The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (207 page)

Valentine clasped Monte Cristo by the hand and, with an irresistible burst of joy, put it to her lips.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Thank me. Oh, tell me over and over again, never tire of telling me that I have made you happy. You do not know how much I need the certainty of that!’

‘Oh, yes, I thank you with all my soul!’ Valentine said. ‘And if you doubt the sincerity of my thanks, ask Haydée, ask my dear sister Haydée, who has made me wait patiently since our departure from France, talking to me of you, until this happy day that has now dawned.’

‘Do you love Haydée?’ Monte Cristo asked, with ill-disguised emotion.

‘Oh, yes, with all my heart!’

‘Then, Valentine, listen to me,’ said the count. ‘I have a favour to beg of you.’

‘Of me! Good heavens, am I fortunate enough for that?’

‘You called Haydée your sister. Let her be your sister indeed, Valentine. Give her everything that you think you owe to me. Protect her, you and Morrel, because…’ (and here the count’s voice was almost stifled in his throat) ‘… because from now on she will be alone in the world.’

‘Alone in the world!’ repeated a voice from behind the place where the count was standing. ‘Why?’

Monte Cristo turned and saw Haydée, pale and ice-cold, giving him a look of utter disbelief.

‘Because tomorrow, my child, you will be free,’ he replied. ‘Because you will resume your proper place in the world and because I do not want my fate to cloud your own. You are the daughter of a prince: I am restoring your father’s wealth and your father’s name to you!’

Haydée’s face was drained of colour. She opened her translucent hands like a virgin recommending her soul to God, and said, in a voice harsh with tears: ‘So, my Lord, you are leaving me?’

‘Haydée, Haydée, you are young and beautiful. Forget even my name, and be happy.’

‘Very well,’ said Haydée. ‘Your orders will be carried out, my lord. I shall forget even your name, and I shall be happy.’ And she took a pace backwards, to leave the room.

‘Oh, my God!’ cried Valentine, who was supporting Morrel’s numbed head on her shoulder. ‘Can’t you see how pale she is? Don’t you realize what she is suffering?’

Haydée addressed her with a heartrending expression on her face: ‘How do you expect him to understand me, my sister? He is my master, and I his slave. He has the right to see nothing.’

The count shuddered at the tone of this voice, which awoke the deepest fibres of his being. His eyes met those of the young woman and could not bear to look into them. ‘My God, my God!’ he said. ‘Can what you hinted to me be true? Haydée, would you be happy then not to leave me?’

‘I am young,’ she answered softly. ‘I love life, which you have always made so pleasant for me. I should be sorry to die.’

‘Do you mean that if I were to leave you, Haydée…’

‘Yes, my Lord, I should die!’

‘Do you love me, then?’

‘Oh, Valentine, he asks if I love him! Tell him: do you love Maximilien?’

The count felt his breast swell and his heart fill. He opened his arms and Haydée threw herself into them with a cry. ‘Oh, yes! Oh, yes I love you!’ she said. ‘I love you as one loves a father, a brother, a husband! I love you as one loves life, and loves God, for you are to me the most beautiful, the best and greatest of created beings!’

‘Let it be as you will, my sweet angel!’ said the count. ‘God, who roused me against my enemies and gave me victory, God, I can see, does not wish my victory to end with that regret. I wished to punish myself, but God wants to pardon me. So, love me, Haydée! Who knows? Perhaps your love will make me forget what I have to forget.’

‘What are you saying, my Lord?’ the young woman asked.

‘I am saying that a word from you, Haydée, enlightened me more than twenty years of sage wisdom. I have only you left in the world, Haydée. It is through you that I am attached to life; through you I can suffer and through you I can be happy.’

‘Do you hear that, Valentine?’ Haydée cried. ‘He says that through me he can suffer! Through me, when I would give my life for him!’

The count thought for a moment. ‘Have I understood the truth? Oh, God! What matter! Reward or punishment, I accept my fate. Come, Haydée, come…’ And putting his arm round the young woman’s waist, he pressed Valentine’s hand and disappeared.

About an hour passed in which, breathing heavily and staring, unable to speak, Valentine remained by Morrel’s side. Finally she felt his heart beat, a barely perceptible breath passed his lips and the young man’s whole body was shaken by that slight shudder which indicates returning life. Finally his eyes opened, though at first they stared wildly. Then sight returned, sharp and true, and, with it, feeling; and, with feeling, pain.

‘Oh!’ he wailed in a desperate voice. ‘I am still alive! The count deceived me!’ And his hand reached for a knife on the table.

‘My friend,’ said Valentine, with her irresistible smile, ‘wake up and look towards me.’

Morrel gave a great cry and, delirious, full of doubt, dazzled as though by some celestial vision, he fell on both knees…

The next day, with the first rays of sunlight, Morrel and Valentine were walking arm in arm on the shore, Valentine telling Morrel how Monte Cristo had appeared in her room, how he had revealed everything to her, how he had made her unveil the criminal and, finally, how he had miraculously saved her from death, while letting everyone believe that she was dead.

They had found the door to the grotto open and had gone out. The last stars were still shining in the blue of the morning sky. And, in the half-light of a cluster of rocks, Morrel saw a man waiting for a sign to come over to them. He pointed him out to Valentine.

‘Oh, that’s Jacopo,’ she said, motioning to him to join them. ‘The captain of the yacht.’

‘Do you have something to tell us?’ Morrel asked.

‘I have this letter to give you on behalf of the count.’

‘From the count!’ the two young people exclaimed in unison.

‘Yes, read it.’

