Chapter 111. Expiation
Notwithstanding the density of the crowd, M. de Villefort saw it openbefore him. There is something so awe-inspiring in great afflictionsthat even in the worst times the first emotion of a crowd has generallybeen to sympathize with the sufferer in a great catastrophe. Many peoplehave been assassinated in a tumult, but even criminals have rarely beeninsulted during trial. Thus Villefort passed through the mass ofspectators and officers of the Palais, and withdrew. Though he hadacknowledged his guilt, he was protected by his grief. There are somesituations which men understand by instinct, but which reason ispowerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who givesutterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of sorrow. Those whohear the bitter cry are as much impressed as if they listened to anentire poem, and when the sufferer is sincere they are right inregarding his outburst as sublime.
It would be difficult to describe the state of stupor in which Villefortleft the Palais. Every pulse beat with feverish excitement, every nervewas strained, every vein swollen, and every part of his body seemed tosuffer distinctly from the rest, thus multiplying his agony a thousand-fold. He made his way along the corridors through force of habit; hethrew aside his magisterial robe, not out of deference to etiquette, butbecause it was an unbearable burden, a veritable garb of Nessus,insatiate in torture. Having staggered as far as the Rue Dauphine, heperceived his carriage, awoke his sleeping coachman by opening the doorhimself, threw himself on the cushions, and pointed towards the FaubourgSaint-Honoré; the carriage drove on.
All the weight of his fallen fortune seemed suddenly to crush him; hecould not foresee the consequences; he could not contemplate the futurewith the indifference of the hardened criminal who merely faces acontingency already familiar.
God was still in his heart. “God,” he murmured, not knowing what hesaid,—“God—God!” Behind the event that had overwhelmed him he saw thehand of God. The carriage rolled rapidly onward. Villefort, whileturning restlessly on the cushions, felt something press against him. Heput out his hand to remove the object; it was a fan which Madame deVillefort had left in the carriage; this fan awakened a recollectionwhich darted through his mind like lightning. He thought of his wife.
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“Oh!” he exclaimed, as though a red-hot iron were piercing his heart.
During the last hour his own crime had alone been presented to his mind;now another object, not less terrible, suddenly presented itself. Hiswife! He had just acted the inexorable judge with her, he had condemnedher to death, and she, crushed by remorse, struck with terror, coveredwith the shame inspired by the eloquence of his irreproachablevirtue,—she, a poor, weak woman, without help or the power of defendingherself against his absolute and supreme will,—she might at that verymoment, perhaps, be preparing to die!
An hour had elapsed since her condemnation; at that moment, doubtless,she was recalling all her crimes to her memory; she was asking pardonfor her sins; perhaps she was even writing a letter imploringforgiveness from her virtuous husband—a forgiveness she was purchasingwith her death! Villefort again groaned with anguish and despair.
“Ah,” he exclaimed, “that woman became criminal only from associatingwith me! I carried the infection of crime with me, and she has caught itas she would the typhus fever, the cholera, the plague! And yet I havepunished her—I have dared to tell her—I have—‘Repent and die!’ But no,she must not die; she shall live, and with me. We will flee from Parisand go as far as the earth reaches. I told her of the scaffold; oh,Heavens, I forgot that it awaits me also! How could I pronounce thatword? Yes, we will fly; I will confess all to her,—I will tell her dailythat I also have committed a crime!—Oh, what an alliance—the tiger andthe serpent; worthy wife of such as I am! She must live that my infamymay diminish hers.”
And Villefort dashed open the window in front of the carriage.
“Faster, faster!” he cried, in a tone which electrified the coachman.The horses, impelled by fear, flew towards the house.
“Yes, yes,” repeated Villefort, as he approached his home—“yes, thatwoman must live; she must repent, and educate my son, the sole survivor,with the exception of the indestructible old man, of the wreck of myhouse. She loves him; it was for his sake she has committed thesecrimes. We ought never to despair of softening the heart of a mother wholoves her child. She will repent, and no one will know that she has beenguilty. The events which have taken place in my house, though they nowoccupy the public mind, will be forgotten in time, or if, indeed, a fewenemies should persist in remembering them, why then I will add them tomy list of crimes. What will it signify if one, two, or three more areadded? My wife and child shall escape from this gulf, carrying treasureswith them; she will live and may yet be happy, since her child, in whomall her love is centred, will be with her. I shall have performed a goodaction, and my heart will be lighter.”
And the procureur breathed more freely than he had done for some time.
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The carriage stopped at the door of the house. Villefort leaped out ofthe carriage, and saw that his servants were surprised at his earlyreturn; he could read no other expression on their features. Neither ofthem spoke to him; they merely stood aside to let him pass by, as usual,nothing more. As he passed by M. Noirtier’s room, he perceived twofigures through the half-open door; but he experienced no curiosity toknow who was visiting his father; anxiety carried him on further.
“Come,” he said, as he ascended the stairs leading to his wife’s room,“nothing is changed here.”
He then closed the door of the landing.
“No one must disturb us,” he said; “I must speak freely to her, accusemyself, and say”—he approached the door, touched the crystal handle,which yielded to his hand. “Not locked,” he cried; “that is well.”
