The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (95 page)

‘It may happen,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘You know that all human inventions progress from the complex to the simple and that perfection is always simplicity.’

‘In the meantime,’ said the judge, ‘we have our laws, with their contradictory provisions, some reflecting the usages of the Gauls, others the laws of the Romans, and still others the customs of the Franks. You must admit that a knowledge of all those laws can only be had by years of toil, so one must study long and hard to acquire the knowledge and have a good brain, once it has been acquired, not to forget it.’

‘I quite agree, Monsieur. But everything that you know, with respect to the French legal system, I know, not only with respect to that, but also to the laws of every country: the laws of the English, the Turks, the Japanese and the Hindus are as familiar to me as those of the French, so I was right to say that relatively – you know that everything is relative, Monsieur – relative to all that I have done, you have very little to do, and relative to what I have learned, you still have very much to learn.’

‘To what end did you learn all this?’ Villefort asked in astonishment.

Monte Cristo smiled.

‘Very well, Monsieur,’ he said. ‘I can see that, despite your reputation as a superior being, you see everything from the vulgar and material point of view of society, beginning and ending with man, that is to say, the most restricted and narrow point of view that human intelligence can adopt.’

‘I beg you to explain yourself, Monsieur,’ said Villefort, more and more astonished. ‘I don’t entirely follow…’

‘What I am saying, Monsieur, is that your eyes are fixed on the social organization of nations, which means that you only see the mechanism and not the sublime worker who operates it. I am saying that you only recognize in front of you and around you those office-holders whose accreditation has been signed by a minister or by the king and that your short-sightedness leads you to ignore those men whom God has set above office-holders, ministers and kings, by giving them a mission to pursue instead of a position to fill. This weakness is inherent in humans, with their feeble and inadequate organs. Tobias
⁵
mistook the angel who had just restored his sight for an ordinary young man. The nations mistook Attila, who would annihilate them, for a conqueror like other conquerors.
It was necessary for both to reveal their celestial missions for them to be recognized – for one to say: “I am the angel of the Lord”, and the other: “I am the hammer of God”, for their divine essence to be revealed.’

‘Does this mean,’ Villefort said, increasingly amazed and thinking he must be speaking to a visionary or a madman, ‘that you consider yourself to be like one of these extraordinary beings you have just mentioned?’

‘Why not?’ Monte Cristo asked coldly.

‘Please forgive me, Monsieur,’ Villefort continued, in bewilderment, ‘if when I called on you I was not aware that I was to be introduced to a man whose understanding and mind extend so far beyond the ordinary knowledge and usual cast of thought of mankind. It is not common among us, unfortunate victims as we are of the corrupting effects of civilization, for gentlemen who, like yourself, possess a vast fortune – at least, that is what I am told; but please do not think that I am prying, only repeating – as I say it is not customary for those who enjoy the privilege of wealth to waste their time in social speculation and philosophical dreams, which are rather designed to console those whom fate has deprived of the goods of the earth.’

‘Well, well, Monsieur,’ the count replied, ‘have you reached your present eminent position without admitting that there may be exceptions, or even without encountering any? Do you never exercise your mind, which must surely require both subtlety and assurance, in trying to guess in an instant what kind of man you have before you? Should a jurist not be, not the best applier of the law or the cleverest interpreter of legal quibbles, but a steel probe for the testing of hearts and a touchstone against which to assay the gold that every soul contains in greater or lesser amounts?’

‘Monsieur,’ said Villefort, ‘I have to admit, I am bewildered: on my word, I have never heard anyone speak as you do.’

‘That is because you have constantly remained enclosed in the realm of general conditions, never daring to rise up on beating wings into the higher spheres that God has peopled with invisible and exceptional beings.’

‘Are you saying that such spheres exist and that these exceptional and invisible beings mingle among us?’

‘Why not? Do you see the air that you breathe, without which you could not live?’

‘So we cannot see these beings of whom you speak?’

