The Count of Monte Cristo
ocean. The heat of the day had gradually decreased, and a light breeze
arose, seeming like the respiration of nature on awakening from the
burning siesta of the south. A delicious zephyr played along the coasts
of the Mediterranean, and wafted from shore to shore the sweet perfume
of plants, mingled with the fresh smell of the sea.
A light yacht, chaste and elegant in its form, was gliding amidst the
first dews of night over the immense lake, extending from Gibraltar to
the Dardanelles, and from Tunis to Venice. The vessel resembled a swan
with its wings opened towards the wind, gliding on the water. It
advanced swiftly and gracefully, leaving behind it a glittering stretch
of foam. By degrees the sun disappeared behind the western horizon; but
as though to prove the truth of the fanciful ideas in heathen
mythology, its indiscreet rays reappeared on the summit of every wave,
as if the god of fire had just sunk upon the bosom of Amphitrite, who
in vain endeavored to hide her lover beneath her azure mantle.
The yacht moved rapidly on, though there did not appear to be
sufficient wind to ruffle the curls on the head of a young girl.
Standing on the prow was a tall man, of a dark complexion, who saw with
dilating eyes that they were approaching a dark mass of land in the
shape of a cone, which rose from the midst of the waves like the hat of
a Catalan.
“Is that Monte Cristo?” asked the traveller, to whose orders the yacht
was for the time submitted, in a melancholy voice.
“Yes, your excellency,” said the captain, “we have reached it.”
“We have reached it!” repeated the traveller in an accent of
indescribable sadness.
Then he added, in a low tone, “Yes; that is the haven.”
And then he again plunged into a train of thought, the character of
which was better revealed by a sad smile, than it would have been by
tears. A few minutes afterwards a flash of light, which was
extinguished instantly, was seen on the land, and the sound of firearms
reached the yacht.
“Your excellency,” said the captain, “that was the land signal, will
you answer yourself?”
“What signal?”
The captain pointed towards the island, up the side of which ascended a
volume of smoke, increasing as it rose.
“Ah, yes,” he said, as if awaking from a dream. “Give it to me.”
The captain gave him a loaded carbine; the traveller slowly raised it,
and fired in the air. Ten minutes afterwards, the sails were furled,
and they cast anchor about a hundred fathoms from the little harbor.
The gig was already lowered, and in it were four oarsmen and a
coxswain. The traveller descended, and instead of sitting down at the
stern of the boat, which had been decorated with a blue carpet for his
accommodation, stood up with his arms crossed. The rowers waited, their
oars half lifted out of the water, like birds drying their wings.
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“Give way,” said the traveller. The eight oars fell into the sea
simultaneously without splashing a drop of water, and the boat,
yielding to the impulsion, glided forward. In an instant they found
themselves in a little harbor, formed in a natural creek; the boat
grounded on the fine sand.
“Will your excellency be so good as to mount the shoulders of two of
our men, they will carry you ashore?” The young man answered this
invitation with a gesture of indifference, and stepped out of the boat;
the sea immediately rose to his waist.
“Ah, your excellency,” murmured the pilot, “you should not have done
so; our master will scold us for it.”
The young man continued to advance, following the sailors, who chose a
firm footing. Thirty strides brought them to dry land; the young man
stamped on the ground to shake off the wet, and looked around for
someone to show him his road, for it was quite dark. Just as he turned,
a hand rested on his shoulder, and a voice which made him shudder
exclaimed:
“Good-evening, Maximilian; you are punctual, thank you!”
“Ah, is it you, count?” said the young man, in an almost joyful accent,
pressing Monte Cristo’s hand with both his own.
“Yes; you see I am as exact as you are. But you are dripping, my dear
fellow; you must change your clothes, as Calypso said to Telemachus.
Come, I have a habitation prepared for you in which you will soon
forget fatigue and cold.”
Monte Cristo perceived that the young man had turned around; indeed,
Morrel saw with surprise that the men who had brought him had left
without being paid, or uttering a word. Already the sound of their oars
might be heard as they returned to the yacht.
“Oh, yes,” said the count, “you are looking for the sailors.”
“Yes, I paid them nothing, and yet they are gone.”
“Never mind that, Maximilian,” said Monte Cristo, smiling. “I have made
an agreement with the navy, that the access to my island shall be free
of all charge. I have made a bargain.”
Morrel looked at the count with surprise. “Count,” he said, “you are
not the same here as in Paris.”
“How so?”
“Here you laugh.” The count’s brow became clouded.
“You are right to recall me to myself, Maximilian,” he said; “I was
delighted to see you again, and forgot for the moment that all
happiness is fleeting.”
“Oh, no, no, count,” cried Maximilian, seizing the count’s hands, “pray
laugh; be happy, and prove to me, by your indifference, that life is
endurable to sufferers. Oh, how charitable, kind, and good you are; you
affect this gayety to inspire me with courage.”
“You are wrong, Morrel; I was really happy.”
“Then you forget me, so much the better.”
“How so?”
“Yes; for as the gladiator said to the emperor, when he entered the
arena, ‘He who is about to die salutes you.’”
“Then you are not consoled?” asked the count, surprised.
“Oh,” exclaimed Morrel, with a glance full of bitter reproach, “do you
think it possible that I could be?”
