Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Alexandre Dumas

  Villefort could not believe his eyes, and thought he must be losing his reason. He dragged himself toward Edward’s body, examined it once more with the careful attention of a lioness contemplating its cub.

  Then a heartrending cry escaped his breast. “God!” he murmured. “It is the hand of God!”

  Villefort rose from his knees, his head bowed under the weight of grief. He, who had never felt compassion for anyone, decided to go to his father so that in his weakness he would have someone to whom he could relate his sufferings, someone with whom he could weep. He descended the little stairs with which we are acquainted, and entered Noirtier’s room.

  As he entered, Noirtier appeared to be listening attentively, and as affectionately as his paralysed body would permit, to Abbé Busoni, who was as calm and cold as usual. On seeing the abbé, Villefort drew his hand across his forehead. The past all came back to him, and he recollected the visit the abbé had paid him on the day of Valentine’s death.

  “You here?” he said. “Do you never appear except hand in hand with Death?”

  Busoni started up. “I came to pray over the body of your daughter,” replied Busoni.

  “And why have you come to-day?”

  “I have come to-day to tell you that you have made abundant retribution to me and from to-day I shall pray God to forgive you.”

  “Good heavens!” cried Villefort, starting back with a look of terror in his eyes. “That is not Abbé Busoni’s voice!”

  “No,” said the abbé, and as he tore off his false tonsure his long black hair fell around his manly face.

  “That is the face of Monte Cristo!” cried Villefort, a haggard look in his eyes.

  “You are not right yet. You must go still further back.”

  “That voice! That voice! Where have I heard it before?”

  “You first heard it at Marseilles twenty-three years ago, on the day of your betrothal to Mademoiselle de Saint-Méran.”

  “You are not Busoni? Nor yet Monte Cristo? My God! you are my secret, implacable, mortal enemy. I must have wronged you in some way at Marseilles. Ah! woe is me!”

  “You are right, it is so,” said the Count, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “Think! Think!”

  “But what did I do to you?” cried Villefort, whose mind was struggling on the borders between reason and insanity and had sunk into that state which is neither dreaming nor reality. “What have I done? Tell me! Speak!”

  “You condemned me to a slow and hideous death; you killed my father; you robbed me of liberty, love, and happiness!”

  “Who are you then? Who can you be?”

  “I am the ghost of an unhappy wretch you buried in the dungeons of the Château d’If. At length this ghost left his tomb under the disguise of the Count of Monte Cristo, and loaded himself with gold and diamonds that you might not recognize him until to-day.”

  “Ah! I recognize you! I recognize you!” cried the Procureur du Roi. “You are . . .”

  “I am Edmond Dantès!”

  “You are Edmond Dantès!” cried the magistrate, seizing the Count by the wrist. “Then come with me!” He dragged him up the stairs, and the astonished Monte Cristo followed him, not knowing where he was leading him, though he had a presentiment of some fresh disaster.

  “Look, Edmond Dantès!” said Villefort, pointing to the dead bodies of his wife and son. “Are you satisfied with your vengeance?”

  Monte Cristo turned pale at the frightful sight. Realizing that he had passed beyond the bounds of vengeance, he felt he could no longer say: “God is for me and with me.” With an expression of indescribable anguish, he threw himself on the child’s body, opened his eyes, felt his pulse, and, rushing with him into Valentine’s room, locked the door.

  “My child!” de Villefort called out. “He has taken the body of my dead child! Oh, curse you! Curses on you in life and death!”

  He wanted to run after Monte Cristo, but his feet seemed rooted to the spot, and his eyes looked ready to start out of their sockets; he dug his nails into his chest until his fingers were covered with blood; the veins of his temples swelled and seemed about to burst through their narrow limits and flood his brain with a deluge of boiling fire. Then with a shrill cry followed by a loud burst of laughter, he ran down the stairs.

