The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (205 page)

‘As you wish, Excellency,’ said Vampa. And he left the cell.

With a roar of frustration Danglars threw himself down on his goatskin.

Who were these men? Who was their invisible leader? What plan were they carrying out against him? And when everyone else was able to buy freedom, why could he not do the same?

Oh, certainly, death, sudden and violent, was a good way to foil his implacable enemies, who seemed to be pursuing him with some incomprehensible desire for vengeance. Yes, but that meant dying! Perhaps for the first time in his long career, Danglars thought of death with a simultaneous desire and a fear of dying: the moment had come for him to look directly at the implacable spectre which hovers over every living creature and which, at every heartbeat, says to itself: You will die!

Danglars was like one of those wild animals that at first are excited by the hunt, then are driven to desperation and which sometimes, in their very desperation, manage to escape. It was of escape that Danglars was thinking.

But the walls were solid rock and in front of the only entrance to the cell a man was reading. Behind him could be seen the shapes of others with rifles, passing back and forth.

His determination not to sign lasted for two days, after which he asked for food and offered a million. He was served a magnificent dinner and they took his million.

From then on the unfortunate prisoner’s life was one of continual rambling. He had suffered so much that he no longer wished to expose himself to suffering and he gave in to every demand. After
twelve days, one afternoon when he had just eaten as he used to in the days when he had been rich, he did his accounts and discovered that he had signed so many bills to bearer that he had only 50,000 francs left.

His reaction to this discovery was an odd one. Having just given up five million, he tried to save these last 50,000 francs. Rather than give up his 50,000 francs, he resolved to suffer a life of privation; he had glimmers of hope that were close to madness. Having long forgotten God, he recalled only that God had sometimes performed miracles: that the cave might collapse, that the pontifical
carabinieri
might discover this accursed retreat and come to his aid; that then he would have 50,000 francs left and that this was enough to prevent a man dying of hunger. He begged God to let him keep these 50,000 francs and, as he prayed, he wept.

Three days passed in which the name of God was constantly, if not in his heart, at least on his lips. From time to time he had moments of delirium in which he thought he could see, through the window, a miserable room in which an old man lay, dying, on a straw pallet. The old man too was dying of starvation.

On the fourth day he was no longer a man but a living corpse. He had grubbed up from the earth the smallest crumb from his previous meals and began to devour the matting which covered the earth.

Then he begged Peppino, as one might beg a guardian angel, to give him some food. He offered him a thousand francs for a mouthful of bread, but Peppino did not answer.

On the fifth day, he dragged himself to the door of the cell. ‘Aren’t you a Christian?’ he said, hauling himself to his knees. ‘Do you wish to murder a man who is your brother before God? Oh, my former friends, my former friends!’ he muttered. And he fell, face down, on the ground.

Then, raising himself with a sort of despair, he cried: ‘The leader! The leader!’

‘Here I am,’ said Vampa, suddenly appearing. ‘What do you want now?’

‘Take the last of my gold,’ Danglars stammered, offering his pocket-book. ‘And let me live here, in this cave. I am not asking for freedom, I am only asking to live.’

‘So are you really suffering?’ Vampa asked.

‘Oh, yes! I am suffering, cruelly!’

‘But there are men who have suffered more than you have.’

‘I cannot believe it.’

‘It is so! Those who died of hunger.’

Danglars thought of the old man whom he had seen through the windows of his mean room in his hallucinations, groaning on his bed. He beat his forehead against the ground, moaning: ‘It’s true, there are those who have suffered more than I do, but they at least were martyrs.’

‘Do you at least repent?’ asked a dark and solemn voice which made the hair stand up on Danglars’ head. His weakened eyes tried to make out things in the darkness, and behind the bandit he saw a man wrapped in a cloak and half hidden by the shadow of a stone pillar.

‘Of what must I repent?’ Danglars stammered.

‘Of the evil you have done,’ said the same voice.

‘Oh, yes, I do repent! I do!’ Danglars cried, and he beat his breast with his emaciated fist.

