The Count of Monte Cristo

by Alexandre Dumas

  ‘Very good, he accepts,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘Let’s go.’

  Hardly had he said the words than the carriage began to move and the horses’ hoofs struck a shower of sparks from the cobbles. Maximilien settled into his corner without saying a word.

  After half an hour, the coach suddenly stopped: the count had just tugged on the silver thread attached to Ali’s finger. The Nubian got down and opened the door.

  The night was shining with stars. They were at the top of the Montée de Villejuif, on the plateau from which Paris is a dark sea shimmering with millions of lights like phosphorescent waves; and waves they are, more thunderous, more passionate, more shifting, more furious and more greedy than those of the stormy ocean, waves which never experience the tranquillity of a vast sea, but constantly pound together, ever foaming and engulfing everything!

  The count stayed alone and motioned for the carriage to come forward. Then he stood for a long time with his arms crossed, contemplating this furnace in which all the ideas that rise, boiling, from the depths to shake the world melt, twine and take shape. Then, when he had turned his powerful gaze on this Babylon which inspires religious poets as it does materialistic sceptics, he bent his head and clasped his hands as if in prayer, and murmured: ‘Great city, it is less than six months since I came through your gates. I think that the spirit of God brought me here and takes me away triumphant. To God, who alone can read my heart, I confided the secret of my presence within your walls. He alone knows that I am leaving without hatred and without pride, but not without regret. He alone knows that I employed the power with which He had entrusted me, not for myself, nor for any idle purpose. O great city! In your heaving breast I found what I was looking for; like a patient miner, I churned your entrails to expel the evil from them. Now my work is complete, my mission accomplished; now you can offer me no further joys or sorrows. Farewell, Paris! Farewell!’

  His eyes, like those of some spirit of the night, swept once more across the vast plain. Then, mopping his brow, he got back into the carriage, closing the door behind him, and they had soon vanished down the far side of the hill in a welter of dust and noise. They covered two leagues in utter silence. Morrel was dreaming, Monte Cristo watching him dream.

  ‘Morrel,’ the count asked, ‘do you regret coming with me?’

  ‘No, Count; but leaving Paris, perhaps…’

  ‘If I had thought that happiness awaited you in Paris, Morrel, I should have left you there.’

  ‘But it is in Paris that Valentine rests, and leaving Paris is to lose her for the second time.’

  ‘Maximilien,’ the count said, ‘the friends whom we have lost do not rest in the earth, they are buried in our hearts, and that is how God wanted it, so that we should always be in their company. I have two friends who are always with me, in that way: one is the man who gave me life, the other is the one who gave me understanding. The spirit of both lives in me. I consult them when I am in doubt and, if I have done any good, I owe it to their advice. Look into your heart, Morrel, and ask it if you should continue to show me that sorry face.’

  ‘My friend,’ said Maximilien, ‘the voice of my heart is sad indeed and promises only misfortune.’

  ‘Only a weak spirit sees everything from behind a dark veil. The soul makes its own horizons; your soul is overcast, and that is why the sky seems stormy to you.’

  ‘That may be true,’ Maximilien said, then he reverted to his reverie.

  The journey was accomplished with that astonishing speed that was a peculiar talent of the count’s. Towns passed by like shadows on the road; the trees, shaken by the first winds of autumn, seemed to rise up before them like dishevelled giants and fled rapidly into the distance as soon as they had caught up with them. The next morning they arrived at Chalon, where the count’s steamship was waiting. Without wasting an instant, the carriage was put on board and, even before that, the two travellers had embarked.

  The ship was built for speed, like an Indian dugout. Its two paddle-wheels were like two wings on which it skimmed the water – a migrating bird. Morrel himself experienced that heady intoxication of speed, and at times the wind, lifting his hair, seemed also for a moment nearly to lift the cloud from his brow.

  As for the count, the further he moved away from Paris, the more a sort of inhuman serenity appeared to envelop him like an aura. It was as though an exile was returning home.

