The Count of Monte Cristo
“You too, then, are unhappy?” she said.
“Yes, madame,” replied the magistrate.
“Then you pity me!”
“Sincerely, madame.”
“And you understand what brings me here?”
“You wish to speak to me about the circumstance which has just
happened?”
“Yes, sir,—a fearful misfortune.”
“You mean a mischance.”
“A mischance?” repeated the baroness.
“Alas, madame,” said the procureur with his imperturbable calmness of
manner, “I consider those alone misfortunes which are irreparable.”
“And do you suppose this will be forgotten?”
“Everything will be forgotten, madame,” said Villefort. “Your daughter
will be married tomorrow, if not today—in a week, if not tomorrow; and
I do not think you can regret the intended husband of your daughter.”
Madame Danglars gazed on Villefort, stupefied to find him so almost
insultingly calm. “Am I come to a friend?” she asked in a tone full of
mournful dignity.
“You know that you are, madame,” said Villefort, whose pale cheeks
became slightly flushed as he gave her the assurance. And truly this
assurance carried him back to different events from those now occupying
the baroness and him.
“Well, then, be more affectionate, my dear Villefort,” said the
baroness. “Speak to me not as a magistrate, but as a friend; and when I
am in bitter anguish of spirit, do not tell me that I ought to be gay.”
Villefort bowed.
“When I hear misfortunes named, madame,” he said, “I have within the
last few months contracted the bad habit of thinking of my own, and
then I cannot help drawing up an egotistical parallel in my mind. That
is the reason that by the side of my misfortunes yours appear to me
mere mischances; that is why my dreadful position makes yours appear
enviable. But this annoys you; let us change the subject. You were
saying, madame——”
“I came to ask you, my friend,” said the baroness, “what will be done
with this impostor?”
“Impostor,” repeated Villefort; “certainly, madame, you appear to
extenuate some cases, and exaggerate others. Impostor, indeed!—M.
Andrea Cavalcanti, or rather M. Benedetto, is nothing more nor less
than an assassin!”
“Sir, I do not deny the justice of your correction, but the more
severely you arm yourself against that unfortunate man, the more deeply
will you strike our family. Come, forget him for a moment, and instead
of pursuing him, let him go.”
“You are too late, madame; the orders are issued.”
“Well, should he be arrested—do they think they will arrest him?”
“I hope so.”
“If they should arrest him (I know that sometimes prisons afford means
of escape), will you leave him in prison?”
The procureur shook his head.
“At least keep him there till my daughter be married.”
“Impossible, madame; justice has its formalities.”
“What, even for me?” said the baroness, half jesting, half in earnest.
“For all, even for myself among the rest,” replied Villefort.
50063m
“Ah!” exclaimed the baroness, without expressing the ideas which the
exclamation betrayed. Villefort looked at her with that piercing glance
which reads the secrets of the heart.
“Yes, I know what you mean,” he said; “you refer to the terrible rumors
spread abroad in the world, that the deaths which have kept me in
mourning for the last three months, and from which Valentine has only
escaped by a miracle, have not happened by natural means.”
“I was not thinking of that,” replied Madame Danglars quickly.
“Yes, you were thinking of it, and with justice. You could not help
thinking of it, and saying to yourself, ‘you, who pursue crime so
vindictively, answer now, why are there unpunished crimes in your
dwelling?’” The baroness became pale. “You were saying this, were you
not?”
“Well, I own it.”
“I will answer you.”
Villefort drew his armchair nearer to Madame Danglars; then resting
both hands upon his desk he said in a voice more hollow than usual:
“There are crimes which remain unpunished because the criminals are
unknown, and we might strike the innocent instead of the guilty; but
when the culprits are discovered” (Villefort here extended his hand
toward a large crucifix placed opposite to his desk)—“when they are
discovered, I swear to you, by all I hold most sacred, that whoever
they may be they shall die. Now, after the oath I have just taken, and
which I will keep, madame, dare you ask for mercy for that wretch!”
“But, sir, are you sure he is as guilty as they say?”
“Listen; this is his description: ‘Benedetto, condemned, at the age of
sixteen, for five years to the galleys for forgery.’ He promised well,
as you see—first a runaway, then an assassin.”
“And who is this wretch?”
“Who can tell?—a vagabond, a Corsican.”
“Has no one owned him?”
“No one; his parents are unknown.”
“But who was the man who brought him from Lucca?”
“Another rascal like himself, perhaps his accomplice.” The baroness
clasped her hands.
“Villefort,” she exclaimed in her softest and most captivating manner.
“For Heaven’s sake, madame,” said Villefort, with a firmness of
expression not altogether free from harshness—“for Heaven’s sake, do
not ask pardon of me for a guilty wretch! What am I?—the law. Has the
law any eyes to witness your grief? Has the law ears to be melted by
your sweet voice? Has the law a memory for all those soft recollections
you endeavor to recall? No, madame; the law has commanded, and when it
commands it strikes. You will tell me that I am a living being, and not
a code—a man, and not a volume. Look at me, madame—look around me. Has
mankind treated me as a brother? Have men loved me? Have they spared
me? Has anyone shown the mercy towards me that you now ask at my hands?
No, madame, they struck me, always struck me!
