predominance. Yet you have unquestionably some ambition."
"I have, sir."
"And what may it be?"
"I too, as happens to every man once in his life, have been taken by
Satan into the highest mountain in the earth, and when there he showed
me all the kingdoms of the world, and as he said before, so said he to
me, 'Child of earth, what wouldst thou have to make thee adore me?' I
reflected long, for a gnawing ambition had long preyed upon me, and then
I replied, 'Listen,--I have always heard of providence, and yet I have
never seen him, or anything that resembles him, or which can make me
believe that he exists. I wish to be providence myself, for I feel that
the most beautiful, noblest, most sublime thing in the world, is
to recompense and punish.' Satan bowed his head, and groaned. 'You
mistake,' he said, 'providence does exist, only you have never seen him,
because the child of God is as invisible as the parent. You have seen
nothing that resembles him, because he works by secret springs, and
moves by hidden ways. All I can do for you is to make you one of the
agents of that providence.' The bargain was concluded. I may sacrifice
my soul, but what matters it?" added Monte Cristo. "If the thing were
to do again, I would again do it." Villefort looked at Monte Cristo with
extreme amazement. "Count," he inquired, "have you any relations?"
"No, sir, I am alone in the world."
"So much the worse."
"Why?" asked Monte Cristo.
"Because then you might witness a spectacle calculated to break down
your pride. You say you fear nothing but death?"
"I did not say that I feared it; I only said that death alone could
check the execution of my plans."
"And old age?"
"My end will be achieved before I grow old."
"And madness?"
"I have been nearly mad; and you know the axiom,--non bis in idem. It
is an axiom of criminal law, and, consequently, you understand its full
application."
"Sir," continued Villefort, "there is something to fear besides
death, old age, and madness. For instance, there is apoplexy--that
lightning-stroke which strikes but does not destroy you, and yet which
brings everything to an end. You are still yourself as now, and yet you
are yourself no longer; you who, like Ariel, verge on the angelic, are
but an inert mass, which, like Caliban, verges on the brutal; and this
is called in human tongues, as I tell you, neither more nor less than
apoplexy. Come, if so you will, count, and continue this conversation
at my house, any day you may be willing to see an adversary capable of
understanding and anxious to refute you, and I will show you my father,
M. Noirtier de Villefort, one of the most fiery Jacobins of the French
Revolution; that is to say, he had the most remarkable audacity,
seconded by a most powerful organization--a man who has not, perhaps,
like yourself seen all the kingdoms of the earth, but who has helped to
overturn one of the greatest; in fact, a man who believed himself,
like you, one of the envoys, not of God, but of a supreme being; not of
providence, but of fate. Well, sir, the rupture of a blood-vessel on the
lobe of the brain has destroyed all this, not in a day, not in an hour,
but in a second. M. Noirtier, who, on the previous night, was the old
Jacobin, the old senator, the old Carbonaro, laughing at the guillotine,
the cannon, and the dagger--M. Noirtier, playing with revolutions--M.
Noirtier, for whom France was a vast chess-board, from which pawns,
rooks, knights, and queens were to disappear, so that the king was
checkmated--M. Noirtier, the redoubtable, was the next morning 'poor M.
Noirtier,' the helpless old man, at the tender mercies of the weakest
creature in the household, that is, his grandchild, Valentine; a dumb
and frozen carcass, in fact, living painlessly on, that time may be
given for his frame to decompose without his consciousness of its
decay."
"Alas, sir," said Monte Cristo "this spectacle is neither strange to
my eye nor my thought. I am something of a physician, and have, like
my fellows, sought more than once for the soul in living and in dead
matter; yet, like providence, it has remained invisible to my eyes,
although present to my heart. A hundred writers since Socrates, Seneca,
St. Augustine, and Gall, have made, in verse and prose, the comparison
you have made, and yet I can well understand that a father's sufferings
may effect great changes in the mind of a son. I will call on you,
sir, since you bid me contemplate, for the advantage of my pride, this
terrible spectacle, which must have been so great a source of sorrow to
your family."
