“Matilda! idol of my heart!”
“I was the first to discover Duprez at Naples and the first to applaud him. Bravo! Bravo!”
Morrel saw it was useless to say anything more. The curtain which had been raised at the conclusion of the scene with Albert was dropped once more, and a knock was heard at the door.
“Come in,” said Monte Cristo, in a voice devoid of all emotion.
Beauchamp entered.
“Good evening, Monsieur Beauchamp,” said Monte Cristo as though this was the first time he had seen the journalist that evening. “Pray be seated.”
Beauchamp bowed, and, taking a seat, said: “As you saw, monsieur, I accompanied Monsieur de Morcerf just now.”
“Which in all probability means that you had dined together,” replied Monte Cristo, laughing. “I am glad to see you are more sober than he was.”
“I will own that Albert was wrong in losing his temper, monsieur,” said Beauchamp, “and I have come on my own account to apologize for him. Now that I have made my apologies, mine, you understand, I should like to add that I consider you too gentlemanly to refuse me some explanation on the subject of your connexion with the people of Janina; then Count . . .”
“Monsieur Beauchamp,” interrupted this extraordinary man, “the Count of Monte Cristo is responsible only to the Count of Monte Cristo. Therefore not a word on this subject, if you please. I do as I please, Monsieur Beauchamp, and believe me, what I do is always well done.”
“Honest men are not to be paid with such coin, Count. You must give honourable guarantees.”
“I am a living guarantee, monsieur,” replied the Count, unmoved, but with a threatening look in his eyes. “Both of us have blood in our veins that we are anxious to shed, and that is our mutual guarantee. Deliver this answer to the Viscount, and tell him that before ten o’clock to-morrow I shall have seen the colour of his blood.”
“Then all that remains for me to do is to make the necessary arrangements for the duel,” said Beauchamp.
“I am quite indifferent on that score,” replied the Count of Monte Cristo. “It was unnecessary to disturb me in the middle of an opera for such a trifling matter. Tell the Viscount that although I am the one insulted, I will give him the choice of arms and will accept everything without discussion or dispute. Do you understand me? Everything, even combat by drawing lots, which is always very stupid. With me it is different, I am sure of winning.”
“Sure of winning?” said Beauchamp, looking at the Count in amazement.
“Certainly,” said the Count, slightly shrugging his shoulders. “Otherwise I should not fight with Monsieur de Morcerf. I shall kill him; I cannot help myself. Send me word this evening to my house, indicating the weapon and the hour. I do not like to be kept waiting.”
“Pistols the weapon, eight o’clock the hour in the Bois de Vincennes,” said Beauchamp, somewhat disconcerted, for he could not make up his mind whether he had to deal with an arrogant braggadocio or a supernatural being.
“Very well,” said Monte Cristo. “Now that all is arranged, pray let me listen to the opera and tell your friend Albert not to return this evening. Tell him to go home and sleep.”
Beauchamp left the box perfectly amazed.
“Now,” said Monte Cristo, turning toward Morrel. “I may reckon on you, may I not? The young man is acting blindfolded and knows not the true cause of this duel, which is known only to God and to me; but I give you my word, Morrel, that God, Who knows it, will be on our side.”
“Enough,” said Morrel. “Who is your second witness?”
“I do not know anyone in Paris on whom I could confer the honour except you, Morrel, and your brother-in-law. Do you think Emmanuel will render me this service?”
“I can answer for him as for myself, Count.”
“Very well, that is all I require. You will be with me at seven o’clock in the morning?”
“We shall be there.”
“Hush! the curtain is rising. Let us listen. I would not lose a note of this opera; the music of Wilhelm Tell is charming!”
Chapter LVII
THE NIGHT
Monte Cristo waited, as he usually did, until Duprez had sung his famous Follow me, then he rose and went out, followed by Morrel, who left him at the door, renewing his promise to be at his house, together with Emmanuel, at seven o’clock the next morning. Still calm and smiling, the Count entered the brougham and was at home in five minutes. On entering the house, he said to Ali: “Ali, my pistols inlaid with ivory!” and no one who knew him could have mistaken the tone in which he said it.
