i you. We will escape, and if we cannot escape we will talk, — you of those whom you love, and I of those whom I love. You must love somebody." " No, 1 am alone in the world." " Then you will love me. If you are young, I will be your comrade ; if you are old, I will be your son. I have a father who is seventy if he yet lives; I only love him and a young girl called Mercedes. My father has not yet forgotten me, I am sure ; but God alone knows if she loves in.' still ; I shall love you as I loved my father." " It is well," returned the voice ; " t< •-morrow." These few words were uttered with an accent that left no doubt of his sincerity ; Dantes rose, dispersed the fragments with the same pre- caution as 1m ■fore, and pushed back his bed against the wall. He then gave himself up to his happiness ; he w T ould no longer be alone. He was, perhaps, about to regain his liberty. At the worst, he would have a companion; and captivity that is shared is but half captivity. All day Dantes walked up and down his cell, his breast throbbing with joy. He sat down occasionally on his bed, pressing his hand on his heart. At the slightest noise he bounded toward the door. Once or twice the thought crossed his mind that he might be separated from this unknown, whom he loved already; and then his mind was made up, — when the jailer moved his bed and stooped to examine the open- ing, he would kill him with his water-jug. He would be condemned to die, but he was about to die of grief and despair when this miraculous noise recalled him to life. The jailer came in the evening ; Dantes was on his bed. It seemed to him that thus he better guarded the unfinished opening. Doubtless there was a strange expression in his eyes, for the jailer said, " Come, are you going mad again .' " Dantes did not answer; he feared that the emotion of his voice would betray him. The jailer retired, shaking his head. The night came; Dantes hoped that his neighbor would profit by the silence to iinJI^v'' 1 ^ V ' i("r:- ■'" ^|jpi ^= *\ THE COUNT OF M0NTJB-CBI8T0. 179 address him, but he was mistaken. The nexl moruing, however, just as he removed his bed from the watt, he heard three knocks; he threw himself on his knees. " Is it you .'" said he ; " 1 am here." " Is your jailer gone .' " "Yes," said Dantes; "he will not return until evening; so thai we have twelve hour- before us." "I can work, then," said the voice. "Oh, yes, yes; this instant, I entreat you." In an instant the portion of the floor on which Dantes (half buried in the opening) was leaning his two hands, gave way ; he cast himself back, whilst a mass of stones and earth disappeared in a hole that opened beneath the aperture he himself had formed. Then from the bottom of this passage, the depth of which it was impossible to measure, he saw appear, first the head, then the shoulders, and lastly the body of a man. who sprang lightly into his cell. CHAPTER XVI A LEARNED ITALIAN USHINGr toward the friend so long and ardently desired, Dantes almost carried hini toward the window, in order to obtain a better view of his features by the aid of the imper- fect light that struggled through the grating of the prison. He was a man of small stature, with hair blanched rather by suffer- in 0- and sorrow than years. A deep-set, penetrating eye, almost buried beneath the thick gray eyebrow, and a long (and still black) beard reach- ing clown to his breast. The meagerness of his features, furrowed with deep wrinkles, joined to the bold outline of his strongly marked features announced a man more accustomed to exercise his moral faculties than his physical strength. Large drops of perspiration were now standing on his brow, while his garments hung about him in such rags as to render it useless to form a guess as to their primitive description. The stranger might have numbered sixty or sixty-five years ; but a certain vigor in his movements made it probable that he was aged more from captivity than the course of time. He received the enthusiastic greeting of his young acquaintance with evident pleasure, as though his chilled affections seemed rekindled and invigorated by his contact with one so ardent. He thanked him with grateful cordiality for his kindly welcome, although he must at that moment have been suffering bitterly to find another dungeon where he had fondly reckoned on finding liberty. "Let us first see," said he, "whether it is possible to remove the traces of my entrance here — our future comforts depend upon our jailers being entirely ignorant of it." Advancing to the opening, he stooped and raised the stone easily in spite of its weight ; then, fitting it into its place, he said : THE COUNT OF M01TTE-GRI8T0. 181 "You removed this stone very carelessly; but I suppose you had no tools to aid you." " "Why," exclaimed Dantes, with astonishment, " do you possess any .' " "I made myself some; and, with the exception of a file, 1 have all that are necessary — a chisel, pincers, and lever." "Oh, how I should like to see these products of your industry and patience." "Well, in the first place, here is my chisel." So saying, he displayed a sharp, strong blade, with a handle made of beeclrwood. 182 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. " And with what did you contrive to make that :'" inquired Dantes. " W it li one of the clamps of my bedstead; aud this very tool has sufficed me to hollow out the road by which I came hither, a distance of al least fifty feet." "Fifty feel !" reechoed Dantes, with a species of terror. " Do not speak so loud, young man — don't speak so loud. It fre- quently occurs in a shite prison like this that persons are stationed outside the doors of the cells purposely to overhear the conversation of the prisoners." " But they believe I am shut up alone here." "That makes no difference." "And you say that you penetrated a, length of fifty feet to arrive here?" "I do; that is about the distance that separates your chamber from mine; only, unfortunately, I did not curve aright; for want of the necessary geometrical instruments to calculate my scale of proportion, instead of taking an ellipsis of forty feet, I have made fifty. I expected, as I told you, to reach the outer wall, pierce through it, and throw myself into the sea; I have, however, kept along the corridor on which your chamber opens, instead of going beneath it. My labor is all in vain, for I find that the corridor looks into a court-yard filled with soldiers." "That's true," said Dantes; "but the corridor you speak of only bounds one side of my cell; there are three others — do you know anything of their situation .'" " This one is built against the solid rock, and it would take ten expe- rienced miners, duly furnished with the requisite tools, as many years to perforate it. This adjoins the lower part of the governor's apart- ments, and were we to work our way through, we should only get into some lock-up cellars, where we must necessarily be recaptured. The 1 fourth and last side of your cell looks out — looks out — stop a minute; now, where does it open to?" The side which thus excited curiosity was the one in which was fixed the loop-hole by which the light was admitted into the chamber. This loop-hole, which gradually diminished as it approached the outside, until only an opening through which a child could not have passed, was, for better security, furnished with three iron bars, so as to quiet all apprehensions even in the mind of the most suspicious jailer as to the possibility of a prisoner's escape. As the stranger finished his self- put question, he dragged the table beneath the window. " ( 'limb up," said he to Dantes. The young man obeyed, mounted on the table, and, divining the THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRIBTO. 183 intentions of his companion, placed his back securely againsl the wall and held out both hands. The stranger, whom as yet Dantes knew only by his assumed title of the number of his cell, sprang up with an agility by no means to be expected in a person of his years, and, light and steady as the bound of a eat or a lizard, climbed from the tahle to the outstretched hands of Dantes, and from them to his shoulders; then, almost doubling himself in two, for the ceiling of the dungeon prevented his holding himself erect, he managed to slip his head through the top bar of the window, so as to be aide to command a perfect view from top to bottom. An instant afterward he hastily drew back his head, saying, " I thought so!" and, sliding from the shoulders of Dantes as dexterously as he had ascended, he nimbly leaped from the table to the ground. " What made you say those words ! " asked the young man, in an anxious tone, in his turn descending from the table. The elder prisoner appeared to meditate. " Yes," said he at length, " it is so. This side of your chamber looks out upon a kind of open gal- lery, where patrols are continually passing, and sentries keep watch day and night." "Are you sure of that .' " " Certain. I saw the soldier's shako and the top of his musket ; that made me draw in my head so quickly, for I was fearful he might also see me." "Well?" inquired Dantes. "You perceive then the utter impossibility of escaping through your dungeon ? " " Then " pursued the young man, eagerly. "Then," answered the elder prisoner, "the will of God be done!" And as the old man slowly pronounced those words, an air of profound resignation spread itself over his care-worn countenance. Dantes gazed on the individual who could thus philosophically resign hopes so lony- and ardently nourished, with an astonishmenl mingled with admiration. "Tell me, I entreat of you, who and what you are?" said he at length. " Willingly,'' answered the stranger; "if. indeed, yon feel any curi- osity now that I am powerless to aid you." "Say not so; you can console and support me by the strength of your own powerful mind." The stranger smiled a melancholy smile. "Then listen," said he. "I am the Abbe Faria, and have been imprisoned in this ( Mteau d'lf since the year 1811; previously to which 184 TEE colXT OF MONTE-CRISTO. I had been confined for three yearn in the fortress of Fenestrelle. In the year 1811 I was transferred from Piedmont to France. It was at this period 1 learned that the destiny which seemed subservient to every wish formed by Napoleon had bestowed on him a son, named kiny of home even in his cradle. 1 was very far then from expecting the change you have just informed me of; namely, that four years afterward, this colossus of power would be overthrown. Then, who reigns in France at this moment — Napoleon II.?" "No. Louis XVIII. !" "The brother of Louis XVI. ! How inscrutable are the ways of Providence — for what great and mysterious purpose has it pleased Heaven t<> abase the man once so elevated, and raise up the individual so cast down ?" Dantes' whole attention was riveted on the man who could thus for- get his own misfortunes while occupying himself with the destinies of others. " But so it was," continued he, " in England. After Charles I. came Cromwell; to Cromwell succeeded Charles II., and then James II., who was succeeded by some son-in-law or relation, who became king ; then new concessions to the people, a constitution, and liberty ! Ah, my friend !" said the abbe, turning toward Dantes, and surveying him with the kindling gaze of a prophet, " mark what I say ! You are young, and may see my words come to pass, that such will be the case with France — you will see it, I say." "Probably, if ever I get out of prison ! " "True," replied Faria, " we are prisoners; but I forget this some- times, and there are even moments when my mental vision transports me beyond these walls, and I fancy myself at liberty." " But wherefore are you here ! " " Because in 1807 I meditated the very scheme Napoleon wished to realize in 1811 ; because, like Machiavel, I desired to alter the political face of Italy, and instead of allowing it to be split up into a quantity of petty principalities, each held by some weak or tyrannical ruler, I sought to form one large, compact, and powerful empire; and, lastly, because ! fancied I had found my Csesar Borgia in a crowned simpleton, who feigned to enter into my views only to betray me. It was projected equally by Alexander VI. and Clement VII., but it will never succeed now, for they attempted it fruitlessly, and Napoleon was unable to complete his work. Italy seems fated to be unlucky.'' The old man uttered these last words in a tone of deep dejection, and his head fell listlessly on his breast. To Dantes all this was perfectly incomprehensible. In the first THE <'<> 1ST OF M0NTE-CBI8T0. 