"It would have been so unquestionably, had not God given me so large a
compensation. In contrast with the old man, who is dragging his way
to the tomb, are two children just entering into life--Valentine,
the daughter by my first wife--Mademoiselle Renee de Saint-Meran--and
Edward, the boy whose life you have this day saved."
"And what is your deduction from this compensation, sir?" inquired Monte
Cristo.
"My deduction is," replied Villefort, "that my father, led away by his
passions, has committed some fault unknown to human justice, but marked
by the justice of God. That God, desirous in his mercy to punish but
one person, has visited this justice on him alone." Monte Cristo with a
smile on his lips, uttered in the depths of his soul a groan which would
have made Villefort fly had he but heard it. "Adieu, sir," said the
magistrate, who had risen from his seat; "I leave you, bearing a
remembrance of you--a remembrance of esteem, which I hope will not be
disagreeable to you when you know me better; for I am not a man to bore
my friends, as you will learn. Besides, you have made an eternal friend
of Madame de Villefort." The count bowed, and contented himself with
seeing Villefort to the door of his cabinet, the procureur being
escorted to his carriage by two footmen, who, on a signal from their
master, followed him with every mark of attention. When he had gone,
Monte Cristo breathed a profound sigh, and said,--"Enough of this
poison, let me now seek the antidote." Then sounding his bell, he said
to Ali, who entered, "I am going to madam's chamber--have the carriage
ready at one o'clock."
Chapter 49. Haidee.
It will be recollected that the new, or rather old, acquaintances of the
Count of Monte Cristo, residing in the Rue Meslay, were no other than
Maximilian, Julie, and Emmanuel. The very anticipations of delight to
be enjoyed in his forthcoming visits--the bright, pure gleam of heavenly
happiness it diffused over the almost deadly warfare in which he had
voluntarily engaged, illumined his whole countenance with a look of
ineffable joy and calmness, as, immediately after Villefort's departure,
his thoughts flew back to the cheering prospect before him, of tasting,
at least, a brief respite from the fierce and stormy passions of his
mind. Even Ali, who had hastened to obey the Count's summons, went forth
from his master's presence in charmed amazement at the unusual animation
and pleasure depicted on features ordinarily so stern and cold; while,
as though dreading to put to flight the agreeable ideas hovering over
his patron's meditations, whatever they were, the faithful Nubian walked
on tiptoe towards the door, holding his breath, lest its faintest sound
should dissipate his master's happy reverie.
It was noon, and Monte Cristo had set apart one hour to be passed in the
apartments of Haidee, as though his oppressed spirit could not all at
once admit the feeling of pure and unmixed joy, but required a gradual
succession of calm and gentle emotions to prepare his mind to receive
full and perfect happiness, in the same manner as ordinary natures
demand to be inured by degrees to the reception of strong or violent
sensations. The young Greek, as we have already said, occupied
apartments wholly unconnected with those of the count. The rooms had
been fitted up in strict accordance with Oriental ideas; the floors were
covered with the richest carpets Turkey could produce; the walls hung
with brocaded silk of the most magnificent designs and texture; while
around each chamber luxurious divans were placed, with piles of soft and
yielding cushions, that needed only to be arranged at the pleasure or
convenience of such as sought repose. Haidee and three French maids,
and one who was a Greek. The first three remained constantly in a small
waiting-room, ready to obey the summons of a small golden bell, or to
receive the orders of the Romaic slave, who knew just enough French
to be able to transmit her mistress's wishes to the three other
waiting-women; the latter had received most peremptory instructions from
Monte Cristo to treat Haidee with all the deference they would observe
to a queen.
The young girl herself generally passed her time in the chamber at the
farther end of her apartments. This was a sort of boudoir, circular,
and lighted only from the roof, which consisted of rose-colored glass.