  Soon Marseille – white, warm, throbbing with life; Marseille, twin sister of Tyre and Carthage, their successor as ruler of the Mediterranean; Marseille, ever younger, the older she grows – Marseille appeared before them. For both men the scene was rich in memories: the round tower, the Fort Saint-Nicholas, Puget’s town hall and the port with its brick quays where both of them had played as children.

  So, by common agreement, they stopped on the Canebière.

  A ship was leaving for Algiers. The packages, the passengers crowded on the deck, the host of friends and relations saying goodbye, shouting, weeping, made a spectacle that is always moving, even for those who see it every day; but even this commotion could not take Maximilien’s mind off something that had struck him as soon as he set foot on the broad stones of the quay.

  ‘Look,’ he said, taking Monte Cristo’s arm. ‘This is the place where my father stopped when the Pharaon came into port. Here the good man whom you saved from death and dishonour threw himself into my arms. I can still feel his tears on my face – and he did not weep alone. Many other people were in tears when they saw us.’

  Monte Cristo smiled.

  ‘I was there,’ he said, showing Morrel the corner of a street.

  As he said this, from the direction towards which the count was pointing they heard a painful groan and saw a woman waving to a passenger on the boat that was about to leave. The woman was veiled. Monte Cristo watched her with an emotion that Morrel would easily have perceived if, unlike the count’s, his eyes had not been fixed on the boat.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ he cried. ‘I’m right! That young man waving his hat, the one in uniform: it’s Albert de Morcerf!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘I recognized him.’

  ‘How could you? You were looking in the opposite direction.’

  The count smiled, as he did when he did not want to reply; and his eyes turned back to the veiled woman, who disappeared round the corner of the street. Then he turned back to Morrel.

  ‘Dear friend,’ he said. ‘Don’t you have something to do in town?’

  ‘I must go and weep on my father’s grave,’ Morrel replied softly.

  ‘Very well. Go, and wait for me there. I shall join you.’

  ‘Are you leaving me?’

  ‘Yes. I too have a pious duty to perform.’

  Morrel placed a limp hand in the one the count offered him. Then, with an indescribably melancholy movement of the head, he left his companion and walked towards the east of the town. Monte Cristo let him go, remaining on the same spot until he had disappeared, before turning towards the Allées de Meilhan, going back to the little house that our readers must remember from the start of this story.

  The house was still standing in the shadow of the great avenue of lime-trees which serves idle Marseillais as a place to stroll, furnished with huge curtains of vines which cross their arms, blackened and shredded by age, on stones turned yellow by the burning southern sun. Two stone steps, worn down by passing feet, led to the door, which consisted of three planks, repaired every year but never touched by putty or paint, patiently waiting for the damp to reunite them.

  Old as it was, the house was charming, joyful despite its evident poverty, and still the same as the one where Old Dantès had once lived. The difference was that the old man used to occupy the attic, and the count had put the entire house at Mercédès’ disposal.

  The woman whom Monte Cristo had seen leaving the departing ship came here and was shutting the door just as he appeared at the corner of the street, so that he saw her vanish almost as soon as he caught
up with her. The worn steps were old acquaintances and he knew better than anyone how to open the old door, its inner latch raised by a broad-headed hook. He went in without knocking or calling, like a friend, like a guest.

  At the end of a passage paved in brick lay a little garden, bathed in warmth, sun and light. Here, at the place he had mentioned, Mercédès had found the money that the count had considerately put there twenty-five years earlier. The trees of this garden could be seen from the street door. As he reached the threshold, Monte Cristo heard a sigh which was like a sob. This sigh guided his eyes to a leafy arbour of jasmine with long purple flowers, where he saw Mercédès sitting, weeping.

  She had raised her veil and, alone in the sight of heaven, her face hidden in her hands, she freely abandoned herself to the sighs and tears that she had repressed for so long in her son’s presence.

  Monte Cristo took a few steps forward, the sand crunching under his feet. Mercédès looked up and cried out in terror at seeing a man in front of her.

  ‘Madame,’ the count said, ‘I am no longer able to bring you happiness, but I can give you consolation. Would you accept it, as from a friend?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Mercédès, ‘I am very unhappy, and alone in the world. I only had my son and he has left me.’

