The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (150 page)

‘Do you suspect someone?’

‘I suspect nobody. Death knocks at your door, he enters and, intelligent as he is, does not go blindly from one room to the next. Well, I follow his footsteps, I recognize where he has passed by. I draw on the wisdom of the ancients, but I can only feel my way because my friendship for your family and my respect for you are like two blindfolds for me… Well…’

‘Carry on, doctor, I shall have strength.’

‘Well, Monsieur, there is in your house, perhaps even in your family, one of those monstrous creatures which appear only once in a hundred years. Locusta and Agrippina,
¹
living in the same century, were the exception that proved the determination of Providence to destroy the Roman Empire, which was sullied by so many crimes. Brunhaut and Fredegonde were the product of a civilization painfully struggling to be born, at a time when mankind was learning to master the spirit, even were it to be by the emissary of darkness. Well, all these women had been or still were young and beautiful. On their brows had been seen, or still blossomed, that same flower of innocence that is to be found also on the guilty party who is in your house.’

Villefort gave a cry, clasped his hands and looked imploringly at the doctor; but the latter went on pitilessly: ‘There is an axiom of jurisprudence that tells us to look for the one who profits from the crime…’

‘But, doctor!’ Villefort cried. ‘Alas, doctor, how often has human justice not been deceived by those grim words! I do not know, but it seems to me that this crime…’

‘So you admit that the crime exists?’

‘Yes, I do. I must: what alternative is there? But let me continue. I was saying: it seems to me that this crime falls on me alone and not on the victims. I suspect that some disaster for me is intended behind all these strange disasters.’

‘Oh, what is man!’ d’Avrigny muttered. ‘The most egoistical of all animals, the most personal of all creatures, who cannot believe otherwise than that the earth revolves, the sun shines and death reaps for him alone – an ant, cursing God from the summit of a
blade of grass! And did those who lost their lives lose nothing, then? Monsieur de Saint-Méran, Madame de Saint-Méran, Monsieur Noirtier…’

‘What! Monsieur Noirtier!’

‘Why, yes. Do you imagine that this unfortunate servant was the intended victim? No, no: like Polonius in Shakespeare,
²
he died on behalf of another. It was Noirtier who was meant to drink the lemonade. It was Noirtier who did drink it, according to the logical expectation that he would; the other man drank only by chance. And, even though it was Barrois who died, it was Noirtier who should have done so.’

‘But then how did my father manage not to succumb?’

‘I already told you why, one evening, in the garden, after the death of Madame de Saint-Méran: because his body has become accustomed to the use of this very poison; because a dose that was trivial to him was fatal to anyone else; and finally because no one, not even the murderer, knows that for the past year I have been treating Monsieur Noirtier’s paralysis with brucine – though the murderer does know, and has proved, that brucine is a very effective poison.’

‘My God!’ Villefort muttered, wringing his hands.

‘Follow the criminal’s path: he kills Monsieur de Saint-Méran.’

‘Oh, doctor!’

‘I would swear it. What I was told of the symptoms fits too well with the evidence of my own eyes.’

Villefort groaned, but ceased to argue.

‘He – or she – kills Monsieur de Saint-Méran,’ the doctor repeated. ‘She kills Madame de Saint-Méran: a double legacy to collect.’

Villefort wiped the sweat that was pouring down his brow.

‘Listen…’

‘Alas,’ Villefort stammered, ‘I am not missing a word, not a single word.’

‘Monsieur Noirtier’s previous will,’ M. d’Avrigny continued unsparingly, ‘was against you, against your family and, in short, in favour of the poor. Monsieur Noirtier was spared: nothing was expected of him. But no sooner has he destroyed his first will, and no sooner has he made a second one, than he is struck, doubtless because of fear that he will make a third. The will dates from yesterday, I believe. You see, there is no time to be lost.’

‘Oh, spare us!’

‘Spare no one, Monsieur. The doctor has a sacred mission on earth; to fulfil it he must go back to the well spring of life and descend into the mysterious darkness of death. When a crime has been committed and God, horrified no doubt, turns his face away from the criminal, it is the doctor’s duty to say: Here she is!’