  A quarter of an hour later the door of Valentine’s room opened, and the Count of Monte Cristo reappeared. Pale, sad of eye, and heavy of heart, all the noble features of that usually calm face were distorted with grief. He held in his arms the child whom no skill had been able to recall to life. Bending his knee, he reverently placed him beside his mother with his head upon her breast. Then, rising, he went out of the room and, meeting a servant on the staircase, asked: “Where is Monsieur de Villefort?”

  Instead of replying, the servant pointed to the garden. Monte Cristo went down the steps, and, approaching the spot indicated, saw Villefort in the midst of his servants with a spade in his hand digging the earth in a fury and wildly calling out: “Oh, I shall find him. You may pretend he is not here, but I shall find him, even if I have to dig until the day of the Last Judgment.”

  Monte Cristo recoiled in terror. “He is mad!” he cried.

  And as though fearing that the walls of the accursed house would fall and crush him, he rushed into the street, doubting for the first time whether he had the right to do what he had done.

  “Oh, enough, enough of all this!” he said. “Let me save the last one!”

  On arriving home he met Morrel, who was wandering about the house in the Champs Élysées like a ghost waiting for its appointed time to enter the tomb.

  “Get yourself ready, Maximilian,” he said to him with a smile. “We leave Paris to-morrow.”

  “Have you nothing more to do here?” asked Morrel.

  “No,” replied Monte Cristo, “and God grant that I have not already done too much!”

  Chapter LXX

  THE DEPARTURE

  The events just recorded were the talk of all Paris. Emmanuel and his wife were recounting them with very natural astonishment in their little salon in the Rue Meslay, and comparing the three sudden and unexpected calamities that had overtaken Morcerf, Danglars, and de Villefort. Morrel, who had come to pay them a visit, listened to them, or rather was present in his usual state of apathy.

  “Really, Emmanuel,” said Julie, “one could almost imagine that when all these rich people, who were so happy but yesterday, laid the foundations of their wealth, happiness, and prestige, they forgot the part played by their evil genius; and like the wicked fairy of our childhood days who had not received an invitation to some christening or wedding, this genius has suddenly appeared to take his vengeance for the neglect.”

  “What disasters!” said Emmanuel, thinking of Morcerf and Danglars.

  “What suffering!” said Julie, whose sympathy turned toward Valentine but whose name she, with her womanly delicacy of feeling, would not mention before her brother.

  “If it is God’s hand that has overtaken them,” continued Emmanuel, “it must be that He Who is goodness itself has found nothing in the past life of these people which merited mitigation of their suffering.”

  “Is that not a very rash judgment, Emmanuel?” said Julie. “If anyone had said, ‘This man deserves his punishment’ when my father held his pistol to his head, would that person not have been mistaken?”

  “Yes, but God did not permit him to die just as He did not permit Abraham to sacrifice his son. To the patriarch and to us He sent an angel at the last moment to stay the hand of Death.”

  He had scarcely finished speaking when the bell rang, and almost at the same moment the door opened to admit Monte Cristo. There was a cry of joy from the two young people, but Maximilian only raised his head to let it drop again.

  “Maximilian, I have come to fetch you,” said the Count, without appearing to notice the different impressions his presence had produced on his hosts.

  “To fetch me?” said Morrel, as though waking
from a dream.

  “Yes,” said Monte Cristo. “Is it not agreed that I should take you away? And did I not tell you to be ready?”

  “I am quite ready. I have come to bid them farewell.”

  “Whither are you going, Count?” asked Julie.

  “In the first instance to Marseilles, and I am taking your brother with me.”

  “Oh, Count, bring him back to us cured of his melancholy!” said Julie.

  “Have you then noticed that he is unhappy?” said the Count.

  “Yes, and I am afraid he finds it very dull with us.”

  “I shall divert him,” said the Count.

  “I am ready,” said Maximilian. “Good-bye, Emmanuel! Good-bye, Julie!”

  “What! Good-bye?” cried Julie. “You are not going away without any preparations and without a passport?”

  “Delays only double grief when one has to part,” said Monte Cristo, “and I am sure Maximilian has provided himself with everything; at all events I asked him to do so.”