“Listen,” said the count. “Do you understand the meaning of my words?
You cannot take me for a commonplace man, a mere rattle, emitting a
vague and senseless noise. When I ask you if you are consoled, I speak
to you as a man for whom the human heart has no secrets. Well, Morrel,
let us both examine the depths of your heart. Do you still feel the
same feverish impatience of grief which made you start like a wounded
lion? Have you still that devouring thirst which can only be appeased
in the grave? Are you still actuated by the regret which drags the
living to the pursuit of death; or are you only suffering from the
prostration of fatigue and the weariness of hope deferred? Has the loss
of memory rendered it impossible for you to weep? Oh, my dear friend,
if this be the case,—if you can no longer weep, if your frozen heart be
dead, if you put all your trust in God, then, Maximilian, you are
consoled—do not complain.”
“Count,” said Morrel, in a firm and at the same time soft voice,
“listen to me, as to a man whose thoughts are raised to heaven, though
he remains on earth; I come to die in the arms of a friend. Certainly,
there are people whom I love. I love my sister Julie,—I love her
husband Emmanuel; but I require a strong mind to smile on my last
moments. My sister would be bathed in tears and fainting; I could not
bear to see her suffer. Emmanuel would tear the weapon from my hand,
and alarm the house with his cries. You, count, who are more than
mortal, will, I am sure, lead me to death by a pleasant path, will you
not?”
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“My friend,” said the count, “I have still one doubt,—are you weak
enough to pride yourself upon your sufferings?”
“No, indeed,—I am calm,” said Morrel, giving his hand to the count; “my
pulse does not beat slower or faster than usual. No, I feel that I have
reached the goal, and I will go no farther. You told me to wait and
hope; do you know what you did, unfortunate adviser? I waited a month,
or rather I suffered for a month! I did hope (man is a poor wretched
creature), I did hope. What I cannot tell,—something wonderful, an
absurdity, a miracle,—of what nature he alone can tell who has mingled
with our reason that folly we call hope. Yes, I did wait—yes, I did
hope, count, and during this quarter of an hour we have been talking
together, you have unconsciously wounded, tortured my heart, for every
word you have uttered proved that there was no hope for me. Oh, count,
I shall sleep calmly, deliciously in the arms of death.”
Morrel uttered these words with an energy which made the count shudder.
“My friend,” continued Morrel, “you named the fifth of October as the
end of the period of waiting,—today is the fifth of October,” he took
out his watch, “it is now nine o’clock,—I have yet three hours to
live.”
“Be it so,” said the count, “come.” Morrel mechanically followed the
count, and they had entered the grotto before he perceived it. He felt
a carpet under his feet, a door opened, perfumes surrounded him, and a
brilliant light dazzled his eyes. Morrel hesitated to advance; he
dreaded the enervating effect of all that he saw. Monte Cristo drew him
in gently.
“Why should we not spend the last three hours remaining to us of life,
like those ancient Romans, who when condemned by Nero, their emperor
and heir, sat down at a table covered with flowers, and gently glided
into death, amid the perfume of heliotropes and roses?”
Morrel smiled. “As you please,” he said; “death is always death,—that
is forgetfulness, repose, exclusion from life, and therefore from
grief.”
He sat down, and Monte Cristo placed himself opposite to him. They were
in the marvellous dining-room before described, where the statues had
baskets on their heads always filled with fruits and flowers. Morrel
had looked carelessly around, and had probably noticed nothing.
“Let us talk like men,” he said, looking at the count.
“Go on!”
“Count,” said Morrel, “you are the epitome of all human knowledge, and
you seem like a being descended from a wiser and more advanced world
than ours.”
“There is something true in what you say,” said the count, with that
smile which made him so handsome; “I have descended from a planet
called grief.”
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“I believe all you tell me without questioning its meaning; for
instance, you told me to live, and I did live; you told me to hope, and
I almost did so. I am almost inclined to ask you, as though you had
experienced death, ‘is it painful to die?’”
Monte Cristo looked upon Morrel with indescribable tenderness. “Yes,”
he said, “yes, doubtless it is painful, if you violently break the
outer covering which obstinately begs for life. If you plunge a dagger
into your flesh, if you insinuate a bullet into your brain, which the
least shock disorders,—then certainly, you will suffer pain, and you
will repent quitting a life for a repose you have bought at so dear a
price.”
“Yes; I know that there is a secret of luxury and pain in death, as
well as in life; the only thing is to understand it.”
“You have spoken truly, Maximilian; according to the care we bestow
upon it, death is either a friend who rocks us gently as a nurse, or an
enemy who violently drags the soul from the body. Some day, when the
world is much older, and when mankind will be masters of all the
destructive powers in nature, to serve for the general good of
humanity; when mankind, as you were just saying, have discovered the
secrets of death, then that death will become as sweet and voluptuous
as a slumber in the arms of your beloved.”
“And if you wished to die, you would choose this death, count?”
“Yes.”
Morrel extended his hand. “Now I understand,” he said, “why you had me
brought here to this desolate spot, in the midst of the ocean, to this
subterranean palace; it was because you loved me, was it not, count? It
was because you loved me well enough to give me one of those sweet
means of death of which we were speaking; a death without agony, a