The Count of Monte Cristo
At the beginning of this work, his servant, notwithstanding orders to
the 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 disturb
you, 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 the
meeting 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 what
happened 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
he was finishing this work, the sound of horses prancing in the yard,
and the wheels of a carriage shaking his window, attracted his
attention. He approached 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’s room; and, no one being there to announce him, he
advanced to her bedchamber, and distressed by what he saw and guessed,
stopped for one moment at the door.
As if the same idea had animated these two beings, Mercédès was doing
the same in her apartments that he had just done in his. Everything was
in order,—laces, dresses, jewels, linen, money, all were arranged in
the drawers, and the countess was carefully collecting the keys. Albert
saw all 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 two
countenances would certainly have made of them a beautiful picture. All
these proofs of an energetic resolution, which Albert did not fear on
his own account, alarmed him for his mother. “What are you doing?”
asked he.
“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 same
resolution I have, for I have come to warn you that I bid adieu to your
house, and—and to you.”
“I also,” replied Mercédès, “am going, and I acknowledge I had depended
on your accompanying me; have I deceived myself?”
“Mother,” said Albert with firmness. “I cannot make you share the fate
I have planned for myself. I must live henceforth without rank and
fortune, and to begin this hard apprenticeship I must borrow from a
friend 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 require to supply my present wants.”
“You, my poor child, suffer poverty and hunger? Oh, do not say so; it
will break my resolutions.”
“But not mine, mother,” replied Albert. “I am young and strong; I
believe I am courageous, and since yesterday I have learned the power
of will. 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 of
happiness which heaven had made them—on the fragments of all the hope
which God had given them! I have seen that, mother; I know that from
the gulf in which their enemies have plunged them they have risen with
so much vigor and glory that in their turn they have ruled their former
conquerors, and have punished them. No, mother; from this moment I have
done with the past, and accept nothing from it—not even a name, because
you can understand that your son cannot bear the name of a man who
ought to blush for it before another.”
“Albert, my child,” said Mercédès, “if I had a stronger heart, that is
the counsel I would have given you; your conscience has spoken when my
voice became too weak; listen to its dictates. You had friends, Albert;
break off their acquaintance. But do not despair; you have life before
you, my dear Albert, for you are yet scarcely twenty-two years old; and
as a pure heart like yours wants a spotless name, take my father’s—it
was Herrera. I am sure, my dear Albert, whatever may be your career,
you will soon render that name illustrious. Then, my son, return to the
world still more brilliant because of your former sorrows; and if I am
wrong, still let me cherish these hopes, for I have no future to look
forward to. For me the grave opens when I pass the threshold of this
house.”
“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, since
you are pure and I am innocent. But, since our resolution is formed,
let us act promptly. M. de Morcerf went out about half an hour ago; the
opportunity 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 small
furnished house to let in the Rue des Saints-Pères, where his mother
would find a humble but decent lodging, and thither he intended
conducting the countess. As the carriage stopped at the door, and
Albert was alighting, a man approached and gave him a letter.
Albert recognized the bearer. “From the count,” said Bertuccio. Albert
took 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, and
without uttering a word he gave her the letter. Mercédès read:
“Albert,—While showing you that I have discovered your plans, I hope
also to convince you of my delicacy. You are free, you leave the
count’s house, and you take your mother to your home; but reflect,
Albert, you owe her more than your poor noble heart can pay her. Keep
the struggle for yourself, bear all the suffering, but spare her the
trial of poverty which must accompany your first efforts; for she
deserves not even the shadow of the misfortune which has this day
fallen on her, and Providence is not willing that the innocent should
suffer for the guilty. I know you are going to leave the Rue du Helder
without taking anything with you. Do not seek to know how I discovered
it; I know it—that is sufficient.
“Now, listen, Albert. Twenty-four years ago I returned, proud and
joyful, to my country. I had a betrothed, Albert, a lovely girl whom I
adored, and I was bringing to my betrothed a hundred and fifty louis,
painfully amassed by ceaseless toil. This money was for her; I destined
it for her, and, knowing the treachery of the sea I buried our treasure
in the little garden of the house my father lived in at Marseilles, on
the Allées de Meilhan. Your mother, Albert, knows that poor house well.