  “I have my passports, and my trunks are packed,” said Morrel in a lifeless tone of voice. “Good-bye, sister! Good-bye, Emmanuel!”

  “Let us be off,” said the Count.

  “Before you go, Count, permit me to tell you what the other day . . .”

  “Madame,” replied the Count, taking her two hands, “all that you can tell me in words can never express what I read in your eyes, or the feelings awakened in your heart, as also in mine. Like the benefactors of romances, I would have left without revealing myself to you, but this virtue was beyond me, because I am but a weak and vain man, and because I feel a better man for seeing a look of gratitude, joy and affection in the eyes of my fellow beings. I will leave you now, and I carry my egoism so far as to say: ‘Do not forget me, my friends, for you will probably never see me again!’”

  “Never see you again!” exclaimed Emmanuel, while the tears rolled down Julie’s cheeks.

  He pressed his lips to Julie’s hand and tore himself away from this home where happiness was the host; he made a sign to Morrel, who followed him with all the indifference he had manifested since Valentine’s death.

  “Restore my brother to happiness again,” Julie whispered to Monte Cristo.

  He pressed her hand as he had done eleven years ago on the staircase leading to Morrel’s study.

  “Do you still trust Sindbad the Sailor?” he asked with a smile.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Well, then, sleep in the peace and confidence of the Lord.”

  The post-chaise was waiting; four vigorous horses were shaking their manes and pawing the ground in their impatience. Ali was waiting at the bottom of the steps, his face bathed in perspiration as though he had been running.

  “Well, did you see the old gentleman?” the Count asked him in Arabic.

  Ali made a sign in the affirmative.

  “And did you unfold the letter before him as I instructed you to do?”

  The slave again made a sign in the affirmative.

  “What did he say to you, or rather, what did he do?”

  Ali placed himself under the light so that his master might see him, and in his intelligent manner he imitated the expression on the old man’s face when he closed his eyes in token of assent.

  “It is well, he accepts,” said Monte Cristo. “Let us start!”

  Half an hour passed, and the carriage suddenly stopped; the Count had pulled the silken cord that was attached to Ali’s finger. The Nubian alighted and opened the door.

  It was a lovely starlit night. They were on top of the Ville juif hill, when Paris appeared like a dark sea, and her millions of lights like phosphorescent waves; waves which were more clamorous, more passionate, more greedy than those of the tempestuous ocean; waves which are ever raging, foaming, and ever ready to devour what comes in their way.

  At a sign from the Count, the carriage went on, leaving him alone. Then, with arms crossed, he contemplated for a long time this modern Babylon which inspires the poet, the religious enthusiast, and the materialist alike. Bowing his head and joining his hands as though in prayer, he murmured:

  “Oh, great city! In thy palpitating bosom have I found what I sought; like a patient miner have I dug out thy very entrails to root out the evil. My work is accomplished, my mission ended, and now thou canst hold neither pleasure nor pain for me. Farewell, Paris! Farewell!”

  His eyes wandered over the vast plain like that of a genius of the night, then passing his hand across his brow, he once more entered his carriage, which disappeared over the hill in a cloud of dust.

  They travelled thus for ten leagues in complete silence, Morrel wrapt in dreams and Monte Cristo watching him dream.

  “Morrel,” said the Count at length, “do you regret having come with me?”

  “No, Count, but in leaving Paris . . .”

  “If I had thought your happiness was to be found in Paris, I should have left you there.”

  “Valentine is laid at rest in Paris, and I feel as though I were losing her for a second time.”

  “Maximilian, the friends we have lost do not repose under the ground,” said the Count; “they are buried deep in our hearts. It has been thus ordained that they may always accompany us. I have two such friends. The one is he who gave me being, and the other is he who brought my intelligence to life. Their spirits are ever with me. When in doubt I consult them, and if I ever do anything that is good, I owe it to them. Consult the voice of your heart, Morrel, and ask it whether you should continue this behaviour towards me.”

  “The voice of my heart is a very sad one,” said Maximilian, “and promises nothing but unhappiness.”

