Notwithstanding the density of the crowd, M. de Villefort saw it open
before him. There is something so awe-inspiring in great afflictions
that even in the worst times the first emotion of a crowd has generally
been to sympathize with the sufferer in a great catastrophe. Many people
have been assassinated in a tumult, but even criminals have rarely
been insulted during trial. Thus Villefort passed through the mass
of spectators and officers of the Palais, and withdrew. Though he had
acknowledged his guilt, he was protected by his grief. There are
some situations which men understand by instinct, but which reason is
powerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives
utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of sorrow. Those
who hear the bitter cry are as much impressed as if they listened to
an entire poem, and when the sufferer is sincere they are right in
regarding his outburst as sublime.
It would be difficult to describe the state of stupor in which Villefort
left the Palais. Every pulse beat with feverish excitement, every nerve
was strained, every vein swollen, and every part of his body seemed
to suffer distinctly from the rest, thus multiplying his agony a
thousand-fold. He made his way along the corridors through force of
habit; he threw aside his magisterial robe, not out of deference to
etiquette, but because it was an unbearable burden, a veritable garb
of Nessus, insatiate in torture. Having staggered as far as the Rue
Dauphine, he perceived his carriage, awoke his sleeping coachman by
opening the door himself, threw himself on the cushions, and pointed
towards the Faubourg Saint-Honore; the carriage drove on. The weight of
his fallen fortunes seemed suddenly to crush him; he could not
foresee the consequences; he could not contemplate the future with the
indifference of the hardened criminal who merely faces a contingency
already familiar. God was still in his heart. "God," he murmured, not
knowing what he said,--"God--God!" Behind the event that had overwhelmed
him he saw the hand of God. The carriage rolled rapidly onward.
Villefort, while turning restlessly on the cushions, felt something
press against him. He put out his hand to remove the object; it was
a fan which Madame de Villefort had left in the carriage; this fan
awakened a recollection which darted through his mind like lightning. He
thought of his wife.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, as though a redhot iron were piercing his heart.
During the last hour his own crime had alone been presented to his mind;
now another object, not less terrible, suddenly presented itself. His
wife! He had just acted the inexorable judge with her, he had condemned
her to death, and she, crushed by remorse, struck with terror,
covered with the shame inspired by the eloquence of his irreproachable
virtue,--she, a poor, weak woman, without help or the power of defending
herself against his absolute and supreme will,--she might at that very
moment, perhaps, be preparing to die! An hour had elapsed since her
condemnation; at that moment, doubtless, she was recalling all her
crimes to her memory; she was asking pardon for her sins; perhaps
she was even writing a letter imploring forgiveness from her virtuous
husband--a forgiveness she was purchasing with her death! Villefort
again groaned with anguish and despair. "Ah," he exclaimed, "that woman
became criminal only from associating with me! I carried the infection
of crime with me, and she has caught it as she would the typhus fever,
the cholera, the plague! And yet I have punished her--I have dared to
tell her--I have--'Repent and die!' But no, she must not die; she shall
live, and with me. We will flee from Paris and go as far as the earth
reaches. I told her of the scaffold; oh, heavens, I forgot that it
awaits me also! How could I pronounce that word? Yes, we will fly;
I will confess all to her,--I will tell her daily that I also have
committed a crime!--Oh, what an alliance--the tiger and the serpent;
worthy wife of such as I am! She must live that my infamy may diminish
hers." And Villefort dashed open the window in front of the carriage.
"Faster, faster!" he cried, in a tone which electrified the coachman.
The horses, impelled by fear, flew towards the house.
"Yes, yes," repeated Villefort, as he approached his home--"yes, that
woman must live; she must repent, and educate my son, the sole survivor,
with the exception of the indestructible old man, of the wreck of
my house. She loves him; it was for his sake she has committed these
crimes. We ought never to despair of softening the heart of a mother who
loves her child. She will repent, and no one will know that she has been
guilty. The events which have taken place in my house, though they now
occupy the public mind, will be forgotten in time, or if, indeed, a few
enemies should persist in remembering them, why then I will add them to
my list of crimes. What will it signify if one, two, or three more are
added? My wife and child shall escape from this gulf, carrying treasures
with them; she will live and may yet be happy, since her child, in whom
all her love is centred, will be with her. I shall have performed a good
action, and my heart will be lighter." And the procureur breathed more
freely than he had done for some time.
The carriage stopped at the door of the house. Villefort leaped out
of the carriage, and saw that his servants were surprised at his early
return; he could read no other expression on their features. Neither of
them spoke to him; they merely stood aside to let him pass by, as usual,
nothing more. As he passed by M. Noirtier's room, he perceived two
figures through the half-open door; but he experienced no curiosity to
know who was visiting his father: anxiety carried him on further.
"Come," he said, as he ascended the stairs leading to his wife's room,
"nothing is changed here." He then closed the door of the landing.