‘Indeed we can, we can see them when God permits them to take material form. You touch them, you rub elbows with them, you speak to them and they answer you.’

‘Ah!’ Villefort said with a smile. ‘I must confess that I should like to be told when one of these beings was in contact with me.’

‘You have your wish, Monsieur. You were told a moment ago and I am telling you again.’

‘You mean that you… ?’

‘Yes, Monsieur. I am one of those exceptional beings and I believe that, before today, no man has found himself in a position similar to my own. The kingdoms of kings are confined, either by mountains or rivers, or by a change in customs or by a difference of language; but my kingdom is as great as the world, because I am neither Italian, nor French, nor Hindu, nor American, nor a Spaniard; I am a cosmopolitan. No country can claim to be my birthplace. God alone knows in what region I shall die. I adopt every custom, I speak every tongue. You think I am French, is that not so? Because I speak French as fluently and as perfectly as you do. Well, now. Ali, my Nubian, thinks me an Arab. Bertuccio, my steward, takes me for a Roman. Haydée, my slave, believes I am Greek. In this way, you see, being of no country, asking for the protection of no government and acknowledging no man as my brother, I am not restrained or hampered by a single one of the scruples that tie the hands of the powerful or the obstacles that block the path of the weak. I have only two enemies: I shall not say two conquerors, because with persistence I can make them bow to my will: they are distance and time. The third and most awful is my condition as a mortal man. Only that can halt me on the path I have chosen before I have reached my appointed goal. Everything else is planned for. I have foreseen all those things that men call the vagaries of fate: ruin, change and chance. If some of them might injure me, none could defeat me. Unless I die, I shall always be what I am. This is why I am telling you things that you have never heard, even from the mouths of kings, because kings need you and other men fear you. Who does not say to himself, in a society as ridiculously arranged as our own: “Perhaps one day I shall come up against the crown prosecutor”?’

‘But, Monsieur, you too might say that yourself because, as long as you live in France, you are automatically subject to French law.’

‘I know that,’ Monte Cristo replied. ‘But when I have to go to a country, I begin by studying, by methods peculiar to me, all those persons from whom I may have something to hope or to fear. I get to know them quite well, perhaps even better than they know themselves. The result of this is that the crown prosecutor with whom I had to deal, whoever he might be, would certainly be more put out by it than I would be myself.’

‘By which you mean,’ Villefort said hesitantly, ‘that, in your view, human nature being weak, every man has committed some… error or other?’

‘Some error… or crime,’ Monte Cristo replied casually.

‘And that you alone, among these men whom, as you yourself said, you do not recognize as your brothers…’ (Villefort’s voice sounded slightly strained) ‘you alone are perfect?’

‘Not perfect,’ the count replied. ‘Just impenetrable. But let us change the subject, Monsieur, if this one displeases you. I am no more threatened by your justice than you are by my second sight.’

‘No, no!’ Villefort said quickly, doubtless afraid that he might appear to be abandoning the field. ‘Certainly not! With your brilliant and almost sublime conversation, you have elevated me above ordinary matters: we were no longer merely chatting, but discoursing. Well, now, you know theologians lecturing at the Sorbonne or philosophers in their disputations must sometimes tell one another painful truths. Imagine that we were debating social theology or theological philosophy, and I would say this, brutal though it is: brother, you are giving in to pride. You are above other men, but above you is God.’

‘Above everything, Monsieur!’ Monte Cristo replied, in a voice of such deep emotion that Villefort shuddered involuntarily. ‘I have my pride for men, those serpents always ready to rise up against anyone who overtakes them, without crushing them beneath his foot. But I lay down that pride before God, who brought me out of nothingness to make me what I am.’

‘In that case, Monsieur le Comte, I admire you,’ Villefort said – for the first time in this strange dialogue addressing the foreigner, whom he had until then called simply ‘Monsieur’, by his aristocratic title. ‘Yes, I say, if you are really strong, if you are really a superior being, really holy or impenetrable – you are quite right, the two amount virtually to the same thing – then revel in your magnificence
– that is the law of domination. But do you have some kind of ambition?’