Ali brought the box to his master, who was beginning to examine them when the study door opened to admit Baptistin. Before the latter could say a word, a veiled woman who was following behind him, and who through the open door caught sight of a pistol in the Count’s hand and two swords on the table, rushed into the room. Baptistin cast a bewildered look on his master, but upon a sign from the Count, he went out, shutting the door behind him.
“Who are you, madame?” the Count asked of the veiled woman.
The stranger looked round her to make sure they were alone, then, throwing herself on to one knee and clasping her hands, she cried out in a voice of despair:
“Edmond, you will not kill my son!”
The Count started, and, dropping the weapon he held in his hand, uttered a feeble cry.
“What name did you pronounce then, Madame de Morcerf ?” said he.
“Yours!” she cried, throwing back her veil. “Your name which I alone, perhaps, have not forgotten. Edmond, it is not Madame de Morcerf who has come to you. It is Mercédès.”
“Mercédès is dead, madame. I know no one now of that name.”
“Mercédès lives, and not only lives, but remembers. She alone recognized you when she saw you, and even without seeing you, Edmond, she knew you by the very tone of your voice. From that moment she has followed your every step, watched you, feared you. She has no need to seek the hand that has dealt Monsieur de Morcerf this blow.”
“Fernand, you mean, madame,” returned Monte Cristo, with bitter irony. “Since we are recalling names, let us remember them all.”
He pronounced the name of Fernand with such an expression of venomous hatred that Mercédès was stricken with fear.
“You see, Edmond, I am not mistaken. I have every reason to say: ‘Spare my son!’”
“Who told you, madame, that I have evil designs against your son?”
“No one, but alas! a mother is gifted with double sight. I have guessed everything. I followed him to the opera this evening, and, hiding in another box, I saw all that occurred.”
“If you saw everything, madame, you also saw that Fernand’s son insulted me in public,” said Monte Cristo with terrible calmness. “You must also have seen,” he continued, “that he would have thrown his glove in my face but that one of my friends held back his arm.”
“Listen to me. My son has discovered your identity; he attributes all his father’s misfortunes to you.”
“Madame, you are under a misapprehension. His father is suffering no misfortune; it is a punishment, and it is not inflicted by me, it is the work of Providence.”
“Why should you take the place of Providence? Why should you remember when He forgets? In what way do Janina and the Vizier concern you, Edmond? What wrong has Fernand Mondego done you by betraying Ali Tebelin?”
“As you infer, madame, that is all a matter as between the French officer and Vasiliki’s daughter and does not concern me. But if I have sworn to take revenge, it is not on the French officer or on the Count of Morcerf; it is on Fernand, the fisherman, the husband of Mercédès the Catalan.”
“What terrible vengeance for a fault for which fate alone is responsible! I am the guilty one, Edmond, and if you take revenge on some one, it should be on me, who lacked the strength to bear your absence and my solitude.”
“But do you know why I was absent? Do you know why you were left solitary a
nd alone?”
“Because you were arrested and imprisoned, Edmond.”
“Why was I arrested? Why was I imprisoned?”
“I know not,” said Mercédès.
“’Tis true, you do not know; at least, I hope you do not. Well then, I will tell you. I was arrested and imprisoned because on the eve of the very day on which I was to be married, a man named Danglars wrote this letter in the arbour of La Réserve, and Fernand, the fisherman, posted it.”
Going to a writing-desk, Monte Cristo opened a drawer and took out a discoloured piece of paper and laid it before Mercédès. It was Danglars’ letter to the Procureur du Roi which the Count of Monte Cristo had taken from the dossier of Edmond Dantès the day he, disguised as an agent of Messrs Thomson and French, paid M. de Boville the sum of two hundred thousand francs.
