In order to bring this conversation to a fitting termination (the last we shall ever hold upon this subject), I will repeat to you some words I have heard from the lips of the Abbé Busoni. For all evils there are two remedies—time and silence. And now leave me, Monsieur Bertuccio, to walk alone here in the garden. The very circumstances which inflict on you, as a principal in the tragic scene enacted here, such painful emotions, are to me, on the contrary, a source of something like contentment, and serve but to enhance the value of this dwelling in my estimation. The chief beauty of trees consists in the deep shadow of their umbrageous boughs, while fancy pictures a moving multitude of shapes and forms flitting and passing beneath that shade. Here I have a garden laid out in such a way as to afford the fullest scope for the imagination, and furnished with thickly grown trees, beneath whose leafy screen a visionary like myself may conjure up phantoms at will. This to me, who expected but to find a blank enclosure surrounded by a straight wall, is, I assure you, a most agreeable surprise. I have no fear of ghosts, and I have never heard it said that so much harm had been done by the dead during six thousand years as is wrought by the living in a single day. Retire within, Bertuccio, and tranquillize your mind. Should your confessor be less indulgent to you in your dying moments than you found the Abbé Busoni, send for me, if I am still on earth, and I will soothe your ears with words that shall effectually calm and soothe your parting soul ere it goes forth to traverse the ocean called eternity. Here, beneath this plane-tree, must have been where the infant’s grave was dug. There is the little door opening into the garden. At this corner is the private staircase communicating with the sleeping apartment. There will be no necessity for me to make a note of these particulars, for there, before my eyes, beneath my feet, all around me, I have the plan sketched with all the living reality of truth.


It is half-past eleven o’clock; Haydée will soon be here. Have the French attendants been summoned to await her coming? I understand, you mean to tell me that three female attendants await their new mistress in her sleeping-chamber. Madame will be tired tonight, and will, no doubt, wish to rest. Desire the French attendants not to weary her with questions, but merely to pay their respectful duty and retire. You will also see that the Greek servants hold no communication with those of this country.


That fellow has a decidedly bad countenance. How comes it that all do not retreat in aversion at sight of that flat, receding, serpent-like forehead, round, vulture-shaped head, and sharp-hooked nose, like the beak of a buzzard? Ali. Summon Bertuccio,


Did your excellency desire to see me?


I did. You no doubt observed the horses standing a few minutes since at the door?


Certainly, your excellency. I noticed them for their remarkable beauty.


Then how comes it, that, when I desired you to purchase for me the finest pair of horses to be found in Paris, there is another pair, fully as fine as mine, not in my stables? It is not your fault, my good Ali, it is not your fault. You do not understand the points of English horses.


Permit me to assure your excellency, that the horses you speak of were not to be sold when I purchased yours.


It seems, sir steward, that you have yet to learn that all things are to be sold to such as care to pay the price.


His excellency is not, perhaps, aware that M. Danglars gave 16,000 francs for his horses?


Very well. Then offer him double that sum; a banker never loses an opportunity of doubling his capital.


Is your excellency really in earnest?


I have to pay a visit this evening. I desire that these horses, with completely new harness, may be at the door with my carriage.


At what o’clock does your excellency wish the carriage and horses to be ready?”


At five o’clock,” replied the count.


Oh, your excellency!”


Listen, if you please, till I have finished speaking,” replied Monte Cristo. “You receive 1,500 francs per annum for your services here—more than many a brave subaltern, who continually risks his life for his country, obtains. You live in a manner far superior to many clerks who work ten times harder than you do for their money. Then, though yourself a servant, you have other servants to wait upon you, take care of your clothes, and see that your linen is duly prepared for you. Again, you make a profit upon each article you purchase for my toilet, amounting in the course of a year to a sum equalling your wages.”


Nay, indeed, your excellency.”


I am not condemning you for this, Monsieur Baptistin; but let your profits end here. It would be long indeed ere you would find so lucrative a post as that you have now the good fortune to fill. I neither ill-use nor ill-treat my servants by word or action. An error I readily forgive, but wilful negligence or forgetfulness, never. My commands are ordinarily short, clear, and precise; and I would rather be obliged to repeat my words twice, or even three times, than they should be misunderstood. I am rich enough to know whatever I desire to know, and I can promise you I am not wanting in curiosity. If, then, I should learn that you had taken upon yourself to speak of me to anyone favorably or unfavorably, to comment on my actions, or watch my conduct, that very instant you would quit my service. You may now retire. I never caution my servants a second time—remember that.” that I lay yearly aside a certain sum for each servant in my establishment; those whom I am compelled to dismiss lose (as a matter of course) all participation in this money, while their portion goes to the fund accumulating for those domestics who remain with me, and among whom it will be divided at my death. You have been in my service a year, your fund has already begun to accumulate—let it continue to do so.”


I assure your excellency, that at least it shall be my study to merit your approbation in all things, and I will take M. Ali as my model.”


By no means,” replied the count in the most frigid tones; “Ali has many faults mixed with most excellent qualities. He cannot possibly serve you as a pattern for your conduct, not being, as you are, a paid servant, but a mere slave—a dog, who, should he fail in his duty towards me, I should not discharge from my service, but kill.” You seem incredulous,” said Monte Cristo, who repeated to Ali in the Arabic language what he had just been saying to Baptistin in French.


They are at the door harnessed to the carriage as your excellency desired. Does your excellency wish me to accompany him?” No, the coachman, Ali, and Baptistin will go.” They are extremely handsome certainly, and you have done well to purchase them, although you were somewhat remiss not to have procured them sooner.” Indeed, your excellency, I had very considerable difficulty in obtaining them, and, as it is, they have cost an enormous price.” inquired the count, shrugging his shoulders.” Nay, if your excellency is satisfied, it is all that I could wish. Whither does your excellency desire to be driven?” To the residence of Baron Danglars, Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin.”


Certainly, your excellency; I saw her put to sea the same evening we quitted Marseilles.” Was ordered to remain at Martigues.” She is at Châlons?” Yes.” Your excellency may depend upon me.”


Gentlemen, pardon me for leaving you so abruptly; but a most ridiculous circumstance has occurred, which is this,—Thomson & French, the Roman bankers, have sent to me a certain person calling himself the Count of Monte Cristo, and have given him an unlimited credit with me. I confess this is the drollest thing I have ever met with in the course of my extensive foreign transactions, and you may readily suppose it has greatly roused my curiosity. I took the trouble this morning to call on the pretended count—if he were a real count he wouldn’t be so rich. But, would you believe it, ‘He was not receiving.’ So the master of Monte Cristo gives himself airs befitting a great millionaire or a capricious beauty. I made inquiries, and found that the house in the Champs-Élysées is his own property, and certainly it was very decently kept up. But,” pursued Danglars with one of his sinister smiles, “an order for unlimited credit calls for something like caution on the part of the banker to whom that order is given. I am very anxious to see this man. I suspect a hoax is intended, but the instigators of it little knew whom they had to deal with. ‘They laugh best who laugh last!’”


I have the honor, I presume, of addressing M. de Monte Cristo.” And I of speaking to Baron Danglars, chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and member of the Chamber of Deputies?”


You will, I trust, excuse me, monsieur, for not calling you by your title when I first addressed you,” he said, “but you are aware that we are living under a popular form of government, and that I am myself a representative of the liberties of the people.”


So much so,” replied Monte Cristo, “that while you call yourself baron you are not willing to call anybody else count.”


Upon my word, monsieur,” said Danglars with affected carelessness, “I attach no sort of value to such empty distinctions; but the fact is, I was made baron, and also chevalier of the Legion of Honor, in return for services rendered, but——”


But you have discarded your titles after the example set you by Messrs. de Montmorency and Lafayette? That was a noble example to follow, monsieur.”


Why,” replied Danglars, “not entirely so; with the servants,—you understand.”


I see; to your domestics you are ‘my lord,’ the journalists style you ‘monsieur,’ while your constituents call you ‘citizen.’ These are distinctions very suitable under a constitutional government. I understand perfectly.”


Permit me to inform you, Count,” said he, bowing, “that I have received a letter of advice from Thomson & French, of Rome.”


I am glad to hear it, baron,—for I must claim the privilege of addressing you after the manner of your servants. I have acquired the bad habit of calling persons by their titles from living in a country where barons are still barons by right of birth. But as regards the letter of advice, I am charmed to find that it has reached you; that will spare me the troublesome and disagreeable task of coming to you for money myself. You have received a regular letter of advice?”


Yes,” said Danglars, “but I confess I didn’t quite comprehend its meaning.”


Indeed?”


And for that reason I did myself the honor of calling upon you, in order to beg for an explanation.”


Go on, monsieur. Here I am, ready to give you any explanation you desire.”


Why,” said Danglars, “in the letter—I believe I have it about me”—here he felt in his breast-pocket—“yes, here it is. Well, this letter gives the Count of Monte Cristo unlimited credit on our house.”


Well, baron, what is there difficult to understand about that?”


Merely the term unlimited—nothing else, certainly.”


Is not that word known in France? The people who wrote are Anglo-Germans, you know.”


Oh, as for the composition of the letter, there is nothing to be said; but as regards the competency of the document, I certainly have doubts.”


Is it possible?” asked the count, assuming all air and tone of the utmost simplicity and candor. “Is it possible that Thomson & French are not looked upon as safe and solvent bankers? Pray tell me what you think, baron, for I feel uneasy, I can assure you, having some considerable property in their hands.”


Thomson & French are perfectly solvent,” replied Danglars, with an almost mocking smile; “but the word unlimited, in financial affairs, is so extremely vague.”


Is, in fact, unlimited,” said Monte Cristo.”


Precisely what I was about to say,” cried Danglars. “Now what is vague is doubtful; and it was a wise man who said, ‘when in doubt, keep out.’”


Meaning to say,” rejoined Monte Cristo, “that however Thomson & French may be inclined to commit acts of imprudence and folly, the Baron Danglars is not disposed to follow their example.”


Not at all.”


