“I am innocent of any crime.”
“But what are you accused of ?”
“Of having conspired in favour of the Emperor’s return.”
“What? The Emperor’s return? Is the Emperor, then, no longer on the throne?”
“He abdicated at Fontainebleau in eighteen-fourteen and was banished to the Isle of Elba. How long have you been here that you do not know this?”
“Since eighteen-eleven.”
Edmond shuddered. This man had been in prison four years longer than himself.
“Dig no more,” the voice continued, speaking quicker, “tell me only at what height your hole is.”
“On a level with the floor.”
“How is it concealed?”
“It is behind my bed.”
“Where does your room lead to?”
“To the passage.”
“And the passage?”
“To the courtyard.”
“Alas! alas!” muttered the voice.
“Oh, my God! What is the matter?” Dantès cried out.
“Only that I have made a mistake, that the inaccuracy of my plans has misled me, that the lack of a compass has ruined all, that one wrong line on my plan is equivalent to fifteen feet, and that what I believed to be the wall of the fortress is the wall you have been digging!”
“But in any case the fortress would only give you access to the sea.”
“That is what I desired.”
“And if you had succeeded?”
“I should have thrown myself into the sea, swum to one of the islands round the Château d’If, or even to the shore, and then I should have been saved. Now all is lost. Fill in your hole again very carefully, work no more and wait till you hear from me again.”
“Tell me at least who you are.”
“I am—I am number twenty-seven.”
“Ah! you surely mistrust me,” cried Dantès. “I swear by the living God that I will not betray you. Do not forsake me! You will not leave me alone any more, will you? Come to me or else let me come to you. We will escape together, and if we cannot escape we will talk together, you of those you love, and I of those I love. You must love someone.”
“I am all alone in the world.”
“Then you will learn to love me. If you are young, I shall be your companion: if you are old, I shall be your son. I have a father who must be seventy years of age if he is still alive. I love but him and a girl named Mercédès. I know that my father has not forgotten me, but who knows whether she still thinks of me! I will love you as I loved my father.”
“So be it,” said the prisoner. “Farewell till to-morrow.”
From this moment Dantès’ happiness knew no bounds; he was not going to be alone any more, and perhaps he might even gain his freedom; anyway, even if he remained a prisoner, he would have a companion, and captivity shared with another is but half captivity. He walked up and down his cell all day long, his heart beating wildly with joy. At moments it almost seemed to choke him. At the least sound he heard he sprang to the door. Once or twice he was seized with the fear that they would separate him from this man whom he knew not, but whom he already loved as a friend.
Night came. Dantès thought his neighbour would take advantage of the silence and the darkness to renew conversation with him, but he was mistaken; the night passed without a single sound breaking in upon his feverish waiting. But the next morning, after the gaoler had been, he heard three knocks at equal intervals. He threw himself upon his knees:
“Is that you?” he said. “Here I am.”
“Has your gaoler gone?” inquired the voice.
“Yes,” replied Dantès, “and he will not come again till this evening, so we have got twelve full hours of freedom.”
“I can set to work, then?”
“Oh, yes, yes, without delay. This very instant, I beg of you.”
The piece of earth on which Dantès was leaning suddenly gave way; he threw himself back, and a mass of earth and loose stones crumbled into a hole which opened up just beneath the aperture he himself had made; then from the bottom of this hole, of which he could not gauge the depth, he saw a head appear, then a pair of shoulders, and finally the body of a man who crept with great agility out of the hole just made.
Chapter XIII
AN ITALIAN SCHOLAR
Dantès threw himself into the arms of his new friend, for whom he had waited so impatiently and so long, and drew him toward the window that the little light that penetrated into his cell might reveal his features.
His new-found friend was short, with hair blanched with suffering rather than with age. His keen, penetrating eyes were almost hidden beneath thick grey eyebrows, and his beard, which was still black, reached down to his chest. His thin face, furrowed with deep lines, and the bold outlines of his characteristic features revealed a man who was more accustomed to exercise his mental faculties than his physical strength. Large drops of perspiration stood on his brow, and as for his garments, it was impossible to distinguish their original form, for they were in rags.
He appeared at least sixty-five years of age, but the agility of his movements seemed to imply that this aged appearance was due to long captivity. He received the young man’s enthusiastic outbursts with a certain pleasure; his icy soul seemed to gather warmth for an instant and to melt in the contact with this ardent youth. He thanked him with much feeling for his cordiality, though his disappointment had been very bitter at finding another dungeon where he had hoped to find liberty.
“Now let us see whether we can conceal from the eyes of your gaolers all traces of my entrance,” said the newcomer; and, stooping down to the aperture, he lifted the stone with the greatest ease, in spite of its weight, and fitted it into the hole.
“This stone has been removed very carelessly,” he said shaking his head. “Hadn’t you any tools?”
“Have you any?” Dantès asked with astonishment.
“I made some. With the exception of a file, I have all I need: chisel, pincers, crow-bar.”
“Oh, I should like to see these products of your patience and industry.”