  ‘He did the right thing,’ the count replied. ‘He has a noble heart. He realized that every man owes some debt to his country: some give their talents, others their hard work; some watch, others bleed. Had he stayed with you, he would have wasted a life that had become useless to him and would have been unable to accustom himself to your grief. The frustration would have filled him with hatred. Now he will become great and strong by struggling against adversities that he will change into good fortune. Let him rebuild the future for both of you, Madame. I can promise that he is in good hands.’

  ‘Alas,’ the poor woman murmured, sadly shaking her head, ‘I shall not enjoy this good fortune that you speak of and which with all my heart I pray God to give him. So much has been broken in me and around me that I feel I am near to my grave. You did well, Count, in bringing me close to the place where I was so happy: one should die in the place in which one was happy.’

  ‘Madame!’ Monte Cristo exclaimed. ‘Every one of your words falls, bitter and burning, on my heart, and all the more so since you have cause to hate me. I am responsible for all your misfortunes. Why do you not pity me instead of accusing me? You would make me still more unhappy…’

  ‘Hate you, Edmond! Accuse you! Am I to hate the man who saved my son’s life – because it was your deadly and bloody intent, was it not, to kill the son of whom Monsieur de Morcerf was so proud? Oh, look at me and see if there is the glimmer of a reproach in me.’

  The count looked up and fixed his eyes on Mercédès who, half standing, was holding both hands towards him.

  ‘Look at me,’ she went on, with a feeling of profound melancholy. ‘Today, a man can bear to see the sparkle in my eyes. The days have gone when I used to smile at Edmond Dantès, as he waited for me up there, by the window of the garret where his old father lived… Since then, many sad days have gone by, digging a gulf between me and that time. Accuse you, Edmond! Hate you, my friend! No, it is myself that I accuse and hate! Oh, wretch that I am!’ she cried, clasping her hands and raising her eyes to heaven. ‘Have I been punished enough! I had religion, innocence and love, the three gifts that make angels, and, wretch as I am, I doubted God.’

  Monte Cristo took a step towards her and silently offered his hand; but she gently drew back her own. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, my friend, do not touch me. You have spared me, but of all those whom you have struck, I was the most guilty. The others acted out of hatred, greed or selfishness, but I was a coward. They wanted something, I was afraid. No, don’t squeeze my hand, Edmond. I can see that you are about to say something kind; but don’t… Keep it for someone else, I no longer deserve your affection. See…’ (she completely removed her veil) ‘See: misfortune has turned my hair grey and my eyes have shed so many tears that there are dark rings round them; and my forehead is furrowed. But you, Edmond, you are still young, still handsome and still proud. You did have faith, you had strength, you trusted in God, and God sustained you. I was a coward, I denied Him, so God abandoned me; and here I am!’

  Mercédès burst into tears, her heart breaking under the weight of memory.

  Monte Cristo took her hand and kissed it respectfully, but she herself felt that the kiss was passionless, as if his lips were pressing the marble hand of the statue of some saint.

  ‘Some lives,’ she continued, ‘are predestined, so that a single error destroys all that is to come. I thought you dead, I should have died. What was the sense in eternally mourning for you in my heart? Nothing, except to make a woman of fifty out of one of thirty-nine. What good did it do that, once I had recognized you, of everyone I managed to save only my son? Should I not also have saved the man, guilty though he was, whom I had accepted as my husband? Yet I let him die – oh, God! What am I saying! I contributed to his death by my cowardly insensitivity and my contempt, forgetting, or not wanting to remember, that it was for my sake that he became a perjurer and a traitor. Finally, what is the use in my having accompanied my son here if I let him leave alone, if I abandon him, if I deliver him to the hungry land of Africa? Oh, I tell you, I was a coward. I disowned my love and, like a turncoat, I bring misfortune to all those around me.’