Plainly enough; Messrs. Thomson & French set no bounds to their engagements while those of M. Danglars have their limits; he is a wise man, according to his own showing.”


Monsieur,” replied the banker, drawing himself up with a haughty air, “the extent of my resources has never yet been questioned.”


It seems, then, reserved for me,” said Monte Cristo coldly, “to be the first to do so.”


By what right, sir?”


By right of the objections you have raised, and the explanations you have demanded, which certainly must have some motive.”


Well, sir,” resumed Danglars, after a brief silence, “I will endeavor to make myself understood, by requesting you to inform me for what sum you propose to draw upon me?”


Why, truly,” replied Monte Cristo, determined not to lose an inch of the ground he had gained, “my reason for desiring an ‘unlimited’ credit was precisely because I did not know how much money I might need.”


Let me beg of you not to hesitate in naming your wishes; you will then be convinced that the resources of the house of Danglars, however limited, are still equal to meeting the largest demands; and were you even to require a million——”


I beg your pardon,” interposed Monte Cristo.


I said a million,” replied Danglars, with the confidence of ignorance.”


But could I do with a million?” retorted the count. “My dear sir, if a trifle like that could suffice me, I should never have given myself the trouble of opening an account. A million? Excuse my smiling when you speak of a sum I am in the habit of carrying in my pocket-book or dressing-case.” Come, come,” said Monte Cristo, “confess honestly that you have not perfect confidence in Thomson & French. I understand, and foreseeing that such might be the case, I took, in spite of my ignorance of affairs, certain precautions. See, here are two similar letters to that you have yourself received; one from the house of Arstein & Eskeles of Vienna, to Baron Rothschild, the other drawn by Baring of London, upon M. Lafitte. Now, sir, you have but to say the word, and I will spare you all uneasiness by presenting my letter of credit to one or other of these two firms.”


Oh, sir, three letters of unlimited credit! I can be no longer mistrustful, but you must pardon me, my dear count, for confessing to some degree of astonishment.


Nay, ’tis not for such trifling sums as these that your banking house is to be incommoded. Then, you can let me have some money, can you not?


Whatever you say, my dear count; I am at your orders.


Why, since we mutually understand each other—for such I presume is the case? You are quite sure that not a lurking doubt or suspicion lingers in your mind?


Oh, my dear count. I never for an instant entertained such a feeling towards you.


No, you merely wished to be convinced, nothing more; but now that we have come to so clear an understanding, and that all distrust and suspicion are laid at rest, we may as well fix a sum as the probable expenditure of the first year, suppose we say six millions to——


Six millions! so be it.


Then, if I should require more, why, of course, I should draw upon you; but my present intention is not to remain in France more than a year, and during that period I scarcely think I shall exceed the sum I mentioned. However, we shall see. Be kind enough, then, to send me 500,000 francs tomorrow. I shall be at home till midday, or if not, I will leave a receipt with my steward.


The money you desire shall be at your house by ten o’clock tomorrow morning, my dear count. How would you like to have it? in gold, silver, or notes?


Half in gold, and the other half in bank-notes, if you please,


I must confess to you, count, that I have hitherto imagined myself acquainted with the degree of all the great fortunes of Europe, and still wealth such as yours has been wholly unknown to me. May I presume to ask whether you have long possessed it?


It has been in the family a very long while, a sort of treasure expressly forbidden to be touched for a certain period of years, during which the accumulated interest has doubled the capital. The period appointed by the testator for the disposal of these riches occurred only a short time ago, and they have only been employed by me within the last few years. Your ignorance on the subject, therefore, is easily accounted for. However, you will be better informed as to me and my possessions ere long.


With your tastes, and means of gratifying them, you will exhibit a splendor that must effectually put us poor miserable millionaires quite in the shade. If I mistake not you are an admirer of paintings, at least I judged so from the attention you appeared to be bestowing on mine when I entered the room. If you will permit me, I shall be happy to show you my picture gallery, composed entirely of works by the ancient masters—warranted as such. Not a modern picture among them. I cannot endure the modern school of painting.


You are perfectly right in objecting to them, for this one great fault—that they have not yet had time to become old.


Or will you allow me to show you several fine statues by Thorwaldsen, Bartoloni, and Canova?—all foreign artists, for, as you may perceive, I think but very indifferently of our French sculptors.


You have a right to be unjust to them, monsieur; they are your compatriots.


But all this may come later, when we shall be better known to each other. For the present, I will confine myself (if perfectly agreeable to you) to introducing you to the Baroness Danglars—excuse my impatience, my dear count, but a client like you is almost like a member of the family. Is the baroness at home?


Yes, my lord,


And alone?


No, my lord, madame has visitors.


No, indeed. I do not arrogate to myself the right of so doing.


M. Lucien Debray is an old friend of ours, and private secretary to the Minister of the Interior. As for my wife, I must tell you, she lowered herself by marrying me, for she belongs to one of the most ancient families in France. Her maiden name was De Servières, and her first husband was Colonel the Marquis of Nargonne.


I have not the honor of knowing Madame Danglars; but I have already met M. Lucien Debray.


Ah, indeed? and where was that?


At the house of M. de Morcerf.


Ah! you are acquainted with the young viscount, are you?


We were together a good deal during the Carnival at Rome.


True, true. Let me see; have I not heard talk of some strange adventure with bandits or thieves hid in ruins, and of his having had a miraculous escape? I forget how, but I know he used to amuse my wife and daughter by telling them about it after his return from Italy.


Her ladyship is waiting to receive you, gentlemen,


With your permission. I will precede you, to show you the way.


By all means. I follow you.


Baroness, give me leave to present to you the Count of Monte Cristo, who has been most warmly recommended to me by my correspondents at Rome. I need but mention one fact to make all the ladies in Paris court his notice, and that is, that he has come to take up his abode in Paris for a year, during which brief period he proposes to spend six millions of money. That means balls, dinners, and lawn parties without end, in all of which I trust the count will remember us, as he may depend upon it we shall him, in our own humble entertainments.


And when did you arrive here?


Yesterday morning, madame.


Coming, as usual, I presume, from the extreme end of the globe? Pardon me—at least, such I have heard is your custom.


Nay, madame. This time I have merely come from Cadiz.


You have selected a most unfavorable moment for your first visit. Paris is a horrible place in summer. Balls, parties, and fêtes are over; the Italian opera is in London; the French opera everywhere except in Paris. As for the Théatre Français, you know, of course, that it is nowhere. The only amusements left us are the indifferent races at the Champ-de-Mars and Satory. Do you propose entering any horses at either of these races, count?


I shall do whatever they do at Paris, madame, if I have the good fortune to find someone who will initiate me into the prevalent ideas of amusement.


Are you fond of horses, count?


I have passed a considerable part of my life in the East, madame, and you are doubtless aware that the Orientals value only two things—the fine breeding of their horses and the beauty of their women.


Nay, count, it would have been somewhat more gallant to have placed the ladies first.


You see, madame, how rightly I spoke when I said I required a preceptor to guide me in all my sayings and doings here.


I cannot believe it; the thing is impossible.


it is as I have said.


Is this true?


Is what true, madame?


What my maid tells me.


But what does she tell you?


That when my coachman was about to harness the horses to my carriage, he discovered that they had been removed from the stables without his knowledge. I desire to know what is the meaning of this?


Be kind enough, madame, to listen to me,


Oh, yes; I will listen, monsieur, for I am most curious to hear what explanation you will give. These two gentlemen shall decide between us; but, first, I will state the case to them. Gentlemen, among the ten horses in the stables of Baron Danglars, are two that belong exclusively to me—a pair of the handsomest and most spirited creatures to be found in Paris. But to you, at least, M. Debray, I need not give a further description, because to you my beautiful pair of dappled grays were well known. Well, I had promised Madame de Villefort the loan of my carriage to drive tomorrow to the Bois; but when my coachman goes to fetch the grays from the stables they are gone—positively gone. No doubt M. Danglars has sacrificed them to the selfish consideration of gaining some thousands of paltry francs. Oh, what a detestable crew they are, these mercenary speculators!


Madame, the horses were not sufficiently quiet for you; they were scarcely four years old, and they made me extremely uneasy on your account.


Nonsense, you could not have entertained any alarm on the subject, because you are perfectly well aware that I have had for a month in my service the very best coachman in Paris. But, perhaps, you have disposed of the coachman as well as the horses?


My dear love, pray do not say any more about them, and I promise you another pair exactly like them in appearance, only more quiet and steady. Upon my word, count, I am quite sorry not to have met you sooner. You are setting up an establishment, of course?


Why, yes,


I should have liked to have made you the offer of these horses. I have almost given them away, as it is; but, as I before said, I was anxious to get rid of them upon any terms. They were only fit for a young man.


I am much obliged by your kind intentions towards me; but this morning I purchased a very excellent pair of carriage-horses, and I do not think they were dear. There they are. Come, M. Debray, you are a connoisseur, I believe, let me have your opinion upon them.


I could not tell you before others, the reason of my parting with the horses; but a most enormous price was offered me this morning for them. Some madman or fool, bent upon ruining himself as fast as he can, actually sent his steward to me to purchase them at any cost; and the fact is, I have gained 16,000 francs by the sale of them. Come, don’t look so angry, and you shall have 4,000 francs of the money to do what you like with, and Eugénie shall have 2,000. There, what do you think now of the affair? Wasn’t I right to part with the horses?


Great heavens? I cannot be mistaken; there are your horses! The very animals we were speaking of, harnessed to the count’s carriage!


My dappled grays? ’Tis indeed they!


How very singular. I cannot believe it,


The baroness wishes to know what you paid her husband for the horses.


I scarcely know, it was a little surprise prepared for me by my steward, and cost me—well, somewhere about 30,000 francs. See, how very ungrateful women are. Your kind attention, in providing for the safety of the baroness by disposing of the horses, does not seem to have made the least impression on her. But so it is; a woman will often, from mere wilfulness, prefer that which is dangerous to that which is safe. Therefore, in my opinion, my dear baron, the best and easiest way is to leave them to their fancies, and allow them to act as they please, and then, if any mischief follows, why, at least, they have no one to blame but themselves.