Filled with dismay, Mercédès read the following lines:
“The Procureur du Roi is herewith informed by a friend to the throne and to religion that a certain Edmond Dantès, mate on the Pharaon which arrived this morning from Smyrna after having touched at Naples and Porto Ferrajo, has been entrusted by Murat with a letter for the usurper and by the usurper with a letter for the Bonapartist party in Paris. Corroboration of this crime can be found either on him, or at his father’s house, or in his cabin on board the Pharaon.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Mercédès, passing her hand across her forehead wet with perspiration. “This letter . . .”
“I bought it for two hundred thousand francs, madame,” said Monte Cristo. “But it is cheap at the price since it to-day enables me to justify myself in your eyes.”
“What was the result of this letter?”
“You know it, madame. It led to my arrest. But what you do not know is how long my imprisonment lasted. You do not know that I lay in a dungeon of the Château d’If, but a quarter of a league from you, for fourteen long years. On each day of those fourteen years, I renewed the vow of vengeance I had taken the first day, though I was unaware that you had married Fernand, and that my father had died of hunger.”
“Merciful heavens!” cried Mercédès, utterly crushed.
“That is what I learned on leaving my prison fourteen years after I had been taken there. I have sworn to revenge myself on Fernand because of the living Mercédès, and my deceased father, and revenge myself I will!”
“Are you sure this unhappy Fernand did what you say?”
“On my oath it is so. In any case it is not much more odious than that, being a Frenchman by adoption, he passed over to the English; a Spaniard by birth, he fought against the Spanish; a hireling of Ali’s, he betrayed and assassinated Ali. In the face of all this, what is that letter you have just read? The French have not avenged themselves on the traitor, the Spaniards have not shot him, and Ali in his tomb has let him go unpunished; but I, betrayed, assassinated, cast into a tomb, have risen from that tomb by the grace of God, and it is my duty to God to punish this man. He has sent me for that purpose and here I am.”
“Then take your revenge, Edmond,” cried the heartbro- ken mother, falling on her knees, “but let your vengeance fall on the culprits, on him, on me, but not on my son!”
“I must have my revenge, Mercédès! For fourteen years have I suffered, for fourteen years wept and cursed, and now I must avenge myself.”
“Edmond,” continued Mercédès, her arms stretched out toward the Count, “ever since I knew you, I have adored your name, have respected your memory. Oh, my friend, do not compel me to tarnish the noble and pure image that is ever reflected in my heart! If you knew how I have prayed for you, both when I thought you living and later when I believed you dead. Yes, dead, alas! I imagined that your dead body had been laid in its shroud in the depths of some gloomy tower or hurled into the bottom of an abyss where gaolers fling their dead prisoners, and I wept. What else could I do, Edmond, but weep and pray? Every night for ten long years I dreamed the same dream. It was reported you had endeavoured to escape, that you had taken the place of another prisoner; that you had slipped into the winding-sheet of a dead man, that your living body had been flung from the top of the Château d’If, and that the scream you gave as you were dashed against the rocks first revealed to the men, now become your murderers, what had taken place. Well, Edmond, I swear to you by the son for whose life I now plead, that every night for ten years I have seen these men swinging a shapeless and indistinguishable object on the top of a rock; every night for ten years have I heard a terrible scream that has awakened me trembling and cold. Oh, believe me, Edmond, guilty as I am, I too have suffered much!”
“Have you seen your father die in your absence?” cried Monte Cristo, thrusting his hands into his hair. “Have you seen the woman you loved give her hand to your rival while you were pining away in the depths of a dungeon? . . .”
“No, but I have seen him whom I loved about to become my son’s murderer!”
Mercédès said these words with such infinite sadness and in such tones of despair that they wrung a sob from the Count’s throat. The lion was tamed, the avenger was overcome!
“What do you ask of me?” he said. “Your son’s life? Well then, he shall live!”
Mercédès uttered a cry which forced two tears into Monte Cristo’s eyes, but they disappeared again immediately; doubtless God had sent some angel to collect them, for they were far more precious in his eyes than the richest pearls of Guzerat or Ophir.
