had dug his way through fifty feet, Dantes would dig a hundred; Faria,
at the age of fifty, had devoted three years to the task; he, who was
but half as old, would sacrifice six; Faria, a priest and savant,
had not shrunk from the idea of risking his life by trying to swim a
distance of three miles to one of the islands--Daume, Rattonneau, or
Lemaire; should a hardy sailer, an experienced diver, like himself,
shrink from a similar task; should he, who had so often for mere
amusement's sake plunged to the bottom of the sea to fetch up the bright
coral branch, hesitate to entertain the same project? He could do it in
an hour, and how many times had he, for pure pastime, continued in the
water for more than twice as long! At once Dantes resolved to follow the
brave example of his energetic companion, and to remember that what has
once been done may be done again.
After continuing some time in profound meditation, the young man
suddenly exclaimed, "I have found what you were in search of!"
Faria started: "Have you, indeed?" cried he, raising his head with quick
anxiety; "pray, let me know what it is you have discovered?"
"The corridor through which you have bored your way from the cell you
occupy here, extends in the same direction as the outer gallery, does it
not?"
"It does."
"And is not above fifteen feet from it?"
"About that."
"Well, then, I will tell you what we must do. We must pierce through the
corridor by forming a side opening about the middle, as it were the top
part of a cross. This time you will lay your plans more accurately; we
shall get out into the gallery you have described; kill the sentinel
who guards it, and make our escape. All we require to insure success is
courage, and that you possess, and strength, which I am not deficient
in; as for patience, you have abundantly proved yours--you shall now see
me prove mine."
"One instant, my dear friend," replied the abbe; "it is clear you do not
understand the nature of the courage with which I am endowed, and what
use I intend making of my strength. As for patience, I consider that I
have abundantly exercised that in beginning every morning the task of
the night before, and every night renewing the task of the day. But
then, young man (and I pray of you to give me your full attention), then
I thought I could not be doing anything displeasing to the Almighty in
trying to set an innocent being at liberty--one who had committed no
offence, and merited not condemnation."
"And have your notions changed?" asked Dantes with much surprise; "do
you think yourself more guilty in making the attempt since you have
encountered me?"
"No; neither do I wish to incur guilt. Hitherto I have fancied myself
merely waging war against circumstances, not men. I have thought it
no sin to bore through a wall, or destroy a staircase; but I cannot so
easily persuade myself to pierce a heart or take away a life." A slight
movement of surprise escaped Dantes.
"Is it possible," said he, "that where your liberty is at stake you can
allow any such scruple to deter you from obtaining it?"
"Tell me," replied Faria, "what has hindered you from knocking down your
jailer with a piece of wood torn from your bedstead, dressing yourself
in his clothes, and endeavoring to escape?"
"Simply the fact that the idea never occurred to me," answered Dantes.
"Because," said the old man, "the natural repugnance to the commission
of such a crime prevented you from thinking of it; and so it ever is
because in simple and allowable things our natural instincts keep us
from deviating from the strict line of duty. The tiger, whose nature
teaches him to delight in shedding blood, needs but the sense of smell
to show him when his prey is within his reach, and by following this
instinct he is enabled to measure the leap necessary to permit him to
spring on his victim; but man, on the contrary, loathes the idea of
blood--it is not alone that the laws of social life inspire him with
a shrinking dread of taking life; his natural construction and
physiological formation"--
Dantes was confused and silent at this explanation of the thoughts which
had unconsciously been working in his mind, or rather soul; for there
are two distinct sorts of ideas, those that proceed from the head and
those that emanate from the heart.
"Since my imprisonment," said Faria, "I have thought over all the most
celebrated cases of escape on record. They have rarely been successful.
Those that have been crowned with full success have been long meditated
upon, and carefully arranged; such, for instance, as the escape of the
Duc de Beaufort from the Chateau de Vincennes, that of the Abbe Dubuquoi
from For l'Eveque; of Latude from the Bastille. Then there are those for
which chance sometimes affords opportunity, and those are the best of
all. Let us, therefore, wait patiently for some favorable moment, and
when it presents itself, profit by it."
"Ah," said Dantes, "you might well endure the tedious delay; you were
constantly employed in the task you set yourself, and when weary with
toil, you had your hopes to refresh and encourage you."
"I assure you," replied the old man, "I did not turn to that source for
recreation or support."
"What did you do then?"
"I wrote or studied."
"Were you then permitted the use of pens, ink, and paper?"
"Oh, no," answered the abbe; "I had none but what I made for myself."
"You made paper, pens and ink?"
"Yes."
Dantes gazed with admiration, but he had some difficulty in believing.
Faria saw this.
"When you pay me a visit in my cell, my young friend," said he, "I will
show you an entire work, the fruits of the thoughts and reflections of
my whole life; many of them meditated over in the shades of the Colosseum
at Rome, at the foot of St. Mark's column at Venice, and on the borders
of the Arno at Florence, little imagining at the time that they would be
arranged in order within the walls of the Chateau d'If. The work I speak
of is called 'A Treatise on the Possibility of a General Monarchy in
Italy,' and will make one large quarto volume."
"And on what have you written all this?"
"On two of my shirts. I invented a preparation that makes linen as
smooth and as easy to write on as parchment."
"You are, then, a chemist?"
"Somewhat; I know Lavoisier, and was the intimate friend of Cabanis."
"But for such a work you must have needed books--had you any?"