Ali, you have frequently explained to me how more than commonly skilful you are in throwing the lasso, have you not? I thought I did not mistake. With your lasso you could stop an ox? Or a tiger? A lion even? I understand, you wish to tell me you have hunted the lion? But do you believe you could arrest the progress of two horses rushing forwards with ungovernable fury? It is well. Then listen to me. Ere long a carriage will dash past here, drawn by the pair of dappled gray horses you saw me with yesterday; now, at the risk of your own life, you must manage to stop those horses before my door.


Compose yourself, madame, all danger is over. I understand the nature of your alarms, madame, but I assure you there is not the slightest occasion for uneasiness; your little charge has not received the least injury; his insensibility is merely the effects of terror, and will soon pass.


Are you quite sure you do not say so to tranquillize my fears? See how deadly pale he is! My child, my darling Edward; speak to your mother—open your dear eyes and look on me once again! Oh, sir, in pity send for a physician; my whole fortune shall not be thought too much for the recovery of my boy.


Where am I? and to whom am I indebted for so happy a termination to my late dreadful alarm?


Madame, you are under the roof of one who esteems himself most fortunate in having been able to save you from a further continuance of your sufferings.


My wretched curiosity has brought all this about. All Paris rung with the praises of Madame Danglars’ beautiful horses, and I had the folly to desire to know whether they really merited the high praise given to them.


Is it possible, that these horses belong to the baroness?


They do, indeed. May I inquire if you are acquainted with Madame Danglars?


I have that honor; and my happiness at your escape from the danger that threatened you is redoubled by the consciousness that I have been the unwilling and the unintentional cause of all the peril you have incurred. I yesterday purchased these horses of the baron; but as the baroness evidently regretted parting with them, I ventured to send them back to her, with a request that she would gratify me by accepting them from my hands.


You are, then, doubtless, the Count of Monte Cristo, of whom Hermine has talked to me so much?


You have rightly guessed, madame,


And I am Madame Héloïse de Villefort.


How grateful will M. de Villefort be for all your goodness; how thankfully will he acknowledge that to you alone he owes the existence of his wife and child! Most certainly, but for the prompt assistance of your intrepid servant, this dear child and myself must both have perished.


Indeed, I still shudder at the fearful danger you were placed in.


I trust you will allow me to recompense worthily the devotion of your man.


I beseech you, madame, not to spoil Ali, either by too great praise or rewards. I cannot allow him to acquire the habit of expecting to be recompensed for every trifling service he may render. Ali is my slave, and in saving your life he was but discharging his duty to me.


Nay, nay, but consider that to preserve my life he has risked his own.


His life, madame, belongs not to him; it is mine, in return for my having myself saved him from death.


Touch nothing, my little friend, some of those liquids are not only dangerous to taste, but even to inhale.


Edward, dearest, do you see that good man? He has shown very great courage and resolution, for he exposed his own life to stop the horses that were running away with us, and would certainly have dashed the carriage to pieces. Thank him, then, my child, in your very best manner; for, had he not come to our aid, neither you nor I would have been alive to speak our thanks.


He’s too ugly.


This lady, is desirous that her son should thank you for saving both their lives; but the boy refuses, saying you are too ugly.


Will you permit me to inquire, whether you usually reside here?


No, I do not, it is a small place I have purchased quite lately. My place of abode is No. 30, Avenue des Champs-Élysées; but I see you have quite recovered from your fright, and are, no doubt, desirous of returning home. Anticipating your wishes, I have desired the same horses you came with to be put to one of my carriages, and Ali, he whom you think so very ugly, will have the honor of driving you home, while your coachman remains here to attend to the necessary repairs of your calash. As soon as that important business is concluded, I will have a pair of my own horses harnessed to convey it direct to Madame Danglars.


I dare not return with those dreadful horses,


You will see, that they will be as different as possible in the hands of Ali. With him they will be gentle and docile as lambs.


Dear Hermine,—I have just had a wonderful escape from the most imminent danger, and I owe my safety to the very Count of Monte Cristo we were talking about yesterday, but whom I little expected to see today. I remember how unmercifully I laughed at what I considered your eulogistic and exaggerated praises of him; but I have now ample cause to admit that your enthusiastic description of this wonderful man fell far short of his merits. Your horses got as far as Ranelagh, when they darted forward like mad things, and galloped away at so fearful a rate, that there seemed no other prospect for myself and my poor Edward but that of being dashed to pieces against the first object that impeded their progress, when a strange-looking man,—an Arab, a negro, or a Nubian, at least a black of some nation or other—at a signal from the count, whose domestic he is, suddenly seized and stopped the infuriated animals, even at the risk of being trampled to death himself; and certainly he must have had a most wonderful escape. The count then hastened to us, and took us into his house, where he speedily recalled my poor Edward to life. He sent us home in his own carriage. Yours will be returned to you tomorrow. You will find your horses in bad condition, from the results of this accident; they seem thoroughly stupefied, as if sulky and vexed at having been conquered by man. The count, however, has commissioned me to assure you that two or three days’ rest, with plenty of barley for their sole food during that time, will bring them back to as fine, that is as terrifying, a condition as they were in yesterday.


Sir, sir, the signal service which you yesterday rendered to my wife and son has made it a duty for me to offer you my thanks. I have come, therefore, to discharge this duty, and to express to you my overwhelming gratitude.


Monsieur. I am very happy to have been the means of preserving a son to his mother, for they say that the sentiment of maternity is the most holy of all; and the good fortune which occurred to me, monsieur, might have enabled you to dispense with a duty which, in its discharge, confers an undoubtedly great honor; for I am aware that M. de Villefort is not usually lavish of the favor which he now bestows on me,—a favor which, however estimable, is unequal to the satisfaction which I have in my own consciousness.


You seem geographically engaged, sir? It is a rich study for you, who, as I learn, have seen as many lands as are delineated on this map.


Yes, sir. I have sought to make of the human race, taken in the mass, what you practice every day on individuals—a physiological study. I have believed it was much easier to descend from the whole to a part than to ascend from a part to the whole. It is an algebraic axiom, which makes us proceed from a known to an unknown quantity, and not from an unknown to a known; but sit down, sir, I beg of you.


Ah, you philosophize, well, sir, really, if, like you, I had nothing else to do, I should seek a more amusing occupation.


Why, in truth, sir, man is but an ugly caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope; but you said, I think, that I had nothing else to do. Now, really, let me ask, sir, have you?—do you believe you have anything to do? or to speak in plain terms, do you really think that what you do deserves being called anything?


Sir, you are a stranger, and I believe you say yourself that a portion of your life has been spent in Oriental countries, so you are not aware how human justice, so expeditious in barbarous countries, takes with us a prudent and well-studied course.


Oh, yes—yes, I do, sir; it is the pede claudo of the ancients. I know all that, for it is with the justice of all countries especially that I have occupied myself—it is with the criminal procedure of all nations that I have compared natural justice, and I must say, sir, that it is the law of primitive nations, that is, the law of retaliation, that I have most frequently found to be according to the law of God.


If this law were adopted, sir, it would greatly simplify our legal codes, and in that case the magistrates would not (as you just observed) have much to do.


It may, perhaps, come to this in time, you know that human inventions march from the complex to the simple, and simplicity is always perfection.


In the meanwhile, our codes are in full force, with all their contradictory enactments derived from Gallic customs, Roman laws, and Frank usages; the knowledge of all which, you will agree, is not to be acquired without extended labor; it needs tedious study to acquire this knowledge, and, when acquired, a strong power of brain to retain it.


I agree with you entirely, sir; but all that even you know with respect to the French code, I know, not only in reference to that code, but as regards the codes of all nations. The English, Turkish, Japanese, Hindu laws, are as familiar to me as the French laws, and thus I was right, when I said to you, that relatively (you know that everything is relative, sir)—that relatively to what I have done, you have very little to do; but that relatively to all I have learned, you have yet a great deal to learn.


But with what motive have you learned all this?


Really, sir. I see that in spite of the reputation which you have acquired as a superior man, you look at everything from the material and vulgar view of society, beginning with man, and ending with man—that is to say, in the most restricted, most narrow view which it is possible for human understanding to embrace.


Pray, sir, explain yourself. I really do—not—understand you—perfectly.


I say, sir, that with the eyes fixed on the social organization of nations, you see only the springs of the machine, and lose sight of the sublime workman who makes them act; I say that you do not recognize before you and around you any but those office-holders whose commissions have been signed by a minister or king; and that the men whom God has put above those office-holders, ministers, and kings, by giving them a mission to follow out, instead of a post to fill—I say that they escape your narrow, limited field of observation. It is thus that human weakness fails, from its debilitated and imperfect organs. Tobias took the angel who restored him to light for an ordinary young man. The nations took Attila, who was doomed to destroy them, for a conqueror similar to other conquerors, and it was necessary for both to reveal their missions, that they might be known and acknowledged; one was compelled to say, ‘I am the angel of the Lord’; and the other, ‘I am the hammer of God,’ in order that the divine essence in both might be revealed.


Then, you consider yourself as one of those extraordinary beings whom you have mentioned?


And why not?


Your pardon, sir, but you will excuse me if, when I presented myself to you, I was unaware that I should meet with a person whose knowledge and understanding so far surpass the usual knowledge and understanding of men. It is not usual with us corrupted wretches of civilization to find gentlemen like yourself, possessors, as you are, of immense fortune—at least, so it is said—and I beg you to observe that I do not inquire, I merely repeat;—it is not usual, I say, for such privileged and wealthy beings to waste their time in speculations on the state of society, in philosophical reveries, intended at best to console those whom fate has disinherited from the goods of this world.


Really, sir, have you attained the eminent situation in which you are, without having admitted, or even without having met with exceptions? and do you never use your eyes, which must have acquired so much finesse and certainty, to divine, at a glance, the kind of man by whom you are confronted? Should not a magistrate be not merely the best administrator of the law, but the most crafty expounder of the chicanery of his profession, a steel probe to search hearts, a touchstone to try the gold which in each soul is mingled with more or less of alloy?


