got horses, and we follow on the track. I note this whilst
Godalming is getting ready. We have our arms. The Szgany must look
out if they mean to fight. Oh, if only Morris and Seward were with
us. We must only hope! If I write no more Goodby Mina! God bless
and keep you.
DR. SEWARD'S DIARY
5 November.—With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us
dashing away from the river with their leiter wagon. They
surrounded it in a cluster, and hurried along as though beset. The
snow is falling lightly and there is a strange excitement in the
air. It may be our own feelings, but the depression is strange. Far
off I hear the howling of wolves. The snow brings them down from
the mountains, and there are dangers to all of us, and from all
sides. The horses are nearly ready, and we are soon off. We ride to
death of some one. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when,
or how it may be …
DR. VAN HELSING'S MEMORANDUM
5 November, afternoon.—I am at least sane. Thank God for that
mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When
I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to
the castle. The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from
Veresti was useful, though the doors were all open I broke them off
the rusty hinges, lest some ill intent or ill chance should close
them, so that being entered I might not get out. Jonathan's bitter
experience served me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to
the old chapel, for I knew that here my work lay. The air was
oppressive. It seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which
at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears or I
heard afar off the howl of wolves. Then I bethought me of my dear
Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. The dilemma had me
between his horns.
Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from
the Vampire in that Holy circle. And yet even there would be the
wolf! I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolveswolf! I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves
we must submit, if it were God's will. At any rate it was only
death and freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been
for myself the choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were
better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my
choice to go on with my work.
I knew that there were at least three graves to find, graves
that are inhabit. So I search, and search, and I find one of them.
She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty
that I shudder as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not
that in the old time, when such things were, many a man who set
forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail
him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till
the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton Undead have
hypnotize him. And he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the
Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman
open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss, and
the man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire
fold. One more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the
Undead! …
There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere
presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted
with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that
horrid odor such as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was
moved. I, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for
hate. I was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyze
my faculties and to clog my very soul. It may have been that the
need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were
beginning to overcome me. Certain it was that I was lapsing into
sleep, the open eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet
fascination, when there came through the snow stilled air a long,
low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of
a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that Ia clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I
heard.
Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by
wrenching away tomb tops one other of the sisters, the other dark
one. I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest
once more I should begin to be enthrall. But I go on searching
until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one
much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen
to gather herself out of the atoms of the mist. She was so fair to
look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that
the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love
and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion.
But God be thanked, that soul wail of my dear Madam Mina had not
died out of my ears. And, before the spell could be wrought further
upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this tim e I had
searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell. And
as there had been only three of these Undead phantoms around us in
the night, I took it that there were no more of active Undead
existent. There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest.
Huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word.
DRACULA
This then was the Undead home of the King Vampire, to whom so
many more were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain
what I knew. Before I began to restore these women to their dead
selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula's tomb some of the
Wafer, and so banished him from it, Undead, for ever.
Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but
one, it had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more
after I had been through a deed of horror. For it was terrible with
the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones
who had survived through centuries, and who had been strenghtened
by the passing of the years. Who would, if they could, have fought
for their foul lives …
Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work. Had I not been


for their foul lives …
Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work. Had I not been
nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung
such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and
tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my
nerve did stand. Had I not seen the repose in the first place, and
the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution
came, as realization that the soul had been won, I could not have
gone further with my butchery. I could not have endured the horrid
screeching as the stake drove home, the plunging of writhing form,
and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and left my
work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them
now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of
death for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had
my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to
melt away and crumble into its native dust, as though the death
that should have come centuries agone had at last assert himself
and say at once and loud,"I am here!"
Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never
more can the Count enter there Undead.
When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke
from her sleep and, seeing me, cried out in pain that I had endured
too much.
"Come!" she said, "come away from this awful place! Let us go to
meet my husband who is, I know, coming towards us." She was looking
thin and pale and weak. But her eyes were pure and glowed with
fervor. I was glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind
was full of the fresh horror of that ruddy vampire sleep.
And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward
to meet our friends, and him, whom Madam Mina tell me that she know
are coming to meet us.
MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL
6 November.—It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and
I took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming.
We did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for w eWe did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for w e
had to take heavy rugs and wraps with us. We dared not face the
possibility of being left without warmth in the cold and the snow.
We had to take some of our provisions too, for we were in a perfect
desolation, and so far as we could see through the snowfall, there
was not even the sign of habitation. When we had gone about a mile,
I was tired with the heavy walking and sat down to rest. Then we
looked back and saw where the clear line of Dracula's castle cut
the sky. For we were so deep under the hill whereon it was set that
the angle of perspective of the Carpathian mountains was far below
it. We saw it in all its grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the
summit of a sheer precipice, and with seemingly a great gap between
it and the steep of the adjacent mountain on any side. There was
something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the
distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the sound, even
though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was full of
terror. I knew from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about
that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be
less exposed in case of attack. The rough roadway still led
downwards. We could trace it through the drifted snow.
In a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and
joined him. He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow
in a rock, with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders. He
took me by the hand and drew me in.
"See!" he said,"here you will be in shelter. And if the wolves
do come I can meet them one by one."
He brought in our furs, and made a snug nest for me, and got out
some provisions and forced them upon me. But I could not eat, to
even try to do so was repulsive to me, and much as I would have
liked to please him, I could not bring myself to the attempt. He
looked very sad, but did not reproach me. Taking his field glasses
from the case, he stood on the top of the rock, and began to search
the horizon.from the case, he stood on the top of the rock, and began to search
the horizon.
Suddenly he called out, "Look! Madam Mina, look!Look!"
I sprang up and stood beside him on the rock. He handed me his
glasses and pointed. The snow was now falling more heavily, and
swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning to blow.
However, there were times when there were pauses between the snow
flurries and I could see a long way round. From the height where we
were it was possible to see a great distance. And far off, beyond
the white waste of snow, I could see the river lying like a black
ribbon in kinks and curls as it wound its way. Straight in front of
us and not far off, in fact so near that I wondered we had not
noticed before, came a group of mounted men hurrying along. In the
midst of them was a cart, a long leiter wagon which swept from side
to side, like a dog's tail wagging, with each stern inequality of
the road. Outlined against the snow as they were, I could see from
the men's clothes that they were peasants or gypsies of some
kind.
On the cart was a great square chest. My heart leaped as I saw
it, for I felt that the end was coming. The evening was now drawing
close, and well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till
then imprisoned there, would take new freedom and could in any of
many forms elude pursuit. In fear I turned to the Professor. To my
consternation, however, he was not there. An instant later, I saw
him below me. Round the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had
found shelter in last night.
When he had completed it he stood beside me again saying, "At
least you shall be safe here from him!" He took the glasses from
me, and at the next lull of the snow swept the whole space below
us. "See,"he said,"they come quickly. They are flogging the horses,
and galloping as hard as they can."
He paused and went on in a hollow voice, "They are racing for
the sunset. We may be too late. God's will be done!" Down came
another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole landscape was


another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole landscape was
blotted out. It soon passed, however, and once more his glasses
were fixed on the plain.
Then came a sudden cry, "Look! Look! Look! See, two horsemen
follow fast, coming up from the south. It must be Quincey and John.
Take the glass. Look before the snow blots it all out!" I took it
and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. I knew
at all events that neither of them was Jonathan. At the same time I
knew that Jonathan was not far off. Looking around I saw on the
north side of the coming party two other men, riding at breakneck
speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, of
course, to be Lord Godalming. They too, were pursuing the party
with the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a
schoolboy, and after looking intently till a snow fall made sight
impossible, he laid his Winchester rifle ready for use against the
boulder at the opening of our shelter.
"They are all converging," he said."When the time comes we shall
have gypsies on all sides." I got out my revolver ready to hand,
for whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came louder and
closer. When the snow storm abated a moment we looked again. It was
strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us,
and beyond, the sun shining more and more brightly as it sank down
towards the far mountain tops. Sweeping the glass all around us I
could see here and there dots moving singly and in twos and threes
and larger numbers. The wolves were gathering for their prey.
Every instant seemed an age whilst we waited. The wind came now
in fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept
upon us in circling eddies. At times we could not see an arm's
length before us. But at others, as the hollow sounding wind swept
by us, it seemed to clear the air space around us so that we could
see afar off. We had of late been so accustomed to watch for
sunrise and sunset, that we knew with fair accuracy when it wouldsunrise and sunset, that we knew with fair accuracy when it would
be. And we knew that before long the sun would set. It was hard to
believe that by our watches it was less than an hour that we waited
in that rocky shelter before the various bodies began to converge
close upon us. The wind came now with fiercer and more bitter
sweeps, and more steadily from the north. It seemingly had driven
the snow clouds from us, for with only occasional bursts, the snow
fell. We could distinguish clearly the individuals of each party,
the pursued and the pursuers. Strangely enough those pursued did
not seem to realize, or at least to care, that they were pursued.
They seemed, however, to hasten with redoubled speed as the sun
dropped lower and lower on the mountain tops.
Closer and closer they drew. The Professor and I crouched down
behind our rock, and held our weapons ready. I could see that he
was determined that they should not pass. One and all were quite
unaware of our presence.
All at once two voices shouted out to, "Halt!" One was my
Jonathan's, raised in a high key of passion. The other Mr. Morris'
strong resolute tone of quiet command. The gypsies may not have
known the language, but there was no mistaking the tone, in
whatever tongue the words were spoken. Instinctively they reined
in, and at the instant Lord Godalming and Jonathan dashed up at one
side and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the other. The leader of the
gypsies, a splendid looking fellow who sat his horse like a
centaur, waved them back, and in a fierce voice gave to his
companions some word to proceed. They lashed the horses which
sprang forward. But the four men raised their Winchester rifles,
and in an unmistakable way commanded them to stop. At the same
moment Dr. Van Helsing and I rose behind the rock and pointed our
weapons at them. Seeing that they were surrounded the men tightened
their reins and drew up. The leader turned to them and gave a word
at which every man of the gypsy party drew what weapon he carried,at which every man of the gypsy party drew what weapon he carried,
knife or pistol,and held himself in readiness to attack. Issue was
joined in an instant.
The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse
out in front, and pointed first to the sun, now close down on the
hill tops, and then to the castle, said something which I did not
understand. For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves
from their horses and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt
terrible fear at seeing Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardor
of battle must have been upon me as well as the rest of them. I
felt no fear, but only a wild, surging desire to do something.
Seeing the quick movement of our parties, the leader of the gypsies
gave a command. His men instantly formed round the cart in a sort
of undisciplined endeavor, each one shouldering and pushing the
other in his eagerness to carry out the order.
In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of
the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to
the cart. It was evident that they were bent on finishing their
task before the sun should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to
hinder them.Neither the levelled weapons nor the flashing knives of
the gypsies in front, nor the howling of the wolves behind,
appeared to even attract their attention. Jonathan's impetuosity,
and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those
in front of him. Instinctively they cowered aside and let him pass.
In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and with a strength
which seemed incredible, raised the great box, and flung it over
the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr. Morris had had to use
force to pass through his side of the ring of Szgany. All the time
I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had, with the tail of
my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and had seen the
knives of the gypsies flash as he won a way through them, and they
cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first


cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first
I thought that he too had come through in safety. But as he sprang
beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could see
that with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the
blood was spurting through his fingers. He did not delay
notwithstanding this, for as Jonathan, with desperate energy,
attacked one end of the chest, attempting to prize off the lid with
his great Kukri knife, he attacked the other frantically with his
bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield. The
nails drew with a screeching sound, and the top of the box was
thrown back.
By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the
Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had
given in and made no further resistance. The sun was almost down on
the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell upon the
snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of
which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was
deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with
the horrible vindictive look which I knew so well.
As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate
in them turned to triumph.
But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's
great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat.
Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the
heart.
It was like a miracle, but before our very eyes, and almost in
the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and
passed from our sight.
I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of
final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I
never could have imagined might have rested there.
The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and
every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the
light of the setting sun.
The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of thelight of the setting sun.
The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the
extraordinary disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a
word, and rode away as if for their lives. Those who were unmounted
jumped upon the leiter wagon and shouted to the horsemen not to
desert them. The wolves, which had withdrawn to a safe distance,
followed in their wake, leaving us alone.
Mr. Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow,
holding his hand pressed to his side. The blood still gushed
through his fingers. I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now
keep me back, so did the two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and
the wounded man laid back his head on his shoulder. With a sigh he
took, with a feeble effort, my hand in that of his own which was
unstained.
He must have seen the anguish of my heart in my face, for he
smiled at me and said, "I am only too happy to have been of
service! Oh, God!" he cried suddenly, struggling to a sitting
posture and pointing to me. "It was worth for this to die! Look!
Look!"
The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red
gleams fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With
one impulse the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest
"Amen" broke from all as their eyes followed the pointing of his
finger.
The dying man spoke, "Now God be thanked that all has not been
in vain! See! The snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The
curse has passed away!"
And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died,
a gallant gentleman.
NOTE
Seven years ago we all went through the flames. And the
happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the
pain we endured. It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our
boy's birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris
died. His mother holds, I know, the secret belief that some of our
brave friend's spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names
links all our little band of men together. But we call him
Quincey.links all our little band of men together. But we call him
Quincey.
In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania,
and went over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of
vivid and terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe
that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with
our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been
was blotted out. The castle stood as before, reared high above a
waste of desolation.
When we got home we were talking of the old time, which we could
all look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both
happily married. I took the papers from the safe where they had
been ever since our return so long ago. We were struck with the
fact, that in all the mass of material of which the record is
composed, there is hardly one authentic document. Nothing but a
mass of typewriting, except the later notebooks of Mina and Seward
and myself, and Van Helsing's memorandum. We could hardly ask any
one, even did we wish to, to accept these as proofs of so wild a
story. Van Helsing summed it all up as he said, with our boy on his
knee.
"We want no proofs. We ask none to believe us! This boy will
some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already
he knows her sweetness and loving care. Later on he will understand
how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her
sake.
JONATHAN HARKER


Beyond a bare, weather-worn wall, about a hundred paces from the
spot where the two friends sat looking and listening as they drank
their wine, was the village of the Catalans. Long ago this
mysterious colony quitted Spain, and settled on the tongue of land
on which it is to this day. Whence it came no one knew, and it
spoke an unknown tongue. One of its chiefs, who understood
Provencal, begged the commune of Marseilles to give them this bare
and barren promontory, where, like the sailors of old, they had run
their boats ashore. The request was granted; and three months
afterwards, around the twelve or fifteen small vessels which had
brought these gypsies of the sea, a small village sprang up. This
village, constructed in a singular and picturesque manner, half
Moorish, half Spanish, still remains, and is inhabited by
descendants of the first comers, who speak the language of their
fathers. For three or four centuries they have remained upon this
small promontory, on which they had settled like a flight of
seabirds, without mixing with the Marseillaise population,
intermarrying, and preserving their original customs and the
costume of their mother-country as they have preserved its
language.
Our readers will follow us along the only street of this little
village, and enter with us one of the houses, which is sunburned to
the beautiful dead-leaf color peculiar to the buildings of the
country, and within coated with whitewash, like a Spanish posada. A
young and beautiful girl, with hair as black as jet, her eyes as
velvety as the gazelle's, was leaning with her back against the
wainscot, rubbing in her slender delicately moulded fingers a bunch
of heath blossoms, the flowers of which she was picking off and
strewing on the floor; her arms, bare to the elbow, brown, and
modelled after those of the Arlesian Venus, moved with a kind of
restless impatience, and she tapped the earth with her arched and
supple foot, so as to display the pure and full shape of her
well-turned leg, in its red cotton, gray and blue clocked,well-turned leg, in its red cotton, gray and blue clocked,
stocking. At three paces from her, seated in a chair which he
balanced on two legs, leaning his elbow on an old worm-eaten table,
was a tall young man of twenty, or two-and-twenty, who was looking
at her with an air in which vexation and uneasiness were mingled.
He questioned her with his eyes, but the firm and steady gaze of
the young girl controlled his look.
"You see, Mercedes," said the young man, "here is Easter come
round again; tell me, is this the moment for a wedding?"
"I have answered you a hundred times, Fernand, and really you
must be very stupid to ask me again."
"Well, repeat it, — repeat it, I beg of you, that I may at last
believe it! Tell me for the hundredth time that you refuse my love,
which had your mother's sanction. Make me understand once for all
that you are trifling with my happiness, that my life or death are
nothing to you. Ah, to have dreamed for ten years of being your
husband, Mercedes, and to lose that hope, which was the only stay
of my existence!"
"At least it was not I who ever encouraged you in that hope,
Fernand," replied Mercedes; "you cannot reproach me with the
slightest coquetry. I have always said to you, `I love you as a
brother; but do not ask from me more than sisterly affection, for
my heart is another's.' Is not this true, Fernand?"
"Yes, that is very true, Mercedes," replied the young man, "Yes,
you have been cruelly frank with me; but do you forget that it is
among the Catalans a sacred law to intermarry?"
"You mistake, Fernand; it is not a law, but merely a custom,
and, I pray of you, do not cite this custom in your favor. You are
included in the conscription, Fernand, and are only at liberty on
sufferance, liable at any moment to be called upon to take up arms.
Once a soldier, what would you do with me, a poor orphan, forlorn,
without fortune, with nothing but a half-ruined hut and a few
ragged nets, the miserable inheritance left by my father to myragged nets, the miserable inheritance left by my father to my
mother, and by my mother to me? She has been dead a year, and you
know, Fernand, I have subsisted almost entirely on public charity.
Sometimes you pretend I am useful to you, and that is an excuse to
share with me the produce of your fishing, and I accept it,
Fernand, because you are the son of my father's brother, because we
were brought up together, and still more because it would give you
so much pain if I refuse. But I feel very deeply that this fish
which I go and sell, and with the produce of which I buy the flax I
spin, — I feel very keenly, Fernand, that this is charity."
"And if it were, Mercedes, poor and lone as you are, you suit me
as well as the daughter of the first shipowner or the richest
banker of Marseilles! What do such as we desire but a good wife and
careful housekeeper, and where can I look for these better than in
you?"
"Fernand," answered Mercedes, shaking her head, "a woman becomes
a bad manager, and who shall say she will remain an honest woman,
when she loves another man better than her husband? Rest content
with my friendship, for I say once more that is all I can promise,
and I will promise no more than I can bestow."
"I understand," replied Fernand, "you can endure your own
wretchedness patiently, but you are afraid to share mine. Well,
Mercedes, beloved by you, I would tempt fortune; you would bring me
good luck, and I should become rich. I could extend my occupation
as a fisherman, might get a place as clerk in a warehouse, and
become in time a dealer myself."
"You could do no such thing, Fernand; you are a soldier, and if
you remain at the Catalans it is because there is no war; so remain
a fisherman, and contented with my friendship, as I cannot give you
more."
"Well, I will do better, Mercedes. I will be a sailor; instead
of the costume of our fathers, which you despise, I will wear a
varnished hat, a striped shirt, and a blue jacket, with an anchor
on the buttons. Would not that dress please you?"