And he entered the little room in which Edward slept; for though thechild went to school during the day, his mother could not allow him tobe separated from her at night. With a single glance Villefort’s eye ranthrough the room.
“Not here,” he said; “doubtless she is in her bedroom.” He rushedtowards the door, found it bolted, and stopped, shuddering.
“Héloïse!” he cried. He fancied he heard the sound of a piece offurniture being removed.
“Héloïse!” he repeated.
“Who is there?” answered the voice of her he sought. He thought thatvoice more feeble than usual.
“Open the door!” cried Villefort. “Open; it is I.”
But notwithstanding this request, notwithstanding the tone of anguish inwhich it was uttered, the door remained closed. Villefort burst it openwith a violent blow. At the entrance of the room which led to herboudoir, Madame de Villefort was standing erect, pale, her featurescontracted, and her eyes glaring horribly.
“Héloïse, Héloïse!” he said, “what is the matter? Speak!” The youngwoman extended her stiff white hands towards him.
“It is done, monsieur,” she said with a rattling noise which seemed totear her throat. “What more do you want?” and she fell full length onthe floor.
Villefort ran to her and seized her hand, which convulsively clasped acrystal bottle with a golden stopper. Madame de Villefort was dead.Villefort, maddened with horror, stepped back to the threshhold of thedoor, fixing his eyes on the corpse.
“My son!” he exclaimed suddenly, “where is my son?—Edward, Edward!” andhe rushed out of the room, still crying, “Edward, Edward!” The name waspronounced in such a tone of anguish that the servants ran up.
“Where is my son?” asked Villefort; “let him be removed from the house,that he may not see——”
“Master Edward is not downstairs, sir,” replied the valet.
“Then he must be playing in the garden; go and see.”
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“No, sir; Madame de Villefort sent for him half an hour ago; he wentinto her room, and has not been downstairs since.”
A cold perspiration burst out on Villefort’s brow; his legs tr
embled,and his thoughts flew about madly in his brain like the wheels of adisordered watch.
“In Madame de Villefort’s room?” he murmured and slowly returned, withone hand wiping his forehead, and with the other supporting himselfagainst the wall. To enter the room he must again see the body of hisunfortunate wife. To call Edward he must reawaken the echo of that roomwhich now appeared like a sepulchre; to speak seemed like violating thesilence of the tomb. His tongue was paralyzed in his mouth.
“Edward!” he stammered—“Edward!”
The child did not answer. Where, then, could he be, if he had enteredhis mother’s room and not since returned? He stepped forward. The corpseof Madame de Villefort was stretched across the doorway leading to theroom in which Edward must be; those glaring eyes seemed to watch overthe threshold, and the lips bore the stamp of a terrible and mysteriousirony. Through the open door was visible a portion of the boudoir,containing an upright piano and a blue satin couch. Villefort steppedforward two or three paces, and beheld his child lying—no doubtasleep—on the sofa. The unhappy man uttered an exclamation of joy; a rayof light seemed to penetrate the abyss of despair and darkness. He hadonly to step over the corpse, enter the boudoir, take the child in hisarms, and flee far, far away.
Villefort was no longer the civilized man; he was a tiger hurt untodeath, gnashing his teeth in his wound. He no longer feared realities,but phantoms. He leaped over the corpse as if it had been a burningbrazier. He took the child in his arms, embraced him, shook him, calledhim, but the child made no response. He pressed his burning lips to thecheeks, but they were icy cold and pale; he felt the stiffened limbs; hepressed his hand upon the heart, but it no longer beat,—the child wasdead.
A folded paper fell from Edward’s breast. Villefort, thunderstruck, fellupon his knees; the child dropped from his arms, and rolled on the floorby the side of its mother. He picked up the paper, and, recognizing hiswife’s writing, ran his eyes rapidly over its contents; it ran asfollows:
“You know that I was a good mother, since it was for my son’s sake Ibecame criminal. A good mother cannot depart without her son.”
Villefort could not believe his eyes,—he could not believe his reason;he dragged himself towards the child’s body, and examined it as alioness contemplates its dead cub. Then a piercing cry escaped from hisbreast, and he cried,
“Still the hand of God.”
The presence of the two victims alarmed him; he could not bear solitudeshared only by two corpses. Until then he had been sustained by rage, byhis strength of mind, by despair, by the supreme agony which led theTitans to scale the heavens, and Ajax to defy the gods. He now arose,his head bowed beneath the weight of grief, and, shaking his damp,dishevelled hair, he who had never felt compassion for anyone determinedto seek his father, that he might have someone to whom he could relatehis misfortunes,—someone by whose side he might weep.
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He descended the little staircase with which we are acquainted, andentered Noirtier’s room. The old man appeared to be listeningattentively and as affectionately as his infirmities would allow to theAbbé Busoni, who looked cold and calm, as usual. Villefort, perceivingthe abbé, passed his hand across his brow. The past came to him like oneof those waves whose wrath foams fiercer than the others.
