The Count of Monte Cristo
Passage du Pont-Neuf. She descended, and went through the passage. She
was very plainly dressed, as would be the case with a woman of taste
walking in the morning. At the Rue Guénégaud she called a cab, and
directed the driver to go to the Rue de Harlay. As soon as she was
seated in the vehicle, she drew from her pocket a very thick black
veil, which she tied on to her straw bonnet. She then replaced the
bonnet, and saw with pleasure, in a little pocket-mirror, that her
white complexion and brilliant eyes were alone visible. The cab crossed
the Pont-Neuf and entered the Rue de Harlay by the Place Dauphine; the
driver was paid as the door opened, and stepping lightly up the stairs
Madame Danglars soon reached the Salle des Pas-Perdus.
There was a great deal going on that morning, and many business-like
persons at the Palais; business-like persons pay very little attention
to women, and Madame Danglars crossed the hall without exciting any
more attention than any other woman calling upon her lawyer.
There was a great press of people in M. de Villefort’s antechamber, but
Madame Danglars had no occasion even to pronounce her name. The instant
she appeared the door-keeper rose, came to her, and asked her whether
she was not the person with whom the procureur had made an appointment;
and on her affirmative answer being given, he conducted her by a
private passage to M. de Villefort’s office.
The magistrate was seated in an armchair, writing, with his back
towards the door; he did not move as he heard it open, and the
door-keeper pronounce the words, “Walk in, madame,” and then reclose
it; but no sooner had the man’s footsteps ceased, than he started up,
drew the bolts, closed the curtains, and examined every corner of the
room. Then, when he had assured himself that he could neither be seen
nor heard, and was consequently relieved of doubts, he said:
“Thanks, madame,—thanks for your punctuality;” and he offered a chair
to Madame Danglars, which she accepted, for her heart beat so violently
that she felt nearly suffocated.
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“It is a long time, madame,” said the procureur, describing a
half-circle with his chair, so as to place himself exactly opposite to
Madame Danglars,—“it is a long time since I had the pleasure of
speaking alone with you, and I regret that we have only now met to
enter upon a painful conversation.”
“Nevertheless, sir, you see I have answered your first appeal, although
certainly the conversation must be much more painful for me than for
you.” Villefort smiled bitterly.
“It is true, then,” he said, rather uttering his thoughts aloud than
addressing his companion,—“it is true, then, that all our actions leave
their traces—some sad, others bright—on our paths; it is true that
every step in our lives is like the course of an insect on the
sands;—it leaves its track! Alas, to many the path is traced by tears.”
“Sir,” said Madame Danglars, “you can feel for my emotion, can you not?
Spare me, then, I beseech you. When I look at this room,—whence so many
guilty creatures have departed, trembling and ashamed, when I look at
that chair before which I now sit trembling and ashamed,—oh, it
requires all my reason to convince me that I am not a very guilty woman
and you a menacing judge.”
Villefort dropped his head and sighed.
“And I,” he said, “I feel that my place is not in the judge’s seat, but
on the prisoner’s bench.”
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“You?” said Madame Danglars.
“Yes, I.”
“I think, sir, you exaggerate your situation,” said Madame Danglars,
whose beautiful eyes sparkled for a moment. “The paths of which you
were just speaking have been traced by all young men of ardent
imaginations. Besides the pleasure, there is always remorse from the
indulgence of our passions, and, after all, what have you men to fear
from all this? the world excuses, and notoriety ennobles you.”
“Madame,” replied Villefort, “you know that I am no hypocrite, or, at
least, that I never deceive without a reason. If my brow be severe, it
is because many misfortunes have clouded it; if my heart be petrified,
it is that it might sustain the blows it has received. I was not so in
my youth, I was not so on the night of the betrothal, when we were all
seated around a table in the Rue du Cours at Marseilles. But since then
everything has changed in and about me; I am accustomed to brave
difficulties, and, in the conflict to crush those who, by their own
free will, or by chance, voluntarily or involuntarily, interfere with
me in my career. It is generally the case that what we most ardently
desire is as ardently withheld from us by those who wish to obtain it,
or from whom we attempt to snatch it. Thus, the greater number of a
man’s errors come before him disguised under the specious form of
necessity; then, after error has been committed in a moment of
excitement, of delirium, or of fear, we see that we might have avoided
and escaped it. The means we might have used, which we in our blindness
could not see, then seem simple and easy, and we say, ‘Why did I not do
this, instead of that?’ Women, on the contrary, are rarely tormented
with remorse; for the decision does not come from you,—your misfortunes
are generally imposed upon you, and your faults the results of others’
crimes.”
“In any case, sir, you will allow,” replied Madame Danglars, “that,
even if the fault were alone mine, I last night received a severe
punishment for it.”
“Poor thing,” said Villefort, pressing her hand, “it was too severe for
your strength, for you were twice overwhelmed, and yet——”
“Well?”
“Well, I must tell you. Collect all your courage, for you have not yet
heard all.”
“Ah,” exclaimed Madame Danglars, alarmed, “what is there more to hear?”
“You only look back to the past, and it is, indeed, bad enough. Well,
picture to yourself a future more gloomy still—certainly frightful,
perhaps sanguinary!”