on the buttons. Would not that dress please you?"
"What do you mean?" asked Mercedes, with an angry glance, —
"what do you mean? I do not understand you?"
"I mean, Mercedes, that you are thus harsh and cruel with me,
because you are expecting some one who is thus attired; but perhaps
he whom you await is inconstant, or if he is not, the sea is so to
him."
"Fernand," cried Mercedes, "I believed you were good-hearted,
and I was mistaken! Fernand, you are wicked to call to your aid
jealousy and the anger of God! Yes, I will not deny it, I do await,
and I do love him of whom you speak; and, if he does not return,
instead of accusing him of the inconstancy which you insinuate, I
will tell you that he died loving me and me only." The young girl
made a gesture of rage. "I understand you, Fernand; you would be
revenged on him because I do not love you; you would cross your
Catalan knife with his dirk. What end would that answer? To lose
you my friendship if he were conquered, and see that friendship
changed into hate if you were victor. Believe me, to seek a quarrel
with a man is a bad method of pleasing the woman who loves that
man. No, Fernand, you will not thus give way to evil thoughts.
Unable to have me for your wife, you will content yourself with
having me for your friend and sister; and besides," she added, her
eyes troubled and moistened with tears, "wait, wait, Fernand; you
said just now that the sea was treacherous, and he has been gone
four months, and during these four months there have been some
terrible storms."
Fernand made no reply, nor did he attempt to check the tears
which flowed down the cheeks of Mercedes, although for each of
these tears he would have shed his heart's blood; but these tears
flowed for another. He arose, paced a while up and down the hut,
and then, suddenly stopping before Mercedes, with his eyes glowing
and his hands clinched, — "Say, Mercedes," he said, "once for all,
is this your final determination?"
"I love Edmond Dantes," the young girl calmly replied, "and noneis this your final determination?"
"I love Edmond Dantes," the young girl calmly replied, "and none
but Edmond shall ever be my husband."
"And you will always love him?"
"As long as I live."
Fernand let fall his head like a defeated man, heaved a sigh
that was like a groan, and then suddenly looking her full in the
face, with clinched teeth and expanded nostrils, said, — "But if he
is dead" —
"If he is dead, I shall die too."
"If he has forgotten you" —
"Mercedes!" called a joyous voice from without, —
"Mercedes!"
"Ah," exclaimed the young girl, blushing with delight, and
fairly leaping in excess of love, "you see he has not forgotten me,
for here he is!" And rushing towards the door, she opened it,
saying, "Here, Edmond, here I am!"
Fernand, pale and trembling, drew back, like a traveller at the
sight of a serpent, and fell into a chair beside him. Edmond and
Mercedes were clasped in each other's arms. The burning Marseilles
sun, which shot into the room through the open door, covered them
with a flood of light. At first they saw nothing around them. Their
intense happiness isolated them from all the rest of the world, and
they only spoke in broken words, which are the tokens of a joy so
extreme that they seem rather the expression of sorrow. Suddenly
Edmond saw the gloomy, pale, and threatening countenance of
Fernand, as it was defined in the shadow. By a movement for which
he could scarcely account to himself, the young Catalan placed his
hand on the knife at his belt.
"Ah, your pardon," said Dantes, frowning in his turn; "I did not
perceive that there were three of us." Then, turning to Mercedes,
he inquired, "Who is this gentleman?"
"One who will be your best friend, Dantes, for he is my friend,
my cousin, my brother; it is Fernand — the man whom, after you,
Edmond, I love the best in the world. Do you not remember him?"
"Yes!" said Dantes, and without relinquishing Mercedes hand
clasped in one of his own, he extended the other to the Catalan
with a cordial air. But Fernand, instead of responding to thiswith a cordial air. But Fernand, instead of responding to this
amiable gesture, remained mute and trembling. Edmond then cast his
eyes scrutinizingly at the agitated and embarrassed Mercedes, and
then again on the gloomy and menacing Fernand. This look told him
all, and his anger waxed hot.
"I did not know, when I came with such haste to you, that I was
to meet an enemy here."
"An enemy!" cried Mercedes, with an angry look at her cousin.
"An enemy in my house, do you say, Edmond! If I believed that, I
would place my arm under yours and go with you to Marseilles,
leaving the house to return to it no more."
Fernand's eye darted lightning. "And should any misfortune occur
to you, dear Edmond," she continued with the same calmness which
proved to Fernand that the young girl had read the very innermost
depths of his sinister thought, "if misfortune should occur to you,
I would ascend the highest point of the Cape de Morgion and cast
myself headlong from it."
Fernand became deadly pale. "But you are deceived, Edmond," she
continued. "You have no enemy here — there is no one but Fernand,
my brother, who will grasp your hand as a devoted friend."
And at these words the young girl fixed her imperious look on
the Catalan, who, as if fascinated by it, came slowly towards
Edmond, and offered him his hand. His hatred, like a powerless
though furious wave, was broken against the strong ascendancy which
Mercedes exercised over him. Scarcely, however, had he touched
Edmond's hand than he felt he had done all he could do, and rushed
hastily out of the house.
"Oh," he exclaimed, running furiously and tearing his hair —
"Oh, who will deliver me from this man? Wretched — wretched that I
am!"
"Hallo, Catalan! Hallo, Fernand! where are you running to?"
exclaimed a voice.
The young man stopped suddenly, looked around him, and perceived
Caderousse sitting at table with Danglars, under an arbor.
"Well", said Caderousse, "why don't you come? Are you really in
such a hurry that you have no time to pass the time of day with
your friends?"


such a hurry that you have no time to pass the time of day with
your friends?"
"Particularly when they have still a full bottle before them,"
added Danglars. Fernand looked at them both with a stupefied air,
but did not say a word.
"He seems besotted," said Danglars, pushing Caderousse with his
knee. "Are we mistaken, and is Dantes triumphant in spite of all we
have believed?"
"Why, we must inquire into that," was Caderousse's reply; and
turning towards the young man, said, "Well, Catalan, can't you make
up your mind?"
Fernand wiped away the perspiration steaming from his brow, and
slowly entered the arbor, whose shade seemed to restore somewhat of
calmness to his senses, and whose coolness somewhat of refreshment
to his exhausted body.
"Good-day," said he. "You called me, didn't you?" And he fell,
rather than sat down, on one of the seats which surrounded the
table.
"I called you because you were running like a madman, and I was
afraid you would throw yourself into the sea," said Caderousse,
laughing. "Why, when a man has friends, they are not only to offer
him a glass of wine, but, moreover, to prevent his swallowing three
or four pints of water unnecessarily!"
Fernand gave a groan, which resembled a sob, and dropped his
head into his hands, his elbows leaning on the table.
"Well, Fernand, I must say," said Caderousse, beginning the
conversation, with that brutality of the common people in which
curiosity destroys all diplomacy, "you look uncommonly like a
rejected lover;" and he burst into a hoarse laugh.
"Bah!" said Danglars, "a lad of his make was not born to be
unhappy in love. You are laughing at him, Caderousse."
"No," he replied, "only hark how he sighs! Come, come, Fernand,"
said Caderousse, "hold up your head, and answer us. It's not polite
not to reply to friends who ask news of your health."
"My health is well enough," said Fernand, clinching his hands
without raising his head.
"Ah, you see, Danglars," said Caderousse, winking at his friend,without raising his head.
"Ah, you see, Danglars," said Caderousse, winking at his friend,
"this is how it is; Fernand, whom you see here, is a good and brave
Catalan, one of the best fishermen in Marseilles, and he is in love
with a very fine girl, named Mercedes; but it appears,
unfortunately, that the fine girl is in love with the mate of the
Pharaon; and as the Pharaon arrived to-day — why, you
understand!"
"No; I do not understand," said Danglars.
"Poor Fernand has been dismissed," continued Caderousse.
"Well, and what then?" said Fernand, lifting up his head, and
looking at Caderousse like a man who looks for some one on whom to
vent his anger; "Mercedes is not accountable to any person, is she?
Is she not free to love whomsoever she will?"
"Oh, if you take it in that sense," said Caderousse, "it is
another thing. But I thought you were a Catalan, and they told me
the Catalans were not men to allow themselves to be supplanted by a
rival. It was even told me that Fernand, especially, was terrible
in his vengeance."
Fernand smiled piteously. "A lover is never terrible," he
said.
"Poor fellow!" remarked Danglars, affecting to pity the young
man from the bottom of his heart. "Why, you see, he did not expect
to see Dantes return so suddenly — he thought he was dead, perhaps;
or perchance faithless! These things always come on us more
severely when they come suddenly."
"Ah, ma foi, under any circumstances," said Caderousse, who
drank as he spoke, and on whom the fumes of the wine began to take
effect, — "under any circumstances Fernand is not the only person
put out by the fortunate arrival of Dantes; is he, Danglars?"
"No, you are right — and I should say that would bring him
ill-luck."
"Well, never mind," answered Caderousse, pouring out a glass of
wine for Fernand, and filling his own for the eighth or ninth time,
while Danglars had merely sipped his. "Never mind — in the meantime
he marries Mercedes — the lovely Mercedes — at least he returns to
do that."he marries Mercedes — the lovely Mercedes — at least he returns to
do that."
During this time Danglars fixed his piercing glance on the young
man, on whose heart Caderousse's words fell like molten lead.
"And when is the wedding to be?" he asked.
"Oh, it is not yet fixed!" murmured Fernand.
"No, but it will be," said Caderousse, "as surely as Dantes will
be captain of the Pharaon — eh, Danglars?"
Danglars shuddered at this unexpected attack, and turned to
Caderousse, whose countenance he scrutinized, to try and detect
whether the blow was premeditated; but he read nothing but envy in
a countenance already rendered brutal and stupid by
drunkenness.
"Well," said he, filling the glasses, "let us drink to Captain
Edmond Dantes, husband of the beautiful Catalane!"
Caderousse raised his glass to his mouth with unsteady hand, and
swallowed the contents at a gulp. Fernand dashed his on the
ground.
"Eh, eh, eh!" stammered Caderousse. "What do I see down there by
the wall, in the direction of the Catalans? Look, Fernand, your
eyes are better than mine. I believe I see double. You know wine is
a deceiver; but I should say it was two lovers walking side by
side, and hand in hand. Heaven forgive me, they do not know that we
can see them, and they are actually embracing!"
Danglars did not lose one pang that Fernand endured.
"Do you know them, Fernand?" he said.
"Yes," was the reply, in a low voice. "It is Edmond and
Mercedes!"
"Ah, see there, now!" said Caderousse; "and I did not recognize
them! Hallo, Dantes! hello, lovely damsel! Come this way, and let
us know when the wedding is to be, for Fernand here is so obstinate
he will not tell us."
"Hold your tongue, will you?" said Danglars, pretending to
restrain Caderousse, who, with the tenacity of drunkards, leaned
out of the arbor. "Try to stand upright, and let the lovers make
love without interruption. See, look at Fernand, and follow his
example; he is well-behaved!"
Fernand, probably excited beyond bearing, pricked by Danglars,


