The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (14 page)

Hence, the addition of all these elements amounted for Villefort to a dazzling sum of felicity, to such an extent that he thought he was seeing sunspots when he had turned the eyes of his soul for any length of time on the contemplation of his inner life.

At the door, he found the police commissioner waiting for him. The sight of this sombre personage immediately brought him back from seventh heaven to the solid earth on which we all walk. He composed his features, as we mentioned, and approached the officer of the law: ‘Here I am, Monsieur. I have read the letter, and you did well to arrest this man. Now tell me everything you know about him and the conspiracy.’

‘As far as the conspiracy is concerned, Monsieur, we know nothing as yet. All the papers that we seized on him have been tied in a single bundle and deposited, sealed, on your desk. As for the detainee, you know from the letter denouncing him that he is one Edmond Dantès, first mate on board the three-master
Pharaon
, trading in cotton with Alexandria and Smyrna, and belonging to the house of Morrel and Son, of Marseille.’

‘Did he serve in the Navy before joining the merchant marine?’

‘No, Monsieur, he is quite a young man.’

‘How old?’

‘Nineteen… twenty, at most.’

At this moment, as Villefort was going down the Grande-Rue and had reached the corner of the Rue des Conseils, a man, who seemed to have been waiting there for him, came over. It was M. Morrel.

‘Ah, Monsieur de Villefort!’ the good man exclaimed. ‘I am so pleased to see you. Can you imagine! The strangest, the most
unheard-of mistake has been made: they have just arrested the first mate of my ship, Edmond Dantès.’

‘I know, Monsieur,’ said Villefort. ‘I have come to question him.’

‘My good sir,’ said M. Morrel, carried away by his friendship for the young man. ‘You do not know the person who is being accused; but I know him. He is the mildest, most honest man you could imagine, I might almost say the man who knows his job best of any in the merchant marine. Monsieur de Villefort, I commend him to you most sincerely and with all my heart!’

As we have seen, Villefort belonged to the nobility of the town and M. Morrel to the plebeian part of it: the former was an extreme Royalist, the latter suspected of harbouring Bonapartist sympathies. Villefort looked contemptuously at Morrel and answered coldly: ‘You know, Monsieur, that one can be mild in one’s private life, honest in one’s business dealings and skilled in one’s work, yet at the same time, politically speaking, be guilty of great crimes. You do know that, I suppose, Monsieur?’

He emphasized these last words, as if intending to apply them to the shipowner himself, while his enquiring look seemed to search right into the innermost soul of a man who had tried to intervene on behalf of another, when he should have realized that he was himself in need of indulgence.

Morrel blushed, for his conscience was not altogether clear on the point of his political opinions. In any case, his mind was slightly troubled by the confidential information that Dantès had given him about his talk with the marshal and the few words that the emperor had addressed to him. However, he added in tones of the most urgent pleading: ‘I beg you, Monsieur de Villefort, be just, as it is your duty to be, and generous, as you always are, and soon restore poor Dantès
to us
.’

This
restore to us
had a revolutionary ring to the ears of the crown prosecutor’s deputy.

‘Well, well!’ he muttered to himself. ‘
To us
… Can this Dantès be a member of some sect of
carbonari
,
¹
for his protector to employ that collective expression without being aware that he was doing so? I seem to understand from the commissioner that he was arrested in a cabaret, and he added, in a large gathering: this was some kind of
vente
.’

Then, in reply, he said aloud: ‘Monsieur, you may rest entirely assured and you will not have appealed to me in vain if the detainee
is innocent; but if, on the contrary, he is guilty… We live in difficult times, Monsieur, when impunity would be the worst of examples: I shall thus be obliged to do my duty.’

Upon that, having arrived at the door of his house, which backed on to the law courts, he stepped majestically inside, after giving an icy bow to the unhappy shipowner, who remained as if rooted to the spot where Villefort had left him.

