The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated

by Alexandre Dumas

  Chapter 91. Mother and Son

  The Count of Monte Cristo bowed to the five young men with a melancholyand dignified smile, and got into his carriage with Maximilian andEmmanuel. Albert, Beauchamp, and Château-Renaud remained alone. Albertlooked at his two friends, not timidly, but in a way that appeared toask their opinion of what he had just done.

  “Indeed, my dear friend,” said Beauchamp first, who had either the mostfeeling or the least dissimulation, “allow me to congratulate you; thisis a very unhoped-for conclusion of a very disagreeable affair.”

  Albert remained silent and wrapped in thought. Château-Renaud contentedhimself with tapping his boot with his flexible cane.

  “Are we not going?” said he, after this embarrassing silence.

  “When you please,” replied Beauchamp; “allow me only to compliment M. deMorcerf, who has given proof today of rare chivalric generosity.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Château-Renaud.

  “It is magnificent,” continued Beauchamp, “to be able to exercise somuch self-control!”

  “Assuredly; as for me, I should have been incapable of it,” saidChâteau-Renaud, with most significant coolness.

  “Gentlemen,” interrupted Albert, “I think you did not understand thatsomething very serious had passed between M. de Monte Cristo andmyself.”

  “Possibly, possibly,” said Beauchamp immediately; “but every simpletonwould not be able to understand your heroism, and sooner or later youwill find yourself compelled to explain it to them more energeticallythan would be convenient to your bodily health and the duration of yourlife. May I give you a friendly counsel? Set out for Naples, the Hague,or St. Petersburg—calm countries, where the point of honor is betterunderstood than among our hot-headed Parisians. Seek quietude andoblivion, so that you may return peaceably to France after a few years.Am I not right, M. de Château-Renaud?”

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  “That is quite my opinion,” said the gentleman; “nothing induces seriousduels so much as a duel forsworn.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” replied Albert, with a smile of indifference; “Ishall follow your advice—not because you give it, but because I hadbefore intended to quit France. I thank you equally for the service youhave rendered me in being my seconds. It is deeply engraved on my heart,and, after what you have just said, I remember that only.”

  Château-Renaud and Beauchamp looked at each other; the impression wasthe same on both of them, and the tone in which Morcerf had justexpressed his thanks was so determined that the position would havebecome embarrassing for all if the conversation had continued.

  “Good-bye, Albert,” said Beauchamp suddenly, carelessly extending hishand to the young man. The latter did not appear to arouse from hislethargy; in fact, he did not notice the offered hand.

  “Good-bye,” said Château-Renaud in his turn, keeping his little cane inhis left hand, and saluting with his right.

  Albert’s lips scarcely whispered “Good-bye,” but his look was moreexplicit; it expressed a whole poem of restrained anger, proud disdain,and generous indignation. He preserved his melancholy and motionlessposition for some time after his two friends had regained theircarriage; then suddenly unfastening his horse from the little tree towhich his servant had tied it, he mounted and galloped off in thedirection of Paris.

  In a quarter of an hour he was entering the house in the Rue du Helder.As he alighted, he thought he saw his father’s pale face behind thecurtain of the count’s bedroom. Albert turned away his head with a sigh,and went to his own apartments. He cast one lingering look on all theluxuries which had rendered life so easy and so happy since his infancy;he looked at the pictures, whose faces seemed to smile, and thelandscapes, which appeared painted in brighter colors. Then he took awayhis mother’s portrait, with its oaken frame, leaving the gilt frame fromwhich he took it black and empty. Then he arranged all his beautifulTurkish arms, his fine English guns, his Japanese china, his cupsmounted in silver, his artistic bronzes by Feuchères or Barye; examinedthe cupboards, and placed the key in each; threw into a drawer of hissecretaire, which he left open, all the pocket-money he had about him,and with it the thousand fancy jewels from his vases and his jewel-boxes; then he made an exact inventory of everything, and placed it inthe most conspicuous part of the table, after putting aside the booksand papers which had collected there.

  At the beginning of this work, his servant, notwithstanding orders tothe contrary, came to his room.

  “What do you want?” asked he, with a more sorrowful than angry tone.

  “Pardon me, sir,” replied the valet; “you had forbidden me to disturbyou, but the Count of Morcerf has called me.”

  “Well!” said Albert.

  “I did not like to go to him without first seeing you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the count is doubtless aware that I accompanied you to themeeting this morning.”

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  “It is probable,” said Albert.

  “And since he has sent for me, it is doubtless to question me on whathappened there. What must I answer?”

  “The truth.”

  “Then I shall say the duel did not take place?”

  “You will say I apologized to the Count of Monte Cristo. Go.”

  The valet bowed and retired, and Albert returned to his inventory. As hewas finishing this work, the sound of horses prancing in the yard, andthe wheels of a carriage shaking his window, attracted his attention. Heapproached the window, and saw his father get into it, and drive away.The door was scarcely closed when Albert bent his steps to his mother’sroom; and, no one being there to announce him, he advanced to herbedchamber, and distressed by what he saw and guessed, stopped for onemoment at the door.

  As if the same idea had animated these two beings, Mercédès was doingthe same in her apartments that he had just done in his. Everything wasin order,—laces, dresses, jewels, linen, money, all were arranged in thedrawers, and the countess was carefully collecting the keys. Albert sawall these preparations and understood them, and exclaiming, “My mother!”he threw his arms around her neck.