example; he is well-behaved!"
Fernand, probably excited beyond bearing, pricked by Danglars,
as the bull is by the bandilleros, was about to rush out; for he
had risen from his seat, and seemed to be collecting himself to
dash headlong upon his rival, when Mercedes, smiling and graceful,
lifted up her lovely head, and looked at them with her clear and
bright eyes. At this Fernand recollected her threat of dying if
Edmond died, and dropped again heavily on his seat. Danglars looked
at the two men, one after the other, the one brutalized by liquor,
the other overwhelmed with love.
"I shall get nothing from these fools," he muttered; "and I am
very much afraid of being here between a drunkard and a coward.
Here's an envious fellow making himself boozy on wine when he ought
to be nursing his wrath, and here is a fool who sees the woman he
loves stolen from under his nose and takes on like a big baby. Yet
this Catalan has eyes that glisten like those of the vengeful
Spaniards, Sicilians, and Calabrians, and the other has fists big
enough to crush an ox at one blow. Unquestionably, Edmond's star is
in the ascendant, and he will marry the splendid girl — he will be
captain, too, and laugh at us all, unless" — a sinister smile
passed over Danglars' lips — "unless I take a hand in the affair,"
he added.
"Hallo!" continued Caderousse, half-rising, and with his fist on
the table, "hallo, Edmond! do you not see your friends, or are you
too proud to speak to them?"
"No, my dear fellow!" replied Dantes, "I am not proud, but I am
happy, and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride."
"Ah, very well, that's an explanation!" said Caderousse. "How do
you do, Madame Dantes?"
Mercedes courtesied gravely, and said — "That is not my name,
and in my country it bodes ill fortune, they say, to call a young
girl by the name of her betrothed before he becomes her husband. So
call me Mercedes, if you please."
"We must excuse our worthy neighbor, Caderousse," said Dantes,
"he is so easily mistaken.""We must excuse our worthy neighbor, Caderousse," said Dantes,
"he is so easily mistaken."
"So, then, the wedding is to take place immediately, M. Dantes,"
said Danglars, bowing to the young couple.
"As soon as possible, M. Danglars; to-day all preliminaries will
be arranged at my father's, and to-morrow, or next day at latest,
the wedding festival here at La Reserve. My friends will be there,
I hope; that is to say, you are invited, M. Danglars, and you,
Caderousse."
"And Fernand," said Caderousse with a chuckle; "Fernand, too, is
invited!"
"My wife's brother is my brother," said Edmond; "and we,
Mercedes and I, should be very sorry if he were absent at such a
time."
Fernand opened his mouth to reply, but his voice died on his
lips, and he could not utter a word.
"To-day the preliminaries, to-morrow or next day the ceremony!
You are in a hurry, captain!"
"Danglars," said Edmond, smiling, "I will say to you as Mercedes
said just now to Caderousse, `Do not give me a title which does not
belong to me'; that may bring me bad luck."
"Your pardon," replied Danglars, "I merely said you seemed in a
hurry, and we have lots of time; the Pharaon cannot be under weigh
again in less than three months."
"We are always in a hurry to be happy, M. Danglars; for when we
have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in
good fortune. But it is not selfishness alone that makes me thus in
haste; I must go to Paris."
"Ah, really? — to Paris! and will it be the first time you have
ever been there, Dantes?"
"Yes."
"Have you business there?"
"Not of my own; the last commission of poor Captain Leclere; you
know to what I allude, Danglars — it is sacred. Besides, I shall
only take the time to go and return."
"Yes, yes, I understand," said Danglars, and then in a low tone,
he added, "To Paris, no doubt to deliver the letter which the grand
marshal gave him. Ah, this letter gives me an idea — a capital
idea! Ah; Dantes, my friend, you are not yet registered number oneidea! Ah; Dantes, my friend, you are not yet registered number one
on board the good ship Pharaon;" then turning towards Edmond, who
was walking away, "A pleasant journey," he cried.
"Thank you," said Edmond with a friendly nod, and the two lovers
continued on their way, as calm and joyous as if they were the very
elect of heaven.In one of the aristocratic mansions built by Puget in the Rue du
Grand Cours opposite the Medusa fountain, a second marriage feast
was being celebrated, almost at the same hour with the nuptial
repast given by Dantes. In this case, however, although the
occasion of the entertainment was similar, the company was
strikingly dissimilar. Instead of a rude mixture of sailors,
soldiers, and those belonging to the humblest grade of life, the
present assembly was composed of the very flower of Marseilles
society, — magistrates who had resigned their office during the
usurper's reign; officers who had deserted from the imperial army
and joined forces with Conde; and younger members of families,
brought up to hate and execrate the man whom five years of exile
would convert into a martyr, and fifteen of restoration elevate to
the rank of a god.
The guests were still at table, and the heated and energetic
conversation that prevailed betrayed the violent and vindictive
passions that then agitated each dweller of the South, where
unhappily, for five centuries religious strife had long given
increased bitterness to the violence of party feeling.
The emperor, now king of the petty Island of Elba, after having
held sovereign sway over one-half of the world, counting as his
subjects a small population of five or six thousand souls, — after
having been accustomed to hear the "Vive Napoleons" of a hundred
and twenty millions of human beings, uttered in ten different
languages, — was looked upon here as a ruined man, separated
forever from any fresh connection with France or claim to her
throne.
The magistrates freely discussed their political views; the
military part of the company talked unreservedly of Moscow and
Leipsic, while the women commented on the divorce of Josephine. It
was not over the downfall of the man, but over the defeat of the
Napoleonic idea, that they rejoiced, and in this they foresaw for
themselves the bright and cheering prospect of a revivified
political existence.


themselves the bright and cheering prospect of a revivified
political existence.
An old man, decorated with the cross of Saint Louis, now rose
and proposed the health of King Louis XVIII. It was the Marquis de
Saint-Meran. This toast, recalling at once the patient exile of
Hartwell and the peace-loving King of France, excited universal
enthusiasm; glasses were elevated in the air a l'Anglais, and the
ladies, snatching their bouquets from their fair bosoms, strewed
the table with their floral treasures. In a word, an almost
poetical fervor prevailed.
"Ah," said the Marquise de Saint-Meran, a woman with a stern,
forbidding eye, though still noble and distinguished in appearance,
despite her fifty years — "ah, these revolutionists, who have
driven us from those very possessions they afterwards purchased for
a mere trifle during the Reign of Terror, would be compelled to
own, were they here, that all true devotion was on our side, since
we were content to follow the fortunes of a falling monarch, while
they, on the contrary, made their fortune by worshipping the rising
sun; yes, yes, they could not help admitting that the king, for
whom we sacrificed rank, wealth, and station was truly our `Louis
the well-beloved,' while their wretched usurper his been, and ever
will be, to them their evil genius, their `Napoleon the accursed.'
Am I not right, Villefort?"
"I beg your pardon, madame. I really must pray you to excuse me,
but — in truth — I was not attending to the conversation."
"Marquise, marquise!" interposed the old nobleman who had
proposed the toast, "let the young people alone; let me tell you,
on one's wedding day there are more agreeable subjects of
conversation than dry politics."
"Never mind, dearest mother," said a young and lovely girl, with
a profusion of light brown hair, and eyes that seemed to float in
liquid crystal, "'tis all my fault for seizing upon M. de
Villefort, so as to prevent his listening to what you said. But
there — now take him — he is your own for as long as you like. M.there — now take him — he is your own for as long as you like. M.
Villefort, I beg to remind you my mother speaks to you."
"If the marquise will deign to repeat the words I but
imperfectly caught, I shall be delighted to answer," said M. de
Villefort.
"Never mind, Renee," replied the marquise, with a look of
tenderness that seemed out of keeping with her harsh dry features;
but, however all other feelings may be withered in a woman's
nature, there is always one bright smiling spot in the desert of
her heart, and that is the shrine of maternal love. "I forgive you.
What I was saying, Villefort, was, that the Bonapartists had not
our sincerity, enthusiasm, or devotion."
"They had, however, what supplied the place of those fine
qualities," replied the young man, "and that was fanaticism.
Napoleon is the Mahomet of the West, and is worshipped by his
commonplace but ambitions followers, not only as a leader and
lawgiver, but also as the personification of equality."
"He!" cried the marquise: "Napoleon the type of equality! For
mercy's sake, then, what would you call Robespierre? Come, come, do
not strip the latter of his just rights to bestow them on the
Corsican, who, to my mind, has usurped quite enough."
"Nay, madame; I would place each of these heroes on his right
pedestal — that of Robespierre on his scaffold in the Place Louis
Quinze; that of Napoleon on the column of the Place Vendome. The
only difference consists in the opposite character of the equality
advocated by these two men; one is the equality that elevates, the
other is the equality that degrades; one brings a king within reach
of the guillotine, the other elevates the people to a level with
the throne. Observe," said Villefort, smiling, "I do not mean to
deny that both these men were revolutionary scoundrels, and that
the 9th Thermidor and the 4th of April, in the year 1814, were
lucky days for France, worthy of being gratefully remembered by
every friend to monarchy and civil order; and that explains how itevery friend to monarchy and civil order; and that explains how it
comes to pass that, fallen, as I trust he is forever, Napoleon has
still retained a train of parasitical satellites. Still, marquise,
it has been so with other usurpers — Cromwell, for instance, who
was not half so bad as Napoleon, had his partisans and
advocates."
"Do you know, Villefort, that you are talking in a most
dreadfully revolutionary strain? But I excuse it, it is impossible
to expect the son of a Girondin to be free from a small spice of
the old leaven." A deep crimson suffused the countenance of
Villefort.
"'Tis true, madame," answered he, "that my father was a
Girondin, but he was not among the number of those who voted for
the king's death; he was an equal sufferer with yourself during the
Reign of Terror, and had well-nigh lost his head on the same
scaffold on which your father perished."
"True," replied the marquise, without wincing in the slightest
degree at the tragic remembrance thus called up; "but bear in mind,
if you please, that our respective parents underwent persecution
and proscription from diametrically opposite principles; in proof
of which I may remark, that while my family remained among the
stanchest adherents of the exiled princes, your father lost no time
in joining the new government; and that while the Citizen Noirtier
was a Girondin, the Count Noirtier became a senator."
"Dear mother," interposed Renee, "you know very well it was
agreed that all these disagreeable reminiscences should forever be
laid aside."
"Suffer me, also, madame," replied Villefort, "to add my earnest
request to Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran's, that you will kindly
allow the veil of oblivion to cover and conceal the past. What
avails recrimination over matters wholly past recall? For my own
part, I have laid aside even the name of my father, and altogether
disown his political principles. He was — nay, probably may still
be — a Bonapartist, and is called Noirtier; I, on the contrary, am