185 place, he could not understand a man risking bis life and liberty for such. unimportant matters as the division of a kingdom; then, again, the persons referred to were wholly unknown to him. Napoleon cer- tainly he knew something of, inasmuch as he had seen and spoken with him; but the other individuals alluded to were strangers to him even by name. "Pray excuse my questions," said Dantes, beginning to partake of the jailer's opinion touching the state of the abbe's brain, "but are von not the priest who is considered throughout the Chateau d'lf — to — be— ill?" "Mad, you mean, don't you :'" " I did not like to say so," answered Dantes, smiling. " Well, then," resumed Faria, with abitter smile, " let me answer your question in full, by acknowledging that I am the poor, mad prisoner of the Chateau d'lf, for many years permitted to amuse tin.' different visit- ants to the prison with what is said to be myinsanity; and, in all prob- ability, i should be promoted to the honor of making sport for the children, if such innocent beings could be found in an abode devoted like this to suffering and despair." Dantes remained for a short time mute and motionless; at Length he said: " Then you abandon all hope of flight ? " "I perceive its utter impossibility; and I consider it impious to attempt that which the Almighty evidently does not approve." " Nay, be not discouraged. Would it not be expecting too much to hope to succeed at your first attempt t Why not try to rind an opening in another direction to that which had so unfortunately failed i"' " Alas ! it shows how little notion you can have of all I have done, if you talk of beginning over again. In the first place, 1 was four years making the tools I possess, and have been two years scraping and dig- ging out earth, hard as granite itself; then, what toil and fatigue has it not been to remove huge stones I should once have deemed impossible to loosen ! Whole days have I passed in these Titanic efforts, consider- ing my labor well repaid if by night-time I had contrived to carry away a square inch of this old cement, as hard as the stones themselves; then, to conceal the mass of earth and rubbish I dug up, I was compelled to break through a staircase and throw the fruits of my labor into the hollow part of it ; hut the well is now so completely choked up that I scarcely think it would be possible to add another handful of dust with- outleading to a discovery. Consider also that I fully believed I had accomplished the end and aim of my undertaking, for which I had so exactly husbanded my strength as to make it just hold out to the ter- 186 THE cor XT OF MONTE -C BIS TO. urination of my enterprise; and, just at the moment when I reckoned upon success, my hopes are forever dashed from me. No, I repeat again, that nothing shall induce me to renew attempts to regain my liberty which the will of God has decreed I shall lose forever." Danies held down his bead, that his companion might not perceive thai the prospect of having a companion prevented him from sympa- thizing as lie ought with the disappointment of the prisoner. The abl >e sunk upon Edmond's bed, while Edinond himself remained standing, lost in a train of deep meditation. Flight had never once occurred to him. There are, indeed, some things which appear so impossible that the mind does not dwell on them. To undermine the ground for fifty feet — to devote three years to a labor which, if successful, would conduct you to a precipice over- hanging the sea — to plunge into the waves at a height of fifty or sixty I'eet — a hundred feet, perhaps — at the risk of being dashed to pieces against the rocks, should you have been fortunate enough to have escaped the balls from the sentinel's musket ; and even, supposing all these perils past, then to have to swim for your life a distance of at least three miles ere you could reach the shore — were difficulties so startling and formidable that Dairies had never even dreamed of such a scheme, but resigned himself to his fate. But the sight of an old man clinging to life with so desperate a courage gave a fresh turn to his ideas, and inspired him with new courage and energy. An instance was before him of one less adroit, as well as weaker and older, having devised a plan which nothing but an unfortunate mistake in geometrical calculation could have rendered abortive, and of having, with almost incredible patience and perse- verance, contrived to provide himself with tools requisite for so unpar- alleled an attempt. If, then, one man had already conquered the seeming impossibility, why should not he, Dantes, also try to regain his liberty f Faria had made his way through fifty feet of the prison ; Dantes resolved to penetrate through double that distance. Faria, at the age of fifty, had devoted three years to the task ; he, who was but half as old, would sacrifice six. Faria, a churchman and philosopher, had not shrunk from risking his life by trying to swim a distance of three miles to reach the isles of Daume, Eatonneau, or Lemaire ; should a hardy sailor, an experienced diver, like himself, shrink from a similar task ; should he, who had so often for mere amusement's sake plunged to the bottom of the sea to fetch up the bright coral-branch, hesitate to swim a distance of three miles ? He could do it in an hour, and how many times had he for pure pastime continued in the water for more than twice as long ! At once Dantes resolved to follow the example of THE col XT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. W his companion, aud to remember thai what has once been done may be done again. After continuing some time in profound meditation, the young man suddenly exclaimed, "I have found what you were in search of!" Faria started. " Have you, indeed ?" cried he, raisin-- his head with quick anxiety; pray, let me know what it is you have discovered .'" "The corridor through which you have bored your way from the cell you occupy hero, extends in the same direction as the outer gallery, does it not '! " 188 TEE COUNT OF M0NTE-CBI8T0. " It does ! " •• Ami is not above fifteen steps from it f - Ahout thai !" " Well, then, 1 will tell you what we must do. We must pierce a side opening about the middle of the corridor, as it were the top part of a cross. This time you will lay your plans more accurately; we shall get out into the gallery you have described, kill the sentinel who guards it, and make our escape. All we require to insure success is courage, ami that you possess, ami strength, which I am not deficient in; as for patience, you have abundantly proved yours — you shall now see me prove mine. 1 '' '■One instant, my dear friend," replied the abbe; "it is clear you do not understand the nature of the courage with which I am endowed, ami what use I intend making of my strength. As for patience, I con- sider I have abundantly exercised that on recommencing every morning the task of the overnight, and every night beginning again the task of the day. But, then, young man (and I pray of you to give me your full attention), then I thought I could not be doing anything displeas- ing to the Almighty in trying to set an innocent being at liberty, — one who had committed no offense and merited not condemnation." "And have your notions changed ?" asked Dantes with much sur- prise; "do you think yourself more guilty in making the attempt since yon have encountered me P " No; neither do I wish to incur guilt. Hitherto I have fancied myself merely waging war against circumstances, not men. I have thought it no sin to bore through a wall or destroy a staircase ; but I cannot so easily persuade myself to pierce a heart or take away a life." A slight movement of surprise escaped Dantes. " Is it possible," said he, " that where your liberty is at stake you can allow any such scruple to deter you from obtaining it ?" "Tell me," replied Faria, "what has hindered you from knocking down your jailer with a piece of wood torn from your bedstead, dressing yourself in his clothes, and endeavoring to escape J" " Simply that I never thought of such a scheme," answered Dantes. " Because," said the old man, " the natural repugnance to the com- mission of such a ciime prevented its bare idea from occurring to you ; and so it ever is with all simple and allowable things. Our natural instincts keep us from deviating from the strict line of duty. The tiger, whose nature teaches him to delight in shedding blood, needs hut the organ of smelling to know when his prey is within his reach; and by following this instinct he is enabled to measure the leap necessary to enable him to spring on his victim; but man, on the contrary, TEE COUNT OF MOXTE-CEISTO. 189 loathes the idea of blood; — not only the laws of social life, but the laws of his nature, recoil from murder." Dantes remained confused and sdent by this explanation of the thoughts which had unconsciously been working in his mind, or, rather, soul; for there are two distinct sorts of ideas,— those that proceed from the head and those that emanate from the heart. " Since my imprisonment," said Faria, "I have thought over all the most celebrated cases of escape recorded. Among the many that have faded, I consider there has been precipitation and haste. Those escapes that have been crowned with full success have been long meditated upon, and carefully arranged; such, for instance, as the escape of the Duke de Beaufort from the Chateau de Vincennes, that of the AM..'