The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (201 page)

‘Do you still have them?’ Monte Cristo asked eagerly.

‘No, Monsieur. I sold the various things, which were very unusual, to visitors. But I do have something else.’

‘What is that?’ the count asked impatiently.

‘I have a sort of book, written on strips of cloth.’

‘Oh!’ Monte Cristo cried. ‘You have such a book?’

‘I don’t know if it is a book,’ said the concierge. ‘But I do have what I told you.’

‘Go and fetch it, my friend,’ said the count. ‘Go, and if it’s what I think, don’t worry.’

‘I’m going, Monsieur.’ And the guide left.

At this, the count went to kneel piously in front of the remains of the bed which death had made an altar for him. ‘Oh, my second father,’ he said. ‘You who gave me liberty, knowledge, riches; you who, like those beings of some higher essence than ourselves, had an understanding of good and evil, if in the depths of the tomb something remains of us which still shudders to hear the voices of those who have remained on earth; if in the transfiguration undergone by the body in death, something animate remains in the places where we have greatly loved or greatly suffered, noble heart, supreme spirit, profound soul, I beg you by some word, some sign or some revelation, in the name of the paternal love which you gave me and the filial respect that I returned to you, take away this remaining doubt that, if it does not become a certainty, will turn into remorse.’

The count bent his head and clasped his hands.

‘Here, Monsieur!’ said a voice behind him. He started and turned around. The concierge was holding out the strips of cloth to which Abbé Faria had entrusted all the fruits of his wisdom. This was the manuscript of Abbé Faria’s great work on the monarchy in Italy.

The count seized it eagerly and the first thing his eyes met was the epigraph, which read: ‘You will pull the dragon’s teeth and trample the lions underfoot, said the Lord.’

‘Ah!’ he cried. ‘There is my answer! Thank you, father, thank you.’

Taking out of his pocket a small wallet containing ten banknotes of a thousand francs each, he said: ‘Here, take this.’

‘Are you giving it to me?’

‘Yes, on condition that you do not look inside it until after I have gone.’

Placing the relic which he had just found against his chest – a relic which for him was worth the most precious treasure – he hurried out of the underground tunnel and stepped back into the boat, with the order: ‘To Marseille!’

As they were pulling away, he looked back towards the grim fortress and said: ‘Woe betide those who had me shut up in that awful place and those who forgot that I was imprisoned there.’

As they sailed back past Les Catalans, the count turned away, wrapped his head in his cloak and muttered a woman’s name. The victory was complete. Twice he had driven away his doubts. And the name which he spoke with an expression of tenderness that was close to love, was that of Haydée.

On reaching land, Monte Cristo set off for the cemetery where he knew he would find Morrel. Ten years earlier, he too had piously searched out a tomb in this graveyard, but he had searched in vain. Returning to France a millionaire, he had been unable to find the tomb of his father, who had starved to death. Morrel had indeed arranged for a cross to be raised, but the cross had fallen and the gravedigger had burned it, as gravediggers do with old pieces of wood lying around in cemeteries.

The worthy merchant had been luckier. He died in the arms of his children, who laid him to rest beside his wife, who had preceded him by two years into eternity.

Two large slabs of marble bearing their names lay, one beside the other, in a little plot surrounded by an iron railing, in the shade of four cypress-trees. Maximilien was leaning against one of these, staring at the two graves but seeing nothing. His agony was profound and he was in almost a state of distraction.

‘Maximilien,’ the count said, ‘that is not where you should be looking, but there!’ And he pointed to heaven.

‘The dead are all around us,’ said Morrel. ‘Isn’t that what you told me yourself when you took me away from Paris?’

‘Maximilien,’ the count said, ‘during the journey you asked me to stop for a few days in Marseille: is that still what you want?’

‘I no longer want anything, Count. But I feel that I shall wait with less displeasure here than elsewhere.’

‘So much the better, Maximilien, because I am leaving you, but taking your word of honour with me, I think?’

‘Oh, I shall forget it, Count,’ said Morrel. ‘I shall forget it.’

‘No, you will not forget, because before all else you are a man of
honour, Morrel, because you have sworn and because you must swear again.’

‘Please, Count, have pity on me! I am so unhappy!’

‘I once knew a man who was more unhappy than you, Morrel.’

‘Impossible!’

‘Alas,’ said Monte Cristo, ‘our poor species can pride itself on the fact that every man thinks himself unhappier than another unfortunate, weeping and moaning beside him.’

‘What can be more unhappy than a man who had lost the only thing in the world that he loved and desired?’

‘Listen, Morrel,’ Monte Cristo said, ‘and concentrate for a moment on what I am about to tell you. I knew a man who, like you, placed all his expectations of happiness in a woman. He was young and had an old father whom he loved and a fiancée whom he adored. He was about to marry her when suddenly one of those twists of fate – which would make us doubt the existence of God if God did not reveal himself later by demonstrating that everything is to Him a means by which to lead us to His infinite oneness… when suddenly a twist of fate took away his freedom, his fiancée, and the future he dreamed of, which he believed was his (blind as he was, he could only read the here-and-now), and threw him in the depths of a dungeon.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Morrel said. ‘But people come out of dungeons – after a week, or a month, or a year.’

‘He stayed there for fourteen years, Morrel,’ the count said, putting his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

Maximilien shuddered. ‘Fourteen years!’ he murmured.

‘Fourteen years,’ the count repeated. ‘And he too, in those fourteen years, had many moments of despair. He too, like you, Morrel, thinking himself the most unhappy of men, wanted to kill himself.’

‘And?’ Morrel asked.