be — a Bonapartist, and is called Noirtier; I, on the contrary, am
a stanch royalist, and style myself de Villefort. Let what may
remain of revolutionary sap exhaust itself and die away with the
old trunk, and condescend only to regard the young shoot which has
started up at a distance from the parent tree, without having the
power, any more than the wish, to separate entirely from the stock
from which it sprung."
"Bravo, Villefort!" cried the marquis; "excellently well said!
Come, now, I have hopes of obtaining what I have been for years
endeavoring to persuade the marquise to promise; namely, a perfect
amnesty and forgetfulness of the past."
"With all my heart," replied the marquise; "let the past be
forever forgotten. I promise you it affords me as little pleasure
to revive it as it does you. All I ask is, that Villefort will be
firm and inflexible for the future in his political principles.
Remember, also, Villefort, that we have pledged ourselves to his
majesty for your fealty and strict loyalty, and that at our
recommendation the king consented to forget the past, as I do" (and
here she extended to him her hand) — "as I now do at your entreaty.
But bear in mind, that should there fall in your way any one guilty
of conspiring against the government, you will be so much the more
bound to visit the offence with rigorous punishment, as it is known
you belong to a suspected family."
"Alas, madame," returned Villefort, "my profession, as well as
the times in which we live, compels me to be severe. I have already
successfully conducted several public prosecutions, and brought the
offenders to merited punishment. But we have not done with the
thing yet."
"Do you, indeed, think so?" inquired the marquise.
"I am, at least, fearful of it. Napoleon, in the Island of Elba,
is too near France, and his proximity keeps up the hopes of his
partisans. Marseilles is filled with half-pay officers, who are
daily, under one frivolous pretext or other, getting up quarrelsdaily, under one frivolous pretext or other, getting up quarrels
with the royalists; from hence arise continual and fatal duels
among the higher classes of persons, and assassinations in the
lower."
"You have heard, perhaps," said the Comte de Salvieux, one of M.
de Saint-Meran's oldest friends, and chamberlain to the Comte
d'Artois, "that the Holy Alliance purpose removing him from
thence?"
"Yes; they were talking about it when we left Paris," said M. de
Saint-Meran; "and where is it decided to transfer him?"
"To Saint Helena."
"For heaven's sake, where is that?" asked the marquise.
"An island situated on the other side of the equator, at least
two thousand leagues from here," replied the count.
"So much the better. As Villefort observes, it is a great act of
folly to have left such a man between Corsica, where he was born,
and Naples, of which his brother-in-law is king, and face to face
with Italy, the sovereignty of which he coveted for his son."
"Unfortunately," said Villefort, "there are the treaties of
1814, and we cannot molest Napoleon without breaking those
compacts."
"Oh, well, we shall find some way out of it," responded M. de
Salvieux. "There wasn't any trouble over treaties when it was a
question of shooting the poor Duc d'Enghien."
"Well," said the marquise, "it seems probable that, by the aid
of the Holy Alliance, we shall be rid of Napoleon; and we must
trust to the vigilance of M. de Villefort to purify Marseilles of
his partisans. The king is either a king or no king; if he be
acknowledged as sovereign of France, he should be upheld in peace
and tranquillity; and this can best be effected by employing the
most inflexible agents to put down every attempt at conspiracy —
'tis the best and surest means of preventing mischief."
"Unfortunately, madame," answered Villefort, "the strong arm of
the law is not called upon to interfere until the evil has taken
place."
"Then all he has got to do is to endeavor to repair it."
"Nay, madame, the law is frequently powerless to effect this;"Nay, madame, the law is frequently powerless to effect this;
all it can do is to avenge the wrong done."
"Oh, M. de Villefort," cried a beautiful young creature,
daughter to the Comte de Salvieux, and the cherished friend of
Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran, "do try and get up some famous trial
while we are at Marseilles. I never was in a law-court; I am told
it is so very amusing!"
"Amusing, certainly," replied the young man, "inasmuch as,
instead of shedding tears as at the fictitious tale of woe produced
at a theatre, you behold in a law-court a case of real and genuine
distress — a drama of life. The prisoner whom you there see pale,
agitated, and alarmed, instead of — as is the case when a curtain
falls on a tragedy — going home to sup peacefully with his family,
and then retiring to rest, that he may recommence his mimic woes on
the morrow, — is removed from your sight merely to be reconducted
to his prison and delivered up to the executioner. I leave you to
judge how far your nerves are calculated to bear you through such a
scene. Of this, however, be assured, that should any favorable
opportunity present itself, I will not fail to offer you the choice
of being present."
"For shame, M. de Villefort!" said Renee, becoming quite pale;
"don't you see how you are frightening us? — and yet you
laugh."
"What would you have? 'Tis like a duel. I have already recorded
sentence of death, five or six times, against the movers of
political conspiracies, and who can say how many daggers may be
ready sharpened, and only waiting a favorable opportunity to be
buried in my heart?"
"Gracious heavens, M. de Villefort," said Renee, becoming more
and more terrified; "you surely are not in earnest."
"Indeed I am," replied the young magistrate with a smile; "and
in the interesting trial that young lady is anxious to witness, the
case would only be still more aggravated. Suppose, for instance,
the prisoner, as is more than probable, to have served under
Napoleon — well, can you expect for an instant, that one