Sir, upon my word, you overcome me. I really never heard a person speak as you do.


Because you remain eternally encircled in a round of general conditions, and have never dared to raise your wings into those upper spheres which God has peopled with invisible or exceptional beings.


And you allow then, sir, that spheres exist, and that these marked and invisible beings mingle amongst us?


Why should they not? Can you see the air you breathe, and yet without which you could not for a moment exist?


Then we do not see those beings to whom you allude?


Yes, we do; you see them whenever God pleases to allow them to assume a material form. You touch them, come in contact with them, speak to them, and they reply to you.


Ah. I confess I should like to be warned when one of these beings is in contact with me.


You have been served as you desire, monsieur, for you were warned just now, and I now again warn you.


Then you yourself are one of these marked beings?


Yes, monsieur, I believe so; for until now, no man has found himself in a position similar to mine. The dominions of kings are limited either by mountains or rivers, or a change of manners, or an alteration of language. My kingdom is bounded only by the world, for I am not an Italian, or a Frenchman, or a Hindu, or an American, or a Spaniard—I am a cosmopolite. No country can say it saw my birth. God alone knows what country will see me die. I adopt all customs, speak all languages. You believe me to be a Frenchman, for I speak French with the same facility and purity as yourself. Well, Ali, my Nubian, believes me to be an Arab; Bertuccio, my steward, takes me for a Roman; Haydée, my slave, thinks me a Greek. You may, therefore, comprehend, that being of no country, asking no protection from any government, acknowledging no man as my brother, not one of the scruples that arrest the powerful, or the obstacles which paralyze the weak, paralyzes or arrests me. I have only two adversaries—I will not say two conquerors, for with perseverance I subdue even them,—they are time and distance. There is a third, and the most terrible—that is my condition as a mortal being. This alone can stop me in my onward career, before I have attained the goal at which I aim, for all the rest I have reduced to mathematical terms. What men call the chances of fate—namely, ruin, change, circumstances—I have fully anticipated, and if any of these should overtake me, yet it will not overwhelm me. Unless I die, I shall always be what I am, and therefore it is that I utter the things you have never heard, even from the mouths of kings—for kings have need, and other persons have fear of you. For who is there who does not say to himself, in a society as incongruously organized as ours, ‘Perhaps some day I shall have to do with the king’s attorney’?


But can you not say that, sir? The moment you become an inhabitant of France, you are naturally subjected to the French law.


I know it sir, but when I visit a country I begin to study, by all the means which are available, the men from whom I may have anything to hope or to fear, till I know them as well as, perhaps better than, they know themselves. It follows from this, that the king’s attorney, be he who he may, with whom I should have to deal, would assuredly be more embarrassed than I should.


That is to say, that human nature being weak, every man, according to your creed, has committed faults.


Faults or crimes, responded Monte Cristo with a negligent air.


And that you alone, amongst the men whom you do not recognize as your brothers—for you have said so, you alone are perfect.


No, not perfect, only impenetrable, that’s all. But let us leave off this strain, sir, if the tone of it is displeasing to you; I am no more disturbed by your justice than are you by my second-sight.


No, no,—by no means. No; by your brilliant and almost sublime conversation you have elevated me above the ordinary level; we no longer talk, we rise to dissertation. But you know how the theologians in their collegiate chairs, and philosophers in their controversies, occasionally say cruel truths; let us suppose for the moment that we are theologizing in a social way, or even philosophically, and I will say to you, rude as it may seem, ‘My brother, you sacrifice greatly to pride; you may be above others, but above you there is God.’


Above us all, sir. I have my pride for men—serpents always ready to threaten everyone who would pass without crushing them under foot. But I lay aside that pride before God, who has taken me from nothing to make me what I am.


Then, count, I admire you. Yes, and I say to you, if you are really strong, really superior, really pious, or impenetrable, which you were right in saying amounts to the same thing—then be proud, sir, for that is the characteristic of predominance. Yet you have unquestionably some ambition.


I have, sir.


And what may it be?


I too, as happens to every man once in his life, have been taken by Satan into the highest mountain in the earth, and when there he showed me all the kingdoms of the world, and as he said before, so said he to me, ‘Child of earth, what wouldst thou have to make thee adore me?’ I reflected long, for a gnawing ambition had long preyed upon me, and then I replied, ‘Listen,—I have always heard of Providence, and yet I have never seen him, or anything that resembles him, or which can make me believe that he exists. I wish to be Providence myself, for I feel that the most beautiful, noblest, most sublime thing in the world, is to recompense and punish.’


You mistake. Providence does exist, only you have never seen him, because the child of God is as invisible as the parent. You have seen nothing that resembles him, because he works by secret springs, and moves by hidden ways. All I can do for you is to make you one of the agents of that Providence.’ The bargain was concluded. I may sacrifice my soul, but what matters it?


If the thing were to do again, I would again do it.


Count, have you any relations?


No, sir, I am alone in the world.


So much the worse.


Why?


Because then you might witness a spectacle calculated to break down your pride. You say you fear nothing but death?


I did not say that I feared it; I only said that death alone could check the execution of my plans.


And old age?


My end will be achieved before I grow old.


And madness?


I have been nearly mad; and you know the axiom,—non bis in idem. It is an axiom of criminal law, and, consequently, you understand its full application.


Sir, there is something to fear besides death, old age, and madness. For instance, there is apoplexy—that lightning-stroke which strikes but does not destroy you, and yet which brings everything to an end. You are still yourself as now, and yet you are yourself no longer; you who, like Ariel, verge on the angelic, are but an inert mass, which, like Caliban, verges on the brutal; and this is called in human tongues, as I tell you, neither more nor less than apoplexy. Come, if so you will, count, and continue this conversation at my house, any day you may be willing to see an adversary capable of understanding and anxious to refute you, and I will show you my father, M. Noirtier de Villefort, one of the most fiery Jacobins of the French Revolution; that is to say, he had the most remarkable audacity, seconded by a most powerful organization—a man who has not, perhaps, like yourself seen all the kingdoms of the earth, but who has helped to overturn one of the greatest; in fact, a man who believed himself, like you, one of the envoys, not of God, but of a supreme being; not of Providence, but of fate. Well, sir, the rupture of a blood-vessel on the lobe of the brain has destroyed all this, not in a day, not in an hour, but in a second. M. Noirtier, who, on the previous night, was the old Jacobin, the old senator, the old Carbonaro, laughing at the guillotine, the cannon, and the dagger—M. Noirtier, playing with revolutions—M. Noirtier, for whom France was a vast chess-board, from which pawns, rooks, knights, and queens were to disappear, so that the king was checkmated—M. Noirtier, the redoubtable, was the next morning poor M. Noirtier, the helpless old man, at the tender mercies of the weakest creature in the household, that is, his grandchild, Valentine; a dumb and frozen carcass, in fact, living painlessly on, that time may be given for his frame to decompose without his consciousness of its decay.


Alas, sir, this spectacle is neither strange to my eye nor my thought. I am something of a physician, and have, like my fellows, sought more than once for the soul in living and in dead matter; yet, like Providence, it has remained invisible to my eyes, although present to my heart. A hundred writers since Socrates, Seneca, St. Augustine, and Gall, have made, in verse and prose, the comparison you have made, and yet I can well understand that a father’s sufferings may effect great changes in the mind of a son. I will call on you, sir, since you bid me contemplate, for the advantage of my pride, this terrible spectacle, which must have been so great a source of sorrow to your family.


It would have been so unquestionably, had not God given me so large a compensation. In contrast with the old man, who is dragging his way to the tomb, are two children just entering into life—Valentine, the daughter by my first wife—Mademoiselle Renée de Saint-Méran—and Edward, the boy whose life you have this day saved.


And what is your deduction from this compensation, sir?


My deduction is, that my father, led away by his passions, has committed some fault unknown to human justice, but marked by the justice of God. That God, desirous in his mercy to punish but one person, has visited this justice on him alone. Adieu, sir. I leave you, bearing a remembrance of you—a remembrance of esteem, which I hope will not be disagreeable to you when you know me better; for I am not a man to bore my friends, as you will learn. Besides, you have made an eternal friend of Madame de Villefort.


Enough of this poison, let me now seek the antidote. I am going to madame’s chamber—have the carriage ready at one o’clock.


Why demand permission ere you enter? Are you no longer my master, or have I ceased to be your slave?


Haydée, you well know.


Why do you address me so coldly—so distantly? Have I by any means displeased you? Oh, if so, punish me as you will; but do not—do not speak to me in tones and manner so formal and constrained.


Haydée, you know that you are now in France, and are free.


Free to do what?


Free to leave me.


Leave you? Why should I leave you?


That is not for me to say; but we are now about to mix in society—to visit and be visited.


I don’t wish to see anybody but you.


And should you see one whom you could prefer, I would not be so unjust——


I have never seen anyone I preferred to you, and I have never loved anyone but you and my father.


My poor child, that is merely because your father and myself are the only men who have ever talked to you.


I don’t want anybody else to talk to me. My father said I was his ‘joy’—you style me your ‘love,’—and both of you have called me ‘my child.’


Do you remember your father, Haydée?


He is here, and here,


And where am I?


You? you are everywhere!


You now understand, Haydée, that from this moment you are absolutely free; that here you exercise unlimited sway, and are at liberty to lay aside or continue the costume of your country, as it may suit your inclination. Within this mansion you are absolute mistress of your actions, and may go abroad or remain in your apartments as may seem most agreeable to you. A carriage waits your orders, and Ali and Myrtho will accompany you whithersoever you desire to go. There is but one favor I would entreat of you.


Speak.


Guard carefully the secret of your birth. Make no allusion to the past; nor upon any occasion be induced to pronounce the names of your illustrious father or ill-fated mother.


I have already told you, my lord, that I shall see no one.


