of his features by the aid of the imperfect light that struggled through
the grating.
He was a man of small stature, with hair blanched rather by suffering
and sorrow than by age. He had a deep-set, penetrating eye, almost
buried beneath the thick gray eyebrow, and a long (and still black)
beard reaching down to his breast. His thin face, deeply furrowed by
care, and the bold outline of his strongly marked features, betokened a
man more accustomed to exercise his mental faculties than his physical
strength. Large drops of perspiration were now standing on his brow,
while the garments that hung about him were so ragged that one could
only guess at the pattern upon which they had originally been fashioned.
The stranger might have numbered sixty or sixty-five years; but a
certain briskness and appearance of vigor in his movements made it
probable that he was aged more from captivity than the course of time.
He received the enthusiastic greeting of his young acquaintance with
evident pleasure, as though his chilled affections were rekindled and
invigorated by his contact with one so warm and ardent. He thanked him
with grateful cordiality for his kindly welcome, although he must at
that moment have been suffering bitterly to find another dungeon where
he had fondly reckoned on discovering a means of regaining his liberty.
"Let us first see," said he, "whether it is possible to remove the
traces of my entrance here--our future tranquillity depends upon our
jailers being entirely ignorant of it." Advancing to the opening,
he stooped and raised the stone easily in spite of its weight; then,
fitting it into its place, he said,--
"You removed this stone very carelessly; but I suppose you had no tools
to aid you."
"Why," exclaimed Dantes, with astonishment, "do you possess any?"
"I made myself some; and with the exception of a file, I have all that
are necessary,--a chisel, pincers, and lever."
"Oh, how I should like to see these products of your industry and
patience."
"Well, in the first place, here is my chisel." So saying, he displayed a
sharp strong blade, with a handle made of beechwood.
"And with what did you contrive to make that?" inquired Dantes.
"With one of the clamps of my bedstead; and this very tool has sufficed
me to hollow out the road by which I came hither, a distance of about
fifty feet."
"Fifty feet!" responded Dantes, almost terrified.
"Do not speak so loud, young man--don't speak so loud. It frequently
occurs in a state prison like this, that persons are stationed outside
the doors of the cells purposely to overhear the conversation of the
prisoners."
"But they believe I am shut up alone here."
"That makes no difference."
"And you say that you dug your way a distance of fifty feet to get
here?"
"I do; that is about the distance that separates your chamber from mine;
only, unfortunately, I did not curve aright; for want of the necessary
geometrical instruments to calculate my scale of proportion, instead of
taking an ellipsis of forty feet, I made it fifty. I expected, as I told
you, to reach the outer wall, pierce through it, and throw myself into
the sea; I have, however, kept along the corridor on which your chamber
opens, instead of going beneath it. My labor is all in vain, for I find
that the corridor looks into a courtyard filled with soldiers."
"That's true," said Dantes; "but the corridor you speak of only bounds
one side of my cell; there are three others--do you know anything of
their situation?"
"This one is built against the solid rock, and it would take ten
experienced miners, duly furnished with the requisite tools, as many
years to perforate it. This adjoins the lower part of the governor's
apartments, and were we to work our way through, we should only get
into some lock-up cellars, where we must necessarily be recaptured. The
fourth and last side of your cell faces on--faces on--stop a minute, now
where does it face?"
The wall of which he spoke was the one in which was fixed the loophole
by which light was admitted to the chamber. This loophole, which
gradually diminished in size as it approached the outside, to an opening
through which a child could not have passed, was, for better security,
furnished with three iron bars, so as to quiet all apprehensions even
in the mind of the most suspicious jailer as to the possibility of a
prisoner's escape. As the stranger asked the question, he dragged the
table beneath the window.
"Climb up," said he to Dantes. The young man obeyed, mounted on the
table, and, divining the wishes of his companion, placed his back
securely against the wall and held out both hands. The stranger, whom
as yet Dantes knew only by the number of his cell, sprang up with an
agility by no means to be expected in a person of his years, and, light
and steady on his feet as a cat or a lizard, climbed from the table to
the outstretched hands of Dantes, and from them to his shoulders;
then, bending double, for the ceiling of the dungeon prevented him from
holding himself erect, he managed to slip his head between the upper
bars of the window, so as to be able to command a perfect view from top
to bottom.
An instant afterwards he hastily drew back his head, saying, "I thought
so!" and sliding from the shoulders of Dantes as dextrously as he had
ascended, he nimbly leaped from the table to the ground.
"What was it that you thought?" asked the young man anxiously, in his
turn descending from the table.
The elder prisoner pondered the matter. "Yes," said he at length, "it
is so. This side of your chamber looks out upon a kind of open gallery,
where patrols are continually passing, and sentries keep watch day and
night."
"Are you quite sure of that?"
"Certain. I saw the soldier's shape and the top of his musket; that made
me draw in my head so quickly, for I was fearful he might also see me."
"Well?" inquired Dantes.
"You perceive then the utter impossibility of escaping through your
dungeon?"
"Then," pursued the young man eagerly--
"Then," answered the elder prisoner, "the will of God be done!" and
as the old man slowly pronounced those words, an air of profound
resignation spread itself over his careworn countenance. Dantes gazed on
the man who could thus philosophically resign hopes so long and ardently
nourished with an astonishment mingled with admiration.
"Tell me, I entreat of you, who and what you are?" said he at length;
"never have I met with so remarkable a person as yourself."
"Willingly," answered the stranger; "if, indeed, you feel any curiosity
respecting one, now, alas, powerless to aid you in any way."
"Say not so; you can console and support me by the strength of your own
powerful mind. Pray let me know who you really are?"
