The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated by Alexandre Dumas
Chapter 67. The Office of the King’s Attorney
Let us leave the banker driving his horses at their fullest speed, andfollow Madame Danglars in her morning excursion. We have said that athalf-past twelve o’clock Madame Danglars had ordered her horses, and hadleft home in the carriage. She directed her course towards the FaubourgSaint Germain, went down the Rue Mazarine, and stopped at the Passage duPont-Neuf. She descended, and went through the passage. She was veryplainly dressed, as would be the case with a woman of taste walking inthe morning. At the Rue Guénégaud she called a cab, and directed thedriver to go to the Rue de Harlay. As soon as she was seated in thevehicle, she drew from her pocket a very thick black veil, which shetied on to her straw bonnet. She then replaced the bonnet, and saw withpleasure, in a little pocket-mirror, that her white complexion andbrilliant eyes were alone visible. The cab crossed the Pont-Neuf andentered the Rue de Harlay by the Place Dauphine; the driver was paid asthe door opened, and stepping lightly up the stairs Madame Danglars soonreached the Salle des Pas-Perdus.
There was a great deal going on that morning, and many business-likepersons at the Palais; business-like persons pay very little attentionto women, and Madame Danglars crossed the hall without exciting any moreattention than any other woman calling upon her lawyer.
There was a great press of people in M. de Villefort’s antechamber, butMadame Danglars had no occasion even to pronounce her name. The instantshe appeared the door-keeper rose, came to her, and asked her whethershe was not the person with whom the procureur had made an appointment;and on her affirmative answer being given, he conducted her by a privatepassage to M. de Villefort’s office.
The magistrate was seated in an armchair, writing, with his back towardsthe door; he did not move as he heard it open, and the door-keeperpronounce the words, “Walk in, madame,” and then reclose it; but nosooner had the man’s footsteps ceased, than he started up, drew thebolts, closed the curtains, and examined every corner of the room. Then,when he had assured himself that he could neither be seen nor heard, andwas consequently relieved of doubts, he said:
“Thanks, madame,—thanks for your punctuality;” and he offered a chair toMadame Danglars, which she accepted, for her heart beat so violentlythat she felt nearly suffocated.
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“It is a long time, madame,” said the procureur, describing a half-circle with his chair, so as to place himself exactly opposite to MadameDanglars,—“it is a long time since I had the pleasure of speaking alonewith you, and I regret that we have only now met to enter upon a painfulconversation.”
“Nevertheless, sir, you see I have answered your first appeal, althoughcertainly the conversation must be much more painful for me than foryou.” Villefort smiled bitterly.
“It is true, then,” he said, rather uttering his thoughts aloud thanaddressing his companion,—“it is true, then, that all our actions leavetheir traces—some sad, others bright—on our paths; it is true that everystep in our lives is like the course of an insect on the sands;—itleaves its track! Alas, to many the path is traced by tears.”
“Sir,” said Madame Danglars, “you can feel for my emotion, can you not?Spare me, then, I beseech you. When I look at this room,—whence so manyguilty creatures have departed, trembling and ashamed, when I look atthat chair before which I now sit trembling and ashamed,—oh, it requiresall my reason to convince me that I am not a very guilty woman and you amenacing judge.”
Villefort dropped his head and sighed.
“And I,” he said, “I feel that my place is not in the judge’s seat, buton the prisoner’s bench.”
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“You?” said Madame Danglars.
“Yes, I.”
“I think, sir, you exaggerate your situation,” said Madame Danglars,whose beautiful eyes sparkled for a moment. “The paths of which you werejust speaking have been traced by all young men of ardent imaginations.Besides the pleasure, there is always remorse from the indulgence of ourpassions, and, after all, what have you men to fear from all this? theworld excuses, and notoriety ennobles you.”
“Madame,” replied Villefort, “you know that I am no hypocrite, or, atleast, that I never deceive without a reason. If my brow be severe, itis because many misfortunes have clouded it; if my heart be petrified,it is that it might sustain the blows it has received. I was not so inmy youth, I was not so on the night of the betrothal, when we were allseated around a table in the Rue du Cours at Marseilles. But since theneverything has changed in and about me; I am accustomed to bravedifficulties, and, in the conflict to crush those who, by their own freewill, or by chance, voluntarily or involuntarily, interfere with me inmy career. It is generally the case that what we most ardently desire isas ardently withheld from us by those who wish to obtain it, or fromwhom we attempt to snatch it. Thus, the greater number of a man’s errorscome before him disguised under the specious form of necessity; then,after error has been committed in a moment of excitement, of delirium,or of fear, we see that we might have avoided and escaped it. The meanswe might have used, which we in our blindness could not see, then seemsimple and easy, and we say, ‘Why did I not do this, instead of that?’Women, on the contrary, are rarely tormented with remorse; for thedecision does not come from you,—your misfortunes are generally imposedupon you, and your faults the results of others’ crimes.”
“In any case, sir, you will allow,” replied Madame Danglars, “that, evenif the fault were alone mine, I last night received a severe punishmentfor it.”
“Poor thing,” said Villefort, pressing her hand, “it was too severe foryour strength, for you were twice overwhelmed, and yet——”
“Well?”
“Well, I must tell you. Collect all your courage, for you have not yetheard all.”
“Ah,” exclaimed Madame Danglars, alarmed, “what is there more to hear?”
“You only look back to the past, and it is, indeed, bad enough. Well,picture to yourself a future more gloomy still—certainly frightful,perhaps sanguinary!”
The baroness knew how calm Villefort naturally was, and his presentexcitement frightened her so much that she opened her mouth to scream,but the sound died in her throat.
“How has this terrible past been recalled?” cried Villefort; “how is itthat it has escaped from the depths of the tomb and the recesses of ourhearts, where it was buried, to visit us now, like a phantom, whiteningour cheeks and flushing our brows with shame?”