It is possible, Haydée, that so perfect a seclusion, though conformable with the habits and customs of the East, may not be practicable in Paris. Endeavor, then, to accustom yourself to our manner of living in these northern climes as you did to those of Rome, Florence, Milan, and Madrid; it may be useful to you one of these days, whether you remain here or return to the East.


Whether we return to the East, you mean to say, my lord, do you not?


My child, you know full well that whenever we part, it will be no fault or wish of mine; the tree forsakes not the flower—the flower falls from the tree.


My lord. I never will leave you, for I am sure I could not exist without you.


My poor girl, in ten years I shall be old, and you will be still young.


My father had a long white beard, but I loved him; he was sixty years old, but to me he was handsomer than all the fine youths I saw.


Then tell me, Haydée, do you believe you shall be able to accustom yourself to our present mode of life?


Shall I see you? you?


Every day.


Then what do you fear, my lord?


You might find it dull.


No, my lord. In the morning, I shall rejoice in the prospect of your coming, and in the evening dwell with delight on the happiness I have enjoyed in your presence; then too, when alone, I can call forth mighty pictures of the past, see vast horizons bounded only by the towering mountains of Pindus and Olympus. Oh, believe me, that when three great passions, such as sorrow, love, and gratitude fill the heart, ennui can find no place.


You are a worthy daughter of Epirus, Haydée, and your charming and poetical ideas prove well your descent from that race of goddesses who claim your country as their birthplace. Depend on my care to see that your youth is not blighted, or suffered to pass away in ungenial solitude; and of this be well assured, that if you love me as a father, I love you as a child.


You are wrong, my lord. The love I have for you is very different from the love I had for my father. My father died, but I did not die. If you were to die, I should die too.


The Count of Monte Cristo? I should think we would see him. Ah, a thousand thanks, count, for not having forgotten your promise. Come, come. I will serve as your guide; such a man as you are ought not to be introduced by a servant. My sister is in the garden plucking the dead roses; my brother is reading his two papers, la Presse and les Débats, within six steps of her; for wherever you see Madame Herbault, you have only to look within a circle of four yards and you will find M. Emmanuel, and ‘reciprocally,’ as they say at the Polytechnic School. Don’t disturb yourself, Julie. The count has only been two or three days in Paris, but he already knows what a fashionable woman of the Marais is, and if he does not, you will show him.


Ah, monsieur, it is treason in my brother to bring you thus, but he never has any regard for his poor sister. Penelon, Penelon!


I think you hailed me, Mademoiselle Julie?


Penelon, go and inform M. Emmanuel of this gentleman’s visit, and Maximilian will conduct him to the salon. I hope you will permit me to leave you for a few minutes,


I am sorry to see, that I cause no small disturbance in your house.


Look there, there is her husband changing his jacket for a coat. I assure you, you are well known in the Rue Meslay.


Your family appears to be a very happy one. Five-and-twenty thousand francs is not a large sum, however, but they will not be content with that. Your brother-in-law is a barrister? a doctor?


He was a merchant, monsieur, and had succeeded to the business of my poor father. M. Morrel, at his death, left 500,000 francs, which were divided between my sister and myself, for we were his only children. Her husband, who, when he married her, had no other patrimony than his noble probity, his first-rate ability, and his spotless reputation, wished to possess as much as his wife. He labored and toiled until he had amassed 250,000 francs; six years sufficed to achieve this object. Oh, I assure you, sir, it was a touching spectacle to see these young creatures, destined by their talents for higher stations, toiling together, and through their unwillingness to change any of the customs of their paternal house, taking six years to accomplish what less scrupulous people would have effected in two or three. Marseilles resounded with their well-earned praises. At last, one day, Emmanuel came to his wife, who had just finished making up the accounts.


Julie. Cocles has just given me the last rouleau of a hundred francs; that completes the 250,000 francs we had fixed as the limits of our gains. Can you content yourself with the small fortune which we shall possess for the future? Listen to me. Our house transacts business to the amount of a million a year, from which we derive an income of 40,000 francs. We can dispose of the business, if we please, in an hour, for I have received a letter from M. Delaunay, in which he offers to purchase the good-will of the house, to unite with his own, for 300,000 francs. Advise me what I had better do. Emmanuel, the house of Morrel can only be carried on by a Morrel. Is it not worth 300,000 francs to save our father’s name from the chances of evil fortune and failure? I thought so, but I wished to have your advice. This is my counsel:—Our accounts are made up and our bills paid; all we have to do is to stop the issue of any more, and close our office.


Monsieur, have the goodness to address yourself to M. Delaunay. We have quitted business.


How long? A quarter of an hour,


And this is the reason, monsieur, of my sister and brother-in-law having only 25,000 francs a year.


Madame. I pray you to excuse my emotion, which must astonish you who are only accustomed to the happiness I meet here; but contentment is so new a sight to me, that I could never be weary of looking at yourself and your husband.


We are very happy, monsieur, but we have also known unhappiness, and few have ever undergone more bitter sufferings than ourselves.


This humble picture would have but little interest for you, accustomed as you are to behold the pleasures and the misfortunes of the wealthy and industrious; but such as we are, we have experienced bitter sorrows.


And God has poured balm into your wounds, as he does into those of all who are in affliction?


Yes, count, we may indeed say he has, for he has done for us what he grants only to his chosen; he sent us one of his angels.


Those born to wealth, and who have the means of gratifying every wish, know not what is the real happiness of life, just as those who have been tossed on the stormy waters of the ocean on a few frail planks can alone realize the blessings of fair weather.


Our magnificence makes you smile, count,


No, no. I was wondering what could be the significance of this purse, with the paper at one end and the large diamond at the other.


Count, those are our most precious family treasures.


The stone seems very brilliant,


Oh, my brother does not allude to its value, although it has been estimated at 100,000 francs; he means, that the articles contained in this purse are the relics of the angel I spoke of just now.


This I do not comprehend; and yet I may not ask for an explanation, madame. Pardon me, I had no intention of committing an indiscretion.


Indiscretion,—oh, you make us happy by giving us an excuse for expatiating on this subject. If we wanted to conceal the noble action this purse commemorates, we should not expose it thus to view. Oh, would we could relate it everywhere, and to everyone, so that the emotion of our unknown benefactor might reveal his presence.


Ah, really,


Monsieur, this has touched the hand of a man who saved my father from suicide, us from ruin, and our name from shame and disgrace,—a man by whose matchless benevolence we poor children, doomed to want and wretchedness, can at present hear everyone envying our happy lot. This letter this letter was written by him the day that my father had taken a desperate resolution, and this diamond was given by the generous unknown to my sister as her dowry.


Unknown you say, is the man who rendered you this service—unknown to you?


Yes; we have never had the happiness of pressing his hand. We have supplicated Heaven in vain to grant us this favor, but the whole affair has had a mysterious meaning that we cannot comprehend—we have been guided by an invisible hand,—a hand as powerful as that of an enchanter.


Oh, I have not lost all hope of some day kissing that hand, as I now kiss the purse which he has touched. Four years ago, Penelon was at Trieste—Penelon, count, is the old sailor you saw in the garden, and who, from quartermaster, has become gardener—Penelon, when he was at Trieste, saw on the quay an Englishman, who was on the point of embarking on board a yacht, and he recognized him as the person who called on my father the fifth of June, 1829, and who wrote me this letter on the fifth of September. He felt convinced of his identity, but he did not venture to address him.


An Englishman. An Englishman you say?


an Englishman, who represented himself as the confidential clerk of the house of Thomson & French, at Rome. It was this that made me start when you said the other day, at M. de Morcerf’s, that Messrs. Thomson & French were your bankers. That happened, as I told you, in 1829. For God’s sake, tell me, did you know this Englishman?


But you tell me, also, that the house of Thomson & French have constantly denied having rendered you this service? Then is it not probable that this Englishman may be someone who, grateful for a kindness your father had shown him, and which he himself had forgotten, has taken this method of requiting the obligation?


Everything is possible in this affair, even a miracle.


What was his name?


He gave no other name, than that at the end of his letter—‘Sinbad the Sailor.’


Which is evidently not his real name, but a fictitious one. Tell me, was he not about my height, perhaps a little taller, with his chin imprisoned, as it were, in a high cravat; his coat closely buttoned up, and constantly taking out his pencil?


Oh, do you then know him?


No. I only guessed. I knew a Lord Wilmore, who was constantly doing actions of this kind.


Without revealing himself?


He was an eccentric being, and did not believe in the existence of gratitude.


Oh, Heaven, in what did he believe, then?


He did not credit it at the period which I knew him, but, perhaps, since then he has had proofs that gratitude does exist.


And do you know this gentleman, monsieur?


Oh, if you do know him, can you tell us where he is—where we can find him? Maximilian—Emmanuel—if we do but discover him, he must believe in the gratitude of the heart!


In the name of Heaven, if you know anything of him, tell us what it is.


Alas, if Lord Wilmore was your unknown benefactor, I fear you will never see him again. I parted from him two years ago at Palermo, and he was then on the point of setting out for the most remote regions; so that I fear he will never return.


Oh, monsieur, this is cruel of you,


Madame, had Lord Wilmore seen what I now see, he would become attached to life, for the tears you shed would reconcile him to mankind;


But. Lord Wilmore had a family or friends, he must have known someone, can we not——


Oh, it is useless to inquire, perhaps, after all, he was not the man you seek for. He was my friend: he had no secrets from me, and if this had been so he would have confided in me.


And he told you nothing?


Not a word.


Nothing that would lead you to suppose?


Nothing.


And yet you spoke of him at once.


Ah, in such a case one supposes——


Sister, sister, monsieur is quite right. Recollect what our excellent father so often told us, ‘It was no Englishman that thus saved us.’


What did your father tell you, M. Morrel?


My father thought that this action had been miraculously performed—he believed that a benefactor had arisen from the grave to save us. Oh, it was a touching superstition, monsieur, and although I did not myself believe it, I would not for the world have destroyed my father’s faith. How often did he muse over it and pronounce the name of a dear friend—a friend lost to him forever; and on his death-bed, when the near approach of eternity seemed to have illumined his mind with supernatural light, this thought, which had until then been but a doubt, became a conviction, and his last words were, ‘Maximilian, it was Edmond Dantès!’