The anteroom was full of gendarmes and police officers; and in the midst of them, under close arrest, surrounded by faces burning with hatred, the prisoner stood, calm and motionless.

Villefort crossed the anteroom, gave a sidelong glance in the direction of Dantès and, taking a dossier that was handed to him by one of the officers, vanished, saying: ‘Let the prisoner be brought in.’

Swift though it was, the glance had been enough to give Villefort an idea of the man whom he would have to question: he had recognized intelligence in that broad forehead, courage in that firm eye and knitted brow, and candour in those full lips, half-parted to reveal two rows of teeth as white as ivory.

First impressions had been favourable to Dantès, but Villefort had often heard it said, as a profound political maxim, that one must beware of first impulses, even when they were correct, and he applied this rule on impulses to his impressions, without taking account of the difference between the two terms. He thus stifled the good instinct that was attempting to invade his heart and from there to attack his mind, settled his features in front of the mirror into their grandest expression and sat down, dark and threatening, behind his desk.

A moment later, Dantès entered.

The young man was still pale, but calm and smiling. He greeted his judge in a simple but courteous manner, and looked around for somewhere to sit, as though he had been in the shipowner, M. Morrel’s drawing-room.

It was only then that he met Villefort’s dull gaze, that look peculiar to men of the law who do not want anyone to read their thoughts, and so make their eyes into unpolished glass. The look reminded him that he was standing before Justice, a figure of grim aspect and manners.

‘Who are you and what’s your name?’ Villefort asked, leafing through the notes that the officer had given him as he came in and
which, in the past hour, had already become a voluminous pile, so quickly does the mound of reports and information build up around that unfortunate body known as detainees.

‘My name is Edmond Dantès, Monsieur,’ the young man replied in a calm voice and ringing tones. ‘I am first mate on board the vessel
Pharaon
, belonging to Messrs Morrel and Son.’

‘Your age?’ Villefort continued.

‘Nineteen.’

‘What were you doing at the time of your arrest?’

‘I was celebrating my betrothal, Monsieur,’ Dantès said, his voice faltering slightly, so sharp was the contrast between those moments of happiness and the dismal formalities in which he was now taking part, and so much did the sombre face of M. de Villefort enhance the brilliance of Mercédès’ features.

‘You were at your betrothal feast?’ said the deputy, shuddering in spite of himself.

‘Yes, Monsieur. I am about to marry a woman whom I have loved for the past three years.’

Though usually impassive, nevertheless Villefort was struck by this coincidence; and the emotion in the voice of Dantès, whose happiness had been interrupted, sounded a sympathetic chord with him: he too was to be married, he too was happy, and his own felicity had been disturbed so that he might help to destroy that of a man who, like himself, was on the very brink of happiness.

This philosophical analogy, he thought, would cause a great stir when he returned to M. de Saint-Méran’s salon; and, while Dantès waited for his next question, he was already mentally ordering the antitheses around which orators construct those sentences designed to elicit applause, but which sometimes produce the illusion of true eloquence.

When he had worked out his little interior discourse, Villefort smiled at the effect of it and returned to Dantès: ‘Continue, Monsieur.’

‘How do you wish me to continue?’

‘In such a way as to enlighten Justice.’

‘Let Justice tell me on which points it wishes to be enlightened, and I shall tell it all that I know. However,’ he added, smiling in his turn, ‘I must warn it that I know very little.’

‘Did you serve under the usurper?’

‘I was about to be enrolled in the Navy when he fell.’

‘Your political opinions are reported to be extreme,’ said Villefort, who had not heard a word about this but was not averse to putting the question in the form of an accusation.

‘My political opinions, Monsieur? Alas, I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I have never had what you might call an opinion: I am barely nineteen, as I had the honour to tell you. I know nothing and I am not destined to play any public role. The little that I am and shall be, if I gain the position to which I aspire, I owe to Monsieur Morrel. So all my opinions – I would not say political, but private opinions – are confined to three feelings: I love my father, I respect Monsieur Morrel and I adore Mercédès. That, Monsieur, is all I can tell Justice: you see that there is little to interest it there.’

