acted rightly. He feels that every man owes a tribute to his country;
some contribute their talents, others their industry; these devote their
blood, those their nightly labors, to the same cause. Had he remained
with you, his life must have become a hateful burden, nor would he have
participated in your griefs. He will increase in strength and honor by
struggling with adversity, which he will convert into prosperity.
Leave him to build up the future for you, and I venture to say you will
confide it to safe hands."
"Oh," replied the wretched woman, mournfully shaking her head, "the
prosperity of which you speak, and which, from the bottom of my heart, I
pray God in his mercy to grant him, I can never enjoy. The bitter cup of
adversity has been drained by me to the very dregs, and I feel that the
grave is not far distant. You have acted kindly, count, in bringing me
back to the place where I have enjoyed so much bliss. I ought to meet
death on the same spot where happiness was once all my own."
"Alas," said Monte Cristo, "your words sear and embitter my heart, the
more so as you have every reason to hate me. I have been the cause of
all your misfortunes; but why do you pity, instead of blaming me? You
render me still more unhappy"--
"Hate you, blame you--you, Edmond! Hate, reproach, the man that has
spared my son's life! For was it not your fatal and sanguinary intention
to destroy that son of whom M. de Morcerf was so proud? Oh, look at me
closely, and discover if you can even the semblance of a reproach in
me." The count looked up and fixed his eyes on Mercedes, who arose
partly from her seat and extended both her hands towards him. "Oh, look
at me," continued she, with a feeling of profound melancholy, "my eyes
no longer dazzle by their brilliancy, for the time has long fled since I
used to smile on Edmond Dantes, who anxiously looked out for me from
the window of yonder garret, then inhabited by his old father. Years
of grief have created an abyss between those days and the present. I
neither reproach you nor hate you, my friend. Oh, no, Edmond, it is
myself that I blame, myself that I hate! Oh, miserable creature that I
am!" cried she, clasping her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven. "I
once possessed piety, innocence, and love, the three ingredients of the
happiness of angels, and now what am I?" Monte Cristo approached her,
and silently took her hand. "No," said she, withdrawing it gently--"no,
my friend, touch me not. You have spared me, yet of all those who have
fallen under your vengeance I was the most guilty. They were influenced
by hatred, by avarice, and by self-love; but I was base, and for want
of courage acted against my judgment. Nay, do not press my hand, Edmond;
you are thinking, I am sure, of some kind speech to console me, but do
not utter it to me, reserve it for others more worthy of your kindness.
See" (and she exposed her face completely to view)--"see, misfortune
has silvered my hair, my eyes have shed so many tears that they are
encircled by a rim of purple, and my brow is wrinkled. You, Edmond, on
the contrary,--you are still young, handsome, dignified; it is because
you have had faith; because you have had strength, because you have had
trust in God, and God has sustained you. But as for me, I have been a
coward; I have denied God and he has abandoned me."
Mercedes burst into tears; her woman's heart was breaking under its load
of memories. Monte Cristo took her hand and imprinted a kiss on it; but
she herself felt that it was a kiss of no greater warmth than he would
have bestowed on the hand of some marble statue of a saint. "It often
happens," continued she, "that a first fault destroys the prospects of a
whole life. I believed you dead; why did I survive you? What good has
it done me to mourn for you eternally in the secret recesses of my
heart?--only to make a woman of thirty-nine look like a woman of fifty.
Why, having recognized you, and I the only one to do so--why was I able
to save my son alone? Ought I not also to have rescued the man that I
had accepted for a husband, guilty though he were? Yet I let him die!
What do I say? Oh, merciful heavens, was I not accessory to his death by
my supine insensibility, by my contempt for him, not remembering, or not
willing to remember, that it was for my sake he had become a traitor and
a perjurer? In what am I benefited by accompanying my son so far, since
I now abandon him, and allow him to depart alone to the baneful climate
of Africa? Oh, I have been base, cowardly, I tell you; I have abjured
my affections, and like all renegades I am of evil omen to those who
surround me!"