Napoleon — well, can you expect for an instant, that one
accustomed, at the word of his commander, to rush fearlessly on the
very bayonets of his foe, will scruple more to drive a stiletto
into the heart of one he knows to be his personal enemy, than to
slaughter his fellow-creatures, merely because bidden to do so by
one he is bound to obey? Besides, one requires the excitement of
being hateful in the eyes of the accused, in order to lash one's
self into a state of sufficient vehemence and power. I would not
choose to see the man against whom I pleaded smile, as though in
mockery of my words. No; my pride is to see the accused pale,
agitated, and as though beaten out of all composure by the fire of
my eloquence." Renee uttered a smothered exclamation.
"Bravo!" cried one of the guests; "that is what I call talking
to some purpose."
"Just the person we require at a time like the present," said a
second.
"What a splendid business that last case of yours was, my dear
Villefort!" remarked a third; "I mean the trial of the man for
murdering his father. Upon my word, you killed him ere the
executioner had laid his hand upon him."
"Oh, as for parricides, and such dreadful people as that,"
interposed Renee, "it matters very little what is done to them; but
as regards poor unfortunate creatures whose only crime consists in
having mixed themselves up in political intrigues" —
"Why, that is the very worst offence they could possibly commit;
for, don't you see, Renee, the king is the father of his people,
and he who shall plot or contrive aught against the life and safety
of the parent of thirty-two millions of souls, is a parricide upon
a fearfully great scale?"
"I don't know anything about that," replied Renee; "but, M. de
Villefort, you have promised me — have you not? — always to show
mercy to those I plead for."
"Make yourself quite easy on that point," answered Villefort,
with one of his sweetest smiles; "you and I will always consult
upon our verdicts."
"My love," said the marquise, "attend to your doves, yourupon our verdicts."
"My love," said the marquise, "attend to your doves, your
lap-dogs, and embroidery, but do not meddle with what you do not
understand. Nowadays the military profession is in abeyance and the
magisterial robe is the badge of honor. There is a wise Latin
proverb that is very much in point."
"Cedant arma togae," said Villefort with a bow.
"I cannot speak Latin," responded the marquise.
"Well," said Renee, "I cannot help regretting you had not chosen
some other profession than your own — a physician, for instance. Do
you know I always felt a shudder at the idea of even a destroying
angel?"
"Dear, good Renee," whispered Villefort, as he gazed with
unutterable tenderness on the lovely speaker.
"Let us hope, my child," cried the marquis, "that M. de
Villefort may prove the moral and political physician of this
province; if so, he will have achieved a noble work."
"And one which will go far to efface the recollection of his
father's conduct," added the incorrigible marquise.
"Madame," replied Villefort, with a mournful smile, "I have
already had the honor to observe that my father has — at least, I
hope so — abjured his past errors, and that he is, at the present
moment, a firm and zealous friend to religion and order — a better
royalist, possibly, than his son; for he has to atone for past
dereliction, while I have no other impulse than warm, decided
preference and conviction." Having made this well-turned speech,
Villefort looked carefully around to mark the effect of his
oratory, much as he would have done had he been addressing the
bench in open court.
"Do you know, my dear Villefort," cried the Comte de Salvieux,
"that is exactly what I myself said the other day at the Tuileries,
when questioned by his majesty's principal chamberlain touching the
singularity of an alliance between the son of a Girondin and the
daughter of an officer of the Duc de Conde; and I assure you he
seemed fully to comprehend that this mode of reconciling politicalseemed fully to comprehend that this mode of reconciling political
differences was based upon sound and excellent principles. Then the
king, who, without our suspecting it, had overheard our
conversation, interrupted us by saying, `Villefort' — observe that
the king did not pronounce the word Noirtier, but, on the contrary,
placed considerable emphasis on that of Villefort — `Villefort,'
said his majesty, `is a young man of great judgment and discretion,
who will be sure to make a figure in his profession; I like him
much, and it gave me great pleasure to hear that he was about to
become the son-in-law of the Marquis and Marquise de Saint-Meran. I
should myself have recommended the match, had not the noble marquis
anticipated my wishes by requesting my consent to it.'"
"Is it possible the king could have condescended so far as to
express himself so favorably of me?" asked the enraptured
Villefort.
"I give you his very words; and if the marquis chooses to be
candid, he will confess that they perfectly agree with what his
majesty said to him, when he went six months ago to consult him
upon the subject of your espousing his daughter."
"That is true," answered the marquis.
"How much do I owe this gracious prince! What is there I would
not do to evince my earnest gratitude!"
"That is right," cried the marquise. "I love to see you thus.
Now, then, were a conspirator to fall into your hands, he would be
most welcome."
"For my part, dear mother." interposed Renee, "I trust your
wishes will not prosper, and that Providence will only permit petty
offenders, poor debtors, and miserable cheats to fall into M. de
Villefort's hands, — then I shall be contented."
"Just the same as though you prayed that a physician might only
be called upon to prescribe for headaches, measles, and the stings
of wasps, or any other slight affection of the epidermis. If you
wish to see me the king's attorney, you must desire for me some of
those violent and dangerous diseases from the cure of which so much
honor redounds to the physician."


honor redounds to the physician."
At this moment, and as though the utterance of Villefort's wish
had sufficed to effect its accomplishment, a servant entered the
room, and whispered a few words in his ear. Villefort immediately
rose from table and quitted the room upon the plea of urgent
business; he soon, however, returned, his whole face beaming with
delight. Renee regarded him with fond affection; and certainly his
handsome features, lit up as they then were with more than usual
fire and animation, seemed formed to excite the innocent admiration
with which she gazed on her graceful and intelligent lover.
"You were wishing just now," said Villefort, addressing her,
"that I were a doctor instead of a lawyer. Well, I at least
resemble the disciples of Esculapius in one thing — that of not
being able to call a day my own, not even that of my
betrothal."
"And wherefore were you called away just now?" asked
Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran, with an air of deep interest.
"For a very serious matter, which bids fair to make work for the
executioner."
"How dreadful!" exclaimed Renee, turning pale.
"Is it possible?" burst simultaneously from all who were near
enough to the magistrate to hear his words.
"Why, if my information prove correct, a sort of Bonaparte
conspiracy has just been discovered."
"Can I believe my ears?" cried the marquise.
"I will read you the letter containing the accusation, at
least," said Villefort: —
"`The king's attorney is informed by a friend to the throne and
the religions institutions of his country, that one named Edmond
Dantes, mate of the ship Pharaon, this day arrived from Smyrna,
after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been the
bearer of a letter from Murat to the usurper, and again taken
charge of another letter from the usurper to the Bonapartist club
in Paris. Ample corroboration of this statement may be obtained by
arresting the above-mentioned Edmond Dantes, who either carries the
letter for Paris about with him, or has it at his father's abode.letter for Paris about with him, or has it at his father's abode.
Should it not be found in the possession of father or son, then it
will assuredly be discovered in the cabin belonging to the said
Dantes on board the Pharaon.'"
"But," said Renee, "this letter, which, after all, is but an
anonymous scrawl, is not even addressed to you, but to the king's
attorney."
"True; but that gentleman being absent, his secretary, by his
orders, opened his letters; thinking this one of importance, he
sent for me, but not finding me, took upon himself to give the
necessary orders for arresting the accused party."
"Then the guilty person is absolutely in custody?" said the
marquise.
"Nay, dear mother, say the accused person. You know we cannot
yet pronounce him guilty."
"He is in safe custody," answered Villefort; "and rely upon it,
if the letter is found, he will not be likely to be trusted abroad
again, unless he goes forth under the especial protection of the
headsman."
"And where is the unfortunate being?" asked Renee.
"He is at my house."
"Come, come, my friend," interrupted the marquise, "do not
neglect your duty to linger with us. You are the king's servant,
and must go wherever that service calls you."
"O Villefort!" cried Renee, clasping her hands, and looking
towards her lover with piteous earnestness, "be merciful on this
the day of our betrothal."
The young man passed round to the side of the table where the
fair pleader sat, and leaning over her chair said tenderly, —
"To give you pleasure, my sweet Renee, I promise to show all the
lenity in my power; but if the charges brought against this
Bonapartist hero prove correct, why, then, you really must give me
leave to order his head to be cut off." Renee shuddered.
"Never mind that foolish girl, Villefort," said the marquise.
"She will soon get over these things." So saying, Madame de
Saint-Meran extended her dry bony hand to Villefort, who, while
imprinting a son-in-law's respectful salute on it, looked at Renee,imprinting a son-in-law's respectful salute on it, looked at Renee,
as much as to say, "I must try and fancy 'tis your dear hand I
kiss, as it should have been."
"These are mournful auspices to accompany a betrothal," sighed
poor Renee.
"Upon my word, child!" exclaimed the angry marquise, "your folly
exceeds all bounds. I should be glad to know what connection there
can possibly be between your sickly sentimentality and the affairs
of the state!"
"O mother!" murmured Renee.
"Nay, madame, I pray you pardon this little traitor. I promise
you that to make up for her want of loyalty, I will be most
inflexibly severe;" then casting an expressive glance at his
betrothed, which seemed to say, "Fear not, for your dear sake my
justice shall be tempered with mercy," and receiving a sweet and
approving smile in return, Villefort quitted the room.Dantes passed through all the stages of torture natural to
prisoners in suspense. He was sustained at first by that pride of
conscious innocence which is the sequence to hope; then he began to
doubt his own innocence, which justified in some measure the
governor's belief in his mental alienation; and then, relaxing his
sentiment of pride, he addressed his supplications, not to God, but
to man. God is always the last resource. Unfortunates, who ought to
begin with God, do not have any hope in him till they have
exhausted all other means of deliverance.
Dantes asked to be removed from his present dungeon into
another; for a change, however disadvantageous, was still a change,
and would afford him some amusement. He entreated to be allowed to
walk about, to have fresh air, books, and writing materials. His
requests were not granted, but he went on asking all the same. He
accustomed himself to speaking to the new jailer, although the
latter was, if possible, more taciturn than the old one; but still,
to speak to a man, even though mute, was something. Dantes spoke
for the sake of hearing his own voice; he had tried to speak when
alone, but the sound of his voice terrified him. Often, before his
captivity, Dantes' mind had revolted at the idea of assemblages of
prisoners, made up of thieves, vagabonds, and murderers. He now
wished to be amongst them, in order to see some other face besides
that of his jailer; he sighed for the galleys, with the infamous
costume, the chain, and the brand on the shoulder. The
galley-slaves breathed the fresh air of heaven, and saw each other.
They were very happy. He besought the jailer one day to let him
have a companion, were it even the mad abbe.
The jailer, though rough and hardened by the constant sight of
so much suffering, was yet a man. At the bottom of his heart he had
often had a feeling of pity for this unhappy young man who suffered
so; and he laid the request of number 34 before the governor; but
the latter sapiently imagined that Dantes wished to conspire or