The stranger smiled a melancholy smile. "Then listen," said he. "I am
the Abbe Faria, and have been imprisoned as you know in this Chateau
d'If since the year 1811; previously to which I had been confined for
three years in the fortress of Fenestrelle. In the year 1811 I was
transferred to Piedmont in France. It was at this period I learned that
the destiny which seemed subservient to every wish formed by Napoleon,
had bestowed on him a son, named king of Rome even in his cradle. I was
very far then from expecting the change you have just informed me of;
namely, that four years afterwards, this colossus of power would be
overthrown. Then who reigns in France at this moment--Napoleon II.?"
"No, Louis XVIII."
"The brother of Louis XVII.! How inscrutable are the ways of
providence--for what great and mysterious purpose has it pleased heaven
to abase the man once so elevated, and raise up him who was so abased?"
Dantes' whole attention was riveted on a man who could thus forget his
own misfortunes while occupying himself with the destinies of others.
"Yes, yes," continued he, "'Twill be the same as it was in England.
After Charles I., Cromwell; after Cromwell, Charles II., and then James
II., and then some son-in-law or relation, some Prince of Orange, a
stadtholder who becomes a king. Then new concessions to the people, then
a constitution, then liberty. Ah, my friend!" said the abbe, turning
towards Dantes, and surveying him with the kindling gaze of a prophet,
"you are young, you will see all this come to pass."
"Probably, if ever I get out of prison!"
"True," replied Faria, "we are prisoners; but I forget this sometimes,
and there are even moments when my mental vision transports me beyond
these walls, and I fancy myself at liberty."
"But wherefore are you here?"
"Because in 1807 I dreamed of the very plan Napoleon tried to realize in
1811; because, like Machiavelli, I desired to alter the political face
of Italy, and instead of allowing it to be split up into a quantity
of petty principalities, each held by some weak or tyrannical ruler,
I sought to form one large, compact, and powerful empire; and, lastly,
because I fancied I had found my Caesar Borgia in a crowned simpleton,
who feigned to enter into my views only to betray me. It was the plan of
Alexander VI. and Clement VII., but it will never succeed now, for they
attempted it fruitlessly, and Napoleon was unable to complete his work.
Italy seems fated to misfortune." And the old man bowed his head.
Dantes could not understand a man risking his life for such matters.
Napoleon certainly he knew something of, inasmuch as he had seen and
spoken with him; but of Clement VII. and Alexander VI. he knew nothing.
"Are you not," he asked, "the priest who here in the Chateau d'If is
generally thought to be--ill?"
"Mad, you mean, don't you?"
"I did not like to say so," answered Dantes, smiling.
"Well, then," resumed Faria with a bitter smile, "let me answer your
question in full, by acknowledging that I am the poor mad prisoner
of the Chateau d'If, for many years permitted to amuse the different
visitors with what is said to be my insanity; and, in all probability,
I should be promoted to the honor of making sport for the children, if
such innocent beings could be found in an abode devoted like this to
suffering and despair."
Dantes remained for a short time mute and motionless; at length he
said,--"Then you abandon all hope of escape?"
"I perceive its utter impossibility; and I consider it impious to
attempt that which the Almighty evidently does not approve."
"Nay, be not discouraged. Would it not be expecting too much to hope to
succeed at your first attempt? Why not try to find an opening in another
direction from that which has so unfortunately failed?"
"Alas, it shows how little notion you can have of all it has cost me to
effect a purpose so unexpectedly frustrated, that you talk of beginning
over again. In the first place, I was four years making the tools I
possess, and have been two years scraping and digging out earth, hard
as granite itself; then what toil and fatigue has it not been to remove
huge stones I should once have deemed impossible to loosen. Whole days
have I passed in these Titanic efforts, considering my labor well repaid
if, by night-time I had contrived to carry away a square inch of this
hard-bound cement, changed by ages into a substance unyielding as the
stones themselves; then to conceal the mass of earth and rubbish I dug
up, I was compelled to break through a staircase, and throw the
fruits of my labor into the hollow part of it; but the well is now so
completely choked up, that I scarcely think it would be possible to add
another handful of dust without leading to discovery. Consider also that
I fully believed I had accomplished the end and aim of my undertaking,
for which I had so exactly husbanded my strength as to make it just hold
out to the termination of my enterprise; and now, at the moment when I
reckoned upon success, my hopes are forever dashed from me. No, I repeat
again, that nothing shall induce me to renew attempts evidently at
variance with the Almighty's pleasure."
Dantes held down his head, that the other might not see how joy at the
thought of having a companion outweighed the sympathy he felt for the
failure of the abbe's plans.
The abbe sank upon Edmond's bed, while Edmond himself remained standing.
Escape had never once occurred to him. There are, indeed, some things
which appear so impossible that the mind does not dwell on them for an
instant. To undermine the ground for fifty feet--to devote three years
to a labor which, if successful, would conduct you to a precipice
overhanging the sea--to plunge into the waves from the height of fifty,
sixty, perhaps a hundred feet, at the risk of being dashed to pieces
against the rocks, should you have been fortunate enough to have escaped
the fire of the sentinels; and even, supposing all these perils past,
then to have to swim for your life a distance of at least three miles
ere you could reach the shore--were difficulties so startling and
formidable that Dantes had never even dreamed of such a scheme,
resigning himself rather to death. But the sight of an old man clinging
to life with so desperate a courage, gave a fresh turn to his ideas, and
inspired him with new courage. Another, older and less strong than he,
had attempted what he had not had sufficient resolution to undertake,
and had failed only because of an error in calculation. This same
person, with almost incredible patience and perseverance, had contrived
to provide himself with tools requisite for so unparalleled an attempt.
Another had done all this; why, then, was it impossible to Dantes? Faria