“Well, to begin with, here is my chisel.”
And he showed Dantès a sharp, strong blade with a handle of beechwood. “How did you make that?” asked Dantès.
“Out of one of the clamps of my bed. I have hollowed out the passage, a distance of about fifty feet, with this instrument. To think that all my work has been in vain! There is now no means of escape. God’s will be done!”
Dantès looked with astonishment mingled with admiration at this man, who renounced with such philosophy a hope cherished for so long.
“Now,” Dantès said, “will you tell me who you are?”
“Yes, if it interests you.” Then he continued sadly: “I am the Abbé Faria, a prisoner in the Château d’If since eighteen-eleven, and previously imprisoned in the fortress of Fenestrella for three years. In the year eighteen-eleven I was transferred from Piedmont to France. It was then that I learned that the god of destiny, who at that time seemed subservient to Napoleon’s every wish, had given him a son, and that while still in its cradle the child had been named King of Rome. Little did I think then that this superman would be overthrown.”
“But why are you here at all?”
“Because in eighteen-seven I meditated the very scheme that Napoleon tried to realize in eighteen-eleven; because like Machiavelliag I desired Italy to be one great, strong, and compact empire, instead of a nest of petty principalities each with its weak and despotic ruler; because I thought I had found my Caesar Borgiaah in a crowned fool, who pretended to share my views so as the better to betray me. It was the scheme of Alexander the Sixth and Clement the Seventh; it will never materialize now, for their attempt was fruitless, and not even Napoleon has accomplished it. There is no doubt, Italy is an accursed country.”
For a moment Dantès stood motionless and mute.
“Then you abandon all hope of escaping?” he said at last.
>
“I realize that it is impossible, and that it is tantamount to revolting against God to attempt what is contrary to His designs.”
“Why despair? Why not start afresh?”
“Start afresh! Ah! you little know how I have toiled. Do you know that it took me four years to make my tools? Do you know that for the past two years I have been scraping and digging out earth as hard as granite? I have had to move stones that I once thought it impossible to loosen. I have spent whole days in these titanic efforts, and there were times when I was overjoyed if by night-time I had scraped away a square inch of the cement that age had made as hard as the stones themselves. I have had to pierce the wall of a staircase so that I could deposit all my stones and earth in its well. And I thought I had almost finished my task, and felt I had just enough strength left to accomplish it, when I found that all my plans were frustrated. I assure you, I have known very few successful attempts to escape. Only those have been crowned with success which were planned and worked out with infinite patience. We shall do best now to wait till some unforeseen occurrence gives us the opportunity of making our escape. When such an opportunity occurs, we will seize it.”
“You could well wait,” Dantès said with a sigh. “Your work occupied every minute of your time, and when you could not work, you had your hope in a brighter future to console you.”
“I accomplished other things besides all this.”
“What did you do?”
“I wrote or studied.”
“Who gave you paper, pens, and ink?”
“No one,” said the abbé, “I made them myself.”
Dantès looked at the man with admiration; only he could scarcely credit all he told him. Faria noticed this shade of doubt on the young man’s face and said:
“When you come to my cell, I will show you an entire volume entitled Treatise on the Possibility of a General Monarchy in Italy, which is the result of the thoughts, reflections, and researches of my whole life; ideas which I have worked out in the shadow of the Colosseum at Rome, at the foot of Saint Mark’s Column at Venice, or on the banks of the Arno at Florence.”
“Do you mean to say you have written it?”
“On two shirts. I have invented a preparation by means of which linen is rendered as smooth and glossy as parchment. I also made some excellent quills which everyone would prefer to the ordinary ones if once they were known. I made them from the cartilage of the head of those enormous whiting they sometimes give us on fast-days. Formerly there must have been a fireplace in my cell which was doubtless closed up some time before I came. It must have been used for very many years, for the interior was coated with soot. I dissolved some soot in a portion of the wine they bring me every Sunday, and my ink was made. For notes to which I wished to draw special attention, I pricked my fingers and wrote with my blood.”
“When can I see all this?” Dantès asked.
“As soon as you like.”
“Let it be at once, then!” the young man exclaimed.
“Then follow me.”
So saying the abbé re-entered the subterranean passage and disappeared. Dantès followed and found himself at the far end of the passage, into which the abbé’s door opened. Here the passage became narrower; indeed there was scarcely room for a man to crawl through on his hands and knees. The abbé’s room was paved; it had been by raising one of the flagstones in the darkest corner of the room that he had commenced the laborious task of which Dantès witnessed the completion.
As soon as he entered the cell, the young man examined it very carefully, but at first sight it presented nothing out of the ordinary.
“And now I am very anxious to see your treasures,” Dantès said.
The abbé went toward the fireplace, removed a stone which was formerly the hearthstone, and which hid a fairly deep cavity.
“What do you wish to see first?”
“Show me your work on the Monarchy of Italy.”
Faria took from his cupboard three or four rolls of linen four inches wide and eighteen long which were folded like papyrus leaves. These strips of linen were numbered and covered with writing.