A short time since I passed through Marseilles, and went to see the old
place, which revived so many painful recollections; and in the evening
I took a spade and dug in the corner of the garden where I had
concealed my treasure. The iron box was there—no one had touched
it—under a beautiful fig-tree my father had planted the day I was born,
which overshadowed the spot. Well, Albert, this money, which was
formerly designed to promote the comfort and tranquillity of the woman
I adored, may now, through strange and painful circumstances, be
devoted to the same purpose.
“Oh, feel for me, who could offer millions to that poor woman, but who
return her only the piece of black bread forgotten under my poor roof
since 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 you
refuse me, if you ask another for what I have a right to offer you, I
will say it is ungenerous of you to refuse the life of your mother at
the hands of a man whose father was allowed by your father to die in
all the horrors of poverty and despair.”
Albert stood pale and motionless to hear what his mother would decide
after she had finished reading this letter. Mercédès turned her eyes
with an ineffable look towards heaven.
“I accept it,” said she; “he has a right to pay the dowry, which I
shall take with me to some convent!”
Putting the letter in her bosom, she took her son’s arm, and with a
firmer step than she even herself expected she went downstairs.
Chapter 92. The Suicide
Meanwhile Monte Cristo had also returned to town with Emmanuel and
Maximilian. Their return was cheerful. Emmanuel did not conceal his joy
at the peaceful termination of the affair, and was loud in his
expressions of delight. Morrel, in a corner of the carriage, allowed
his brother-in-law’s gayety to expend itself in words, while he felt
equal inward joy, which, however, betrayed itself only in his
countenance.
At the Barrière du Trône they met Bertuccio, who was waiting there,
motionless as a sentinel at his post. Monte Cristo put his head out of
the window, exchanged a few words with him in a low tone, and the
steward disappeared.
“Count,” said Emmanuel, when they were at the end of the Place Royale,
“put me down at my door, that my wife may not have a single moment of
needless anxiety on my account or yours.”
“If it were not ridiculous to make a display of our triumph, said
Morrel, I would invite the count to our house; besides that, he
doubtless has some trembling heart to comfort. So we will take leave of
our friend, and let him hasten home.”
“Stop a moment,” said Monte Cristo; “do not let me lose both my
companions. Return, Emmanuel, to your charming wife, and present my
best compliments to her; and do you, Morrel, accompany me to the
Champs-Élysées.”
“Willingly,” said Maximilian; “particularly as I have business in that
quarter.”
“Shall we wait breakfast for you?” asked Emmanuel.
“No,” replied the young man. The door was closed, and the carriage
proceeded. “See what good fortune I brought you!” said Morrel, when he
was alone with the count. “Have you not thought so?”
“Yes,” said Monte Cristo; “for that reason I wished to keep you near
me.”
“It is miraculous!” continued Morrel, answering his own thoughts.
“What?” said Monte Cristo.
“What has just happened.”
“Yes,” said the Count, “you are right—it is miraculous.”
“For Albert is brave,” resumed Morrel.
“Very brave,” said Monte Cristo; “I have seen him sleep with a sword
suspended over his head.”
“And I know he has fought two duels,” said Morrel. “How can you
reconcile that with his conduct this morning?”
“All owing to your influence,” replied Monte Cristo, smiling.
“It is well for Albert he is not in the army,” said Morrel.
“Why?”
“An apology on the ground!” said the young captain, shaking his head.
“Come,” said the count mildly, “do not entertain the prejudices of
ordinary men, Morrel! Acknowledge, that if Albert is brave, he cannot
be a coward; he must then have had some reason for acting as he did
this morning, and confess that his conduct is more heroic than
otherwise.”
“Doubtless, doubtless,” said Morrel; “but I shall say, like the
Spaniard, ‘He has not been so brave today as he was yesterday.’”
“You will breakfast with me, will you not, Morrel?” said the count, to
turn the conversation.
“No; I must leave you at ten o’clock.”
“Your engagement was for breakfast, then?” said the count.
Morrel smiled, and shook his head.
“Still you must breakfast somewhere.”
“But if I am not hungry?” said the young man.
“Oh,” said the count, “I only know two things which destroy the
appetite,—grief—and as I am happy to see you very cheerful, it is not
that—and love. Now after what you told me this morning of your heart, I
may believe——”
“Well, count,” replied Morrel gayly, “I will not dispute it.”
“But you will not make me your confidant, Maximilian?” said the count,
in a tone which showed how gladly he would have been admitted to the
secret.
“I showed you this morning that I had a heart, did I not, count?” Monte