- L90 lilt: COUNT OF M0NTE-CBI8T0. Dubuquoi from For l'Eveque, and Latude's from the Bastile; chance, too, frequently affords opportunities we should never ourselves have though! of. Let us, therefore, wait patiently for some favorable moment, and take advantage of it." "Ah!" said Dantes, "you might well endure the tedious delay ; you were constantly employed in the task you set yourself, and when weary with toil, you had your hopes to refresh and encourage yon." "I assure you," replied the old man, "I did not turn to that sou ree for recreation or support." "What did you do then P " I wrote or studied." " Were you then permitted the use of pens, ink, and paper :'" "Oh, no!" answered the abbe; "I had none but what I made for myself." " Do yon mean to tell me," exclaimed Dantes, "that you could make all those things '. " "I do, indeed, truly say so." Dantes gazed with admiration on the abbe ; some doubt, however, still lingered in his mind, which was quickly perceived by Faria. " When you pay me a visit in my cell, my young friend,'" said he, " I will show you an entire work, the fruits of the thoughts and reflections of my whole life; many of them meditated over in the ruins of the Coliseum of Rome, at the foot of St. Mark's column at Venice, and on the borders of the Arno at Florence, little imagining at the time that they would be arranged in order within the walls of the Chateau d'If. The work I speak of is called A Treatise on the Practicability of forming Italy into one General Monarchy, and will make one large quarto volume." " And on what have you written this ?" " Ou two of my shirts. I invented a preparation that makes linen as smooth and as easy to write on as parchment." "You are, then, a chemist .' " " Somewhat ; I knew Lavoisier, and was the intimate friend of Cabanis." " But for such a work you must have needed books — had you any f " " I possessed nearly five thousand volumes in my library at Rome ; but, after reading them over many times, I found out that with one hundred and fifty well-chosen books a man possesses a complete analysis of all human knowledge, or at least all that is either useful or desirable to be acquainted with. I devoted three years of my life to reading and studying these one hunched and fifty volumes, till I knew them nearly by heart; so that since I have been in prison a very slight effort of memory has enabled me to recall their contents as readily as though the pages were open before me. I could recite 77//: <<> 1ST OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 191 you the whole of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Livy, Tacitus, Strada, Jornandes, Dante, Montaigne, Shakspere, Spinosa, Machiavel, and Bossuet. Ohserve, I merely quote the most important name- and writers." "You are acquainted with a variety of languages .' " " Yes, I speak five of the modern tongues, — that is to say, German, French, Italian, English, and Spanish. By the aid of ancient Greek I learned modern Greek; I don't speak it well, but I am studying it now." "Studying!" repeated Dantes. "Why, I made a vocabulary of the words I knew; turned, re-turned, and arranged tliem, so as to enable me to express my thoughts through their medium. I know nearly one thousand words, which is all that is absolutely necessary, although I believe there are nearly one bundled thousand in the dictionaries. I cannot hope to be very fluent, but I certainly shall be understood; and that is all that is needed." Stronger grew the wonder of Dantes, who almost fancied he had to do with one gifted with supernatural powers. Still hoping to find some imperfection, he added, "Then, if you were not furnished with pens, how did you manage to write the work you speak of .'" "I made myself some excellent ones, which would be universally pre- ferred to all others if once known. You are aware what huge whitings are served to us on maigre days. Well, I selected the cartilages of the heads of these fishes, and you can scarcely imagine the delight with which I welcomed the arrival of each "Wednesday, Friday, and Satur- day, as affording me the means of increasing my stock of pens; for I will freely confess that my historical labors have been my greatest solace and relief. While retracing the past, I forget the present; and while following the free and independent course of historical record, I cease to remember that I am a prisoner." " But the ink," said Dantes ; " how have you procured that .' " "I wdl tell you," replied Faria. "There was formerly a fire-place in my dungeon, but closed up long ere I became an occupant of this prison. Still, it must have been many years in use, for it was thickly covered with a coating of soot; this soot I dissolved in a portion of the wine brought to me every Sunday, and 1 assure you a better ink cannot be desired. For very important notes, for which closer attention is required, I have pricked one of my fingers, and written the facts claim- ing notice in blood." "And when," asked Dantes, " will you show me all this .' " " Whenever you please," replied the abbe. "Oh, then, let it be directly!" exclaimed the young man. "Follow me, then," said the abbe, as he reentered the subterraneous passage, in which he soon disappeared, followed by Dantes. CHAPTER XVII THE ABBE'S CHAMBER FTER having passed, in a stooping position but with toler- able ease, through the subterranean passage, the two friends reached the farther end of the corridor, into which the cell of the abbe opened; from that point the opening became much narrower, barely permitting a man to creep through on his hands and knees. The floor of the abbe's cell was paved, and it had been by raising one of the stones in the most obscure corner that Faria had been able to commence the laborious task of which Dantes had witnessed the completion. As he entered the chamber of his friend, Dantes cast around a searching glance, but nothing more than common met his view. "It is well," said the abbe; "we have sonie hours before us — it is now just a quarter past twelve o'clock." Instinctively Dantes tinned round to observe by what watch or cluck the abbe had been able so accurately to specify the hour. "Look at this ray of light which enters by my window," said the abbe, " and then observe the lines traced on the wall. Well, by means of these lines, which are in accordance with the double motion of the earth, as well as the ellipse it descril »es round the sun, I am enabled to ascertain the precise hour with more minuteness than if I possessed a watch; for that might go wrong, while the sun and earth never vary." This last explanation was wholly lost upon Dantes, who had always imagined, from seeing the sun rise from behind the mountains and set in the Mediterranean, that it moved, and not the earth. A double movement in the globe he inhabited, and of which he could feel nothing, appeared to him perfectly impossible; still, each word that fell from his lips seemed fraught with the wonders of science, as admirably deserving of being brought fully to light as the mines of gold and diamonds he Till) COUNT OF MOHTTE-CRISTO. 193 could just recollect having visited during his earliest youth in a voyage he maili' to ( hizerai and ( rolconda. " Come," said he to the abbe, "show me the wonderful inventions you told me of." The abbe, proceeding to the fire-place, raised, by the help of his chisel, a stone, which had been the hearth, beneath which was a cavity of considerable depth, serving as a depository of the articles mentioned to Dautes. " What do you wish to sec first I " asked the abbe. "Oh! your great work on the monarchy of Italy! " 194 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. Faria then drew forth from his hiding-place three or four rolls of linen, laid one over the other like the folds of papyrus. These rolls con- sisted of slips of eloth about four inches wide and eighteen long; they were all carefully numbered and closely covered with writing, so legible that Dantes could easily read it, as well as make out the sense — it being in Italian, a language he, as a Provencal, perfectly understood. "There!" .said he, " there is t he work complete — I wrote the word finis at the end of the sixty-eighth strip about a week ago. I have torn up two of my shirts, and as many handkerchiefs as I was master of, to complete the precious pages. Should I ever get out of prison, and find a printer to publish what I have composed, my reputation is secured." " I see," answered Dantes. " Now let me behold the curious pens with which you have written your work." " Look ! " said Faria, showing to the young man a slender stick about six inches long, and much resembling the size of the handle of a fine painting brush, to the end of which was tied, by a piece of thread, one of those cartilages of which the abbe had before spoken to Dantes; it was pointed, and divided at the nib like an ordinary pen. Dantes examined it with intense admiration, then looked around to see the instrument with which it had been shaped so correctly into form. " Ah, I see," said Faria. " My penknife i That was a master-piece ! I made it, as well as this knife, out of an old iron candlestick." The penknife was sharp and keen as a razor ; as for the other knife, it possessed the double advantage of being capable of serving either as a dagger or a knife. Dantes examined the various articles shown to him with the same attention he had bestowed on the curiosities and strange tools exhibited in the shops at Marseilles as the works of the savages in the South Seas, from whence they had been brought by the different trading vessels. " As fur the ink," said Faria," I told you how I managed; and I only just make it as I require it." " There is one thing puzzles me still," observed Dantes, " and that is how you managed to do all this by daylight." "I worked at night also," replied Faria. "Night! — why, for Heaven's sake, are your eyes like cats 1 , that you can see to work in the dark ? " " Indeed they are not ; but a beneficent Creator has supplied man with intelligence and ability to supply his wants. I furnished mvself with a light." " You did :' " " I separated the fat from the meat served to me, melted it, and made a sort of oil — here is my lamp." So saying, the abbe exhibited a sort THE COUNT OF M0NTE-GBI8T0. 195 of vessel very similar to those employed upon the occasion of public illuminations. •• But how do you procure a light .'" " ' >h, here are two fiiuts and a morsel of burnt linen. I feigned a disorder of the skin, and asked for a little sulphur, which was readily supplied." Dantes laid the different things he had been looking at gently on the table, and stood with his head drooping, as though overwhelm* 1 ' I by the persevering spirit of such a character. 196 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. "You have not seen all yet," continued Faria, "for I did not think it wise to trust all my treasures in the same hiding-place. Let us shut this one up." Dantes helped him to replace the stone ; the abbe sprinkled a little dust over it, rubbed his foot well on it to make it assume the same appearance as the other, and then, going toward his bed, he removed it from the spot it stood in. Behind the head of the bed, and concealed by a stone fitting in so closely as to defy all suspicion, was a hollow space, and in this space a ladder of cords, between twenty-five and thirty feet in length. Dantes closely and eagerly examined it; he found it firm, solid, and compact enough to bear any weight. " Who supplied you with the materials for making this wonderful work'" asked Dantes. " No one but myself. I tore up several of my shirts, and unraveled the sheets of my bed, during my three years' imprisonment at Fenes- trelle ; ami when I was removed to the Chateau d'lf, I managed to bring the ravelings with me, so that I have been able to finish my work here." " And was it not discovered that your sheets were unhemmed ?" " Oh, no ! for when I had taken out the thread I required, I hemmed the edges over again." " With what?" " With this needle!" said the abbe, as, opening his ragged vestments, he showed Dantes a long, sharp fish-bone, with a small, perforated eye for the thread, a small portion of which still remained in it. " T once thought," continued Faria, "of removing these iron bars, and letting myself down from the window, which, as you see, is somewhat wider than yours, although I should have enlarged it still more prepar- atory to my flight; however, I discovered that I should merely have dropped into a sort of inner court, and 1 therefore renounced the projecl altogether as too full of risk anil danger. Nevertheless, I care- fully preserved my ladder against one of those unforeseen opportunities of which I spoke just now, and which chance frequently brings about." While affecting to be deeply engaged in examining the ladder, the mind of