‘Spare my daughter, Monsieur!’ Villefort muttered.

‘You see: you it was who named her – you, her own father!’

‘Spare Valentine! Listen, it cannot be so. I would rather accuse myself. Valentine, that flower of innocence, that heart of diamond!’

‘Spare no one, Monsieur le procureur. The crime is blatant. Mademoiselle de Villefort herself wrapped up the medicine that was sent to Monsieur de Saint-Méran, and Monsieur de Saint-Méran died. Mademoiselle de Villefort prepared Madame de Saint-Méran’s tisanes, and Madame de Saint-Méran died. When Barrois was sent outside, it was Mademoiselle de Villefort who took from him the jug of lemonade that the old man usually drank to the last drop of during a morning, and M. Noirtier only escaped by a miracle.

‘Mademoiselle de Villefort is the guilty party! She is the poisoner! Monsieur le procureur du roi, I denounce Mademoiselle de Villefort to you: do your duty!’

‘Doctor, I cannot offer any further resistance, I cannot deny anything, I believe you; but for pity’s sake, spare my life and my honour!’

‘Monsieur de Villefort,’ the doctor said, with increasing energy, ‘there are some circumstances in which I must break all the bounds of foolish human caution. If your daughter had only committed one first crime, and I were to see her contemplating a second, I should say to you: warn her, punish her, let her spend the rest of her life in some cloister, some convent, in prayer and lamentation. If she had committed a second crime, I should say to you: “Here, Monsieur de Villefort: here is a poison which has no known antidote, which is as quick as thought, as rapid as a bolt of lightning and as deadly as a thunderbolt; give her this poison, recommending her soul to God, and so save your honour and your life, because you are the one she hates.” And I can see her creeping up to your bedside with her hypocritical smiles and her sweet exhortations! Woe betide you, Monsieur de Villefort, if you do not hasten to strike the first blow! That is what I should tell you if she had killed
only two people. But she has contemplated three death agonies, she has considered three dying souls, she has knelt beside three bodies. To the scaffold with the poisoner! To the scaffold with her! You speak about your honour: do what I tell you, and immortality awaits!’

Villefort fell to his knees. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I do not have your strength – or rather the strength that you would have if, instead of my daughter Valentine, we were speaking of your daughter Madeleine.’

The doctor went pale.

‘Doctor, every man who is the son of woman is born to suffer and die. I shall suffer, doctor, and I shall wait for death.’

‘Beware,’ said M. d’Avrigny. ‘It will be slow, this death. You will see it come after it has struck down your father, your wife, perhaps your son…’

Villefort clasped the doctor’s arm, gasping for breath. ‘Listen!’ he said. ‘Pity me! Help me! No, my daughter is not guilty. Drag us before a court and I shall say again: “No, my daughter is not guilty.” There is no crime in my house. Do you hear me: I do not want there to be crime in my house, because when crime enters somewhere, it is like death, it does not come alone. Listen: what does it matter to you if I die poisoned? Are you my friend? Are you a man? Have you a heart? No, you are a doctor! Well, I say to you: “My daughter will not be dragged out by me to be delivered into the hands of the executioner!” The very idea eats into my brain and urges me to tear my heart out with my fingernails! And suppose you were wrong, doctor! Suppose it was someone other than my daughter? Suppose, one day, I were to come to you, white as a ghost, and say: “Murderer! You killed my daughter… !” If that were to happen, even though I am a Christian, Monsieur d’Avrigny, I should kill myself.’

‘Very well,’ the doctor said after a moment’s silence. ‘I shall wait.’

Villefort looked at him as though still doubting his words.

‘There is just one thing,’ M. d’Avrigny went on, in a slow and solemn voice. ‘If anyone in your house should fall ill, if you yourself should be smitten, do not call me, because I shall not come. I agree to share this dreadful secret with you, but I do not want shame and remorse to come into me, growing and multiplying in my conscience, as crime and misfortune will grow and multiply in your house.’