50065m
“Woman, siren that you are, do you persist in fixing on me that
fascinating eye, which reminds me that I ought to blush? Well, be it
so; let me blush for the faults you know, and perhaps—perhaps for even
more than those! But having sinned myself,—it may be more deeply than
others,—I never rest till I have torn the disguises from my
fellow-creatures, and found out their weaknesses. I have always found
them; and more,—I repeat it with joy, with triumph,—I have always found
some proof of human perversity or error. Every criminal I condemn seems
to me living evidence that I am not a hideous exception to the rest.
Alas, alas, alas; all the world is wicked; let us therefore strike at
wickedness!”
Villefort pronounced these last words with a feverish rage, which gave
a ferocious eloquence to his words.
“But”’ said Madame Danglars, resolving to make a last effort, “this
young man, though a murderer, is an orphan, abandoned by everybody.”
“So much the worse, or rather, so much the better; it has been so
ordained that he may have none to weep his fate.”
“But this is trampling on the weak, sir.”
“The weakness of a murderer!”
“His dishonor reflects upon us.”
“Is not death in my house?”
“Oh, sir,” exclaimed the baroness, “you are without pity for others,
well, then, I tell you they will have no mercy on you!”
“Be it so!” said Villefort, raising his arms to heaven with a
threatening gesture.
“At least, delay the trial till the next assizes; we shall then have
six months before us.”
“No, madame,” said Villefort; “instructions have been given. There are
yet five days left; five days are more than I require. Do you not think
that I also long for forgetfulness? While working night and day, I
sometimes lose all recollection of the past, and then I experience the
same sort of happiness I can imagine the dead feel; still, it is better
than suffering.”
“But, sir, he has fled; let him escape—inaction is a pardonable
offence.”
“I tell you it is too late; early this morning the telegraph was
employed, and at this very minute——”
“Sir,” said the valet de chambre, entering the room, “a dragoon has
brought this despatch from the Minister of the Interior.”
Villefort seized the letter, and hastily broke the seal. Madame
Danglars trembled with fear; Villefort started with joy.
“Arrested!” he exclaimed; “he was taken at Compiègne, and all is over.”
Madame Danglars rose from her seat, pale and cold.
“Adieu, sir,” she said.
“Adieu, madame,” replied the king’s attorney, as in an almost joyful
manner he conducted her to the door. Then, turning to his desk, he
said, striking the letter with the back of his right hand:
“Come, I had a forgery, three robberies, and two cases of arson, I only
wanted a murder, and here it is. It will be a splendid session!”
Chapter 100. The Apparition
As the procureur had told Madame Danglars, Valentine was not yet
recovered. Bowed down with fatigue, she was indeed confined to her bed;
and it was in her own room, and from the lips of Madame de Villefort,
that she heard all the strange events we have related; we mean the
flight of Eugénie and the arrest of Andrea Cavalcanti, or rather
Benedetto, together with the accusation of murder pronounced against
him. But Valentine was so weak that this recital scarcely produced the
same effect it would have done had she been in her usual state of
health. Indeed, her brain was only the seat of vague ideas, and
confused forms, mingled with strange fancies, alone presented
themselves before her eyes.
During the daytime Valentine’s perceptions remained tolerably clear,
owing to the constant presence of M. Noirtier, who caused himself to be
carried to his granddaughter’s room, and watched her with his paternal
tenderness; Villefort also, on his return from the law courts,
frequently passed an hour or two with his father and child.
At six o’clock Villefort retired to his study, at eight M. d’Avrigny
himself arrived, bringing the night draught prepared for the young
girl, and then M. Noirtier was carried away. A nurse of the doctor’s
choice succeeded them, and never left till about ten or eleven o’clock,
when Valentine was asleep. As she went downstairs she gave the keys of
Valentine’s room to M. de Villefort, so that no one could reach the
sick-room excepting through that of Madame de Villefort and little
Edward.
Every morning Morrel called on Noirtier to receive news of Valentine,
and, extraordinary as it seemed, each day found him less uneasy.
Certainly, though Valentine still labored under dreadful nervous
excitement, she was better; and moreover, Monte Cristo had told him
when, half distracted, he had rushed to the count’s house, that if she
were not dead in two hours she would be saved. Now four days had
elapsed, and Valentine still lived.
The nervous excitement of which we speak pursued Valentine even in her
sleep, or rather in that state of somnolence which succeeded her waking
hours; it was then, in the silence of night, in the dim light shed from
the alabaster lamp on the chimney-piece, that she saw the shadows pass
and repass which hover over the bed of sickness, and fan the fever with
their trembling wings. First she fancied she saw her stepmother
threatening her, then Morrel stretched his arms towards her; sometimes
mere strangers, like the Count of Monte Cristo came to visit her; even
the very furniture, in these moments of delirium, seemed to move, and
this state lasted till about three o’clock in the morning, when a deep,
heavy slumber overcame the young girl, from which she did not awake
till daylight.
On the evening of the day on which Valentine had learned of the flight
of Eugénie and the arrest of Benedetto,—Villefort having retired as
well as Noirtier and d’Avrigny,—her thoughts wandered in a confused
maze, alternately reviewing her own situation and the events she had
just heard.
Eleven o’clock had struck. The nurse, having placed the beverage
prepared by the doctor within reach of the patient, and locked the