Madame. I trust you will allow me to visit you occasionally; I value your friendship, and feel grateful to you for your welcome, for this is the first time for many years that I have thus yielded to my feelings;


Don’t be alarmed, Valentine—it is I!


And why do you come so late today? It is almost dinner-time, and I had to use no little diplomacy to get rid of my watchful stepmother, my too-devoted maid, and my troublesome brother, who is always teasing me about coming to work at my embroidery, which I am in a fair way never to get done. So pray excuse yourself as well as you can for having made me wait, and, after that, tell me why I see you in a dress so singular that at first I did not recognize you.


Dearest Valentine, the difference between our respective stations makes me fear to offend you by speaking of my love, but yet I cannot find myself in your presence without longing to pour forth my soul, and tell you how fondly I adore you. If it be but to carry away with me the recollection of such sweet moments, I could even thank you for chiding me, for it leaves me a gleam of hope, that if you did not expect me (and that indeed would be worse than vanity to suppose), at least I was in your thoughts. You asked me the cause of my being late, and why I come disguised. I will candidly explain the reason of both, and I trust to your goodness to pardon me. I have chosen a trade.


A trade? Oh, Maximilian, how can you jest at a time when we have such deep cause for uneasiness?


Heaven keep me from jesting with that which is far dearer to me than life itself! But listen to me, Valentine, and I will tell you all about it. I became weary of ranging fields and scaling walls, and seriously alarmed at the idea suggested by you, that if caught hovering about here your father would very likely have me sent to prison as a thief. That would compromise the honor of the French army, to say nothing of the fact that the continual presence of a captain of Spahis in a place where no warlike projects could be supposed to account for it might well create surprise; so I have become a gardener, and, consequently, adopted the costume of my calling.


What excessive nonsense you talk, Maximilian!


Nonsense? Pray do not call what I consider the wisest action of my life by such a name. Consider, by becoming a gardener I effectually screen our meetings from all suspicion or danger.


I beseech of you, Maximilian, to cease trifling, and tell me what you really mean.


Simply, that having ascertained that the piece of ground on which I stand was to let, I made application for it, was readily accepted by the proprietor, and am now master of this fine crop of lucern. Think of that, Valentine! There is nothing now to prevent my building myself a little hut on my plantation, and residing not twenty yards from you. Only imagine what happiness that would afford me. I can scarcely contain myself at the bare idea. Such felicity seems above all price—as a thing impossible and unattainable. But would you believe that I purchase all this delight, joy, and happiness, for which I would cheerfully have surrendered ten years of my life, at the small cost of 500 francs per annum, paid quarterly? Henceforth we have nothing to fear. I am on my own ground, and have an undoubted right to place a ladder against the wall, and to look over when I please, without having any apprehensions of being taken off by the police as a suspicious character. I may also enjoy the precious privilege of assuring you of my fond, faithful, and unalterable affection, whenever you visit your favorite bower, unless, indeed, it offends your pride to listen to professions of love from the lips of a poor workingman, clad in a blouse and cap.


Alas, no, Maximilian, this must not be, for many reasons. We should presume too much on our own strength, and, like others, perhaps, be led astray by our blind confidence in each other’s prudence.


How can you for an instant entertain so unworthy a thought, dear Valentine? Have I not, from the first blessed hour of our acquaintance, schooled all my words and actions to your sentiments and ideas? And you have, I am sure, the fullest confidence in my honor. When you spoke to me of experiencing a vague and indefinite sense of coming danger, I placed myself blindly and devotedly at your service, asking no other reward than the pleasure of being useful to you; and have I ever since, by word or look, given you cause of regret for having selected me from the numbers that would willingly have sacrificed their lives for you? You told me, my dear Valentine, that you were engaged to M. d’Épinay, and that your father was resolved upon completing the match, and that from his will there was no appeal, as M. de Villefort was never known to change a determination once formed. I kept in the background, as you wished, and waited, not for the decision of your heart or my own, but hoping that Providence would graciously interpose in our behalf, and order events in our favor. But what cared I for delays or difficulties, Valentine, as long as you confessed that you loved me, and took pity on me? If you will only repeat that avowal now and then, I can endure anything.


Ah, Maximilian, that is the very thing that makes you so bold, and which renders me at once so happy and unhappy, that I frequently ask myself whether it is better for me to endure the harshness of my stepmother, and her blind preference for her own child, or to be, as I now am, insensible to any pleasure save such as I find in these meetings, so fraught with danger to both.


I will not admit that word. It is at once cruel and unjust. Is it possible to find a more submissive slave than myself? You have permitted me to converse with you from time to time, Valentine, but forbidden my ever following you in your walks or elsewhere—have I not obeyed? And since I found means to enter this enclosure to exchange a few words with you through this gate—to be close to you without really seeing you—have I ever asked so much as to touch the hem of your gown or tried to pass this barrier which is but a trifle to one of my youth and strength? Never has a complaint or a murmur escaped me. I have been bound by my promises as rigidly as any knight of olden times. Come, come, dearest Valentine, confess that what I say is true, lest I be tempted to call you unjust.


It is true, and you are a true and faithful friend; but still you acted from motives of self-interest, my dear Maximilian, for you well knew that from the moment in which you had manifested an opposite spirit all would have been ended between us. You promised to bestow on me the friendly affection of a brother. For I have no friend but yourself upon earth, who am neglected and forgotten by my father, harassed and persecuted by my stepmother, and left to the sole companionship of a paralyzed and speechless old man, whose withered hand can no longer press mine, and who can speak to me with the eye alone, although there still lingers in his heart the warmest tenderness for his poor grandchild. Oh, how bitter a fate is mine, to serve either as a victim or an enemy to all who are stronger than myself, while my only friend and supporter is a living corpse! Indeed, indeed, Maximilian, I am very miserable, and if you love me it must be out of pity.


Valentine, I will not say you are all I love in the world, for I dearly prize my sister and brother-in-law; but my affection for them is calm and tranquil, in no manner resembling what I feel for you. When I think of you my heart beats fast, the blood burns in my veins, and I can hardly breathe; but I solemnly promise you to restrain all this ardor, this fervor and intensity of feeling, until you yourself shall require me to render them available in serving or assisting you. M. Franz is not expected to return home for a year to come, I am told; in that time many favorable and unforeseen chances may befriend us. Let us, then, hope for the best; hope is so sweet a comforter. Meanwhile, Valentine, while reproaching me with selfishness, think a little what you have been to me—the beautiful but cold resemblance of a marble Venus. What promise of future reward have you made me for all the submission and obedience I have evinced?—none whatever. What granted me?—scarcely more. You tell me of M. Franz d’Épinay, your betrothed lover, and you shrink from the idea of being his wife; but tell me, Valentine, is there no other sorrow in your heart? You see me devoted to you, body and soul, my life and each warm drop that circles round my heart are consecrated to your service; you know full well that my existence is bound up in yours—that were I to lose you I would not outlive the hour of such crushing misery; yet you speak with calmness of the prospect of your being the wife of another! Oh, Valentine, were I in your place, and did I feel conscious, as you do, of being worshipped, adored, with such a love as mine, a hundred times at least should I have passed my hand between these iron bars, and said, ‘Take this hand, dearest Maximilian, and believe that, living or dead, I am yours—yours only, and forever!’ Dearest, dearest Valentine, forgive me if I have offended you, and forget the words I spoke if they have unwittingly caused you pain.


No, Maximilian, I am not offended, but do you not see what a poor, helpless being I am, almost a stranger and an outcast in my father’s house, where even he is seldom seen; whose will has been thwarted, and spirits broken, from the age of ten years, beneath the iron rod so sternly held over me; oppressed, mortified, and persecuted, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, no person has cared for, even observed my sufferings, nor have I ever breathed one word on the subject save to yourself. Outwardly and in the eyes of the world, I am surrounded by kindness and affection; but the reverse is the case. The general remark is, ‘Oh, it cannot be expected that one of so stern a character as M. Villefort could lavish the tenderness some fathers do on their daughters. What though she has lost her own mother at a tender age, she has had the happiness to find a second mother in Madame de Villefort.’ The world, however, is mistaken; my father abandons me from utter indifference, while my stepmother detests me with a hatred so much the more terrible because it is veiled beneath a continual smile.


Hate you, sweet Valentine, how is it possible for anyone to do that?


Alas. I am obliged to own that my stepmother’s aversion to me arises from a very natural source—her overweening love for her own child, my brother Edward.


But why should it?


I do not know; but, though unwilling to introduce money matters into our present conversation, I will just say this much—that her extreme dislike to me has its origin there; and I much fear she envies me the fortune I enjoy in right of my mother, and which will be more than doubled at the death of M. and Mme. de Saint-Méran, whose sole heiress I am. Madame de Villefort has nothing of her own, and hates me for being so richly endowed. Alas, how gladly would I exchange the half of this wealth for the happiness of at least sharing my father’s love. God knows, I would prefer sacrificing the whole, so that it would obtain me a happy and affectionate home.


Poor Valentine!


I seem to myself as though living a life of bondage, yet at the same time am so conscious of my own weakness that I fear to break the restraint in which I am held, lest I fall utterly helpless. Then, too, my father is not a person whose orders may be infringed with impunity; protected as he is by his high position and firmly established reputation for talent and unswerving integrity, no one could oppose him; he is all-powerful even with the king; he would crush you at a word. Dear Maximilian, believe me when I assure you that if I do not attempt to resist my father’s commands it is more on your account than my own.


But why, Valentine, do you persist in anticipating the worst,—why picture so gloomy a future?


Because I judge it from the past.


Still, consider that although I may not be, strictly speaking, what is termed an illustrious match for you, I am, for many reasons, not altogether so much beneath your alliance. The days when such distinctions were so nicely weighed and considered no longer exist in France, and the first families of the monarchy have intermarried with those of the empire. The aristocracy of the lance has allied itself with the nobility of the cannon. Now I belong to this last-named class; and certainly my prospects of military preferment are most encouraging as well as certain. My fortune, though small, is free and unfettered, and the memory of my late father is respected in our country, Valentine, as that of the most upright and honorable merchant of the city; I say our country, because you were born not far from Marseilles.