Dantes was, in fact, busily occupied by the idea that a person so intelligent, ingenious, and clear-sighted as the abbe might probably he enabled to clear up the dark recesses of his own misfortunes, in which he had in vain sought to distinguish aught. " What are you thinking of?" asked the abbe smilingly, imputing the deep al ist raet ion in which his visitor was plunged to the excess of his awe and wonder. " I was reflecting, in the first place," replied Dantes, "upon the enor- THE cor XT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 197 inous degree of intelligence you must have employed to reach the high perfection to which you have attained. What would you not have accomplished free ? " " Possibly nothing at all ; the overflow of my brain would have evap- orated in follies; it needs trouble to hollow out various mysterious mines of human intelligence. Pressure is required, you know, to crush the beam: captivity has collected into one single focus all the floating faculties of my mind; they have come into close contact in the narrow space ; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity the lightning, from whose flash we have light." "Alas, no!" replied Dantes. "I know not that these things follow in such natural order. Oh, I am very ignorant ! and you must be blessed indeed to possess the knowledge you have." The abbe smiled. "Well," said lie, "but you had another subject for your thoughts besides admiration for me; did you not say so just now .'" "I did!" " You have told me as yet but one of them, — let me hear the other." " It was this: that while you had related to me all the particulars of your past life, you were perfectly unacquainted with mine." "Your life, my young friend, lias not been of sufficient length to admit of any very important events." " It admits of a terrible misfortune which I have not deserved. I would fain know who has been the author of it, that I may no longer accuse Heaven, as I have done, but charge men with my woes." "Then you profess ignorance of the crime with which you are charged .' " " I do, indeed; and this I swear by the two beings most dear to me upon earth — my father ami Mercedes." " Come," said the abbe, closing his hiding-place, and pushing the bed back to its original situation, "let me hear your story." Dantes obeyed, and commenced what he called his history, but which consisted only of the account of a voyage to India, and two or three in the Levant, until he arrived at the recital of his last cruise, with the death of Captain Leclere, and the receipt of a packel to be delivered by himself to the grand-mareehal ; his interview with that personage, and his receiving, in place of the packet brought, a letter addressed to M. Noirtier; his arrival at Marseilles, ami interview with his father; his affection for Mercedes, and their nuptial fete; his arrest and subsequent examination in the temporary prison of the Palais de Justice, ending in his final imprisonment in the Chateau d'If. 198 TUI-: cor XT OF MONTE-GRISTO. From tin' period of his arrival there lie kuew nothing, not even the Length of time he had been imprisoned. His recital finished, the abbe reflected Long and earnestly. "There is," said he, at the end of his meditations, " a clever maxim, which bears upon what I was saying to you some little while ago, and that is, that unless wicked ideas take root in a naturally depraved mind, human nature revolts at crime. Still, from civilization have originated wants, vices, and false tastes, which occasionally stifle within us all good feelings, and lead us into guilt. From this view of things, then, comes the axiom 1 allude to — that if you wish to discover the author of any had action, discover the person to whom that bad action could he advantageous. Now, to whom could your disappearance have been serviceable .' " "To no breathing soul. Why, who could have cared about the removal of so insignificant a person as myself ?" " Do not speak thus, for your reply evinces neither logic nor philoso- phy ; everything is relative, my dear young friend, from the king who obstructs his successor's immediate possession of the throne, to the occupant of a place for which the supernumary to whom it has been promised ardently longs. Now, in the event of the king's death, his successor inherits a crown ; — wdien the placeman dies, the suj)ernumary steps into his shoes and receives his salary of twelve thousand livres. Well, these twelve thousand livres are his civil list, and are as essential to him as the twelve millions of a king. Every individual, from the highest to the lowest degree, has his place in the ladder of social life, and around hirn are grouped a little world of interests, composed of stormy passions and conflicting atoms, like the worlds of Descartes; hut let us return to your world. You say you were on the point of being appointed captain of the Pharaon f" " I was." " And about to become the husband of a young and lovely girl f " " True." " Now, could any one have had any interest in preventing the accom- plishment of these two circumstances ? But let us first settle the ques- tion as to its being the interest of any one to hinder you from being captain of the Pharaon. What say you i " " No ! I was generally liked on board ; and had the sailors possessed the right of electing a captain, their choice would have fallen on me. There was only one person among the crew who had any feeling of ill will toward me. I had quarreled with him some time previously, and had even challenged him to fight me ; but he refused." " Now we are getting on. And what was this man's name ? " THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRISTO. 199 " Danglars." " What rank did he hold on board ?" " He was supercargo." " And had you been captain, should you have retained him in his employment t " " Not if the choice had remained with me, for I had frequently observe* 1 inaccuracies in his accounts." " Good again ! Now then, tell me, was any person present during your last conversation with Captain Leclere \ " " No ; we were quite alone." " Could your conversation be overheard by any one .' " "It might, for the cabin door was open; — and — stay; now I recol- lect, — Danglars himself passed. fey* just as Captain Leclere was giving me the packet for the grand-mareehal." " That will do," cried the abbe ; " now we are on the right scent. Did you take anybody with you when you put into the port of Elba ? " " Nobody." " Somebody there received your packet, and gave you a letter in place of it, I think':'" " Yes ; the grand-rnarechal did." " And what did you do with that letter \ " " Put it into my pocket-book." " Ah ! indeed ! You had your pocket-book with you, then X Now, how could a pocket-book, large enough to contain an official letter, find sufficient room in the pockets of a sailor ? " "You are right: I had it not with me, — it was left on board." " Then it was not till your return to the ship that you placed the letter in the pocket-book I " " No." " And what did you do with this same letter while returning from Porto-Ferrajo to your vessel t " " I carried it in my hand." "So that when you went on board the Pharaon, everybody could perceive you held a letter in your hand .' " " To be sure they could." " Danglars, as well as the rest ? " " Yes ; he as well as others." " Now, listen to me, and try to recall every circumstance attending your arrest. Do you recollect the words in which the information against you was couched ? " "Oh, yes! I read it over three times, and the words sank deeply into my memory." 200 THE COUNT OF MONTE-GRI&TO. "Repeat it to me." Dantes paused a few instants, as though collecting his ideas, then said, "This is it, word for word: 'M. le Procureur du Roi is informed, by a friend to the throne and religion, that an individual, named Edmond Dantes, second in command on hoard the Pharaon, tins day arrived from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Fer- ni.jo, lias 1 n charged by Murat with a packet for the usurper; again, by the usurper, with a letter for the Bonapartist Club in Paris. This proof of liis guilt may he procured by his immediate arrest, as the letter will lie found cither about his person, at his father's residence, or in his cabin on hoard the Pharaon.^ The abbe shrugged up his shoulders. " The thing is clear as day," said lie ; "and you must have had a very unsuspecting nature, as well as a good heart, not to have suspected the origin of the whole affair." " Do you really think so .' All, that would indeed be the treachery of a villain !" "How did Danglars usually write .'" " Oh ! extremely well." " And how was the anonymous letter written :'" " All the wrong way — backward, you know." Again the abbe smiled. " In fact, it was a disguised hand .' " "I don't know; it was very boldly written, if disguised." "Stop a bit," said the abbe, taking up what he called his pen, and, after dipping it into the ink, he wrote on a morsel of prepared linen, with his left hand, the first two or three words of the accusation. Dantes drew hack, and gazed on the abbe with a sensation almost amounting to terror. "How very astonishing!" cried he at length. "Why, your writing exactly resembles that of the accusation!" "Simply because that accusation had been written with the left hand ; and I have always remarked one thing " " What is that?" "That whereas ah writing done with the right hand varies, that per- formed with the left hand is invariably similar." " You have evidently seen and observed everything." " Let us proceed." " ( >h ! yes, yes ! Let us go on." " Now, as regards the second question. Was there any person whose interest it was to prevent your marriage with Mercedes I " " Yes, a young man who loved her." " And his name was " " Fernand." THE COr XT OF MOXTE-CRISTO. 201 " That is a Spanish name, I think '. " " He was a Catalan." " You imagine him capable of writing the letter ? " " Oh, no ! he would more likely have got rid of me by sticking a knife into me." " That is in strict accordance with the Spanish character ; an assassi- nation they will unhesitatingly commit, but an act of cowardice, never." " Besides," said Dantes, " the various circumstances mentioned in the letter were wholly unknown to him." "You had never spoken of them yourself to any one?" "To no person whatever." "Not even to your mistress?" " No, not even to my betrothed bride." " Then it is Danglars, beyond a doubt." " I feel quite sure of it now." "Wait a little. Pray, was Danglars acquainted with Fernand .'" " No yes, he was. Now I recollect " " What I » " To have seen them both sitting at the table together beneath an arbor at Pere Pamphile's the evening before the day fixed for my wed- ding. They were in earnest conversation. Danglars was joking in a friendly way, but Fernand looked pale and agitated." " Were they alone ? " "There was a third person with them whom I knew perfectly well, and who had, in all probability, made their acquaintance ; he was a tailor named ( 'aderousse, but he was quite intoxicated. Stay ! — stay ! — How strange that it should not have occurred to me before ! Now I remember quite well, that on the table round which they were sitting were pens, ink, and paper. Oh ! the heartless, treacherous scoundrels ! " exclaimed Dantes, pressing his hand to his throbbing brows. " Is there anything else I can assist you in discovering, besides the villainy of your friends ? " inquired the abbe. "Yes, yes," replied Dantes, eagerly; " I would beg of you, who see so completely to the depths of things, and to whom the greatest mystery seems but an easy riddle, to explain to me how it was that I underwent no second examination, was never brought to trial, and, above all, my being condemned without ever having had sentence passed on me." " That is a more serious matter," responded the abbe. " The ways of justice are frequently too dark and mysterious to lie easily penetrated. All we have hitherto done in the matter has been child's play. On this matter, you must give me the most minute information on every point." " Gladly. So pray begin, my dear abbe, and ask me whatever ques- 202 THE COl'XT OF MOXTE-CBISTO. tions you please; for you see my past life far 1 letter than I could do myself.' 