Morrel opened the letter and read:

MY DEAR MAXIMILIEN
,

There is a felucca lying at anchor for you. Jacopo will take you to Leghorn where Monsieur Noirtier is awaiting his granddaughter, whom he wishes to bless before she follows you to the altar. Everything that is in this grotto, my friend, my house in the Champs-Elysées and my little country house in Le Tréport are a wedding present from Edmond Dantès to the son of his master, Morrel. Mademoiselle de Villefort must have half of it, because I beg her to give the poor people of Paris whatever money she has coming to her from her father, who has become mad, and her brother, who died last September with her stepmother.

Tell the angel who will watch over your life, Morrel, to pray sometimes for a man who, like Satan, momentarily thought himself the equal of God and who, with all the humility of a Christian, came to realize that in God’s hands alone reside supreme power and infinite wisdom. These prayers may perhaps ease the remorse that he takes with him in the depth of his heart.

As for you, Morrel, this is the whole secret of my behaviour towards you: there is neither happiness nor misfortune in this world, there is merely the comparison between one state and another, nothing more. Only someone who has suffered the deepest misfortune is capable of experiencing the heights of felicity. Maximilien, you must needs have wished to die, to know how good it is to live.

So, do live and be happy, children dear to my heart, and never forget
that, until the day when God deigns to unveil the future to mankind, all human wisdom is contained in these two words: ‘wait’ and ‘hope’!

Your friend
EDMOND DANT
È
S
Count of Monte Cristo.

While he was reading this letter, which informed her of her father’s madness and the death of her brother, neither of which she had known until then, Valentine went pale and gave a painful sigh; tears, no less touching for being silent, ran down her cheeks. She had purchased her happiness at a high price.

Morrel looked around him anxiously. ‘But the count really is being too generous,’ he said. ‘Valentine will be happy with my modest fortune. Where is the count, my friend? Take me to him.’

Jacopo pointed to the horizon.

‘Why! What do you mean?’ Valentine asked. ‘Where is the count? Where is Haydée?’

‘Look,’ said Jacopo.

The two young people looked in the direction towards which the sailor was pointing and, on the dark-blue line on the horizon that separated the sky from the Mediterranean, they saw a white sail, as large as a gull’s wing.

‘He is gone!’ cried Morrel. ‘Gone! Farewell, my friend! My father!’

‘Yes, he is gone,’ Valentine muttered. ‘Farewell, my friend! Farewell, my sister!’

‘Who knows if we shall ever see them again?’ Morrel said, wiping away a tear.

‘My dearest,’ said Valentine, ‘has the count not just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words – “wait” and “hope”?’

1
.
Fort Saint-Jean
: The entrance to the old harbour at Marseille is guarded by two forts, the Fort Saint-Jean on the north and the Fort Saint-Nicholas on the south. The Pharo lies west of the Fort Saint-Nicholas, and Les Catalans south-west. In the standard text, some place-names are misspelt (‘Morgion’ for ‘Morgiou’, etc.). These have been corrected, to accord with Schopp (1993).

The new harbour was under construction, north of Fort Saint-Jean, at the time when the novel was published. The city rises away from the old harbour, or Vieux Port, forming – in the words of
Murray’s Handbook for Travellers in France
(London, 1847) ‘a basin or amphitheatre, terminating only with the encircling chain of hills. From this disposition of the ground, the port becomes the sewer of the city – the receptacle of all its filth, stagnating in a tideless sea and under a burning sun… The stench emanating from it at times is consequently intolerable, except for natives…’

On the whole, Marseille was not considered attractive for tourists, and Dumas’ novel did a good deal to enhance its image.

2
.
supercargo
: On a merchant ship, the officer in charge of the cargo and of finances.

3
.
for Marshal Bertrand
: Marshal Bertrand (1773–1844) was one of Napoleon’s marshals. He followed the emperor to exile on Elba.

4
.
the Italian proverb: chi ha compagno, ha padrone
: ‘Whoever has a partner, has a master’.

1
.
a hundred louis
: All sums of money have been left as in the original text. The
louis
was a gold coin worth 24 francs: the franc had become the
standard unit of currency after 1795, divided into 100
centimes
(or 10
décimes
). However, a number of denominations continued in circulation, including the
louis
, the
livre
(equal to the franc), the
écu
and others.

Equivalents are hard to assess. The exchange rate, in the first half of the nineteenth century, was 25 francs to the pound sterling (so one
louis
was worth just under a pound). The fare by mail coach from Paris to Marseille, via Lyon, was around 145 francs, or nearly 6 pounds (though, as we see in
Chapter
CVI
, Albert manages to do it for 114 francs, by using river transport for part of the journey). This may sound like a bargain to travellers on French Railways, but one must remember (as Coward points out in his edition of the 1846 translation) that a curé’s stipend was only 1,000 francs (£40) a year.

1
.
The Flood… water drink
: A couplet from Louis-Philippe de Ségur’s
Chanson morale
.

2
.
crown prosecutor
: There is no English equivalent to the office of
procureur du roi
, who was, broadly speaking, the officer responsible for investigating crimes and instituting criminal proceedings on behalf of the state. In the early nineteenth century, the
procureur
in Marseille was assisted by five deputies, or
substituts
.

3
.
Murat
: Joachim Murat (1767–1815), one of Napoleon’s marshals.

1
.
commissioner of police
: The
commissaire de police
was responsible for policing in a given administrative district.

1
.
a god
: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was an officer in the pre-revolutionary army, commissioned lieutenant in 1785. After the abolition of the Bourbon monarchy and the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793, he had a spectacular career in the revolutionary army, becoming a general by the age of twenty-seven and leading the French armies in Egypt in 1798.
In the following year, he organized the coup d’état that made him First Consul, then Consul for life (1802) and finally Emperor (1804).