The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (23 page)

‘I am ready,’ the shipowner said, sitting in Villefort’s chair and taking up a pen.

So Villefort dictated a request in which, undoubtedly with the best of intentions, he exaggerated Dantès’ patriotism and the service he had rendered to the Bonapartist cause. In it, Dantès became one of the most significant figures in ensuring Napoleon’s return: clearly, when he saw the document, the minister must immediately see that justice was done, if it had not been done already.

When they had completed the petition, Villefort read it out.

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Now, count on me.’

‘Will the petition be sent soon, Monsieur?’

‘This very day.’

‘Certified by you?’

‘The finest apostil I can put on it is to certify that all you have said in this request is true.’

Villefort resumed his place and stamped his certification on a corner of the petition.

‘So, what do we have to do now?’ asked Morrel.

‘Wait,’ Villefort replied. ‘I shall look after everything.’

Morrel’s hopes were raised by this assurance; he left the deputy prosecutor’s office delighted with himself and went to tell Dantès’ father that he would be seeing his son before long.

As for Villefort, instead of sending the request to Paris, he put it carefully aside for safekeeping, knowing that what might save Dantès in the present would become a disastrously compromising
document in the future, in the event – which the situation in Europe and course of affairs already allowed him to predict – of a second Restoration.

So Dantès remained a prisoner. In the depths of the dungeon where he was buried, no sound reached him of the resounding crash of Louis XVIII’s throne or of the still more dreadful collapse of the empire.

Villefort, however, had watched all this closely and listened to it attentively. On two occasions during the brief reappearance of the emperor known as the Hundred Days, M. Morrel had renewed his efforts, always demanding that Dantès be released, and each time Villefort had reassured him with promises and expectations. Finally, Waterloo. Morrel was not again seen at Villefort’s: the shipowner had done everything humanly possible for his young friend and, if he were to make any further attempt under this second Restoration, he would compromise himself, to no useful end.

Louis XVIII returned to the throne. For Villefort, Marseille was full of memories that were soured with remorse, so he requested and obtained the vacant post of crown prosecutor in Toulouse. A fortnight after moving into his new home, he married Mlle Renée de Saint-Méran, whose father was more in favour at court than ever.

So it was that Dantès, during the Hundred Days and after Waterloo, remained under lock and key, forgotten, if not by men, at least by God.

When Danglars witnessed Napoleon’s return to France, he realized the full effect of the blow he had directed against Dantès: his denunciation had been accurate and, like all men with a certain natural aptitude for crime and only average understanding of ordinary life, he described this strange coincidence as ‘a decree of Providence’. But when Napoleon had returned to Paris and his voice, imperious and powerful, was heard once more in the land, Danglars knew fear. At every moment he expected Dantès to reappear, a Dantès who knew everything, a Dantès who was strong and who threatened every kind of vengeance. So he gave M. Morrel notice of his desire to renounce seafaring and obtained a reference from him to a Spanish trader, whose service he entered as accounts clerk towards the end of March, that is to say ten or twelve days after Napoleon’s return to the Tuileries. He left for Madrid and nothing more was heard of him.

As for Fernand, he understood nothing. Dantès had gone away; that was enough. What had happened to him? Fernand did not try to find out. Throughout the reprieve that this absence gave him, he strove, partly to mislead Mercédès about the reasons for it, and partly to devise plans for emigration and abduction. From time to time – these were the dark moments in his life – he also sat at the extremity of the Cap Pharo, at the point from which you can see both Marseille and the Catalan village, sad, motionless as a bird of prey, watching in case he might see, returning by one or other of these routes, the handsome young man who walked freely, with his head held high; and who, for Fernand also, had become the messenger of a cruel revenge. In that event, Fernand was decided: he would break Dantès’ skull with his gun and then, he thought, afterwards kill himself, to disguise the murder. But Fernand was mistaken: he would never kill himself, because he lived in hope.

While this was happening, among all these painful changes, the empire called for a final muster of soldiers and every man who was capable of bearing arms marched across the frontier of France in obedience to the emperor’s resounding call. Fernand set off with the rest, leaving his hut, leaving Mercédès, devoured by the dark and dreadful thought that, when he had gone, his rival might return and marry the woman he loved. If ever Fernand meant to kill himself, he would have done so on leaving Mercédès.

His attentions to the young woman, the pity which he appeared to feel for her in her misfortune and the care that he took to anticipate the least of her wishes, had produced the effect that an appearance of devotion inevitably produces on a generous heart: Mercédès had always loved Fernand as a friend and now her friendship towards him was increased by a new feeling: gratitude.

‘My brother,’ she said, fastening his conscript’s bag across the Catalan’s shoulders, ‘my only friend, do not let yourself be killed, do not leave me alone in the world, where I weep and where I shall be entirely alone if you leave it.’

These words, spoken on his departure, gave Fernand new hope. If Dantès did not return, then Mercédès might be his.

Mercédès remained alone in that bare landscape, which had never appeared to her more arid, bounded by the vastness of the sea. Bathed in tears, like the madwoman whose painful story we have heard, she could be seen wandering continually around the little Catalan village, now pausing beneath the burning southern
sun, standing motionless and silent as a statue, looking towards Marseille; now seated on the shore, listening to the moaning of the sea, as endless as her sorrow, and ceaselessly wondering if it would not be better to lean forward, sink beneath her own weight into the abyss and let herself be swallowed up, rather than to suffer all the cruel uncertainties of hopeless expectation.

It was not the fact that Mercédès lacked the courage to carry out this intention, but the succour of religion that saved her from suicide.