1 " In the first place, then, who examined you, — the procureur du roi, his deputy, or a magistrate!" "The deputy." " Was lie young or old .' " " About six or seven and twenty years of age, I should say." " To be sure," answered the abbe. " Old enough to be ambitious, but not sufficiently so to have hardened his heart. And how did he treat you .'" " With more of mildness than severity." " Did you tell him your whole story ?" " I did." " And did his conduct change at all in the course of your examination ?" "Yes; certainly he did appear much disturbed when he read the letter that had brought me into this scrape. He seemed quite overcome at the danger I was in." " You were in :'" " Yes; for whom else could he have felt any apprehensions ?" " Then you feel quite convinced he sincerely pitied your misfortune?" " Why, he pive me one great proof of his sympathy, at least." " And what was that?" " lie burned the sole proof that could at all have criminated me." " Do you mean the letter of accusation ?" " ( >h, no ! the letter I was intrusted to convey to Paris." "Are you sure he burned it?" "He ilid so before my eyes. 1 ' "Ay, indeed! that alters the case; this man might, after all, be a greater scoundrel than 1 at first believed." " Dpon my word," said Dantes, "you make me shudder. Is the world filled with tigers and crocodiles:' 11 "Only remember that two-legged tigers and crocodiles are more dangerous than those that walk on four." 1 " Never mind, let us go on." " With all my heart! You tell me he burned the letter in your presence ? " " He did ; saying at the same time, ' You see I thus destroy the only proof existing against you.' " " This action is somewhat too sublime to be natural." " You think so f" " I am sure of it. To whom was this letter addressed?" " To M. Noirtier, No. 13 Eue Coq-Heron, Paris." THE COUNT OF MOISTTE-CRISTO. 203 " Now, can you conceive any interest your heroic deputy procureur could by possibility have had in the destruction of that letter .' " " Why, he might have had, for he made me promise several times never to speak of that letter to any one; and, more than this, In- insisted on my taking a solemn oath never to utter the name mentioned in the address." "Noirtier !" repeated the abbe; "Noirtier! — I knew a person of that name at the court of the queen of Etruria, — a Noirtier, who had been a Girondin during the Revolution ! What was your deputy called '. " " De Villefort ! " The abbe burst into a fit of laughter, while Dantes gazed on hirn in utter astonishment. " What ails you ? " said he, at length. " Do you see this ray of light ! " " I do." " Well ! I see my way more clearly than you discern that sunbeam. Poor fellow ! poor young man ! And this magistrate expressed sympathy for you I " ' " He did ! " " And the worthy man destroyed your compromising letter f" " He burned it before me ! " "And then this purveyor for the scaffold made you swear never to utter the name of Noirtier!" " Certainly." "Why, you poor, short-sighted simpleton ! Can you not guess who this Noirtier was, whose very name he was so careful to keep concealed :' This Noirtier was his father ! " Had a thunderbolt fallen at the feet of Dantes, or hell opened before him, he could not have been more completely transfixed with horror than at the words so wholly unexpected. Starting up, he clasped his hands around his head as though to prevent his very brain from bursting, and exclaimed : " His father ! oh, no ! not his father, siuvly ! " "His own father, I assure you," replied the abbe; "his right name was Noirtier de Villefort ! " At this instant a bright light shot through the mind of Dantes, and cleared up all that had been dark and obscure before. The change that had come over Villefort during the examination; the destruction of the letter, the exacted promise, the almost supplicating tones of the magis- trate, who seemed rather to implore mercy than denounce punish- ment, — all returned to his memory. A cry of agony escaped his lips, and lie staggered like a drunken man; then he hurried to the opening conducting from the abb6's cell to his own, and said: 204 THE COUNT <>F MONTE-CRISTO. " I must be alone, to think over all this." When hf regained his dungeon, he threw himself on his bed, where the turnkey found him at his evening visit, sitting with fixed gaze and contracted features, still and motionless as a statue; but, during these hours of deep meditation, which to him had seemed but as minutes, he had formed a fearful resolution, and bound himself to its fulfillment by a solemn oath. Dantes was at length roused from his reverie by the voice of Faria, who, having also been visited by his jailer, had come to invite his fel- low-sufferer to share his supper. The reputation of being out of his mind, though harmlessly and even amusingly so, had procured for the abbe greater privileges than were allowed to prisoners in general. He was supplied with bread of a finer, whiter description than the usual prison fare, and each Sunday with a small quantity of wine ; the pres- ent day chanced to be Sunday, and the abbe came, delighted at having such luxuries to offer his new friend. Dantes followed him; his features had lost their contraction, and now wore their usual expression; but there was that in his whole appearance that bespoke one who had come to a fixed resolve. Faria bent on him his penetrating eye. " I regret now," said he, " having helped you in your late inquiries, or having given you the information I did." " Why so ? " inquired Dantes. " Because it has instilled a new passion in your heart — that of vengeance." A bitter smile played over the features of the young man. " Let us talk of something else," said he. Again the abbe looked at him, then mournfully shook his head ; but, in accordance with Dantes' request, he began to speak of other mat- ters. The elder prisoner was one of those persons whose conversation, like that of all who have experienced many trials, contained many use- ful hints as well as sound information; but it was never egotistical, for the unfortunate man never alluded to his own sorrows. Dantes listened with admiring attention to all he said ; some of his remarks corresponded with what he already knew, or applied to the sort of knowledge his nau- tical life had enabled him to acquire. A part of the good abbe's words, however, were wholly incomprehensible to him ; but, like those aurora? boreales which light the navigators in northern latitudes, they sufficed to open to the inquiring mind of the listener fresh views and new hori- zons, illumined by the meteoric flash, enabling him justly to estimate the delight an intellectual mind would have in following tins towering spirit in all the giddiest heights of science, moral, social, or philosophical. THE COUNT OF MOXTE-Ch'ISTO. 205 " You must teach me a small part of what you know," said Dantes, "if only to prevent your growing weary of me. I can well believe that you would prefer solitude to the company of one as ignorant and unin- formed as myself. If you will only agree to my request, I promise you never to mention another word about escaping." The abbe smiled. " Alas ! my child," said he, " human knowledge is confined within very narrow limits ; and when I have taught you mathematics, physics, history, and the three or four modern languages with which I am acquainted, you will know as much as I do myself. Now, it will scarcely require two years for me to communicate to you the stock of learning I possess." "Two years!" exclaimed Dantes; "do you really believe I can acquire all these things in so short a time '? " "Not their application, certainly, but their principles you may; to learn is not to know ; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other." " But can I not learn philosophy as well as other things ? " " My son, philosophy, as I understand it, is reducible to no rules by which it can be learned ; it is the amalgamation of all the sciences, the golden cloud on which Christ placed his feet to remount to heaven." " Well, then," said Dantes, " tell me what you shall teach me first ? When shall we commence ! " " Directly, if you will," said the abbe. And that very evening the prisoners sketched a plan of education, to be entered upon the following day. Dantes possessed a prodigious memory, an astonishing quickness of conception ; the mathematical turn of his mind rendered him apt at aU kinds of calculation, while his naturally poetical feelings corrected the dry reality of arithmetical com- putation or the rigid severity of lines. He already knew Italian, and a little of the Romaic dialect, picked up during his different voyages to the East; and by the aid of these two languages he easily comprehended the construction of all the others, so that at the end of six months lie began to speak Spanish, English, and German. In strict accordance with the promise made to the abbe, Dantes never even alluded to flight : it might have been that the delight his studies afforded him supplied the place of liberty; or, probably, the recollection of his pledged word (a point, as we have already seen, to which he paid rigid attention) kept him from reverting to any plan for escape; but, absorbed in the acquisition of knowledge, days, even months, passed by unheeded in one rapid and instructive course; time flew on, and at the end of a year Dantes was a new man. With Faria, 206 THE cor XT OF MONTE-CRISTO. on the contrary, Dantes remarked that, spite of the relief his society afforded, he daily grew sadder; one thought seemed incessantly to harass and distract his mind. Sometimes he would fall into long rev- eries, sigh heavily and involuntarily, then suddenly rise, and, with folded arms, begin pacing the confined space of his dungeon. One day lie stopped all at once iu the midst of these so often-repeated promenades, and exclaimed: "Ah, if there were no sentinel!" " There shall not be one a minute longer than you please," said Dan- tes, who had followed the working of his thoughts as accurately as though his brain were inclosed in crystal. " I have already told you," answered the abbe, " that I loathe the idea of shedding blood." " Still, in our case, it would be a necessary step to secure our own personal safety and preservation." " X< > matter ! I could never agree to it." " Still, you have thought of it .'" " Incessantly, alas ! " cried the abbe. " And you have discovered a means of regaining our freedom, have you not ?" asked Dantes eagerly. " I have ; if it were only possible to place a deaf and blind sentinel in the gallery beyond us." " I will undertake to render him both," replied the young man, with an air of determined resolution that made his companion shudder. " No, no," cried the abbe ; " I tell you the thing is impossible ; name it no more !" In vain did Dantes endeavor to renew the subject; the abbe shook his head in token of disapproval, but refused any further conversation respecting it. Three months passed away. "Do you feel yourself strong ?" inquired the abbe of Dantes. The young man, in reply, took up the chisel, bent it into the form of a