‘Yes, I do have one.’

‘What is it?’

‘Like every other man, at least once in his life, I too have been carried up by Satan to the highest mountain on earth. Once there, he showed me the whole world and, as he did to Christ, said to me: “Now, Son of Man, what do you want if you are to worship me?” So I thought for a long time, because in reality a terrible ambition had long been devouring my soul. Then I answered him: “Listen, I have always heard speak of Providence, yet I have never seen her or anything that resembles her, which makes me think that she does not exist. I want to be Providence, because the thing that I know which is finest, greatest and most sublime in the world is to reward and to punish.” But Satan bowed his head and sighed. “You are wrong,” he said. “Providence does exist, but you cannot see her, because, as the daughter of God, she is invisible like her father. You have seen nothing that resembles her because she proceeds by hidden means and walks down dark paths. All that I can do for you is to make you one of the agents of this Providence.” The deal was concluded. I shall perhaps lose my soul,’ Monte Cristo continued. ‘But, what matter? If the deal had to be struck over again, I should do it.’

Villefort looked at him with sublime amazement.

‘Do you have any relatives, Count?’ he asked.

‘None, Monsieur. I am alone in the world.’

‘So much the worse!’

‘Why?’ asked Monte Cristo.

‘Because you might have a spectacle capable of breaking your pride. You fear nothing but death, I think you said?’

‘I did not say that I feared it. I said that it alone could prevent me.’

‘And old age?’

‘My mission will be accomplished before I am old.’

‘And madness?’

‘Once, I did almost become mad – and you know the saying:
non bis in idem
.
⁶
It is an axiom of the criminal law, so it falls within your province.’

‘There are other things to fear, Monsieur,’ Villefort said, ‘apart from death, old age and madness. For example, apoplexy, that
lightning bolt which strikes you down without destroying you, yet after which all is finished. You are still yourself, but you are no longer yourself: from a near-angel like Ariel you have become a dull mass which, like Caliban, is close to the beasts. As I said, in human language, this is quite simply called an apoplexy or stroke. Count, I beg you to come and finish this conversation at my house one day when you feel like meeting an opponent able to understand you and eager to refute what you say, and I shall show you my father, Monsieur Noirtier de Villefort, one of the most fiery Jacobins of the French Revolution – which means the most splendid daring put to the service of the most rigorous organization; a man who may not, like you, have seen all the kingdoms on earth, but who helped to overthrow one of the most powerful; a man who did not, like you, claim to be one of the envoys of God, but of the Supreme Being, not of Providence but of Fate. Well, Monsieur, the rupture of a blood vessel in the brain put an end to all that, not in a day, not in an hour, but in a second. One day he was Monsieur Noirtier, former Jacobin, former senator, former
carbonaro
,
⁷
who scorned the guillotine, the cannon and the dagger; Monsieur Noirtier, manipulator of revolutions; Monsieur Noirtier, for whom France was only a vast chessboard from which pawns, castles, knights and queens were to vanish when the king was mated. The next day, this redoubtable Monsieur Noirtier had become “poor Monsieur Noirtier”, a paralysed old man, at the mercy of the weakest being in his household, his granddaughter Valentine. In short, a silent, icy corpse who only lives without suffering to allow time for the flesh to progress easily to total decomposition.’

‘Alas, Monsieur,’ Monte Cristo replied, ‘this spectacle is not unknown to my eyes or to my thoughts. I have some training in medicine and, like my colleagues, I have more than once sought the soul in matter, living and dead; and, like Providence, it remained invisible to my eyes, though present in my heart. A hundred writers, from Socrates onwards, or Seneca, Saint Augustine or Gall, have made the same remark as you, whether in prose or in verse; yet I can understand that the sufferings of a father can accomplish great changes in the mind of his son. Since you are good enough to invite me, Monsieur, I shall come and observe this sad spectacle, which must bring great sorrow to your house and will incite me to humility.’