  The journey was made with extraordinary rapidity; villages fled past them like shadows; trees, shaken by the first autumn winds, seemed like dishevelled giants rushing up only to flee as soon as they had reached them. They arrived at Chalon the next morning, where the Count’s steamboat awaited them. Without loss of time the two travellers embarked, and their carriage was taken aboard.

  The boat was almost like an Indian canoe, and was especially built for racing. Her two paddle-wheels were like two wings with which she skimmed the water like a bird. Even Morrel seemed intoxicated with the rapidity of their motion, and at times it almost seemed as though the wind, in blowing his hair back from his forehead, also momentarily dispelled the dark clouds that were gathered there. Marseilles was soon reached. As they stood on the Cannebière a boat was leaving for Algiers. Passengers were crowded on the decks, relatives and friends were bidding farewell, some weeping silently, others crying aloud in their grief. It was a touching sight even to those accustomed to witnessing it every day, yet it had not the power to distract Morrel from the one thought that had occupied his mind ever since he set foot on the broad stones of the quay.

  “Here is the very spot where my father stood when the Pharaon entered the port,” he said to the Count. “It was here that the honest man whom you saved from death and dishonour threw himself into my arms; I still feel his tears on my face.”

  Monte Cristo smiled. “I was there,” he said, pointing to a corner of the street. As he spoke a heartrending sob was heard issuing from the very spot indicated by the Count, and they saw a woman making signs to a passenger on the departing boat. The woman was veiled. Monte Cristo watched her with an emotion which must have been evident to Morrel had his eyes not been fixed on the boat.

  “Good heavens!” cried Morrel. “Surely I am not mistaken. That young man waving his hand, the one in uniform, is Albert de Morcerf.”

  “Yes,” said Monte Cristo. “I recognized him.”

  “How can you have done? You were looking the other way.”

  The Count smiled in the way he had when he did not wish to answer. His eyes turned again to the veiled woman, who soon disappeared round the corner of the street. Then, turning to Maximilian, he said: “Have you nothing to do in the town?”

  “Yes, I wish to pay a visit to my father’s grave,” replied Morrel in a
lifeless voice.

  “Very well, go and wait for me; I will join you there.”

  “You are leaving me?”

  “Yes . . . I have also a visit of devotion to make.”

  Morrel let his hand fall into the one the Count held out to him; then, with an inexpressibly melancholy nod of the head, he took his leave of the Count and directed his steps toward the east of the town.

  Monte Cristo stayed where he was until Maximilian was out of sight, then he wended his way to the Allées de Meilhan in search of a little house that was made familiar to our readers at the beginning of this story.

  In spite of its age the little house, once inhabited by Dantès’ father, still looked charming and not even its obvious poverty could deprive it of its cheerful aspect. It was to this little house that the veiled woman repaired when Monte Cristo saw her leaving the departing ship. She was just closing the gate when he turned the corner of the street, so that she disappeared from his vision almost as soon as he had found her again. The worn steps were old acquaintances of his; he knew better than anyone how to open the old gate with its large-headed nail, which raised the latch from the inside.

  He entered without knocking or announcing himself in any way. At the end of a paved path was a little garden that caught all the sunshine and light, and its trees could be seen from the front door. It was here Mercédès had found, in the spot indicated, the sum of money which the Count’s delicacy of feeling had led him to say had been deposited in this little garden for twenty-four years.

  Monte Cristo heard a deep sigh and, looking in the direction whence it came, he beheld Mercédès sitting in an arbour covered with jasmine with thick foliage and slender purple flowers; her head was bowed, and she was weeping bitterly. She had partly raised her veil and, being alone, was giving full vent to the sighs and sobs which had so long been repressed by the presence of her son.

  Monte Cristo advanced a few steps, crunching the gravel under his feet as he trod. Mercédès raised her head and gave a cry of fear at seeing a man before her.

  “Madame, it is no longer in my power to bring you happiness,” said the Count, “but I offer you consolation. Will you deign to accept it from a friend?”