horse- shoe, ami then as readily straightened it. " And will you engage not to do any harm to the sentry, except as a last extremity .' " "I promise on my honor not to hurt a hair of his head, unless posi- tively obliged for our mutual preservation." " Then," said the abbe. " we may hope to put our design into execu- tion." " And how long shall we be in accomplishing the necessary work ? " " At least a year." "And shall we begin at once ? " " Directly." TUB COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 207 " We have lost a year to no purpose ! " cried Dantes. " Do you consider the last twelve months as wasted .' " asked the abbe, in a tone of mild reproach. "Forgive me!" cried Edmond, blushing deeply; v * I am Indeed ungrateful to have hinted such a thing." " Tut, tut ! " answered the abbe" ; " man is but man at last, and you are about the liest 1 have ever known. Come, let me show you my plan." The abbe then showed Dantes the sketch he had made for their escape. It consisted of a plan of his own cell and that of Dantes, with the corridor which united them. In this passage he proposed to form a tunnel, such as is employedin mines; this tunnel would conduct the two prisoners immediately beneath the gallery where the sentry kept watch ; once there, a large excavation would be made, and one of the flag-stones with which the gallery was paved be so completely loosened that at the desired moment it would give way beneath the soldier's feet, who, fall- ing into the excavation below, woidd be immediately bound and gagged, ere, stunned by the effects of his fall, he had power to offer any resist- ance. The prisoners were then to make their way through one of the gallery windows, and to let themselves down from the outer walls by means of the abbe's ladder of cords. The eyes of Dantes sparkled with joy, and he rubbed his hands with delight at the idea of a plan so simple, yet apparently so certain to suc- ceed. That very day the miners commenced their labor, and that with so much more vigor, as it succeeded to a long rest from fatigue and was destined, in all probability, to carry out the dearest wish of the heart of each. Nothing interrupted the progress of their work except the neces- sity of returning to their respective cells against the hour in which their jailer was in the habit of visiting them; they had learned to distinguish the almost imperceptible sound of his footsteps as he descended toward their dungeons, and, happily, never failed being prepared f< >r bis c< >ming. The fresh earth excavated during their present work, and which would have entirely blocked up the old passage, was thrown, by degrees and with the utmost precaution, out of the window in either Faria's or Dantes' cell, the rubbish being first pulverized so finely that the night wind car- ried it far away without permitting the smallest trace to remain. More than a year had been consumed in this undertaking, the only tools for which had been a chisel, a knife, and a wooden lever; Faria still continuing to instruct Dantes by conversing with him, sometimes in <>ne language, sometimes in another; at others, relating to him the history of nations and great men who from time to time have Mi behind them one of those bright tracks called glory. The abb.' was a man of the world, and had, moreover, mixed in the first society of the 208 THE cor XT OF MONTE-CRISTO. day; he had, too, that air of melancholy dignity which Dantes, thanks to the imitative powers bestowed on him by nature, easily acquired, as well as that outward politeness he had before been wanting in, and which is seldom possessed except by constant intercourse with persons of high birth and breeding. At the end of fifteen months the tunnel was made, and the excava- tion completed beneath the gallery, and the two workmen could dis- tinctly hear the measured tread of the sentinel as he paced to and fro over their heads. ( lompelled, as they were, to await a night sufficiently dark to favor their flight, they were obliged to defer their final attempt till that auspicious moment should arrive; their greatest dread now was lest the stone through which the sentry was doomed to fall should give way before its right time, and this they had in some measure pro- vided against by placing under it, as a kind of prop, a sort of bearer they had discovered among the foundations. Dantts was occupied in arranging this piece of wood when he heard Faria, who had remained in Edmond's cell for the purpose of cutting a peg to secure their rope ladder, call to him in accents of pain and suffering. Dantes hastened to his dungeon, where he found him standing in the middle of the room, pale as death, his forehead streaming with perspiration, and his hands clenched tightly. "Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Dantes, "what is the matter? what has happened .' " " Quick ! quick ! "' returned the abbe, "listen to what I have to say." Dantes looked at the livid countenance of Faria, whose eyes were circled by a halo of a bluish cast, his lips were white, and his very hair seemed to stand on end. In his alarm he let fall the chisel he held in his hand. " For God's sake ! " cried Dantes, " tell me what ails you ? " " Alas ! " faltered out the abbe, " all is over with me. I am seized with a terrible, perhaps mortal, illness ; I can feel that the paroxysm is fast approaching. I had a similar attack the year previous to my imprisonment. This malady admits but of one remedy; I will tell you what that is. Go into my cell as quickly as you can ; draw out one of the feet that support the bed; you will find it has been hollowed out; you will find there a small phial half filled witli a red-looking fluid. Bring it to me — or rather, no, no ! I may be found here ; therefore, help me back to my room while I have any strength. Who knows what may happen, or how long the fit may last ? " Spite of the magnitude of the misfortune, Dantes lost not his pres- ence of mind, but descended into the corridor, dragging his unfortunate companion with him ; then, half carrying, half supporting him, he man- -/*'/ , I THE COUNT OF M0NTH-CBI8T0. 211 aged to reach the abbess chamber, when he immediately laid the sufferer on his bed. "Thanks!" said the i»>oi- abbe, shivering in every limb as though emerging from freezing water; "I am seized with a fit of catalepsy ; I may, probably, lie still and motionless, uttering neither sigh nor groan. I may fall into convulsions that cover my lips with foam and force from me piercing shrieks. Let no one hear my cries, for if they are heard I should he removed to another part of the prison, and we be separated forever. When I become quite motionless, cold, and rigid as a corpse, then, and not before, you understand, force open my teeth with a chisel, pom- from eight to ten drops of the liquor contained in the phial down my throat, and I may perhaps revive." " Perhaps ! " exclaimed Dantes in grief-stricken tones. "Help! help!" cried the abbe, "I — I — die — I " So sudden and violent was the fit, that the unfortunate prisoner was unable to complete the sentence begun; a cloud came over his brow, dark as a storm at sea, his eyes started from their sockets, his mouth was drawn on one side, his cheeks became purple, he struggled, foamed, and uttered dreadful cries, which Dantes deadeued by covering his head with the blanket. The fit lasted two hours; then, more helpless than an infant, and colder and paler than marble, more broken than a reed trampled under foot, he fell, stiffened with a last convulsion, and became livid. Edmond waited till life seemed extinct in the body <>f his friend; then, taking up the chisel, he with difficulty forced open the closely fixed jaws, carefully poured the appointed number of drops down the rigid throat, and anxiously awaited the result. An hour passed away without the old man's giving the least sign of returning animation. Dantes began to fear he had delayed too long ere he administered the remedy, and, thrusting his hands into his hair, continued gazing on his friend in an agony of despair. At length a slight color tinged the cheeks, consciousness returned to the dull, open eyeballs, a faint sigh issued from the lips, and the sufferer made a feeble effort to move. "He is saved ! he is saved !" cried Dantes, m a paroxysm of delight. The sick man was not yet able to speak, but he pointed with evi- dent anxiety toward the door. Dantes listened, and plainly distinguished the approaching steps of the jailer. It was therefore near seven o'clock ; bul Edmond's anxiety had put all thoughts of time out of his head. The young man sprang to the entrance, darted through it. carefully drawing the stone over the opening, and hurried to his cell. He had scan-civ done so before the door opened and disclosed to the jailer's inquisitorial gaze the prisoner seated as usual on the side of his lied. 212 THE COUNT OF MOWTE-GRISTO. Almost before the key had turned in the lock, and before the steps of the jailer had died away in the corridor, Dantes, consumed by anxiety, without any desire to touch the food, hurried back to the abbe's cham- ber, and, raising the stone by pressing his head againsi it, was soon beside the sick man's conch. Faria had now fully regained his con- sciousness, but lie still lay helpless and exhausted on his miserable bed. " 1 did not expect to see you again," said he, feebly, to Dantes. "And why not .'" asked the young man. "Did you fancy yourself dying .' " "No, I had no such idea; "but, as all was ready for your flight, I considered you were gone." The deep glow of indignation suffused the cheeks of Dantes. " And did you really think so meanly of me," cried he, " as to believe 1 would depart without you .'" "At least," said the abbe, "I now see how wrong such an opinion would have been. Alas, alas! I am fearfully exhausted and debilitated." "Be of good cheer," replied Dantes; "your strength will return." And as he spoke he seated himself on the bed beside Faria, and tenderly chafed his chilled hands. The abbe shook his head. "The former of these fits," said he, "lasted but half an hour, at the termination of which I experienced a sensation of hunger, and I rose from my bed without requiring help ; now I can neither move my right arm or lo«i*, and my head serins uncomfortable, proving a rush of blood to the brain. The next of these fits will either carry me off or leave me paralyzed for life." "No, no!" cried. Dantes; "you are mistaken — you will not die! And your third attack (if, indeed, you should have another) will find you at liberty. We shall save you another time, as we have done this, only with a better chance, because we shall be able to command every requisite assistance." " My good Edmond," answered the abbe, "be not deceived. The attack which has just passed away condemns me forever to the walls of a prison. None can fly from their dungeon but those who can walk." "Well, well, we can wait, say a week, a month, — two, if necessary; by that time you will be quite well and strong ; and as it only remains with us to fix the hour and minute, we will choose the first instant that you feel able to swim to execute our project." "I shall never swim again," replied Faria. "This arm is paralyzed; not for a time, but forever. Lift it, and judge by its weight if I am mistaken." 'I'he young man raised the arm, which fell back by its own weight, perfectly inanimate and helpless. A sigh escaped him. Till: COUNT or M0NTE-CRI8T0. 