Don’t speak of Marseilles, I beg of you, Maximilian; that one word brings back my mother to my recollection—my angel mother, who died too soon for myself and all who knew her; but who, after watching over her child during the brief period allotted to her in this world, now, I fondly hope, watches from her home in heaven. Oh, if my mother were still living, there would be nothing to fear, Maximilian, for I would tell her that I loved you, and she would protect us.


I fear, Valentine, that were she living I should never have had the happiness of knowing you; you would then have been too happy to have stooped from your grandeur to bestow a thought on me.


Now it is you who are unjust, Maximilian, but there is one thing I wish to know.


And what is that?


Tell me truly, Maximilian, whether in former days, when our fathers dwelt at Marseilles, there was ever any misunderstanding between them?


Not that I am aware of, unless, indeed, any ill-feeling might have arisen from their being of opposite parties—your father was, as you know, a zealous partisan of the Bourbons, while mine was wholly devoted to the emperor; there could not possibly be any other difference between them. But why do you ask?


I will tell you, for it is but right you should know. Well, on the day when your appointment as an officer of the Legion of Honor was announced in the papers, we were all sitting with my grandfather, M. Noirtier; M. Danglars was there also—you recollect M. Danglars, do you not, Maximilian, the banker, whose horses ran away with my stepmother and little brother, and very nearly killed them? While the rest of the company were discussing the approaching marriage of Mademoiselle Danglars, I was reading the paper to my grandfather; but when I came to the paragraph about you, although I had done nothing else but read it over to myself all the morning (you know you had told me all about it the previous evening), I felt so happy, and yet so nervous, at the idea of speaking your name aloud, and before so many people, that I really think I should have passed it over, but for the fear that my doing so might create suspicions as to the cause of my silence; so I summoned up all my courage, and read it as firmly and as steadily as I could. Dear Valentine! Well, would you believe it? directly my father caught the sound of your name he turned round quite hastily, and, like a poor silly thing, I was so persuaded that everyone must be as much affected as myself by the utterance of your name, that I was not surprised to see my father start, and almost tremble; but I even thought (though that surely must have been a mistake) that M. Danglars trembled too. Morrel, Morrel,’ cried my father, ‘stop a bit;’ then knitting his brows into a deep frown, he added, ‘surely this cannot be one of the Morrel family who lived at Marseilles, and gave us so much trouble from their violent Bonapartism—I mean about the year 1815. Yes,’ replied M. Danglars, ‘I believe he is the son of the old shipowner.


Indeed, and what did your father say then, Valentine?


Oh, such a dreadful thing, that I don’t dare to tell you.


Always tell me everything.


Ah,’ continued my father, still frowning, ‘their idolized emperor treated these madmen as they deserved; he called them ‘food for cannon,’ which was precisely all they were good for; and I am delighted to see that the present government have adopted this salutary principle with all its pristine vigor; if Algiers were good for nothing but to furnish the means of carrying so admirable an idea into practice, it would be an acquisition well worthy of struggling to obtain. Though it certainly does cost France somewhat dear to assert her rights in that uncivilized country.


Brutal politics, I must confess. Why,’ said he, ‘does not the emperor, who has devised so many clever and efficient modes of improving the art of war, organize a regiment of lawyers, judges and legal practitioners, sending them in the hottest fire the enemy could maintain, and using them to save better men?


Oh, he laughed, and in that singular manner so peculiar to himself—half-malicious, half-ferocious; he almost immediately got up and took his leave; then, for the first time, I observed the agitation of my grandfather, and I must tell you, Maximilian, that I am the only person capable of discerning emotion in his paralyzed frame. And I suspected that the conversation that had been carried on in his presence (for they always say and do what they like before the dear old man, without the smallest regard for his feelings) had made a strong impression on his mind; for, naturally enough, it must have pained him to hear the emperor he so devotedly loved and served spoken of in that depreciating manner.


The name of M. Noirtier is celebrated throughout Europe; he was a statesman of high standing, and you may or may not know, Valentine, that he took a leading part in every Bonapartist conspiracy set on foot during the restoration of the Bourbons.


Oh, I have often heard whispers of things that seem to me most strange—the father a Bonapartist, the son a Royalist; what can have been the reason of so singular a difference in parties and politics? But to resume my story; I turned towards my grandfather, as though to question him as to the cause of his emotion; he looked expressively at the newspaper I had been reading. ‘What is the matter, dear grandfather?’ said I, ‘are you pleased?’ He gave me a sign in the affirmative. ‘With what my father said just now?’ He returned a sign in the negative. ‘Perhaps you liked what M. Danglars said?’ Another sign in the negative. ‘Oh, then, you were glad to hear that M. Morrel (I didn’t dare to say Maximilian) had been made an officer of the Legion of Honor?’ He signified assent; only think of the poor old man’s being so pleased to think that you, who were a perfect stranger to him, had been made an officer of the Legion of Honor! Perhaps it was a mere whim on his part, for he is falling, they say, into second childhood, but I love him for showing so much interest in you.


How singular, your father hates me, while your grandfather, on the contrary—What strange feelings are aroused by politics.


Hush, someone is coming!


Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!


Madame is searching for you everywhere; there is a visitor in the drawing-room.


A visitor?


Some grand personage—a prince I believe they said—the Count of Monte Cristo.


I will come directly.


I am coming Now, then, I would give a good deal to know how it comes about that the Count of Monte Cristo is acquainted with M. de Villefort.


My husband dines with the chancellor; he has just gone, and I am sure he’ll be exceedingly sorry not to have had the pleasure of seeing you before he went. What is your sister Valentine doing? tell someone to bid her come here, that I may have the honor of introducing her to the count.


You have a daughter, then, madame? very young, I presume?


But melancholy,


Be still, Edward! This young madcap is, however, very nearly right, and merely re-echoes what he has heard me say with pain a hundred times; for Mademoiselle de Villefort is, in spite of all we can do to rouse her, of a melancholy disposition and taciturn habit, which frequently injure the effect of her beauty. But what detains her? Go, Edward, and see.


Because they are looking for her where she is not to be found.


And where are they looking for her?


With grandpapa Noirtier.


And do you think she is not there?


No, no, no, no, no, she is not there. She is under the big chestnut-tree,


Mademoiselle de Villefort, my step-daughter,


And M. de Monte Cristo, King of China, Emperor of Cochin-China,


But, madame, have I not already had the honor of meeting yourself and mademoiselle before? I could not help thinking so just now; the idea came over my mind, and as mademoiselle entered the sight of her was an additional ray of light thrown on a confused remembrance; excuse the remark.


I do not think it likely, sir; Mademoiselle de Villefort is not very fond of society, and we very seldom go out,


Then it was not in society that I met with mademoiselle or yourself, madame, or this charming little merry boy. Besides, the Parisian world is entirely unknown to me, for, as I believe I told you, I have been in Paris but very few days. No,—but, perhaps, you will permit me to call to mind—stay! No—it was somewhere—away from here—it was—I do not know—but it appears that this recollection is connected with a lovely sky and some religious fête; mademoiselle was holding flowers in her hand, the interesting boy was chasing a beautiful peacock in a garden, and you, madame, were under the trellis of some arbor. Pray come to my aid, madame; do not these circumstances appeal to your memory?


No, indeed, and yet it appears to me, sir, that if I had met you anywhere, the recollection of you must have been imprinted on my memory.


Perhaps the count saw us in Italy,


Yes, in Italy; it was in Italy most probably, you have travelled then in Italy, mademoiselle?


Yes; madame and I were there two years ago. The doctors, anxious for my lungs, had prescribed the air of Naples. We went by Bologna, Perugia, and Rome.


Ah, yes—true, mademoiselle. It was at Perugia on Corpus Christi Day, in the garden of the Hôtel des Postes, when chance brought us together; you, Madame de Villefort, and her son; I now remember having had the honor of meeting you.


I perfectly well remember Perugia, sir, and the Hôtel des Postes, and the festival of which you speak, but in vain do I tax my memory, of whose treachery I am ashamed, for I really do not recall to mind that I ever had the pleasure of seeing you before.


It is strange, but neither do I recollect meeting with you,


But I remember it perfectly,


I will assist your memory, madame; the day had been burning hot; you were waiting for horses, which were delayed in consequence of the festival. Mademoiselle was walking in the shade of the garden, and your son disappeared in pursuit of the peacock.


And I caught it, mamma, don’t you remember? and I pulled three such beautiful feathers out of his tail.


You, madame, remained under the arbor; do you not remember, that while you were seated on a stone bench, and while, as I told you, Mademoiselle de Villefort and your young son were absent, you conversed for a considerable time with somebody?


Yes, in truth, yes. I do remember conversing with a person wrapped in a long woollen mantle; he was a medical man, I think.


Precisely so, madame; this man was myself; for a fortnight I had been at that hotel, during which period I had cured my valet de chambre of a fever, and my landlord of the jaundice, so that I really acquired a reputation as a skilful physician. We discoursed a long time, madame, on different subjects; of Perugino, of Raphael, of manners, customs, of the famous aqua Tofana, of which they had told you, I think you said, that certain individuals in Perugia had preserved the secret.


Yes, true. I remember now.


I do not recollect now all the various subjects of which we discoursed, madame, but I perfectly remember that, falling into the error which others had entertained respecting me, you consulted me as to the health of Mademoiselle de Villefort.


Yes, really, sir, you were in fact a medical man, since you had cured the sick.


Molière or Beaumarchais would reply to you, madame, that it was precisely because I was not, that I had cured my patients; for myself, I am content to say to you that I have studied chemistry and the natural sciences somewhat deeply, but still only as an amateur, you understand.


It is six o’clock. Valentine, will you not go and see if your grandpapa will have his dinner?


Oh, madame,


was it on my account that you sent Mademoiselle de Villefort away?