the latter sapiently imagined that Dantes wished to conspire or
attempt an escape, and refused his request. Dantes had exhausted
all human resources, and he then turned to God.
All the pious ideas that had been so long forgotten, returned;
he recollected the prayers his mother had taught him, and
discovered a new meaning in every word; for in prosperity prayers
seem but a mere medley of words, until misfortune comes and the
unhappy sufferer first understands the meaning of the sublime
language in which he invokes the pity of heaven! He prayed, and
prayed aloud, no longer terrified at the sound of his own voice,
for he fell into a sort of ecstasy. He laid every action of his
life before the Almighty, proposed tasks to accomplish, and at the
end of every prayer introduced the entreaty oftener addressed to
man than to God: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that
trespass against us." Yet in spite of his earnest prayers, Dantes
remained a prisoner.
Then gloom settled heavily upon him. Dantes was a man of great
simplicity of thought, and without education; he could not,
therefore, in the solitude of his dungeon, traverse in mental
vision the history of the ages, bring to life the nations that had
perished, and rebuild the ancient cities so vast and stupendous in
the light of the imagination, and that pass before the eye glowing
with celestial colors in Martin's Babylonian pictures. He could not
do this, he whose past life was so short, whose present so
melancholy, and his future so doubtful. Nineteen years of light to
reflect upon in eternal darkness! No distraction could come to his
aid; his energetic spirit, that would have exalted in thus
revisiting the past, was imprisoned like an eagle in a cage. He
clung to one idea — that of his happiness, destroyed, without
apparent cause, by an unheard-of fatality; he considered and
reconsidered this idea, devoured it (so to speak), as the
implacable Ugolino devours the skull of Archbishop Roger in the
Inferno of Dante.implacable Ugolino devours the skull of Archbishop Roger in the
Inferno of Dante.
Rage supplanted religious fervor. Dantes uttered blasphemies
that made his jailer recoil with horror, dashed himself furiously
against the walls of his prison, wreaked his anger upon everything,
and chiefly upon himself, so that the least thing, — a grain of
sand, a straw, or a breath of air that annoyed him, led to
paroxysms of fury. Then the letter that Villefort had showed to him
recurred to his mind, and every line gleamed forth in fiery letters
on the wall like the mene tekel upharsin of Belshazzar. He told
himself that it was the enmity of man, and not the vengeance of
heaven, that had thus plunged him into the deepest misery. He
consigned his unknown persecutors to the most horrible tortures he
could imagine, and found them all insufficient, because after
torture came death, and after death, if not repose, at least the
boon of unconsciousness.
By dint of constantly dwelling on the idea that tranquillity was
death, and if punishment were the end in view other tortures than
death must be invented, he began to reflect on suicide. Unhappy he,
who, on the brink of misfortune, broods over ideas like these!
Before him is a dead sea that stretches in azure calm before the
eye; but he who unwarily ventures within its embrace finds himself
struggling with a monster that would drag him down to perdition.
Once thus ensnared, unless the protecting hand of God snatch him
thence, all is over, and his struggles but tend to hasten his
destruction. This state of mental anguish is, however, less
terrible than the sufferings that precede or the punishment that
possibly will follow. There is a sort of consolation at the
contemplation of the yawning abyss, at the bottom of which lie
darkness and obscurity.
Edmond found some solace in these ideas. All his sorrows, all
his sufferings, with their train of gloomy spectres, fled from his
cell when the angel of death seemed about to enter. Dantes reviewedcell when the angel of death seemed about to enter. Dantes reviewed
his past life with composure, and, looking forward with terror to
his future existence, chose that middle line that seemed to afford
him a refuge.
"Sometimes," said he, "in my voyages, when I was a man and
commanded other men, I have seen the heavens overcast, the sea rage
and foam, the storm arise, and, like a monstrous bird, beating the
two horizons with its wings. Then I felt that my vessel was a vain
refuge, that trembled and shook before the tempest. Soon the fury
of the waves and the sight of the sharp rocks announced the
approach of death, and death then terrified me, and I used all my
skill and intelligence as a man and a sailor to struggle against
the wrath of God. But I did so because I was happy, because I had
not courted death, because to be cast upon a bed of rocks and
seaweed seemed terrible, because I was unwilling that I, a creature
made for the service of God, should serve for food to the gulls and
ravens. But now it is different; I have lost all that bound me to
life, death smiles and invites me to repose; I die after my own
manner, I die exhausted and broken-spirited, as I fall asleep when
I have paced three thousand times round my cell."
No sooner had this idea taken possession of him than he became
more composed, arranged his couch to the best of his power, ate
little and slept less, and found existence almost supportable,
because he felt that he could throw it off at pleasure, like a
worn-out garment. Two methods of self-destruction were at his
disposal. He could hang himself with his handkerchief to the window
bars, or refuse food and die of starvation. But the first was
repugnant to him. Dantes had always entertained the greatest horror
of pirates, who are hung up to the yard-arm; he would not die by
what seemed an infamous death. He resolved to adopt the second, and
began that day to carry out his resolve. Nearly four years had
passed away; at the end of the second he had ceased to mark the
lapse of time.


passed away; at the end of the second he had ceased to mark the
lapse of time.
Dantes said, "I wish to die," and had chosen the manner of his
death, and fearful of changing his mind, he had taken an oath to
die. "When my morning and evening meals are brought," thought he,
"I will cast them out of the window, and they will think that I
have eaten them."
He kept his word; twice a day he cast out, through the barred
aperture, the provisions his jailer brought him — at first gayly,
then with deliberation, and at last with regret. Nothing but the
recollection of his oath gave him strength to proceed. Hunger made
viands once repugnant, now acceptable; he held the plate in his
hand for an hour at a time, and gazed thoughtfully at the morsel of
bad meat, of tainted fish, of black and mouldy bread. It was the
last yearning for life contending with the resolution of despair;
then his dungeon seemed less sombre, his prospects less desperate.
He was still young — he was only four or five and twenty — he had
nearly fifty years to live. What unforseen events might not open
his prison door, and restore him to liberty? Then he raised to his
lips the repast that, like a voluntary Tantalus, he refused
himself; but he thought of his oath, and he would not break it. He
persisted until, at last, he had not sufficient strength to rise
and cast his supper out of the loophole. The next morning he could
not see or hear; the jailer feared he was dangerously ill. Edmond
hoped he was dying.
Thus the day passed away. Edmond felt a sort of stupor creeping
over him which brought with it a feeling almost of content; the
gnawing pain at his stomach had ceased; his thirst had abated; when
he closed his eyes he saw myriads of lights dancing before them
like the will-o'-the-wisps that play about the marshes. It was the
twilight of that mysterious country called Death!
Suddenly, about nine o'clock in the evening, Edmond heard a
hollow sound in the wall against which he was lying.
So many loathsome animals inhabited the prison, that their noiseSo many loathsome animals inhabited the prison, that their noise
did not, in general, awake him; but whether abstinence had
quickened his faculties, or whether the noise was really louder
than usual, Edmond raised his head and listened. It was a continual
scratching, as if made by a huge claw, a powerful tooth, or some
iron instrument attacking the stones.
Although weakened, the young man's brain instantly responded to
the idea that haunts all prisoners — liberty! It seemed to him that
heaven had at length taken pity on him, and had sent this noise to
warn him on the very brink of the abyss. Perhaps one of those
beloved ones he had so often thought of was thinking of him, and
striving to diminish the distance that separated them.
No, no, doubtless he was deceived, and it was but one of those
dreams that forerun death!
Edmond still heard the sound. It lasted nearly three hours; he
then heard a noise of something falling, and all was silent.
Some hours afterwards it began again, nearer and more distinct.
Edmond was intensely interested. Suddenly the jailer entered.
For a week since he had resolved to die, and during the four
days that he had been carrying out his purpose, Edmond had not
spoken to the attendant, had not answered him when he inquired what
was the matter with him, and turned his face to the wall when he
looked too curiously at him; but now the jailer might hear the
noise and put an end to it, and so destroy a ray of something like
hope that soothed his last moments.
The jailer brought him his breakfast. Dantes raised himself up
and began to talk about everything; about the bad quality of the
food, about the coldness of his dungeon, grumbling and complaining,
in order to have an excuse for speaking louder, and wearying the
patience of his jailer, who out of kindness of heart had brought
broth and white bread for his prisoner.
Fortunately, he fancied that Dantes was delirious; and placing
the food on the rickety table, he withdrew. Edmond listened, and
the sound became more and more distinct.the sound became more and more distinct.
"There can be no doubt about it," thought he; "it is some
prisoner who is striving to obtain his freedom. Oh, if I were only
there to help him!" Suddenly another idea took possession of his
mind, so used to misfortune, that it was scarcely capable of hope —
the idea that the noise was made by workmen the governor had
ordered to repair the neighboring dungeon.
It was easy to ascertain this; but how could he risk the
question? It was easy to call his jailer's attention to the noise,
and watch his countenance as he listened; but might he not by this
means destroy hopes far more important than the short-lived
satisfaction of his own curiosity? Unfortunately, Edmond's brain
was still so feeble that he could not bend his thoughts to anything
in particular.
He saw but one means of restoring lucidity and clearness to his
judgment. He turned his eyes towards the soup which the jailer had
brought, rose, staggered towards it, raised the vessel to his lips,
and drank off the contents with a feeling of indescribable
pleasure. He had often heard that shipwrecked persons had died
through having eagerly devoured too much food. Edmond replaced on
the table the bread he was about to devour, and returned to his
couch — he did not wish to die. He soon felt that his ideas became
again collected — he could think, and strengthen his thoughts by
reasoning. Then he said to himself, "I must put this to the test,
but without compromising anybody. If it is a workman, I need but
knock against the wall, and he will cease to work, in order to find
out who is knocking, and why he does so; but as his occupation is
sanctioned by the governor, he will soon resume it. If, on the
contrary, it is a prisoner, the noise I make will alarm him, he
will cease, and not begin again until he thinks every one is
asleep."
Edmond rose again, but this time his legs did not tremble, and
his sight was clear; he went to a corner of his dungeon, detached a
stone, and with it knocked against the wall where the sound came.