Caderousse was called up as Fernand had been; but, being eight years older than the Catalan and married, he was not recruited until the third wave of conscription and sent to guard the coast.

Old Dantès, who had been sustained only by hope, lost hope when the emperor fell. Five months to the day after being separated from his son, and almost at the very hour when Dantès was arrested, he breathed his last in Mercédès’ arms.

M. Morrel undertook to pay all the expenses of the funeral and settled the trifling debts that the old man had run up during his last illness. It took more than benevolence to do this: it took courage. The South was ablaze, and to assist the father of a Bonapartist as dangerous as Dantès, even on his deathbed, was a crime.

Approximately one year after the return of Louis XVIII, the Inspector General of Prisons paid a visit.

Dantès heard all the trundling and grinding of preparations from the depth of his cell: there was a great deal of commotion upstairs, but the noise would have been imperceptible below for any ear other than that of a prisoner who was accustomed to hearing, in the silence of night, the sound made by a spider spinning its web or the regular fall of a drop of water which took an hour to gather on the ceiling of his dungeon.

He guessed that among the living something exceptional was taking place; he had lived so long in the tomb that he might justifiably have considered himself dead.

In the event, the inspector was visiting the rooms, cells and dungeons, one after the other. Several prisoners were questioned – those who had earned the goodwill of the governors by their mild manner or sheer stupidity. The inspector asked them how they were fed and any demands that they might have to make.

They replied unanimously that the food was execrable and that they demanded their freedom.

The inspector then asked if they had anything else to say to him.

They shook their heads. What can any prisoner have to ask for, apart from his freedom?

The inspector turned around with a smile and said to the governor: ‘I can’t think why they oblige us to make these pointless visits. When you have seen one prisoner, you have seen a hundred; when you have heard one prisoner, you have heard a thousand. It’s always the same old song: badly fed and innocent. Have you got any others?’

‘Yes, we have the mad or dangerous prisoners, whom we keep in the dungeons.’

‘Very well,’ the inspector said, with an air of profound weariness. ‘We had better do the job properly. Let’s go down to the dungeons.’

‘One moment,’ said the governor. ‘We should at least get a couple of men to go with us. Sometimes the prisoners, if only because they are sick of life and wish to be condemned to death, commit vain and desperate acts; you might be a victim of such an attempt.’

‘Then take some precautions,’ said the inspector.

They sent for two soldiers and began to go down a flight of stairs that was so foul-smelling, so filthy and so mildewed that even to pass through the place simultaneously offended one’s sight, hampered one’s breathing and assaulted one’s nostrils.

‘Who in hell’s name can live here?’ the inspector asked, stopping half-way.

‘The most dangerous of conspirators, against whom we have been warned as a man capable of anything.’

‘He is alone.’

‘Indeed he is.’

‘How long has he been here?’

‘For about a year.’

‘Was he thrown into this dungeon as soon as he arrived?’

‘No, Monsieur, only after he had attempted to murder the turnkey who brought him his food.’

‘He tried to kill a turnkey?’

‘This same one who is holding the lamp. Isn’t that so, Antoine?’ the governor asked.

‘He did want to kill me for sure,’ the turnkey answered.

‘Well, I never! Is the man mad?’

‘Worse than that,’ said the turnkey. ‘He’s a devil.’

‘Would you like me to make a complaint about him?’ the inspector asked the governor.

‘There is no need, Monsieur, he is being punished enough as it is. In any case, he is already close to madness and, judging by what we have observed, in another year he will be quite insane.’

‘Well, so much the better for him,’ said the inspector. ‘When he is altogether mad, he will suffer less.’ As you can see, this inspector was a man of the utmost humanity and altogether worthy of the philanthropic office with which he had been entrusted.

‘You are right, Monsieur,’ said the governor. ‘Your remark proves that you have given the matter a good deal of thought. As it happens, in a dungeon not more than twenty feet away from this one which is reached by another staircase, we have an old abbé, a former leader of a faction in Italy, who has been here since 1811 and who lost his wits around the end of 1813. Since then, he has been physically unrecognizable: he used to weep, now he laughs; he was growing thin, now he is putting on weight. Would you like to see him instead of this one? His madness is entertaining; it won’t depress you.’

‘I’ll see them both,’ replied the inspector. ‘We must be conscientious about our work.’ He was carrying out his very first tour of inspection and wanted to make a good impression on the authorities.

‘Let’s go in here first,’ he added.

‘Certainly,’ said the governor, indicating to the turnkey that he should open the door.

Dantès was crouching in a corner of the dungeon where he had the unspeakable happiness of enjoying the thin ray of daylight that filtered through the bars of a narrow window; hearing the grating of the massive locks and the screech of the rusty doorpost turning in its socket, he looked up. At the sight of a stranger, lit by two turnkeys with torches, who was being addressed by the governor, hat in hand, together with two soldiers, Dantès guessed what was going on and, seeing at last an opportunity to petition a higher authority, leapt forward with his hands clasped.

The soldiers immediately crossed their bayonets, thinking that the prisoner was rushed towards the inspector with some evil intent. The inspector himself took a step backwards.

Dantès realized that he had been depicted as someone dangerous; so he summoned up a look that expressed the utmost leniency and humility and spoke with a kind of pious eloquence that astonished everyone, in an attempt to touch the heart of his visitor.

The inspector listened to what Dantès had to say until he had finished; then, turning to the governor, he whispered: ‘He has the makings of a religious devotee; already he is inclined to more benevolent feelings. You see, fear has had an effect on him. He recoiled from the bayonets, while a madman recoils at nothing: I have done some interesting research on the subject in Charenton.’

Then, turning back to the prisoner, he said: ‘Tell me briefly, what do you want?’