"No, Mercedes," said Monte Cristo, "no; you judge yourself with too
much severity. You are a noble-minded woman, and it was your grief
that disarmed me. Still I was but an agent, led on by an invisible and
offended Deity, who chose not to withhold the fatal blow that I was
destined to hurl. I take that God to witness, at whose feet I have
prostrated myself daily for the last ten years, that I would have
sacrificed my life to you, and with my life the projects that were
indissolubly linked with it. But--and I say it with some pride,
Mercedes--God needed me, and I lived. Examine the past and the present,
and endeavor to dive into futurity, and then say whether I am not a
divine instrument. The most dreadful misfortunes, the most frightful
sufferings, the abandonment of all those who loved me, the persecution
of those who did not know me, formed the trials of my youth; when
suddenly, from captivity, solitude, misery, I was restored to light
and liberty, and became the possessor of a fortune so brilliant,
so unbounded, so unheard-of, that I must have been blind not to be
conscious that God had endowed me with it to work out his own great
designs. From that time I looked upon this fortune as something confided
to me for an especial purpose. Not a thought was given to a life which
you once, Mercedes, had the power to render blissful; not one hour
of peaceful calm was mine; but I felt myself driven on like an
exterminating angel. Like adventurous captains about to embark on some
enterprise full of danger, I laid in my provisions, I loaded my weapons,
I collected every means of attack and defence; I inured my body to the
most violent exercises, my soul to the bitterest trials; I taught my
arm to slay, my eyes to behold excruciating sufferings, and my mouth
to smile at the most horrid spectacles. Good-natured, confiding, and
forgiving as I had been, I became revengeful, cunning, and wicked, or
rather, immovable as fate. Then I launched out into the path that was
opened to me. I overcame every obstacle, and reached the goal; but woe
to those who stood in my pathway!"
"Enough," said Mercedes; "enough, Edmond! Believe me, that she who alone
recognized you has been the only one to comprehend you; and had she
crossed your path, and you had crushed her like glass, still, Edmond,
still she must have admired you! Like the gulf between me and the past,
there is an abyss between you, Edmond, and the rest of mankind; and I
tell you freely that the comparison I draw between you and other men
will ever be one of my greatest tortures. No, there is nothing in the
world to resemble you in worth and goodness! But we must say farewell,
Edmond, and let us part."
"Before I leave you, Mercedes, have you no request to make?" said the
count.
"I desire but one thing in this world, Edmond,--the happiness of my
son."
"Pray to the Almighty to spare his life, and I will take upon myself to
promote his happiness."
"Thank you, Edmond."
"But have you no request to make for yourself, Mercedes?"
"For myself I want nothing. I live, as it were, between two graves. One
is that of Edmond Dantes, lost to me long, long since. He had my love!
That word ill becomes my faded lip now, but it is a memory dear to my
heart, and one that I would not lose for all that the world contains.
The other grave is that of the man who met his death from the hand of
Edmond Dantes. I approve of the deed, but I must pray for the dead."
"Your son shall be happy, Mercedes," repeated the count.
"Then I shall enjoy as much happiness as this world can possibly
confer."
"But what are your intentions?"
"To say that I shall live here, like the Mercedes of other times,
gaining my bread by labor, would not be true, nor would you believe me.
I have no longer the strength to do anything but to spend my days in
prayer. However, I shall have no occasion to work, for the little sum of
money buried by you, and which I found in the place you mentioned, will
be sufficient to maintain me. Rumor will probably be busy respecting me,
my occupations, my manner of living--that will signify but little."
"Mercedes," said the count, "I do not say it to blame you, but you
made an unnecessary sacrifice in relinquishing the whole of the fortune
amassed by M. de Morcerf; half of it at least by right belonged to you,
in virtue of your vigilance and economy."
"I perceive what you are intending to propose to me; but I cannot accept
it, Edmond--my son would not permit it."