‘And at the very last moment God revealed himself to him by human means; because God no longer performs miracles. Perhaps at first (because eyes clouded by tears need some time to clear entirely), he did not understand the infinite mercy of the Lord. But he was patient and waited. One day he miraculously emerged from his tomb, transfigured, rich, powerful, almost a god. His first thought was for his father, but his father was dead.’

‘My father too is dead,’ said Morrel.

‘Yes, but he died in your arms, loved, happy, honoured, rich and
full of years. This man’s father died poor, desperate, doubting God; and when, ten years after his death, his son looked for the grave, even that had vanished, and no one could tell him: “Here is where the heart that loved you so sleeps in the Lord.” ’

‘Oh,’ said Morrel.

‘So, as a son, he was unhappier than you are, Morrel; he did not even know where to find his father’s grave.’

‘Yes,’ said Morrel, ‘but he did still have the woman whom he loved.’

‘You are wrong, Morrel. The woman…’

‘Was she dead?’ Maximilien cried.

‘Worse. She had been unfaithful and married one of her fiancé’s tormentors. So you see, Morrel, the man was more unfortunate even than you are.’

‘And did God send him consolation?’ Morrel asked. ‘He did at least send him tranquillity.’

‘And might he still be happy one day?’

‘He hopes so, Maximilien.’

The young man bowed his head and, after a moment’s silence, said: ‘You have my promise; but, remember…’ And he offered Monte Cristo his hand.

‘On October the fifth, Morrel, I shall expect you on the island of Monte Cristo. On the fourth a yacht will be waiting for you in the port at Bastia. The yacht will be called the
Eurus
. You will tell the master your name and he will bring you to me. That’s agreed, isn’t it, Maximilien?’

‘Agreed, Count, and I shall do as we have agreed. But remember that on October the fifth…’

‘Child, who does not yet know what a man’s promise means! I have told you twenty times that on that day, if you still want to die, I shall help you. Now, farewell.’

‘Are you leaving me?’

‘Yes, I have business in Italy. I am leaving you alone, alone with your grief, alone with that powerful eagle which the Lord sends to his elect to transport them to his feet. The story of Ganymede
⁴
is not a fable, Maximilien, but an allegory.’

‘When will you leave?’

‘Immediately. The steamship is waiting for me, and in an hour I shall already be far away. Will you come with me to the port?’

‘I am entirely at your disposal, Count.’

‘Embrace me.’

Morrel walked with the count down to the port. Already a huge plume of smoke was pouring out of the black tube which cast it upwards towards the skies. Shortly afterwards the boat set out, and an hour later, as Monte Cristo had said, the same trail of smoke was barely visible, streaking an eastern horizon darkened by the first shades of night.

At the very same moment as the count’s steamship was vanishing behind the Cap Morgiou, a man, travelling by the mail on the road from Florence to Rome, had just left the little town of Aquapendente. Doing some of the journey on foot, he covered a lot of ground without attracting suspicion.

Dressed in a frock-coat or, rather, an overcoat, much worn by travel but showing the ribbon of the Legion of Honour sewn on to it, still bright and shining, the man was recognizably French, not only by his dress and his decoration, but also by the accent in which he addressed the postilion. Another proof that he had been born in that land, with its universal language, was that he knew no other Italian words except those pertaining to music which, like Figaro’s
‘goddam’
,
¹
can stand in for all the subtleties of a particular tongue.

‘Allegro!’
he cried to the coachmen as they went up a hill.
‘Moderato!’
he cried every time they went down.

God knows, there are plenty of hills, up and down, between Florence and Rome along the road through Aquapendente.

The two words, of course, caused enormous hilarity among the good fellows to whom they were addressed.

Once in the presence of the Eternal City, that is to say on arriving at La Storta, the point from which one may catch sight of Rome, the traveller did not experience the feeling of fervent curiosity that impels every foreigner to rise from his seat in an attempt to see the famous dome of Saint Peter’s, which can be glimpsed long before anything else. No. He merely took a portfolio from his pocket and, from the portfolio, a piece of paper folded four times, which he
unfolded and refolded with an intensity that was close to respect, saying only: ‘Good, I still have it.’

The carriage entered through the Porta del Popolo, turned left and stopped at the Hôtel de Londres.

Our old friend Signor Pastrini greeted the traveller on the doorstep, cap in hand. The traveller got down, ordered a good dinner and asked for the address of the firm of Thomson and French, which was instantly pointed out to him, since the firm was one of the best known in Rome. It was situated in the Via dei Banchi, near Saint Peter’s.

In Rome, as anywhere else, the arrival of a stage-coach is an event. Ten young descendants of Marius and the Gracchi,
²
barefoot and with holes at their elbows, but with one hand on their hip and the other arm picturesquely bent above their head, watched the traveller, the post-chaise and the horses. These typical Roman
ragazzi
had been joined by some fifty idlers from the Papal States, of the sort who make rings on the water by spitting into the Tiber from the Ponte Sant’ Angelo, when there is water in the river.

Now since the
ragazzi
and street urchins of Rome, unlike the
gamins
of Paris, understand every language, especially French, they heard the traveller ask for rooms, order dinner and finally enquire as to the address of Thomson and French.

The result was that, when the new arrival came out of the hotel with his inevitable guide, a man emerged from the group of onlookers and, without being observed by the traveller (or, apparently, by the guide), walked a short distance behind the foreigner, tailing him with as much skill as a Parisian detective.

The man was in such a hurry to visit Thomson and French that he had not bothered to wait for the horses to be harnessed. The carriage was to pick him up on the way or wait for him at the door of the bank. He got there before the coach reached him.

The Frenchman went in, leaving his guide in the antechamber, where he immediately got into conversation with two or three of those businessmen who have no business (or, if you prefer, have a thousand businesses), who in Rome hang around at the doors of banks, churches, ruins, museums or theatres.