The baroness knew how calm Villefort naturally was, and his present
excitement frightened her so much that she opened her mouth to scream,
but the sound died in her throat.
“How has this terrible past been recalled?” cried Villefort; “how is it
that it has escaped from the depths of the tomb and the recesses of our
hearts, where it was buried, to visit us now, like a phantom, whitening
our cheeks and flushing our brows with shame?”
“Alas,” said Hermine, “doubtless it is chance.”
“Chance?” replied Villefort; “No, no, madame, there is no such thing as
chance.”
“Oh, yes; has not a fatal chance revealed all this? Was it not by
chance the Count of Monte Cristo bought that house? Was it not by
chance he caused the earth to be dug up? Is it not by chance that the
unfortunate child was disinterred under the trees?—that poor innocent
offspring of mine, which I never even kissed, but for whom I wept many,
many tears. Ah, my heart clung to the count when he mentioned the dear
spoil found beneath the flowers.”
“Well, no, madame,—this is the terrible news I have to tell you,” said
Villefort in a hollow voice—“no, nothing was found beneath the flowers;
there was no child disinterred—no. You must not weep, no, you must not
groan, you must tremble!”
“What can you mean?” asked Madame Danglars, shuddering.
“I mean that M. de Monte Cristo, digging underneath these trees, found
neither skeleton nor chest, because neither of them was there!”
“Neither of them there?” repeated Madame Danglars, her staring,
wide-open eyes expressing her alarm. “Neither of them there!” she again
said, as though striving to impress herself with the meaning of the
words which escaped her.
“No,” said Villefort, burying his face in his hands, “no, a hundred
times no!”
“Then you did not bury the poor child there, sir? Why did you deceive
me? Where did you place it? tell me—where?”
“There! But listen to me—listen—and you will pity me who has for twenty
years alone borne the heavy burden of grief I am about to reveal,
without casting the least portion upon you.”
“Oh, you frighten me! But speak; I will listen.”
“You recollect that sad night, when you were half-expiring on that bed
in the red damask room, while I, scarcely less agitated than you,
awaited your delivery. The child was born, was given to me—motionless,
breathless, voiceless; we thought it dead.”
Madame Danglars moved rapidly, as though she would spring from her
chair, but Villefort stopped, and clasped his hands as if to implore
her attention.
“We thought it dead,” he repeated; “I placed it in the chest, which was
to take the place of a coffin; I descended to the garden, I dug a hole,
and then flung it down in haste. Scarcely had I covered it with earth,
when the arm of the Corsican was stretched towards me; I saw a shadow
rise, and, at the same time, a flash of light. I felt pain; I wished to
cry out, but an icy shiver ran through my veins and stifled my voice; I
fell lifeless, and fancied myself killed. Never shall I forget your
sublime courage, when, having returned to consciousness, I dragged
myself to the foot of the stairs, and you, almost dying yourself, came
to meet me. We were obliged to keep silent upon the dreadful
catastrophe. You had the fortitude to regain the house, assisted by
your nurse. A duel was the pretext for my wound. Though we scarcely
expected it, our secret remained in our own keeping alone. I was taken
to Versailles; for three months I struggled with death; at last, as I
seemed to cling to life, I was ordered to the South. Four men carried
me from Paris to Châlons, walking six leagues a day; Madame de
Villefort followed the litter in her carriage. At Châlons I was put
upon the Saône, thence I passed on to the Rhône, whence I descended,
merely with the current, to Arles; at Arles I was again placed on my
litter, and continued my journey to Marseilles. My recovery lasted six
months. I never heard you mentioned, and I did not dare inquire for
you. When I returned to Paris, I learned that you, the widow of M. de
Nargonne, had married M. Danglars.
“What was the subject of my thoughts from the time consciousness
returned to me? Always the same—always the child’s corpse, coming every
night in my dreams, rising from the earth, and hovering over the grave
with menacing look and gesture. I inquired immediately on my return to
Paris; the house had not been inhabited since we left it, but it had
just been let for nine years. I found the tenant. I pretended that I
disliked the idea that a house belonging to my wife’s father and mother
should pass into the hands of strangers. I offered to pay them for
cancelling the lease; they demanded 6,000 francs. I would have given
10,000—I would have given 20,000. I had the money with me; I made the
tenant sign the deed of resilition, and when I had obtained what I so
much wanted, I galloped to Auteuil. No one had entered the house since
I had left it.
“It was five o’clock in the afternoon; I ascended into the red room,
and waited for night. There all the thoughts which had disturbed me
during my year of constant agony came back with double force. The
Corsican, who had declared the vendetta against me, who had followed me
from Nîmes to Paris, who had hid himself in the garden, who had struck
me, had seen me dig the grave, had seen me inter the child,—he might
become acquainted with your person,—nay, he might even then have known
it. Would he not one day make you pay for keeping this terrible secret?
Would it not be a sweet revenge for him when he found that I had not
died from the blow of his dagger? It was therefore necessary, before
everything else, and at all risks, that I should cause all traces of
the past to disappear—that I should destroy every material vestige; too
much reality would always remain in my recollection. It was for this I