“Oh, Edmond, I thank you!” cried Mercédès, taking the Count’s hand and pressing it to her lips. “Now you are the man of my dreams, the man I have always loved! I can own it now.”
“It is just as well, for poor Edmond will not have long to enjoy your love,” replied Monte Cristo. “Death will return to its tomb, the phantom to darkness!”
“What is that you say, Edmond?”
“I say that since you so command me, I must die!”
“Die! Who said that? Who told you to die? Whence come these strange ideas of death?”
“You cannot suppose I have the least desire to live after I have been publicly insulted, before a theatre full of people, in the presence of your friends and those of your son, challenged by a mere child who will glory in my pardon as in a victory? What I have loved most after you, Mercédès, has been myself, that means to say, my dignity, the force that made me superior to all others. This force was life to me. You have broken it, and I must die!”
“But the duel will not take place, Edmond, since you pardon my son.”
“It will take place,” said Monte Cristo solemnly, “but it will be my blood instead of your son’s that will stain the ground.”
Mercédès screamed and rushed up to Monte Cristo, but suddenly she came to a halt.
“Edmond,” said she, “I know there is a God above, for you still live and I have seen you. I put my whole trust in Him to help me, and in the meantime I depend upon your word. You said my son would live and you mean it, do you not?”
“Yes, madame, he shall live,” said Monte Cristo.
Mercédès held out her hand to him, her eyes filling with tears as she said: “Edmond, how noble it is of you, how great, how sublime to have taken pity on a poor woman who appealed to you without daring to hope for mercy. Alas! I have grown old through sorrow rather than years, and I cannot remind my Edmond by a smile or a look of the Mercédès who has been so many years in his thoughts. Believe me, Edmond, I too have suffered as I said before. Ah, it is sad to see one’s life pass without having a single joy to recall, without preserving a single hope. I repeat once more, Edmond, it is noble, beautiful, sublime, to forgive as you have done.”
“You say that now, Mercédès, but what would you say if you knew how great is the sacrifice I have made?”
Mercédès looked at the Count with eyes full of admiration and gratitude. Without answering his question she said:
“You see that, though my cheeks have become pale and my eyes dull and I have lost all my beauty, that, though Mercédès is no longer like her former se
lf, her heart has remained the same. Farewell, Edmond, I have nothing more to ask of Heaven; I have seen you, and you are as noble and as great as in the days long past. Farewell, Edmond, farewell, and thank you.”
The Count made no reply. Mercédès opened the door, and had disappeared before he had woken from his painful and deep reverie into which his thwarted vengeance had plunged him. The clock on the Invalides struck one as the rumbling of the carriage which bore Mme de Morcerf away brought the Count of Monte Cristo back to realities.
“Fool that I am,” said he, “that I did not tear out my heart the day I resolved to revenge myself!”
Chapter LVIII
THE DUEL
The night wore on. The Count of Monte Cristo knew not how the hours passed, for his mental tortures could only be compared to those he had suffered when, as Edmond Dantès, he had lain in the dungeon of the Château d’If. History was repeating itself once more, only the external circumstances were changed. Then his plans were frustrated at the eleventh hour through no action on his part; now, just as his schemes for revenge were materializing, he must relinquish them for ever, solely because he had not reckoned with one factor—his love for Mercédès!
At length as the clock struck six he roused himself from his dismal meditations, and made his final preparations before going out to meet his voluntary death. When Morrel and Emmanuel called to accompany him to the ground, he was quite ready, and, outwardly at least, calm. They were the first to arrive, but Franz and Debray soon followed. It was not until ten minutes past eight, however, that they saw Albert coming along on horseback at full gallop, followed by a servant.
“How imprudent to come on horseback when about to fight with pistols! And after all the instructions I gave him!” said Château-Renaud.
“And just look at his collar and tie, his open coat and white waistcoat!” said Beauchamp. “He might just as well have marked the exact position of his heart—it would have been simpler and would have ensured a speedier ending.”
Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 49