"Nothing shall be done without the full approbation of Albert de
Morcerf. I will make myself acquainted with his intentions and will
submit to them. But if he be willing to accept my offers, will you
oppose them?"
"You well know, Edmond, that I am no longer a reasoning creature; I
have no will, unless it be the will never to decide. I have been so
overwhelmed by the many storms that have broken over my head, that I
am become passive in the hands of the Almighty, like a sparrow in the
talons of an eagle. I live, because it is not ordained for me to die. If
succor be sent to me, I will accept it."
"Ah, madame," said Monte Cristo, "you should not talk thus! It is not so
we should evince our resignation to the will of heaven; on the contrary,
we are all free agents."
"Alas!" exclaimed Mercedes, "if it were so, if I possessed free-will,
but without the power to render that will efficacious, it would drive me
to despair." Monte Cristo dropped his head and shrank from the vehemence
of her grief. "Will you not even say you will see me again?" he asked.
"On the contrary, we shall meet again," said Mercedes, pointing to
heaven with solemnity. "I tell you so to prove to you that I still
hope." And after pressing her own trembling hand upon that of the count,
Mercedes rushed up the stairs and disappeared. Monte Cristo slowly left
the house and turned towards the quay. But Mercedes did not witness
his departure, although she was seated at the little window of the room
which had been occupied by old Dantes. Her eyes were straining to see
the ship which was carrying her son over the vast sea; but still her
voice involuntarily murmured softly, "Edmond, Edmond, Edmond!"
Chapter 113. The Past.
The count departed with a sad heart from the house in which he had left
Mercedes, probably never to behold her again. Since the death of little
Edward a great change had taken place in Monte Cristo. Having reached
the summit of his vengeance by a long and tortuous path, he saw an abyss
of doubt yawning before him. More than this, the conversation which
had just taken place between Mercedes and himself had awakened so many
recollections in his heart that he felt it necessary to combat with
them. A man of the count's temperament could not long indulge in that
melancholy which can exist in common minds, but which destroys superior
ones. He thought he must have made an error in his calculations if he
now found cause to blame himself.
"I cannot have deceived myself," he said; "I must look upon the past in
a false light. What!" he continued, "can I have been following a false
path?--can the end which I proposed be a mistaken end?--can one hour
have sufficed to prove to an architect that the work upon which
he founded all his hopes was an impossible, if not a sacrilegious,
undertaking? I cannot reconcile myself to this idea--it would madden
me. The reason why I am now dissatisfied is that I have not a clear
appreciation of the past. The past, like the country through which we
walk, becomes indistinct as we advance. My position is like that of
a person wounded in a dream; he feels the wound, though he cannot
recollect when he received it. Come, then, thou regenerate man,
thou extravagant prodigal, thou awakened sleeper, thou all-powerful
visionary, thou invincible millionaire,--once again review thy past
life of starvation and wretchedness, revisit the scenes where fate
and misfortune conducted, and where despair received thee. Too many
diamonds, too much gold and splendor, are now reflected by the mirror in
which Monte Cristo seeks to behold Dantes. Hide thy diamonds, bury thy
gold, shroud thy splendor, exchange riches for poverty, liberty for a
prison, a living body for a corpse!" As he thus reasoned, Monte Cristo
walked down the Rue de la Caisserie. It was the same through which,
twenty-four years ago, he had been conducted by a silent and nocturnal
guard; the houses, to-day so smiling and animated, were on that night
dark, mute, and closed. "And yet they were the same," murmured Monte
Cristo, "only now it is broad daylight instead of night; it is the sun
which brightens the place, and makes it appear so cheerful."
He proceeded towards the quay by the Rue Saint-Laurent, and advanced to
the Consigne; it was the point where he had embarked. A pleasure-boat
with striped awning was going by. Monte Cristo called the owner, who
immediately rowed up to him with the eagerness of a boatman hoping for a
good fare. The weather was magnificent, and the excursion a treat.
The sun, red and flaming, was sinking into the embrace of the welcoming