  The artist who could have depicted the expression of these twocountenances would certainly have made of them a beautiful picture. Allthese proofs of an energetic resolution, which Albert did not fear onhis own account, alarmed him for his mother. “What are you doing?” askedhe.

  “What were you doing?” replied she.

  “Oh, my mother!” exclaimed Albert, so overcome he could scarcely speak;“it is not the same with you and me—you cannot have made the sameresolution I have, for I have come to warn you that I bid adieu to yourhouse, and—and to you.”

  “I also,” replied Mercédès, “am going, and I acknowledge I had dependedon your accompanying me; have I deceived myself?”

  “Mother,” said Albert with firmness. “I cannot make you share the fate Ihave planned for myself. I must live henceforth without rank andfortune, and to begin this hard apprenticeship I must borrow from afriend the loaf I shall eat until I have earned one. So, my dear mother,I am going at once to ask Franz to lend me the small sum I shall requireto supply my present wants.”

  “You, my poor child, suffer poverty and hunger? Oh, do not say so; itwill break my resolutions.”

  “But not mine, mother,” replied Albert. “I am young and strong; Ibelieve I am courageous, and since yesterday I have learned the power ofwill. Alas, my dear mother, some have suffered so much, and yet live,and have raised a new fortune on the ruin of all the promises ofhappiness which heaven had made them—on the fragments of all the hopewhich God had given them! I have seen that, mother; I know that from thegulf in which their enemies have plunged them they have risen with somuch vigor and glory that in their turn they have ruled their formerconquerors, and have punished them. No, mother; from this moment I havedone with the past, and accept nothing from it—not even a name, becauseyou can understand that your son cannot bear the name of a man who oughtto blush for it before another.”


  “Albert, my child,” said Mercédès, “if I had a stronger heart, that isthe counsel I would have given you; your conscience has spoken when myvoice became too weak; listen to its dictates. You had friends, Albert;break off their acquaintance. But do not despair; you have life beforeyou, my dear Albert, for you are yet scarcely twenty-two years old; andas a pure heart like yours wants a spotless name, take my father’s—itwas Herrera. I am sure, my dear Albert, whatever may be your career, youwill soon render that name illustrious. Then, my son, return to theworld still more brilliant because of your former sorrows; and if I amwrong, still let me cherish these hopes, for I have no future to lookforward to. For me the grave opens when I pass the threshold of thishouse.”

  “I will fulfil all your wishes, my dear mother,” said the young man.“Yes, I share your hopes; the anger of Heaven will not pursue us, sinceyou are pure and I am innocent. But, since our resolution is formed, letus act promptly. M. de Morcerf went out about half an hour ago; theopportunity is favorable to avoid an explanation.”

  “I am ready, my son,” said Mercédès.

  Albert ran to fetch a carriage. He recollected that there was a smallfurnished house to let in the Rue des Saints-Pères, where his motherwould find a humble but decent lodging, and thither he intendedconducting the countess. As the carriage stopped at the door, and Albertwas alighting, a man approached and gave him a letter.

  Albert recognized the bearer. “From the count,” said Bertuccio. Alberttook the letter, opened, and read it, then looked round for Bertuccio,but he was gone.

  He returned to Mercédès with tears in his eyes and heaving breast, andwithout uttering a word he gave her the letter. Mercédès read:

  “Albert,—While showing you that I have discovered your plans, I hopealso to convince you of my delicacy. You are free, you leave the count’shouse, and you take your mother to your home; but reflect, Albert, youowe her more than your poor noble heart can pay her. Keep the strugglefor yourself, bear all the suffering, but spare her the trial of povertywhich must accompany your first efforts; for she deserves not even theshadow of the misfortune which has this day fallen on her, andProvidence is not willing that the innocent should suffer for theguilty. I know you are going to leave the Rue du Helder without takinganything with you. Do not seek to know how I discovered it; I knowit—that is sufficient.

  “Now, listen, Albert. Twenty-four years ago I returned, proud andjoyful, to my country. I had a betrothed, Albert, a lovely girl whom Iadored, and I was bringing to my betrothed a hundred and fifty louis,painfully amassed by ceaseless toil. This money was for her; I destinedit for her, and, knowing the treachery of the sea I buried our treasurein the little garden of the house my father lived in at Marseilles, onthe Allées de Meilhan. Your mother, Albert, knows that poor house well.A short time since I passed through Marseilles, and went to see the oldplace, which revived so many painful recollections; and in the evening Itook a spade and dug in the corner of the garden where I had concealedmy treasure. The iron box was there—no one had touched it—under abeautiful fig-tree my father had planted the day I was born, whichovershadowed the spot. Well, Albert, this money, which was formerlydesigned to promote the comfort and tranquillity of the woman I adored,may now, through strange and painful circumstances, be devoted to thesame purpose.

  “Oh, feel for me, who could offer millions to that poor woman, but whoreturn her only the piece of black bread forgotten under my poor roofsince the day I was torn from her I loved. You are a generous man,Albert, but perhaps you may be blinded by pride or resentment; if yourefuse me, if you ask another for what I have a right to offer you, Iwill say it is ungenerous of you to refuse the life of your mother atthe hands of a man whose father was allowed by your father to die in allthe horrors of poverty and despair.”

  Albert stood pale and motionless to hear what his mother would decideafter she had finished reading this letter. Mercédès turned her eyeswith an ineffable look towards heaven.

  “I accept it,” said she; “he has a right to pay the dowry, which I shalltake with me to some convent!”

  Putting the letter in her bosom, she took her son’s arm, and with afirmer step than she even herself expected she went downstairs.