213 "You are convinced now, Edmond, are you nol .'" asked the abbe. " Depend upon it, I know what I say. Since the first attack I experi- enced of this malady, I have continually reflected on it. Indeed, ] expected it, for it is a family inheritance, both my father and grand- father having been taken off by it. The physician who prepared for me the remedy was no other than the celebrated Cabanis, and he pre- dicted a similar end for me." "The physician may be mistaken ! " exclaimed Dantes. "And as for 214 THE COUNT <>F MONTE-CRISTO. your poor arm, what difference will that make in our escape! I can take you oil my shoulders and swim for both of us." " My son." said the ahhe, " you, who are a sailor and a swimmer, must know as well as 1 do that a man so loaded would sink ere he had advanced fifty yards in the sea. Cease, then, to allow yourself to be duped by vain hopes that even your own excellent heart refuses to believe in. Here 1 shall remain till the hour of my deliverance arrives; and that, in all human 'probability, will be the hour of my death. As for you, who are young and active, delay not on my account, but fly — go — I give you hack your promise." "It is well," said Dantes. "And now hear my determination also." Then, rising and extending his hand with an air of solemnity over the old man's head, he slowly added : " Here 1 swear to remain with you so long as life is spared to you." Faria gazed fondly on his noble-minded but single-hearted young friend, and read in his honest, open countenance ample confirmation of truthfulness as well as sincere, affectionate, and faithful devotion. " Thanks, my child," murmured the invalid, extending the one hand of which he still retained the use. "Thanks for your generous offer, which I accept as frankly as it was made." Then, after a short pause, he added, " You may one of these days reap the reward of your disin- terested devotion. But, as I cannot, and you will not, quit this place, it becomes necessary to fill up the excavation beneath the soldier's gal- lery; lie might, by chance, find out the hollow sound above the exca- vated ground, and call the attention of his officer to the circumstance. We should be discovered and separated. Go, then, and set about this work, in which, unhappily, I can offer you no assistance; keep at it all night, if necessary, and do not return here to-morrow till after the jailer lias visited me. I shall have something of the greatest importance to communicate to you." Dantes took the hand of the abbe, who smiled encouragingly on him, and retired to his task, filled with a determination to discharge the vow which hound him to his friend. CHAPTER XVIII THE THE AS TEE HEX Dantes returned next morning to the chamber of his companion in captivity, he found Faria seated and Looking composed. In the ray of light which entered by the nar- row window of his cell, he held open in his left hand, of which alone, it will be recollected, he retained the use, a morsel of paper, which, from being constantly rolled into a small compass, had the form of a cylinder, and was not easily kept open. He did not speak, but showed the paper to Dantes. " What is that ? " he inquired. "Look at it," said the abbe, with a smile. " I have looked at it with all possible attention." said Dantes, "and 1 only see a half-burned paper, on which are traces of Gothic characters, traced with a peculiar kind of ink." "This paper, my friend," said Faria, " I may now avow to you, since I have proved you — this paper is my treasure, of which, from this day forth, one-half belongs to you." A cold damp started to Dantes' brow. Until this day — and what a space of time! — he had avoided talking t<> Faria of this treasure, the source whence the accusation of madness against the poor abb£ was derived. With his instinctive delicacy Edmond had preferred avoiding any touch on this painful chord, and Faria had been equally silent. He had taken the silence of the old man for a return to reason, and now these few words uttered by Faria, after so painful a crisis, seemed to announce a serious relapse of mental alienation. " Your treasure :'" stammered Dantes. Faria smiled. " Yes," said he. " You are, indeed, a noble heart, Edmond, and 1 see by your paleness and your shudder what is passing in your heart at this moment. No; he assured, I am not mad. This treasure exist-. 216 THE COUNT <)F MONTE-CRISTO. Dantes; and if I have not been allowed to possess it, you will. Yes — you. No one would listen to me or believe me, because they thought me mad; bid you, who must know that 1 am not, listen to me, and believe me afterward, if you will." "Alas!" murmured Edmond to himself, " this is a terrible relapse ! There was only this Mow wanting." Then he said aloud, "My dear friend, your attack has, perhaps, fatigued you; had you not better repose awhile? To-morrow, if you will, 1 will hear your narrative; but to-day I wish to nurse you care- fully. Besides," he said, "a treasure is not a thing we need hurry about." "On the contrary, we must hurry, Edmond!" replied the old man. " Who knows if to-morrow, or the next day after, the third attack may not come on '! and then must not all be finished '! Yes, indeed, I have often tin night with a bitter joy that these riches, which would make the wealth of a dozen families, will be forever lost to those men who perse- cute me. This idea was one of vengeance to me, and I tasted it slowly in the night of my dungeon and the despair of my captivity. But now I have forgiven the world for the love of you ; now I see you young and full of hope and prospect — now that I think of all that may result to you in the good fortui f such a disclosure, I shudder at any delay, and tremble lest I should not assure to one as worthy as yourself the possession of so vast an amount of hidden treasure." Edmond turned away liis head with a sigh. "You persist in your incredulity, Edmond," continued Faria. "My words have not convinced you. I see you require proofs. Well, then, read this paper, which I have never shown to any one." "To-morrow, my dear friend," said Edmond, desirous of not yielding to tl Id man's madness. "I thought it was understood that we should not talk of that till to-morrow." "Then we will not talk of it until to-morrow; but read this paper to-day." " I will not irritate him," thought Edmond, and taking the paper, of which half was wanting, having been burned, no doubt, by some acci- dent, he read : ul This treasure, which may amount t<> tiro of Roman crowns in the most distant « of the second opening wh declare 1<> belong to linn alo heir. lii 25th April, 149'" THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. 217 "Well!" said Faria, when the young man had finished reading it. "Why," replied Dantes, " I see nothing hut broken lines and uncon- nected words, which art' rendered illegible by fire." " Yes, to you, my friend, who read them for the first time; bul no! for me who have grown pah- over them by many nights' study, and have reconstructed every phrase, completed every thought." v- And do you believe you have discovered the concealed sense .'" "I am sure I have, and you shall judge for yourself; but,firs1 listen to the history of this paper." "Silence!" exclaimed Dantes. " Steps approach — I go — adieu!" Ami Dantes, happy to escape the history and explanation which could not fail to confirm to him his friend's malady, glided like a snake along the narrow passage; whilst Faria, restored by his alarm to a kind of activity, pushed with his foot the stone into its place, and covered it with a mat in order the more effectually to avoid discovery. It was the governor, who, hearing of Faria's accident from the jailer, had come in person to sec him. Faria sat up to receive him, and continued to conceal from the governor the paralysis that had already half stricken him with death. His fear was lest the governor, touched with pity, might order him to be removed to a prison more wholesome, and thus separate him from his young companion. But, fortunately, this was not the case, and the governor left him, convinced that the poor madman, for whom in his heart he fell a kind of affection, was only affected with a slight indis- position. During this time, Edmond, seated on his bed with his head in his hands, tried to colled his scattered thoughts. All was so rational, so grand, so logical with Faria, since he had known him, that he could not understand how so much wisdom on all points could be allied to madness in any one. Was Faria deceived as to his treasure, or was all the world deceived as to Faria .' Dantes remained in his cell all day, not daring to return to his friend, thinking thus to defer the moment when he should acquire the certainty that the abbe was mad — such a conviction would he so terrible ! But, toward the evening, after the usual visitation, Faria. not seeing the young man appear, tried to move and gel over the distance which separated them. Fdmond shuddered when he heard the painful efforts which the old man made to drag himself along; his leg was inert, and lie could no longer make use of one arm. Fdmond was compelled to draw him toward himself, for otherwise he could not enter hy the small aperture which led to Dantes' chamber. 218 THE cot ST OF MONTE-CRISTO. " line I am, pursuing you remorselessly," he said, with a benignant smile. "You thought to escape my munificence, but it is in vain. Listen to inc." Edmond saw there was no escape, and, placing the old man on his bed, he seated himself on the stool beside him. " You know," said the abbe, " that I was the secretary and intimate friend of Cardinal Spada, the last of the princes of that name. I owe to this worthy lord all the happiness I ever knew. He was not rich, although the wealth of his family had passed into a proverb, and I heard the phrase very often, 'As rich as a Spada.' But he, like public rumor, lived on this reputation for wealth. His palace was my para- dise; I instructed his nephews, who are dead; and wdien he was alone in the world, I returned to him, by an absolute devotion to his will, all he had done for me during ten years. The house of the cardinal had no secrets for me. I had often seen my noble patron annotating ancient volumes, and eagerly searching amongst dusty family manuscripts. One day when I was reproaching him for his unavailing searches, and the kind of prostration of mind that followed them, he looked at me, and, smiling bitterly, opened a volume relating to the History of the City of Rome. There, in the twenty-ninth chapter of the Life of Pope Alexander VI., were the following lines, which I can never forget : " ' The great wars of Romagna had ended; Caesar Borgia, who had completed his con- quest, had need of money to purchase all Italy. The pope had also need of money to conclude with Louis XII. of France, formidable still, in spite of his recent reverses ; and it was necessary, therefore, to have recourse to some profitable speculation, which was a matter of great difficulty in exhausted Italy. His Holiness had an idea. He determined to make two cardinals.' " By choosing two of the greatest personages of Rome, especially rich men — this was the return the Holy Father looked for from his specula- tion. In the first place, he had to sell the great appointments and splendid offices which the cardinals already held; and then he had the two hats to sell besides. There was a third view in the speculation, which will appear hereafter. " The pope and Caesar Borgia first found the two future cardinals ; they were Juan Rospigliosi, who held four of the highest dignities of the holy seat, and Caesar Spada, one of the noblest and richest of the Roman nobility ; both felt the high honor of such a favor from the pope. They were ambitious; and these found, Caesar Borgia soon found pur- chasers for their appointments. The result was, that Rospigliosi