“Here you have the whole of it,” he said, “I put the word fi nis ai at the bottom of the seventy-eighth strip just a week ago. I have used for it two of my shirts and all the handkerchiefs I had. If ever I gain my liberty and can find a publisher in Italy who will publish it, my reputation is made.”
He then showed Dantès the quills he had made; the penknife of which he was particularly proud and which he had made out of an old iron candlestick; the ink; the matches, the sulphur for which he had obtained by feigning a skin disease; the rope-ladder, the material for which he had obtained by unravelling the ends of his sheets; and finally the needle. On seeing these ingenious products of an intelligent and highly developed brain, Dantès became thoughtful, and it occurred to him that the man might be able to clear up the mystery surrounding his own misfortune which he himself had been unable to fathom.
“What are you thinking of ?” the abbé asked with a smile, seeing his companion’s pensiveness, and attributing it to inexpressible admiration.
“I was thinking that though you have related to me the events of your life, yet you know nothing of mine.”
“Your life, young man, is far too short to contain anything of importance.”
“Nevertheless it contains a very great misfortune,” said Dantès, “a misfortune that I do not deserve, and I would rather attribute the authorship of it to mankind and no longer blaspheme God as I have hitherto done.”
“Tell me your story, then.”
Dantès then related what he called the story of his life, consisting of a voyage to India, two or three voyages to the East, and finally his last voyage, the death of Captain Leclère, the package confided to him for the Grand Maréchal, the letter given him by the latter addressed to a certain M. Noirtier. Then he went on to tell his friend of his arrival at Marseilles, his interview with his father, his love for Mercédès, his betrothal feast, his arrest, his examination, his temporary imprisonment in the Law Courts, and finally his permanent imprisonment in the Château d’If. After this he knew nothing more, not even how long he had been a prisoner.
When Dantès had finished his story, the abbé sat silent, deep in thought. After a time he said: “There is a maxim with a very deep meaning which says: ‘If you wish to discover the author of a crime, endeavour to find out in the first place who would derive advantage from the crime committed.’ You were about to be nominated captain and also to marry a beautiful girl, were you not?”
“That is true.”
“Was it to anyone’s interest that you should not be appointed captain of the Pharaon? And again, was it to anyone’s interest that you should not marry Mercédès? Answer the first question first; order is the key to all problems.”
“I was very popular on board. If the sailors could have chosen their chief, I am sure they would have chosen me. There was only one person who had any reason to wish me ill; I quarrelled with him some time ago and challenged him to a duel, but he refused.”
“Now we are coming to the point. What was this man’s name?”
“Danglars, the purser of the ship.”
“Had you been appointed captain, would you have retained him as such?”
“Not if it had depended on me, for I thought I had noticed some inaccuracies in his accounts.”
“Good. Now who was present at your last conversation with Captain Leclère?”
“No one; we were alone.”
“Could anyone have overheard your conversation?”
“Yes, the door was open, and . . . wait . . . yes, it is true, Danglars passed at the very moment Captain Leclère was handing me the package for the Grand Maréchal.”
“Better still. Now we are on the right track. Did you take anyone ashore when you put in at the Isle of Elba?”
“No one at all.”
“What did you do with the letter the Grand Maréchal gave you?
”
“I put it in my portfolio.”
“Had you your portfolio with you then? How could a portfolio large enough to contain an official letter find room in a sailor’s pocket?”
“My portfolio was on board.”
“So you did not put the letter into the portfolio until you returned to the ship?”
“No.”
“What did you do with the letter from the time you left Porto Ferrajo till you reached the ship?”
“I carried it in my hand.”
“So that when you went on board, everyone could see that you carried a letter?”
“Yes.”
“Danglars as well?”
“Yes; Danglars as well as the others.”
“Now listen to me and try to recall all the incidents. Do you remember how the denunciation was phrased?”
“Oh, yes, I read it over three times and each word is engraved on my memory.” And he repeated it word for word.
The abbé shrugged his shoulders. “It is as clear as daylight,” he said. “You must have a very noble heart and simple mind that you had not your suspicions from the very outset.”
“Do you really think so?” Dantès exclaimed. “Such infamy is not possible!”
“How did Danglars usually write?”
“He had a good, round hand.”
“How was the anonymous letter written?”
“With a backward slant.”
The abbé smiled. “I suppose it was a disguised hand?”
“It was too bold to be disguised.”
The abbé took one of his quills and wrote the first two or three lines of the denunciation on a piece of prepared linen. Dantès stood aghast and looked at the abbé in terror, and exclaimed: “How extraordinarily alike the two writings are!”
“The simple explanation is that the denunciation was written with the left hand. I have noticed that whereas handwrit ings written with the right hand vary, those written with the left hand are nearly always like. Now let us pass to the second question. Was it to anyone’s interest that you should not marry Mercédès?”
“Yes, there was a young man who loved her, a young Catalan named Fernand.”
Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 11