‘Are you abandoning me, then, doctor?’

‘Yes, because I cannot go further with you down this road, which leads only to the foot of the scaffold. Some other revelation will bring this dreadful tragedy to an end. Farewell!’

‘Doctor, I beg you!’

‘All the horrors that besmirch my thoughts make your house odious and fatal to me. Adieu, Monsieur.’

‘Just one final word, doctor! You are leaving me to the full horror of this situation, a horror that has been increased by what you revealed to me. But how are we to explain the sudden death that struck down that poor servant?’

‘That’s true,’ said M. d’Avrigny. ‘Show me out.’

The doctor left first, with Villefort following. The servants were anxiously lining the corridors and stairways along which the doctor had to pass.

‘Monsieur,’ he said to Villefort, in a loud voice so that everyone could hear, ‘poor Barrois had been too sedentary for some years. At one time, he used to love riding with his master or travelling by coach to the four corners of Europe, and this monotonous attendance beside a chair killed him. His blood thickened, he was stout, with a short, fat neck: he died of an apoplectic fit and I was sent for too late.

‘By the way,’ he added, in a whisper, ‘make sure you throw that cup of violets into the fire.’ With that, not shaking Villefort’s hand or revising any of his conclusions, the doctor left amid the tears and lamentations of all the family servants.

That very evening, all the Villeforts’ domestic staff met in the kitchen and talked for a long time among themselves, then came to ask Mme de Villefort for permission to leave. No entreaty and no promise of an increase in wages could change their minds; to every offer, they replied: ‘We wish to go because there is death in this house.’

So leave they did, in spite of pleading, and expressed deep regret at leaving such good employers, above all Mlle Valentine, who was so kind, so generous and so sweet. At these words, Villefort looked at Valentine. She was weeping.

How odd it was! For all the confused feelings that he experienced on seeing those tears, he also managed to observe Mme de Villefort; and it seemed to him that a faint, dark smile passed briefly across her thin lips, like one of those sinister meteors that can be glimpsed as they fall between two clouds against a stormy sky.

On the evening of the day when the Comte de Morcerf came away from Danglars’ with the shame and fury that one can imagine, given the banker’s cold reception, M. Andrea Cavalcanti, with his hair curled and shining, his moustaches waxed, and closely fitting white gloves, drove into the banker’s courtyard at the Chaussée-d’Antin, almost standing upright on his phaeton.

After ten minutes’ conversation in the drawing-room, he managed to take Danglars aside into a bay window and there, after a cleverly worked preamble, spoke about the torments of his existence since the departure of his noble father. Since this departure, he said, the banker had been kind enough to welcome him into his family like a son and there he had found all those guarantees of happiness that a man ought to look for in preference to the vagaries of passion; though, as far as passion was concerned, he had been fortunate enough to encounter it in the eyes of Mlle Danglars.

Danglars listened very closely to this declaration, which he had been expecting for two or three days. Now that it had come, his eyes shone, just as they had darkened and narrowed while he listened to Morcerf. Even so, he did not want to accept the young man’s proposal without making some conscientious observations.

‘Monsieur Andrea,’ he said, ‘aren’t you a little young to be thinking of marriage?’

‘Not at all, Monsieur,’ Cavalcanti replied. ‘Or at least, not in my view. In Italy, noblemen generally marry young; it is a reasonable custom: life is so uncertain that one should grasp happiness as soon as it comes within reach.’

‘Very well, Monsieur,’ said Danglars. ‘Let us suppose that your proposal, which honours me, is acceptable to my wife and daughter; then with whom shall we discuss terms? It seems to me that this is an important matter which only fathers can properly negotiate in the interests of their children’s happiness.’

‘Monsieur, my father is a wise man, possessing much reason and a good sense of propriety. He anticipated that I might well feel some desire to settle in France, so, as he was going, he left me – as well as all the papers which confirm my identity – a letter in which
he guarantees me an income of one hundred and fifty thousand
livres
, from the day of my marriage onwards, provided I make a choice acceptable to him. As far as I can tell, this is one-quarter of my father’s own income.’