While Dantès was speaking, Villefort examined his face, at once so mild and so frank, and recalled the words of Renée who, without knowing the prisoner, had begged indulgence for him. The deputy already had some acquaintance with crime and with criminals; so, in every word that Dantès spoke, he saw proof of his innocence. This young man, one might even say this child, plain, unaffected, eloquent with the heartfelt eloquence that is never found by those who seek it, full of affection for everyone, because he was happy and happiness makes even wicked men good, was so effectively spreading the warmth that overflowed from his heart that the accuser himself was not immune to it. Rough and stern though Villefort had been towards him, Edmond’s look, tone and gestures expressed nothing but kindness and goodwill towards his interrogator.

‘By heaven,’ Villefort thought, ‘this is a charming young man; and I hope I shall not have great difficulty in putting myself on the right side of Renée, by carrying out the first request that she has made of me. It should earn me a warm clasp of the hand in front of everyone and a delightful kiss in a more secluded corner.’

This pleasurable expectation lit up Villefort’s face, so that, when he turned away from his thoughts and back to Dantès, the latter, who had been following every movement across his judge’s face, reflected his thoughts in a smile.

‘Monsieur,’ said Villefort, ‘do you know of any enemies you may have?’

‘Enemies!’ said Dantès. ‘I am fortunate enough to be too unimportant to have any. As to temperament, I may perhaps be a trifle quick-tempered, but I have always tried to restrain it towards my
subordinates. I have ten or a dozen sailors under my orders: let them be questioned, Monsieur, and they will tell you that they like and respect me, not as a father – I am too young for that – but as an elder brother.’

‘But, if you have no enemies, you may have inspired envy: you are about to be made captain at the age of nineteen, which is a distinction for someone of your class; you are about to marry a pretty girl who loves you, which is a rare fortune for someone of any class at all. Fortune having favoured you in these ways, you may have aroused jealousy.’

‘Yes, you are right. You must know human nature better than I do, and what you say is possible. But I confess that if these envious men were to be among my friends, I should rather not know who they are, so as not to be obliged to hate them.’

‘You are wrong, Monsieur. One must always see clearly how one stands, as far as possible; and, frankly, you seem to me such a worthy young man that in your case I am going to depart from the normal procedure and help you to throw light on this by showing you the denunciation that has led to your being brought here. This is the accusing letter: do you recognize the writing?’

Villefort took the letter from his pocket and offered it to Dantès, who examined it. His face clouded and he said:

‘No, Monsieur, I do not know this handwriting. It is disguised, yet it has an appearance of sincerity. In any case, the writing is that of an educated hand.’ He looked at Villefort with gratitude. ‘I am happy to find myself dealing with a man such as you, because my rival is indeed a true enemy.’

From the flash that passed through the young man’s eyes as he spoke these words, Villefort was able to perceive how much violent energy was hidden beneath his mild exterior.

‘Come, then,’ said the deputy prosecutor, ‘answer my questions honestly, not as an accused man to his judge, but as one wrongly accused might answer another who had his interests at heart. How much truth is there in this anonymous accusation?’

And Villefort threw the letter, which Dantès had just given back to him, on to the desk with a gesture of distaste.

‘Everything and nothing, Monsieur: that is the absolute truth, on my honour as a sailor, on my love for Mercédès and on my father’s life.’

‘Carry on,’ Villefort said, adding under his breath: ‘If Renée
could see me, I hope she would be pleased and no longer call me an executioner.’

‘When we left Naples, Captain Leclère fell ill of a brain fever. As we had no doctor on board ship and, because of his haste to reach Elba, he did not want to drop anchor at any point along the coast, his illness worsened until, after three days, realizing that he was dying, he called to see me.