  ‘No, Mercédès,’ Monte Cristo said. ‘No, think better of yourself. You are a noble and devout woman, and your grief disarmed me. But behind me was God, an invisible, unknown and jealous God, whose envoy I was and who did not choose to restrain the lightning bolt that I unleashed. Oh, I implore that God, at whose feet I have prostrated myself every day for ten years, and I call on Him to witness that I did sacrifice my life to you and with it all the plans that depended on it. But – and I say this with pride, Mercédès – God needed me, and I lived. Look at the past, look at the present, try to divine the future and consider whether I am not the instrument of the Lord. The most frightful misfortunes, the most cruel suffering, the abandonment of all those who loved me and persecution by those who did not know me: this was the first part of my life. Then, suddenly, after captivity, solitude and misery, air, freedom and a fortune so brilliant, so imposing and so extravagant that, unless I was blind, I must have thought that God had sent it to me for some great purpose. From then on, that fortune seemed to me a holy vocation; from then on, there was not one further thought in me for that life, the sweetness of which you, poor woman, have sometimes partaken. Not an hour of calm, not a single hour. I felt myself driven like a cloud of flame through the sky to destroy the cities of the plain. Like those adventurous captains who set off on some dangerous voyage or prepare for a perilous expedition, I got together my supplies, I loaded my weapons and I gathered the means of attack and defence, making my body used to the most violent exercise and my soul to the roughest shocks, teaching my arm to kill, my eyes to see suffering and my mouth to smile at the most dreadful of spectacles. Kind, trustful and forgiving as I was, I made myself vengeful, secretive and cruel – or, rather, impassive like fate itself, which is deaf and blind. Then I launched myself down the road that I had opened, plunging forward until I reached my goal. Woe betide whomsoever I met on my path!’

  ‘Enough!’ Mercédès cried. ‘Edmond, enough! You may believe that the only person to recognize you was also the only one who could understand. But, Edmond, the woman who recognized and understood you, even if you had found her standing in your way and broken her like glass, would have had to admire you, Edmond! Just as there is a gulf between me and the past, so there is a gulf between you and other men, and my most painful torture, I can tell you, is to make comparisons. There is no one in the world your equal; there is nothing that resembles you. Now, say farewell to me, Edmond, and let us be parted.’

  ‘Before I go, what do you want, Mercédès?’ Monte Cristo asked.

  ‘Only one thing, Edmond: for my
son to be happy.’

  ‘Pray God, who alone holds the lives of men in His hands, to spare him from death, and I shall take care of the rest.’

  ‘Thank you, Edmond.’

  ‘And you, Mercédès?’

  ‘I need nothing. I am living between two tombs. One is that of Edmond Dantès, who died so long ago – I loved him! The word is no longer appropriate on my shrunken lips, but my heart still remembers and I would not exchange that memory of the heart for anything in the world. The other is that of a man whom Edmond Dantès killed. I approve of the murder, but I must pray for the dead man.’

  ‘Your son will be happy, Madame,’ the count repeated.

  ‘Then I shall be as happy as I can be.’

  ‘But… what will you do?’

  Mercédès smiled sadly.

  ‘If I were to tell you that I should live in this place as Mercédès once did, that is to say by working, you would not believe me. I can no longer do anything except pray, but I do not need to work. The little treasure that you buried was still in the place that you mentioned. People will wonder who I am, and ask what I do, and have no idea how I live; but that is of no significance! It is between God, yourself and me.’

  ‘Mercédès,’ the count said, ‘I am not reproaching you, but you did make too much of a sacrifice when you gave up the whole of the fortune that Monsieur de Morcerf had accumulated: at least half of it was rightly yours, because of your good management and your vigilance.’

  ‘I know what you are about to suggest, but I cannot accept, Edmond. My son would forbid me.’

  ‘And I will be careful not to do anything for you that would not have Monsieur Albert de Morcerf’s approval. I shall find out what he intends and act accordingly. But, if he accepts what I want to do, would you cheerfully do the same?’

  ‘You know, Edmond, I am no longer a thinking creature. I have no further resolve except that of never again being resolved about anything. God has so shaken me with storms that I have lost all willpower. I am in His hands, like a sparrow in the claws of an eagle. Since I am alive, He does not want me to die. If He sends me any succour, it will be because He wants it, and I shall accept.’