Haidee was reclining upon soft downy cushions, covered with blue satin
spotted with silver; her head, supported by one of her exquisitely
moulded arms, rested on the divan immediately behind her, while the
other was employed in adjusting to her lips the coral tube of a rich
narghile, through whose flexible pipe she drew the smoke fragrant by its
passage through perfumed water. Her attitude, though perfectly natural
for an Eastern woman would, in a European, have been deemed too full
of coquettish straining after effect. Her dress, which was that of
the women of Epirus, consisted of a pair of white satin trousers,
embroidered with pink roses, displaying feet so exquisitely formed and
so delicately fair, that they might well have been taken for Parian
marble, had not the eye been undeceived by their movements as they
constantly shifted in and out of a pair of little slippers with upturned
toes, beautifully ornamented with gold and pearls. She wore a blue and
white-striped vest, with long open sleeves, trimmed with silver loops
and buttons of pearls, and a sort of bodice, which, closing only from
the centre to the waist, exhibited the whole of the ivory throat and
upper part of the bosom; it was fastened with three magnificent diamond
clasps. The junction of the bodice and drawers was entirely concealed
by one of the many-colored scarfs, whose brilliant hues and rich silken
fringe have rendered them so precious in the eyes of Parisian belles.
Tilted on one side of her head she had a small cap of gold-colored silk,
embroidered with pearls; while on the other a purple rose mingled its
glowing colors with the luxuriant masses of her hair, of which the
blackness was so intense that it was tinged with blue. The extreme
beauty of the countenance, that shone forth in loveliness that mocked
the vain attempts of dress to augment it, was peculiarly and purely
Grecian; there were the large, dark, melting eyes, the finely formed
nose, the coral lips, and pearly teeth, that belonged to her race and
country. And, to complete the whole, Haidee was in the very springtide
and fulness of youthful charms--she had not yet numbered more than
twenty summers.
Monte Cristo summoned the Greek attendant, and bade her inquire whether
it would be agreeable to her mistress to receive his visit. Haidee's
only reply was to direct her servant by a sign to withdraw the
tapestried curtain that hung before the door of her boudoir, the
framework of the opening thus made serving as a sort of border to the
graceful tableau presented by the young girl's picturesque attitude and
appearance. As Monte Cristo approached, she leaned upon the elbow of the
arm that held the narghile, and extending to him her other hand, said,
with a smile of captivating sweetness, in the sonorous language spoken
by the women of Athens and Sparta, "Why demand permission ere you enter?
Are you no longer my master, or have I ceased to be your slave?" Monte
Cristo returned her smile. "Haidee," said he, "you well know."
"Why do you address me so coldly--so distantly?" asked the young Greek.
"Have I by any means displeased you? Oh, if so, punish me as you
will; but do not--do not speak to me in tones and manner so formal and
constrained."
"Haidee," replied the count, "you know that you are now in France, and
are free."
"Free to do what?" asked the young girl.
"Free to leave me."
"Leave you? Why should I leave you?"
"That is not for me to say; but we are now about to mix in society--to
visit and be visited."
"I don't wish to see anybody but you."
"And should you see one whom you could prefer, I would not be so
unjust"--
"I have never seen any one I preferred to you, and I have never loved
any one but you and my father."
"My poor child," replied Monte Cristo, "that is merely because your
father and myself are the only men who have ever talked to you."
"I don't want anybody else to talk to me. My father said I was his
'joy'--you style me your 'love,'--and both of you have called me 'my
child.'"
"Do you remember your father, Haidee?" The young Greek smiled. "He is
here, and here," said she, touching her eyes and her heart. "And where
am I?" inquired Monte Cristo laughingly.
"You?" cried she, with tones of thrilling tenderness, "you are
everywhere!" Monte Cristo took the delicate hand of the young girl in
his, and was about to raise it to his lips, when the simple child
of nature hastily withdrew it, and presented her cheek. "You now
understand, Haidee," said the count, "that from this moment you are