‘Then I pardon you,’ said the man, throwing aside his cloak and taking a step into the light.

‘The Count of Monte Cristo!’ Danglars said, terror making him more pale than he had been a moment before from hunger and misery.

‘You are mistaken. I am not the Count of Monte Cristo.’

‘Who are you then?’

‘I am the one whom you sold, betrayed and dishonoured. I am the one whose fiancée you prostituted. I am the one on whom you trampled in order to attain a fortune. I am the one whose father you condemned to starvation, and the one who condemned you to starvation, but who none the less forgives you, because he himself needs forgiveness. I am Edmond Dantès!’

Danglars gave a single cry and fell, prostrate.

‘Get up,’ said the count. ‘Your life is safe. The same good fortune did not attend your two accomplices: one is mad, the other is dead. Keep your last fifty thousand francs, I give them to you. As for the five million you stole from the almshouses, they have already been returned by an anonymous donor.

‘Now, eat and drink. This evening you are my guest.

‘Vampa, when this man has had his fill, he will be free.’

Danglars remained prostrate, while the count walked away. When he looked up, he saw only a sort of shadow disappearing down the corridor, while the bandits bowed as it passed.

As the count had ordered, Vampa served Danglars: he brought him the best wine and finest fruits of Italy and, having put him into his post-chaise, left him on the road, with his back to a tree.

He stayed there until dawn, not knowing where he was.

When day broke, he found that he was near a stream. He was thirsty, so he dragged himself over to it. Leaning over the water to drink, he observed that his hair had turned grey.

It was around six in the evening, and light the colour of opal, pierced by the golden rays of the autumn sun, spread over a bluish sea.

The heat of the day had gradually expired and one was starting to feel that light breeze which seems like the breath of nature awaking after the burning midday siesta: that delicious breath that cools the Mediterranean coast and carries the scent of trees from shore to shore, mingled with the acrid scent of the sea.

Over the huge lake that extends from Gibraltar to the Dardanelles and from Tunis to Venice, a light yacht, cleanly and elegantly shaped, was slipping through the first mists of evening. Its movement was that of a swan opening its wings to the wind and appearing to glide across the water. At once swift and graceful, it advanced, leaving behind a phosphorescent wake.

Bit by bit, the sun, whose last rays we were describing, fell below the western horizon; but, as though confirming the brilliant fantasies of mythology, its prying flames reappeared at the crest of every wave as if to reveal that the god of fire had just hidden his face in the bosom of Amphitrite, who tried in vain to hide her lover in the folds of her azure robe.

Though there was apparently not enough wind to lift the ringlets on a girl’s head, the yacht was travelling fast. Standing in its bow, a tall, bronzed man was staring wide-eyed at the dark, conical mass of land rising from the midst of the waves like a Catalan hat.

‘Is that Monte Cristo?’ asked the traveller, who appeared to be in command of the yacht, in a grave and melancholy voice.

‘Yes, Excellency,’ said the master. ‘We are just reaching the end of our journey.’

‘The end of our journey!’ the traveller muttered, with an indefinable note of dejection. Then he added under his breath: ‘Yes, this is port.’ And he relapsed into thoughts that expressed themselves in a smile sadder than tears.

A few minutes later he saw an onshore light that was immediately extinguished, and the sound of a gunshot reached the yacht.

‘Excellency,’ the master said, ‘that is the signal from onshore. Would you like to reply?’

‘What signal?’ he asked.

The master pointed towards the island, from the side of which a single whitish plume of smoke was rising, spreading and breaking up as it mounted into the sky.

‘Oh, yes,’ the traveller said, as if waking from a dream. ‘Give it to me.’

The master offered him a ready-loaded carbine. He took it, slowly raised it and fired into the air.

Ten minutes later they were furling the sails and dropping anchor five hundred yards outside a little port. The boat was already in the sea, with four oarsmen and a pilot. The traveller got in, but instead of sitting in the prow, which was furnished with a blue carpet, he remained standing with his arms crossed. The oarsmen waited, with their oars poised above the water, like birds drying their wings.