"No one must disturb us," he said; "I must speak freely to her, accuse
myself, and say"--he approached the door, touched the crystal handle,
which yielded to his hand. "Not locked," he cried; "that is well." And
he entered the little room in which Edward slept; for though the child
went to school during the day, his mother could not allow him to be
separated from her at night. With a single glance Villefort's eye
ran through the room. "Not here," he said; "doubtless she is in her
bedroom." He rushed towards the door, found it bolted, and stopped,
shuddering. "Heloise!" he cried. He fancied he heard the sound of a
piece of furniture being removed. "Heloise!" he repeated.
"Who is there?" answered the voice of her he sought. He thought that
voice more feeble than usual.
"Open the door!" cried Villefort. "Open; it is I." But notwithstanding
this request, notwithstanding the tone of anguish in which it was
uttered, the door remained closed. Villefort burst it open with a
violent blow. At the entrance of the room which led to her boudoir,
Madame de Villefort was standing erect, pale, her features contracted,
and her eyes glaring horribly. "Heloise, Heloise!" he said, "what is the
matter? Speak!" The young woman extended her stiff white hands towards
him. "It is done, monsieur," she said with a rattling noise which seemed
to tear her throat. "What more do you want?" and she fell full length on
the floor. Villefort ran to her and seized her hand, which convulsively
clasped a crystal bottle with a golden stopper. Madame de Villefort was
dead. Villefort, maddened with horror, stepped back to the threshhold
of the door, fixing his eyes on the corpse: "My son!" he exclaimed
suddenly, "where is my son?--Edward, Edward!" and he rushed out of the
room, still crying, "Edward, Edward!" The name was pronounced in such a
tone of anguish that the servants ran up.
"Where is my son?" asked Villefort; "let him be removed from the house,
that he may not see"--
"Master Edward is not down-stairs, sir," replied the valet.
"Then he must be playing in the garden; go and see."
"No, sir; Madame de Villefort sent for him half an hour ago; he went
into her room, and has not been down-stairs since." A cold perspiration
burst out on Villefort's brow; his legs trembled, and his thoughts flew
about madly in his brain like the wheels of a disordered watch. "In
Madame de Villefort's room?" he murmured and slowly returned, with one
hand wiping his forehead, and with the other supporting himself
against the wall. To enter the room he must again see the body of his
unfortunate wife. To call Edward he must reawaken the echo of that room
which now appeared like a sepulchre; to speak seemed like violating the
silence of the tomb. His tongue was paralyzed in his mouth.
"Edward!" he stammered--"Edward!" The child did not answer. Where, then,
could he be, if he had entered his mother's room and not since returned?
He stepped forward. The corpse of Madame de Villefort was stretched
across the doorway leading to the room in which Edward must be; those
glaring eyes seemed to watch over the threshold, and the lips bore the
stamp of a terrible and mysterious irony. Through the open door was
visible a portion of the boudoir, containing an upright piano and a blue
satin couch. Villefort stepped forward two or three paces, and beheld
his child lying--no doubt asleep--on the sofa. The unhappy man uttered
an exclamation of joy; a ray of light seemed to penetrate the abyss of
despair and darkness. He had only to step over the corpse, enter the
boudoir, take the child in his arms, and flee far, far away.
Villefort was no longer the civilized man; he was a tiger hurt unto
death, gnashing his teeth in his wound. He no longer feared realities,
but phantoms. He leaped over the corpse as if it had been a burning
brazier. He took the child in his arms, embraced him, shook him, called
him, but the child made no response. He pressed his burning lips to the
cheeks, but they were icy cold and pale; he felt the stiffened limbs; he
pressed his hand upon the heart, but it no longer beat,--the child
was dead. A folded paper fell from Edward's breast. Villefort,
thunderstruck, fell upon his knees; the child dropped from his arms, and
rolled on the floor by the side of its mother. He picked up the paper,
and, recognizing his wife's writing, ran his eyes rapidly over its
contents; it ran as follows:--
"You know that I was a good mother, since it was for my son's sake I
became criminal. A good mother cannot depart without her son."
Villefort could not believe his eyes,--he could not believe his reason;
he dragged himself towards the child's body, and examined it as a
lioness contemplates its dead cub. Then a piercing cry escaped from his
breast, and he cried, "Still the hand of God." The presence of the
two victims alarmed him; he could not bear solitude shared only by two
corpses. Until then he had been sustained by rage, by his strength of
mind, by despair, by the supreme agony which led the Titans to scale the
heavens, and Ajax to defy the gods. He now arose, his head bowed beneath
the weight of grief, and, shaking his damp, dishevelled hair, he who had
never felt compassion for any one determined to seek his father, that he
might have some one to whom he could relate his misfortunes,--some one
by whose side he might weep. He descended the little staircase with
which we are acquainted, and entered Noirtier's room. The old man
appeared to be listening attentively and as affectionately as his
infirmities would allow to the Abbe Busoni, who looked cold and calm, as
usual. Villefort, perceiving the abbe, passed his hand across his
brow. He recollected the call he had made upon him after the dinner at
Auteuil, and then the visit the abbe had himself paid to his house on
the day of Valentine's death. "You here, sir!" he exclaimed; "do you,
then, never appear but to act as an escort to death?"