and Spada paid for being cardinals, and eight other persons paid for the offices the cardinals held before their elevation, and thus eight hundred thousand crowns entered into the coffers of the speculators. " It is time now to proceed to the last part of the speculation. The T II /: CO IX 7 <> /■' .1/ o N T E -CB1 8 TO. 219 pope, having almost smothered Rospigliosi and Spada with caresses, having bestowed upon them the insignia of cardinal, and induced them to realize their fortunes, and lix themselves at Rome, the pope and < laasar Borgia invited the two cardinals to dinner. This was a matter of con- Marco Spada. test between the Holy Father and his son. CsBsar thought they could make use of one of the means which he always had ready for his friends; that is to say, in the first place the famous hey with which they requested certain persons to go and open a particular cupboard. This key was 220 THE COUNT OF MONTE-CRISTO. furnished with a small iron point,— a negligence on the part of the lock- smith. When this was pressed to effect the opening of the cupboard, of which the lock was difficult, the person was pricked by this small point, and died next day. Then there was the ring with the lion's head, which Caesar wore when he meant to give certain squeezes of the hand. The lion liit the hand thus favored, and at the end of twenty-fonr hours the bite was mortal. "Caesar then proposed to his father, either to ask the cardinals to open the cupboard, <>r to give each a cordial squeeze of the hand; hut Alexander VI. replied to him: 'Whilst we are thinking of those worthy cardinals, Spada and Rospigliosi, let us ask both of them to a, dinner. Something tells me that we shall regain this money. Besides, you forget, Caesar, an indigestion declares itself immediately, whilst a prick <>r a bite occasions a day or two's delay.' Caesar gave way before such cogent reasouing ; and the cardinals were consequently invited to dinner. •• The table was laid in a vineyard belonging to the pope, near Saint Peter ad Vincula, a charming retreat which the cardinals knew very well by report. Rospigliosi, quite giddy with his dignity, prepared his stomach, and assumed his best looks. Spada, a prudent man, and greatly attached to his only nephew, a young captain of highest prom- ise, took paper and pen, and made Ins will. He then sent to his nephew to await him in the vicinity of the vineyard ; but it appeared the servant did not find him. " Spada knew the nature of these invitations; since Christianity, so eminently civilizing, had made progress in Rome, it was no longer a centurion who came from the tyrant with a message, 'Csesar wills that yon die,' hut it was a legate a latere, who came with a smile on his lips to say from the pope, 'His Holiness requests you will dine with him.' "Spada set out about two o'clock to Saint Peter ad Vincula. The pope awaited him. The first figure that struck the eyes of Spada was that <>f his nephew, in full costume, and Caesar Borgia paying him most marked attentions. Spada turned pale, as Caesar looked at him with an ironical air, which proved that he had anticipated all, and that the snare was well spread. "They began dinner, and Spada was only able to inquire of his nephew if he had received his message. The nephew replied no, per- fectly comprehending the meaning of the question. It was too late, for he had already drunk a glass of excellent wine, placed for him expressly by the pope's butler. Spada at the same moment saw another bottle approach him, which he was pressed to taste. An hour afterward a physician declared they were both poisoned through eating mush- THE COUNT OF M0NTE-CRI8T0. 221 rooms. Spada died on the threshold of tin- villa; the nephew expired at his own door, making signs which his wife could not comprehend. " Then Caesar and the pope hastened to lay hands on the heritage, under pretense of seeking for the papers of the dead man. But the Inheritance consisted in this only, a scrap of paper on which Spada had written : "' I bequeath to my beloved nephew my coffers, my books, and, amongst other, my breviary with gold corners, which I beg he will preserve in remembrance of his affec- tionate uncle.' "The heirs sought everywhere, admired the breviary, laid hands on the furniture, and were greatly astonished that Spada, the rich man, was really the most miserable of uncles — no treasures — unless they were those of science, composed in the library and laboratories. This was all: Caesar and his father searched, examined, scrutinized, but found nothing, or, at least, very little — not exceeding a few thousand crowns in plate, and about the same in ready rnoney; but the nephew had time to say to his wife before he expired : "' Look well among my uncle's papers; there is a will.' " They sought even more thoroughly than the august heirs had done, but it was fruitless. There were two palaces and a villa behind the Palatine Hill; but in these days landed property had not much value, and the two palaces and the villa remained to the family as beneath the rapacity <>f the pope and his son. Months and years rolled on. Alex- ander VI. died poisoned, — you know by what mistake. ( laesar, poisoned at the same time, escaped with changing his skin like a snake, and assumed a new cuticle, on which the poison left spots, like those we see on the skin of a tiger; then, compelled to quit Rome, he went and got himself killed in obscurity in a night skirmish, scarcely noticed in history. " After the pope's death and his son's exile, it was supposed the Spada family would again make the splendid figure they had before the cardi- nal's time; but this was not the case. The Spadas remained in doubt- ful ease; a mystery hung over this dark affair, and the public rumor was thai Caesar, a better politician than his father, had carried off from the pope the fortune of the cardinals. I say the two, because Cardi- nal Rospigliosi, who had not taken any precaution, was completely despoiled. "Up to this time," said Faria, interrupting the thread of his narra- tive, " this seems to you very ridiculous, uo doubt, eh .' " "Oh, my friend," cried Dantes, "on the contrary, it seems as if I were reading a most interesting narrative; go on, I pray of you." "I will. The family began to feel accustomed to this obscurity. Years THE co I' XT OF MONTE-GRISTO. rolled on, and amongst the descendants some were soldiers, others diplo- matists; some churchmen, some bankers; some grew rich, and some were ruined. I conic now to the last of the family, whose secretary I was — the Oomte de Spada. \ had often heard him complain of the disproportion of his rank with Ins fortune ; and I advisee) him to sink all he had in an annuity, lie did so, and thus doubled Ins income. The celebrated breviary remained in the family, and was in Ins possession. It had been handed down from father to son ; for the singular clause of the only will that had been found had rendered it a real relique, preserved in the family with superstitions veneration. It was an illuminated book, with beautiful Gothic characters, and so weighty with gold that a servant always carried it before the cardinal on days of great solemnity. "At the sight of papers of all sorts, — titles, contracts, parchments, which were kept in the archives of the family, all descending from the poisoned cardinal, — I, like twenty servitors, stewards, secretaries before me, in my turn examined the immense bundles of documents; but in spite of the most accurate researches, I found — nothing. Yet I had read, 1 had even written a precise history of the Borgia family, for the sole purpose of assuring myself whether any increase of fortune had occurred to them on the death of the Cardinal Caesar Spada; but could only trace the acquisition of the property of the Cardinal Rospigliosi, his companion in misfortune. " I was then almost assured that the inheritance had neither profited the Borgias nor the family, but had remained unpossessed like the treas- ures of the Arabian Nights, which slept in the bosom of the earth under the eyes of a genie. I searched, ransacked, counted, calculated a thou- sand and a thousand times the income and expenditure of the family for three hundred years. It was useless. I remained in my ignorance, and the Comte de Spada in his poverty. "My patron died. He had reserved from his annuity his family papers, his library, composed of five thousand volumes, and his famous breviary. All these he bequeathed to me, with a thousand Roman crowns, which he had in ready money, on condition that I would have said anniversary masses for the repose of his soul, and that I would draw up a genealogical tree and history of his house. All this I did scrupulously. Be easy, my dear Edmond, we are near the conclusion. " In 1807, a month before I was arrested, and fifteen days after the death of Comte de Spada, on the 2.1th of December (you will see pres- ently how the date became fixed in my memory), I was reading, for the thousandth time, the papers I was arranging, for the palace was sold to a stranger, and I was going to leave Rome and settle at Florence, intending to take with me twelve thousand francs I possessed, my THE COUNT OF MOXTE-C 1{ IS TO. 223 library, and famous breviary, when, tired with myconstanl Labor al the same thing, and overcome by a heavy dinner I had eaten, my head dropped on my hands, and I fell asleep about three o'clock in the after- noon. - gg££9M!KtaaMltMta. "I awoke as the clock was striking six. I raised my head ; all was in darkness. I rang for a light, but, as no one came, I determined to find one for myself. It was ind 1 the habit of a philosopher which I should soon be under the necessity of adopting. I took a wax-candle in one hand, and with the other groped about for a ]>i >t' paper (my match- 224 THE COUNT OF MONTF-GRISTO. box being empty), with which I proposed to produce a Light from the small flame still playing on the embers, Fearing, however, to make use of any valuable piece of paper, 1 hesitated for a moment, then recol- Lected that I had seen in the famous breviary, which was on the table beside me, an old paper quite yellow with age, and which had served as a marker for centuries, kept there by the superstition of the heirs. I felt for it, found it, twisted it up together, and, putting it into the expiring flame, sel lighl to it. "But beneath my fingers, as if by magic, in proportion as the fire ascended, I saw yellowish characters appear on the paper. I grasped it in my hand, put out the flame as quickly as I could, lighted my taper in the lire itself, and opened the crumpled paper with inexpressible emo- tion, recognizing, when 1 had done so, that these characters had been traced in mysterious and sympathetic ink, only appearing when exposed to the fire: nearly one-third of the paper had been consumed by the flame. It was that paper you read this morning; read it again, Dantes, and then I will complete for you the incomplete words and unconnected sense." Faria, with an air of triumph, offered the paper to Dantes, who this time read the following words, traced with an ink of a color which most nearly resembled rust : '"This 2f>th day of April, 1498, be . . . Alexander VI. and fearing that not . . . he nidi/ desire to become my heir, and re . . . a in/ Bentivoglio, who ire re poisoned . . . mi/ sole heir, Unit / linre Im . . . ami has visited with me, thai is in . . . island of 'Monte -Cristo all I poss . . . jewels, diamonds, gems ; that I alone . . . may amount fn near/// two mil . . . will find mi raising the twentieth ro . . . creek In the east in a right line. Tiro open . . . in these cures: the treasure is in the furthest