stone, and with it knocked against the wall where the sound came.
He struck thrice. At the first blow the sound ceased, as if by
magic.
Edmond listened intently; an hour passed, two hours passed, and
no sound was heard from the wall — all was silent there.
Full of hope, Edmond swallowed a few mouthfuls of bread and
water, and, thanks to the vigor of his constitution, found himself
well-nigh recovered.
The day passed away in utter silence — night came without
recurrence of the noise.
"It is a prisoner," said Edmond joyfully. The night passed in
perfect silence. Edmond did not close his eyes.
In the morning the jailer brought him fresh provisions — he had
already devoured those of the previous day; he ate these listening
anxiously for the sound, walking round and round his cell, shaking
the iron bars of the loophole, restoring vigor and agility to his
limbs by exercise, and so preparing himself for his future destiny.
At intervals he listened to learn if the noise had not begun again,
and grew impatient at the prudence of the prisoner, who did not
guess he had been disturbed by a captive as anxious for liberty as
himself.
Three days passed — seventy-two long tedious hours which he
counted off by minutes!
At length one evening, as the jailer was visiting him for the
last time that night, Dantes, with his ear for the hundredth time
at the wall, fancied he heard an almost imperceptible movement
among the stones. He moved away, walked up and down his cell to
collect his thoughts, and then went back and listened.
The matter was no longer doubtful. Something was at work on the
other side of the wall; the prisoner had discovered the danger, and
had substituted a lever for a chisel.
Encouraged by this discovery, Edmond determined to assist the
indefatigable laborer. He began by moving his bed, and looked
around for anything with which he could pierce the wall, penetrate
the moist cement, and displace a stone.
He saw nothing, he had no knife or sharp instrument, the windowHe saw nothing, he had no knife or sharp instrument, the window
grating was of iron, but he had too often assured himself of its
solidity. All his furniture consisted of a bed, a chair, a table, a
pail, and a jug. The bed had iron clamps, but they were screwed to
the wood, and it would have required a screw-driver to take them
off. The table and chair had nothing, the pail had once possessed a
handle, but that had been removed.
Dantes had but one resource, which was to break the jug, and
with one of the sharp fragments attack the wall. He let the jug
fall on the floor, and it broke in pieces.
Dantes concealed two or three of the sharpest fragments in his
bed, leaving the rest on the floor. The breaking of his jug was too
natural an accident to excite suspicion. Edmond had all the night
to work in, but in the darkness he could not do much, and he soon
felt that he was working against something very hard; he pushed
back his bed, and waited for day.
All night he heard the subterranean workman, who continued to
mine his way. Day came, the jailer entered. Dantes told him that
the jug had fallen from his hands while he was drinking, and the
jailer went grumblingly to fetch another, without giving himself
the trouble to remove the fragments of the broken one. He returned
speedily, advised the prisoner to be more careful, and
departed.
Dantes heard joyfully the key grate in the lock; he listened
until the sound of steps died away, and then, hastily displacing
his bed, saw by the faint light that penetrated into his cell, that
he had labored uselessly the previous evening in attacking the
stone instead of removing the plaster that surrounded it.
The damp had rendered it friable, and Dantes was able to break
it off — in small morsels, it is true, but at the end of half an
hour he had scraped off a handful; a mathematician might have
calculated that in two years, supposing that the rock was not
encountered, a passage twenty feet long and two feet broad, might
be formed.encountered, a passage twenty feet long and two feet broad, might
be formed.
The prisoner reproached himself with not having thus employed
the hours he had passed in vain hopes, prayer, and despondency.
During the six years that he had been imprisoned, what might he not
have accomplished?
In three days he had succeeded, with the utmost precaution, in
removing the cement, and exposing the stone-work. The wall was
built of rough stones, among which, to give strength to the
structure, blocks of hewn stone were at intervals imbedded. It was
one of these he had uncovered, and which he must remove from its
socket.
Dantes strove to do this with his nails, but they were too weak.
The fragments of the jug broke, and after an hour of useless toil,
he paused.
Was he to be thus stopped at the beginning, and was he to wait
inactive until his fellow workman had completed his task? Suddenly
an idea occurred to him — he smiled, and the perspiration dried on
his forehead.
The jailer always brought Dantes' soup in an iron saucepan; this
saucepan contained soup for both prisoners, for Dantes had noticed
that it was either quite full, or half empty, according as the
turnkey gave it to him or to his companion first.
The handle of this saucepan was of iron; Dantes would have given
ten years of his life in exchange for it.
The jailer was accustomed to pour the contents of the saucepan
into Dantes' plate, and Dantes, after eating his soup with a wooden
spoon, washed the plate, which thus served for every day. Now when
evening came Dantes put his plate on the ground near the door; the
jailer, as he entered, stepped on it and broke it.
This time he could not blame Dantes. He was wrong to leave it
there, but the jailer was wrong not to have looked before him.
The jailer, therefore, only grumbled. Then he looked about for
something to pour the soup into; Dantes' entire dinner service
consisted of one plate — there was no alternative.
"Leave the saucepan," said Dantes; "you can take it away when


"Leave the saucepan," said Dantes; "you can take it away when
you bring me my breakfast." This advice was to the jailer's taste,
as it spared him the necessity of making another trip. He left the
saucepan.
Dantes was beside himself with joy. He rapidly devoured his
food, and after waiting an hour, lest the jailer should change his
mind and return, he removed his bed, took the handle of the
saucepan, inserted the point between the hewn stone and rough
stones of the wall, and employed it as a lever. A slight
oscillation showed Dantes that all went well. At the end of an hour
the stone was extricated from the wall, leaving a cavity a foot and
a half in diameter.
Dantes carefully collected the plaster, carried it into the
corner of his cell, and covered it with earth. Then, wishing to
make the best use of his time while he had the means of labor, he
continued to work without ceasing. At the dawn of day he replaced
the stone, pushed his bed against the wall, and lay down. The
breakfast consisted of a piece of bread; the jailer entered and
placed the bread on the table.
"Well, don't you intend to bring me another plate?" said
Dantes.
"No," replied the turnkey; "you destroy everything. First you
break your jug, then you make me break your plate; if all the
prisoners followed your example, the government would be ruined. I
shall leave you the saucepan, and pour your soup into that. So for
the future I hope you will not be so destructive."
Dantes raised his eyes to heaven and clasped his hands beneath
the coverlet. He felt more gratitude for the possession of this
piece of iron than he had ever felt for anything. He had noticed,
however, that the prisoner on the other side had ceased to labor;
no matter, this was a greater reason for proceeding — if his
neighbor would not come to him, he would go to his neighbor. All
day he toiled on untiringly, and by the evening he had succeeded in
extracting ten handfuls of plaster and fragments of stone. When the
hour for his jailer's visit arrived, Dantes straightened the handlehour for his jailer's visit arrived, Dantes straightened the handle
of the saucepan as well as he could, and placed it in its
accustomed place. The turnkey poured his ration of soup into it,
together with the fish — for thrice a week the prisoners were
deprived of meat. This would have been a method of reckoning time,
had not Dantes long ceased to do so. Having poured out the soup,
the turnkey retired. Dantes wished to ascertain whether his
neighbor had really ceased to work. He listened — all was silent,
as it had been for the last three days. Dantes sighed; it was
evident that his neighbor distrusted him. However, he toiled on all
the night without being discouraged; but after two or three hours
he encountered an obstacle. The iron made no impression, but met
with a smooth surface; Dantes touched it, and found that it was a
beam. This beam crossed, or rather blocked up, the hole Dantes had
made; it was necessary, therefore, to dig above or under it. The
unhappy young man had not thought of this. "O my God, my God!"
murmured he, "I have so earnestly prayed to you, that I hoped my
prayers had been heard. After having deprived me of my liberty,
after having deprived me of death, after having recalled me to
existence, my God, have pity on me, and do not let me die in
despair!"
"Who talks of God and despair at the same time?" said a voice
that seemed to come from beneath the earth, and, deadened by the
distance, sounded hollow and sepulchral in the young man's ears.
Edmond's hair stood on end, and he rose to his knees.
"Ah," said he, "I hear a human voice." Edmond had not heard any
one speak save his jailer for four or five years; and a jailer is
no man to a prisoner — he is a living door, a barrier of flesh and
blood adding strength to restraints of oak and iron.
"In the name of heaven," cried Dantes, "speak again, though the
sound of your voice terrifies me. Who are you?"
"Who are you?" said the voice.
"An unhappy prisoner," replied Dantes, who made no hesitation in
answering.
"Of what country?"
"A Frenchman."answering.
"Of what country?"
"A Frenchman."
"Your name?"
"Edmond Dantes."
"Your profession?"
"A sailor."
"How long have you been here?"
"Since the 28th of February, 1815."
"Your crime?"
"I am innocent."
"But of what are you accused?"
"Of having conspired to aid the emperor's return."
"What! For the emperor's return? — the emperor is no longer on
the throne, then?"
"He abdicated at Fontainebleau in 1814, and was sent to the
Island of Elba. But how long have you been here that you are
ignorant of all this?"
"Since 1811."
Dantes shuddered; this man had been four years longer than
himself in prison.
"Do not dig any more," said the voice; "only tell me how high up
is your excavation?"
"On a level with the floor."
"How is it concealed?"
"Behind my bed."
"Has your bed been moved since you have been a prisoner?"
"No."
"What does your chamber open on?"
"A corridor."
"And the corridor?"
"On a court."
"Alas!" murmured the voice.
"Oh, what is the matter?" cried Dantes.
"I have made a mistake owing to an error in my plans. I took the
wrong angle, and have come out fifteen feet from where I intended.
I took the wall you are mining for the outer wall of the
fortress."
"But then you would be close to the sea?"
"That is what I hoped."
"And supposing you had succeeded?"
"I should have thrown myself into the sea, gained one of the
islands near here — the Isle de Daume or the Isle de Tiboulen — and
then I should have been safe."
"Could you have swum so far?"
"Heaven would have given me strength; but now all is lost."
"All?"
"Yes; stop up your excavation carefully, do not work any more,
and wait until you hear from me."
"Tell me, at least, who you are?"
"I am — I am No. 27."
"You mistrust me, then," said Dantes. Edmond fancied he heard a
bitter laugh resounding from the depths.
"Oh, I am a Christian," cried Dantes, guessing instinctively
that this man meant to abandon him. "I swear to you by him who died
for us that naught shall induce me to breathe one syllable to my