‘Go!’ said the traveller.

The eight oars dipped into the sea simultaneously without a single splash and the boat, driven forward, began to glide rapidly across the water. In no time they were in a small bay, formed by a natural fold in the rock. The boat grated on a fine sandy bottom.

‘Excellency,’ the pilot said, ‘climb on the shoulders of two of our men; they will take you ashore.’

The young man replied to the invitation with a gesture of complete indifference, put his legs over the side of the boat and slid into the water, which came up to his waist.

‘Oh, Excellency,’ the pilot muttered, ‘you are wrong to do that. The master will tell us off.’

The young man continued to plough forward towards the shore, following two sailors who chose the best route. After thirty paces they had landed. He shook his feet on dry land and looked around
for the path that he would probably be told to follow, because it was quite dark.

Just as he was turning his head, a hand rested on his shoulder and he shuddered at hearing a voice say: ‘Good day, Maximilien. You are punctual. Thank you.’

‘It’s you, Count,’ the young man exclaimed, with a movement which could have been one of joy, grasping Monte Cristo’s hand in both of his.

‘Yes; as you see, as punctual as you. But you are soaking wet, my dear fellow. You must get changed, as Calypso used to say to Telemachus.
¹
Come, I’ve got rooms all ready for you where you can forget tiredness and cold.’

Monte Cristo saw that Morrel was looking around. He waited. Indeed the young man was surprised that he had not heard a word from those who had brought him; he had not paid them, and yet they had left. He could even hear the plashing of the oars on the little boat taking them back to the yacht.

‘Ah, you’re looking for your sailors?’ said the count.

‘Yes, of course. They left without me giving them anything.’

‘Don’t bother about that, Maximilien,’ Monte Cristo said with a laugh. ‘I have a deal with the navy, so that there is no charge for passage to my island. I’m an account customer, as they say in civilized countries.’

Morrel looked at him with astonishment.

‘Count,’ he said, ‘you are not the same as you were in Paris.’

‘In what way?’

‘Why, here you laugh.’

Monte Cristo’s brow clouded immediately. ‘You are right to recall me to myself,’ he said. ‘Seeing you again was a pleasure for me and I forgot that every pleasure is transitory.’

‘Oh, no, no, Count!’ Morrel exclaimed, once more grasping his friend’s hand with both of his. ‘Please do laugh. Be happy and prove to me by your indifference that life is only a burden for those who suffer. Oh, you are generous, you are kind, you are good, my friend; and you pretend to be happy only to give me strength.’

‘You are wrong, Morrel,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘I really was happy.’

‘Then you have forgotten me. So much the better!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Because you know, my dear friend, I say to you, as the gladiator
would say to the sublime emperor on entering the arena: “Those who are about to die salute you!” ‘

‘You are not consoled, then?’ Monte Cristo asked, with a strange look.

‘Oh, did you really think I could be?’ Morrel answered, with one full of reproach.

‘Listen,’ the count said, ‘and listen carefully to what I am about to say. You don’t think I am some vulgar babbler, a rattle that gives out a crude and meaningless sound. When I asked you if you were consoled, I was speaking to you as a man for whom the human heart holds no secrets. Well, then, Morrel, let us sound the depths of your heart. Is it still that ardent impatience of pain that makes the body leap like a lion bitten by a mosquito? Is it still that raging thirst that can be sated only in the tomb? Is it that ideal notion of regret that launches the living man out of life in pursuit of death? Or is it merely the prostration of exhausted courage, the ennui that stifles the ray of hope as it tries to shine? Is it the loss of memory, bringing an impotence of tears? Oh, my friend, if it is that, if you can no longer weep, if you think your numbed heart is dead, if you have no strength left except in God and no eyes except for heaven – then, my friend, let us put aside words that are too narrow to contain the meanings our soul would give them. Maximilien, you are consoled, pity yourself no longer.’