By no means, but this is the hour when we usually give M. Noirtier the unwelcome meal that sustains his pitiful existence. You are aware, sir, of the deplorable condition of my husband’s father?


Yes, madame, M. de Villefort spoke of it to me—a paralysis, I think.


Alas, yes; the poor old gentleman is entirely helpless; the mind alone is still active in this human machine, and that is faint and flickering, like the light of a lamp about to expire. But excuse me, sir, for talking of our domestic misfortunes; I interrupted you at the moment when you were telling me that you were a skilful chemist.


No, madame, I did not say as much as that,


quite the contrary. I have studied chemistry because, having determined to live in eastern climates I have been desirous of following the example of King Mithridates.


Mithridates, rex Ponticus, the individual who took cream in his cup of poison every morning at breakfast.


Edward, you naughty boy, you are positively past bearing; you really disturb the conversation; go, leave us, and join your sister Valentine in dear grandpapa Noirtier’s room.


The album,


What do you mean?—the album!


I want the album.


How dare you tear out the drawings?


Oh, it amuses me.


Go—go at once.


I won’t go unless you give me the album,


Take it, then, and pray disturb us no longer,


Let us see if she shuts the door after him,


Allow me to observe, madame, you are really very severe with that dear clever child. Oh, sometimes severity is quite necessary,


It was his Cornelius Nepos that Master Edward was repeating when he referred to King Mithridates,


and you interrupted him in a quotation which proves that his tutor has by no means neglected him, for your son is really advanced for his years.


The fact is, count, he has great aptitude, and learns all that is set before him. He has but one fault, he is somewhat wilful; but really, on referring for the moment to what he said, do you truly believe that Mithridates used these precautions, and that these precautions were efficacious?


I think so, madame, because I myself have made use of them, that I might not be poisoned at Naples, at Palermo, and at Smyrna—that is to say, on three several occasions when, but for these precautions, I must have lost my life.


And your precautions were successful?


Completely so.


Yes, I remember now your mentioning to me at Perugia something of this sort.


Indeed?


I really did not remember.


I inquired of you if poisons acted equally, and with the same effect, on men of the North as on men of the South; and you answered me that the cold and sluggish habits of the North did not present the same aptitude as the rich and energetic temperaments of the natives of the South.


And that is the case. I have seen Russians devour, without being visibly inconvenienced, vegetable substances which would infallibly have killed a Neapolitan or an Arab.


And you really believe the result would be still more sure with us than in the East, and in the midst of our fogs and rains a man would habituate himself more easily than in a warm latitude to this progressive absorption of poison?


Certainly; it being at the same time perfectly understood that he should have been duly fortified against the poison to which he had not been accustomed.


Yes, I understand that; and how would you habituate yourself, for instance, or rather, how did you habituate yourself to it?


Oh, very easily. Suppose you knew beforehand the poison that would be made use of against you; suppose the poison was, for instance, brucine——


Brucine is extracted from the false angostura8 is it not?


Precisely, madame, but I perceive I have not much to teach you. Allow me to compliment you on your knowledge; such learning is very rare among ladies.


Oh, I am aware of that, but I have a passion for the occult sciences, which speak to the imagination like poetry, and are reducible to figures, like an algebraic equation; but go on, I beg of you; what you say interests me to the greatest degree.


Well, suppose, then, that this poison was brucine, and you were to take a milligramme the first day, two milligrammes the second day, and so on. Well, at the end of ten days you would have taken a centigramme, at the end of twenty days, increasing another milligramme, you would have taken three hundred centigrammes; that is to say, a dose which you would support without inconvenience, and which would be very dangerous for any other person who had not taken the same precautions as yourself. Well, then, at the end of a month, when drinking water from the same carafe, you would kill the person who drank with you, without your perceiving, otherwise than from slight inconvenience, that there was any poisonous substance mingled with this water.


Do you know any other counter-poisons?


I do not.


I have often read, and read again, the history of Mithridates, and had always considered it a fable.


No, madame, contrary to most history, it is true; but what you tell me, madame, what you inquire of me, is not the result of a chance query, for two years ago you asked me the same questions, and said then, that for a very long time this history of Mithridates had occupied your mind.


True, sir. The two favorite studies of my youth were botany and mineralogy, and subsequently, when I learned that the use of simples frequently explained the whole history of a people, and the entire life of individuals in the East, as flowers betoken and symbolize a love affair, I have regretted that I was not a man, that I might have been a Flamel, a Fontana, or a Cabanis.


And the more, madame, as the Orientals do not confine themselves, as did Mithridates, to make a cuirass of his poisons, but they also made them a dagger. Science becomes, in their hands, not only a defensive weapon, but still more frequently an offensive one; the one serves against all their physical sufferings, the other against all their enemies. With opium, belladonna, brucea, snake-wood, and the cherry-laurel, they put to sleep all who stand in their way. There is not one of those women, Egyptian, Turkish, or Greek, whom here you call ‘good women,’ who do not know how, by means of chemistry, to stupefy a doctor, and in psychology to amaze a confessor.


Really,


Oh, yes, indeed, madame, the secret dramas of the East begin with a love philtre and end with a death potion—begin with paradise and end with—hell. There are as many elixirs of every kind as there are caprices and peculiarities in the physical and moral nature of humanity; and I will say further—the art of these chemists is capable with the utmost precision to accommodate and proportion the remedy and the bane to yearnings for love or desires for vengeance.


But, sir, these Eastern societies, in the midst of which you have passed a portion of your existence, are as fantastic as the tales that come from their strange land. A man can easily be put out of the way there, then; it is, indeed, the Bagdad and Bassora of the Thousand and One Nights. The sultans and viziers who rule over society there, and who constitute what in France we call the government, are really Haroun-al-Raschids and Giaffars, who not only pardon a poisoner, but even make him a prime minister, if his crime has been an ingenious one, and who, under such circumstances, have the whole story written in letters of gold, to divert their hours of idleness and ennui.


By no means, madame; the fanciful exists no longer in the East. There, disguised under other names, and concealed under other costumes, are police agents, magistrates, attorneys-general, and bailiffs. They hang, behead, and impale their criminals in the most agreeable possible manner; but some of these, like clever rogues, have contrived to escape human justice, and succeed in their fraudulent enterprises by cunning stratagems. Amongst us a simpleton, possessed by the demon of hate or cupidity, who has an enemy to destroy, or some near relation to dispose of, goes straight to the grocer’s or druggist’s, gives a false name, which leads more easily to his detection than his real one, and under the pretext that the rats prevent him from sleeping, purchases five or six grammes of arsenic—if he is really a cunning fellow, he goes to five or six different druggists or grocers, and thereby becomes only five or six times more easily traced;—then, when he has acquired his specific, he administers duly to his enemy, or near kinsman, a dose of arsenic which would make a mammoth or mastodon burst, and which, without rhyme or reason, makes his victim utter groans which alarm the entire neighborhood. Then arrive a crowd of policemen and constables. They fetch a doctor, who opens the dead body, and collects from the entrails and stomach a quantity of arsenic in a spoon. Next day a hundred newspapers relate the fact, with the names of the victim and the murderer. The same evening the grocer or grocers, druggist or druggists, come and say, ‘It was I who sold the arsenic to the gentleman;’ and rather than not recognize the guilty purchaser, they will recognize twenty. Then the foolish criminal is taken, imprisoned, interrogated, confronted, confounded, condemned, and cut off by hemp or steel; or if she be a woman of any consideration, they lock her up for life. This is the way in which you Northerns understand chemistry, madame. Desrues was, however, I must confess, more skilful.


What would you have, sir? we do what we can. All the world has not the secret of the Medicis or the Borgias.


Now,


shall I tell you the cause of all these stupidities? It is because, at your theatres, by what at least I could judge by reading the pieces they play, they see persons swallow the contents of a phial, or suck the button of a ring, and fall dead instantly. Five minutes afterwards the curtain falls, and the spectators depart. They are ignorant of the consequences of the murder; they see neither the police commissary with his badge of office, nor the corporal with his four men; and so the poor fools believe that the whole thing is as easy as lying. But go a little way from France—go either to Aleppo or Cairo, or only to Naples or Rome, and you will see people passing by you in the streets—people erect, smiling, and fresh-colored, of whom Asmodeus, if you were holding on by the skirt of his mantle, would say, ‘That man was poisoned three weeks ago; he will be a dead man in a month.’


Then, they have again discovered the secret of the famous aqua Tofana that they said was lost at Perugia.


Ah, but madame, does mankind ever lose anything? The arts change about and make a tour of the world; things take a different name, and the vulgar do not follow them—that is all; but there is always the same result. Poisons act particularly on some organ or another—one on the stomach, another on the brain, another on the intestines. Well, the poison brings on a cough, the cough an inflammation of the lungs, or some other complaint catalogued in the book of science, which, however, by no means precludes it from being decidedly mortal; and if it were not, would be sure to become so, thanks to the remedies applied by foolish doctors, who are generally bad chemists, and which will act in favor of or against the malady, as you please; and then there is a human being killed according to all the rules of art and skill, and of whom justice learns nothing, as was said by a terrible chemist of my acquaintance, the worthy Abbé Adelmonte of Taormina, in Sicily, who has studied these national phenomena very profoundly.


It is quite frightful, but deeply interesting. I thought, I must confess, that these tales, were inventions of the Middle Ages.


Yes, no doubt, but improved upon by ours. What is the use of time, rewards of merit, medals, crosses, Monthyon prizes, if they do not lead society towards more complete perfection? Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.


So, the poisons of the Borgias, the Medicis, the Renées, the Ruggieris, and later, probably, that of Baron de Trenck, whose story has been so misused by modern drama and romance——


Were objects of art, madame, and nothing more,


Do you suppose that the real savant addresses himself stupidly to the mere individual? By no means. Science loves eccentricities, leaps and bounds, trials of strength, fancies, if I may be allowed so to term them. Thus, for instance, the excellent Abbé Adelmonte, of whom I spoke just now, made in this way some marvellous experiments.


Really?