He recollected the call he had made upon him after the dinner atAuteuil, and then the visit the abbé had himself paid to his house onthe day of Valentine’s death.
“You here, sir!” he exclaimed; “do you, then, never appear but to act asan escort to death?”
Busoni turned around, and, perceiving the excitement depicted on themagistrate’s face, the savage lustre of his eyes, he understood that therevelation had been made at the assizes; but beyond this he wasignorant.
“I came to pray over the body of your daughter.”
“And now why are you here?”
“I come to tell you that you have sufficiently repaid your debt, andthat from this moment I will pray to God to forgive you, as I do.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Villefort, stepping back fearfully, “surelythat is not the voice of the Abbé Busoni!”
“No!” The abbé threw off his wig, shook his head, and his hair, nolonger confined, fell in black masses around his manly face.
“It is the face of the Count of Monte Cristo!” exclaimed the procureur,with a haggard expression.
“You are not exactly right, M. Procureur; you must go farther back.”
“That voice, that voice!—where did I first hear it?”
“You heard it for the first time at Marseilles, twenty-three years ago,the day of your marriage with Mademoiselle de Saint-Méran. Refer to yourpapers.”
“You are not Busoni?—you are not Monte Cristo? Oh, heavens! you are,then, some secret, implacable, and mortal enemy! I must have wronged youin some way at Marseilles. Oh, woe to me!”
“Yes; you are now on the right path,” said the count, crossing his armsover his broad chest; “search—search!”
“But what have I done to you?” exclaimed Villefort, whose mind wasbalancing between reason and insanity, in that cloud which is neither adream nor reality; “what have I done to you? Tell me, then! Speak!”
“You condemned me to a horrible, tedious death; you killed my father;you deprived me of liberty, of love, and happiness.”
“Who are you, then? Who are you?”
“I am the spectre of a wretch you buried in the dungeons of the Châteaud’If. God gave that spectre the form of the Count of Monte Cristo whenhe at length issued from his tomb, enriched him with gold and diamonds,and led him to you!”
“Ah, I recognize you—I recognize you!” exclaimed the king’s attorney;“you are——”
“I am Edmond Dantès!”
“You are Edmond Dantès,” cried Villefort, seizing the count by thewrist; “then come here!”
And up the stairs he dragged Monte Cristo; who, ignorant of what hadhappened, followed him in astonishment, foreseeing some new catastrophe.
“There, Edmond Dantès!” he said, pointing to the bodies of his wife andchild, “see, are you well avenged?”
Monte Cristo became pale at this horrible sight; he felt that he hadpassed beyond the bounds of vengeance, and that he could no longer say,“God is for and with me.” With an expression of indescribable anguish hethrew himself upon the body of the child, reopened its eyes, felt itspulse, and then rushed with him into Valentine’s room, of which hedouble-locked the door.
“My child,” cried Villefort, “he carries away the body of my child! Oh,curses, woe, death to you!”
He tried to follow Monte Cristo; but as though in a dream he wastransfixed to the spot,—his eyes glared as though they were startingthrough the sockets; he griped the flesh on his chest until his nailswere stained with blood; the veins of his temples swelled and boiled asthough they would burst their narrow boundary, and deluge his brain withliving fire. This lasted several minutes, until the frightful overturnof reason was accomplished; then uttering a loud cry followed by a burstof laughter, he rushed down the stairs.
A quarter of an hour afterwards the door of Valentine’s room opened, andMonte Cristo reappeared. Pale, with a dull eye and heavy heart, all thenoble features of that face, usually so calm and serene, were overcastby grief. In his arms he held the child, whom no skill had been able torecall to life. Bending on one knee, he placed it reverently by the sideof its mother, with its head upon her breast. Then, rising, he went out,and meeting a servant on the stairs, he asked:
“Where is M. de Villefort?”
The servant, instead of answering, pointed to the garden. Monte Cristoran down the steps, and advancing towards the spot designated beheldVillefort, encircled by his servants, with a spade in his hand, anddigging the earth with fury.
“It is not here!” he cried. “It is not here!”
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And then he moved farther on, and began again to dig.
Monte Cristo approached him, and said in a low voice
, with an expressionalmost humble:
“Sir, you have indeed lost a son; but——”
Villefort interrupted him; he had neither listened nor heard.
“Oh, I will find it,” he cried; “you may pretend he is not here, but Iwill find him, though I dig forever!”
Monte Cristo drew back in horror.
“Oh,” he said, “he is mad!” And as though he feared that the walls ofthe accursed house would crumble around him, he rushed into the street,for the first time doubting whether he had the right to do as he haddone. “Oh, enough of this,—enough of this,” he cried; “let me save thelast.” On entering his house, he met Morrel, who wandered about like aghost awaiting the heavenly mandate for return to the tomb.
“Prepare yourself, Maximilian,” he said with a smile; “we leave Paristomorrow.”
“Have you nothing more to do there?” asked Morrel.
“No,” replied Monte Cristo; “God grant I may not have done too muchalready.”
The next day they indeed left, accompanied only by Baptistin. Haydée hadtaken away Ali, and Bertuccio remained with Noirtier.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated Page 112