Busoni turned around, and, perceiving the excitement depicted on the
magistrate's face, the savage lustre of his eyes, he understood that
the revelation had been made at the assizes; but beyond this he was
ignorant. "I came to pray over the body of your daughter."
"And now why are you here?"
"I come to tell you that you have sufficiently repaid your debt, and
that from this moment I will pray to God to forgive you, as I do."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Villefort, stepping back fearfully, "surely
that is not the voice of the Abbe Busoni!"
"No!" The abbe threw off his wig, shook his head, and his hair, no
longer confined, fell in black masses around his manly face.
"It is the face of the Count of Monte Cristo!" exclaimed the procureur,
with a haggard expression.
"You are not exactly right, M. Procureur; you must go farther back."
"That voice, that voice!--where did I first hear it?"
"You heard it for the first time at Marseilles, twenty-three years ago,
the day of your marriage with Mademoiselle de Saint-Meran. Refer to your
papers."
"You are not Busoni?--you are not Monte Cristo? Oh, heavens--you are,
then, some secret, implacable, and mortal enemy! I must have wronged you
in some way at Marseilles. Oh, woe to me!"
"Yes; you are now on the right path," said the count, crossing his arms
over his broad chest; "search--search!"
"But what have I done to you?" exclaimed Villefort, whose mind was
balancing between reason and insanity, in that cloud which is neither a
dream nor reality; "what have I done to you? Tell me, then! Speak!"
"You condemned me to a horrible, tedious death; you killed my father;
you deprived me of liberty, of love, and happiness."
"Who are you, then? Who are you?"
"I am the spectre of a wretch you buried in the dungeons of the Chateau
d'If. God gave that spectre the form of the Count of Monte Cristo when
he at length issued from his tomb, enriched him with gold and diamonds,
and led him to you!"
"Ah, I recognize you--I recognize you!" exclaimed the king's attorney;
"you are"--
"I am Edmond Dantes!"
"You are Edmond Dantes," cried Villefort, seizing the count by the
wrist; "then come here!" And up the stairs he dragged Monte Cristo; who,
ignorant of what had happened, followed him in astonishment, foreseeing
some new catastrophe. "There, Edmond Dantes!" he said, pointing to the
bodies of his wife and child, "see, are you well avenged?" Monte Cristo
became pale at this horrible sight; he felt that he had passed beyond
the bounds of vengeance, and that he could no longer say, "God is for
and with me." With an expression of indescribable anguish he threw
himself upon the body of the child, reopened its eyes, felt its
pulse, and then rushed with him into Valentine's room, of which he
double-locked the door. "My child," cried Villefort, "he carries away
the body of my child! Oh, curses, woe, death to you!" and he tried to
follow Monte Cristo; but as though in a dream he was transfixed to the
spot,--his eyes glared as though they were starting through the sockets;
he griped the flesh on his chest until his nails were stained with
blood; the veins of his temples swelled and boiled as though they would
burst their narrow boundary, and deluge his brain with living fire.
This lasted several minutes, until the frightful overturn of reason was
accomplished; then uttering a loud cry followed by a burst of laughter,
he rushed down the stairs.
A quarter of an hour afterwards the door of Valentine's room opened, and
Monte Cristo reappeared. Pale, with a dull eye and heavy heart, all the
noble features of that face, usually so calm and serene, were overcast
by grief. In his arms he held the child, whom no skill had been able to
recall to life. Bending on one knee, he placed it reverently by the side
of its mother, with its head upon her breast. Then, rising, he went
out, and meeting a servant on the stairs, he asked, "Where is M. de
Villefort?"
The servant, instead of answering, pointed to the garden. Monte Cristo
ran down the steps, and advancing towards the spot designated beheld
Villefort, encircled by his servants, with a spade in his hand, and
digging the earth with fury. "It is not here!" he cried. "It is not
here!" And then he moved farther on, and began again to dig.
Monte Cristo approached him, and said in a low voice, with an expression
almost humble, "Sir, you have indeed lost a son; but"--
Villefort interrupted him; he had neither listened nor heard. "Oh, I
will find it," he cried; "you may pretend he is not here, but I will
find him, though I dig forever!" Monte Cristo drew back in horror. "Oh,"
he said, "he is mad!" And as though he feared that the walls of the
accursed house would crumble around him, he rushed into the street, for
the first time doubting whether he had the right to do as he had done.
"Oh, enough of this,--enough of this," he cried; "let me save the last."
On entering his house, he met Morrel, who wandered about like a ghost
awaiting the heavenly mandate for return to the tomb. "Prepare yourself,
Maximilian," he said with a smile; "we leave Paris to-morrow."
"Have you nothing more to do there?" asked Morrel.
"No," replied Monte Cristo; "God grant I may not have done too much
already."
The next day they indeed left, accompanied only by Baptistin. Haidee had
taken away Ali, and Bertuccio remained with Noirtier.
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