"I had nearly five thousand volumes in my library at Rome; but after
reading them over many times, I found out that with one hundred and
fifty well-chosen books a man possesses, if not a complete summary of
all human knowledge, at least all that a man need really know. I devoted
three years of my life to reading and studying these one hundred and
fifty volumes, till I knew them nearly by heart; so that since I have
been in prison, a very slight effort of memory has enabled me to recall
their contents as readily as though the pages were open before me. I
could recite you the whole of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Titus
Livius, Tacitus, Strada, Jornandes, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare,
Spinoza, Machiavelli, and Bossuet. I name only the most important."
"You are, doubtless, acquainted with a variety of languages, so as to
have been able to read all these?"
"Yes, I speak five of the modern tongues--that is to say, German,
French, Italian, English, and Spanish; by the aid of ancient Greek I
learned modern Greek--I don't speak it so well as I could wish, but I am
still trying to improve myself."
"Improve yourself!" repeated Dantes; "why, how can you manage to do so?"
"Why, I made a vocabulary of the words I knew; turned, returned, and
arranged them, so as to enable me to express my thoughts through
their medium. I know nearly one thousand words, which is all that is
absolutely necessary, although I believe there are nearly one hundred
thousand in the dictionaries. I cannot hope to be very fluent, but I
certainly should have no difficulty in explaining my wants and wishes;
and that would be quite as much as I should ever require."
Stronger grew the wonder of Dantes, who almost fancied he had to do
with one gifted with supernatural powers; still hoping to find some
imperfection which might bring him down to a level with human beings, he
added, "Then if you were not furnished with pens, how did you manage to
write the work you speak of?"
"I made myself some excellent ones, which would be universally preferred
to all others if once known. You are aware what huge whitings are served
to us on maigre days. Well, I selected the cartilages of the heads of
these fishes, and you can scarcely imagine the delight with which
I welcomed the arrival of each Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, as
affording me the means of increasing my stock of pens; for I will freely
confess that my historical labors have been my greatest solace and
relief. While retracing the past, I forget the present; and traversing
at will the path of history I cease to remember that I am myself a
prisoner."
"But the ink," said Dantes; "of what did you make your ink?"
"There was formerly a fireplace in my dungeon," replied Faria, "but it
was closed up long ere I became an occupant of this prison. Still, it
must have been many years in use, for it was thickly covered with a
coating of soot; this soot I dissolved in a portion of the wine brought
to me every Sunday, and I assure you a better ink cannot be desired. For
very important notes, for which closer attention is required, I pricked
one of my fingers, and wrote with my own blood."
"And when," asked Dantes, "may I see all this?"
"Whenever you please," replied the abbe.
"Oh, then let it be directly!" exclaimed the young man.
"Follow me, then," said the abbe, as he re-entered the subterranean
passage, in which he soon disappeared, followed by Dantes.
Chapter 17. The Abbe's Chamber.
After having passed with tolerable ease through the subterranean
passage, which, however, did not admit of their holding themselves
erect, the two friends reached the further end of the corridor, into
which the abbe's cell opened; from that point the passage became much
narrower, and barely permitted one to creep through on hands and knees.
The floor of the abbe's cell was paved, and it had been by raising one
of the stones in the most obscure corner that Faria had to been able
to commence the laborious task of which Dantes had witnessed the
completion.
As he entered the chamber of his friend, Dantes cast around one eager
and searching glance in quest of the expected marvels, but nothing more
than common met his view.
"It is well," said the abbe; "we have some hours before us--it is now
just a quarter past twelve o'clock." Instinctively Dantes turned round
to observe by what watch or clock the abbe had been able so accurately
to specify the hour.
"Look at this ray of light which enters by my window," said the abbe,
"and then observe the lines traced on the wall. Well, by means of these
lines, which are in accordance with the double motion of the earth, and
the ellipse it describes round the sun, I am enabled to ascertain the
precise hour with more minuteness than if I possessed a watch; for that
might be broken or deranged in its movements, while the sun and earth
never vary in their appointed paths."
This last explanation was wholly lost upon Dantes, who had always
imagined, from seeing the sun rise from behind the mountains and set in
the Mediterranean, that it moved, and not the earth. A double movement
of the globe he inhabited, and of which he could feel nothing, appeared
to him perfectly impossible. Each word that fell from his companion's
lips seemed fraught with the mysteries of science, as worthy of digging
out as the gold and diamonds in the mines of Guzerat and Golconda,
which he could just recollect having visited during a voyage made in his
earliest youth.
"Come," said he to the abbe, "I am anxious to see your treasures."
The abbe smiled, and, proceeding to the disused fireplace, raised,
by the help of his chisel, a long stone, which had doubtless been the
hearth, beneath which was a cavity of considerable depth, serving as a
safe depository of the articles mentioned to Dantes.
"What do you wish to see first?" asked the abbe.
"Oh, your great work on the monarchy of Italy!"
Faria then drew forth from his hiding-place three or four rolls of
linen, laid one over the other, like folds of papyrus. These rolls
consisted of slips of cloth about four inches wide and eighteen long;
they were all carefully numbered and closely covered with writing,
so legible that Dantes could easily read it, as well as make out the
sense--it being in Italian, a language he, as a Provencal, perfectly
understood.
"There," said he, "there is the work complete. I wrote the word finis at
the end of the sixty-eighth strip about a week ago. I have torn up two
of my shirts, and as many handkerchiefs as I was master of, to complete
the precious pages. Should I ever get out of prison and find in all
Italy a printer courageous enough to publish what I have composed, my
literary reputation is forever secured."
"I see," answered Dantes. "Now let me behold the curious pens with which
you have written your work."
"Look!" said Faria, showing to the young man a slender stick about
six inches long, and much resembling the size of the handle of a fine
painting-brush, to the end of which was tied, by a piece of thread, one