“Alas,” said Hermine, “doubtless it is chance.”
“Chance?” replied Villefort; “No, no, madame, there is no such thing aschance.”
“Oh, yes; has not a fatal chance revealed all this? Was it not by chancethe Count of Monte Cristo bought that house? Was it not by chance hecaused the earth to be dug up? Is it not by chance that the unfortunatechild was disinterred under the trees?—that poor innocent offspring ofmine, which I never even kissed, but for whom I wept many, many tears.Ah, my heart clung to the count when he mentioned the dear spoil foundbeneath the flowers.”
“Well, no, madame,—this is the terrible news I have to tell you,” saidVillefort in a hollow voice—“no, nothing was found beneath the flowers;there was no child disinterred—no. You must not weep, no, you must notgroan, you must tremble!”
“What can you mean?” asked Madame Danglars, shuddering.
“I mean that M. de Monte Cristo, digging underneath these trees, foundneither skeleton nor chest, because neither of them was there!”
“Neither of them there?” repeated Madame Danglars, her staring, wide-open eyes expressing her alarm. “Neither of them there!” she again said,as though striving to impress herself with the meaning of the wordswhich escaped her.
“No,” said Villefort, burying his face in his hands, “no, a hundredtimes no!”
“Then you did not bury the poor child there, sir? Why did you deceiveme? Where did you place it? tell me—where?”
“There! But listen to me—listen—and you will pity me who has for twentyy
“Oh, you frighten me! But speak; I will listen.”
“You recollect that sad night, when you were half-expiring on that bedin the red damask room, while I, scarcely less agitated than you,awaited your delivery. The child was born, was given to me—motionless,breathless, voiceless; we thought it dead.”
Madame Danglars moved rapidly, as though she would spring from herchair, but Villefort stopped, and clasped his hands as if to implore herattention.
“We thought it dead,” he repeated; “I placed it in the chest, which wasto take the place of a coffin; I descended to the garden, I dug a hole,and then flung it down in haste. Scarcely had I covered it with earth,when the arm of the Corsican was stretched towards me; I saw a shadowrise, and, at the same time, a flash of light. I felt pain; I wished tocry out, but an icy shiver ran through my veins and stifled my voice; Ifell lifeless, and fancied myself killed. Never shall I forget yoursublime courage, when, having returned to consciousness, I draggedmyself to the foot of the stairs, and you, almost dying yourself, cameto meet me. We were obliged to keep silent upon the dreadfulcatastrophe. You had the fortitude to regain the house, assisted by yournurse. A duel was the pretext for my wound. Though we scarcely expectedit, our secret remained in our own keeping alone. I was taken toVersailles; for three months I struggled with death; at last, as Iseemed to cling to life, I was ordered to the South. Four men carried mefrom Paris to Châlons, walking six leagues a day; Madame de Villefortfollowed the litter in her carriage. At Châlons I was put upon theSaône, thence I passed on to the Rhône, whence I descended, merely withthe current, to Arles; at Arles I was again placed on my litter, andcontinued my journey to Marseilles. My recovery lasted six months. Inever heard you mentioned, and I did not dare inquire for you. When Ireturned to Paris, I learned that you, the widow of M. de Nargonne, hadmarried M. Danglars.
“What was the subject of my thoughts from the time consciousnessreturned to me? Always the same—always the child’s corpse, coming everynight in my dreams, rising from the earth, and hovering over the gravewith menacing look and gesture. I inquired immediately on my return toParis; the house had not been inhabited since we left it, but it hadjust been let for nine years. I found the tenant. I pretended that Idisliked the idea that a house belonging to my wife’s father and mothershould pass into the hands of strangers. I offered to pay them forcancelling the lease; they demanded 6,000 francs. I would have given10,000—I would have given 20,000. I had the money with me; I made thetenant sign the deed of resilition, and when I had obtained what I somuch wanted, I galloped to Auteuil. No one had entered the house since Ihad left it.
“It was five o’clock in the afternoon; I ascended into the red room, andwaited for night. There all the thoughts which had disturbed me duringmy year of constant agony came back with double force. The Corsican, whohad declared the vendetta against me, who had followed me from Nîmes toParis, who had hid himself in the garden, who had struck me, had seen medig the grave, had seen me inter the child,—he might become acquaintedwith your person,—nay, he might even then have known it. Would he notone day make you pay for keeping this terrible secret? Would it not be asweet revenge for him when he found that I had not died from the blow ofhis dagger? It was therefore necessary, before everything else, and atall risks, that I should cause all traces of the past to disappear—thatI should destroy every material vestige; too much reality would alwaysremain in my recollection. It was for this I had annulled the lease—itwas for this I had come—it was for this I was waiting.
“Night arrived; I allowed it to become quite dark. I was without a lightin that room; when the wind shook all the doors, behind which Icontinually expected to see some spy concealed, I trembled. I seemedeverywhere to hear your moans behind me in the bed, and I dared not turnaround. My heart beat so violently that I feared my wound would open. Atlength, one by one, all the noises in the neighborhood ceased. Iunderstood that I had nothing to fear, that I should neither be seen norheard, so I decided upon descending to the garden.
“Listen, Hermine; I consider myself as brave as most men, but when Idrew from my breast the little key of the staircase, which I had foundin my coat—that little key we both used to cherish so much, which youwished to have fastened to a golden ring—when I opened the door, and sawthe pale moon shedding a long stream of white light on the spiralstaircase like a spectre, I leaned against the wall, and nearlyshrieked. I seemed to be going mad. At last I mastered my agitation. Idescended the staircase step by step; the only thing I could not conquerwas a strange trembling in my knees. I grasped the railings; if I hadrelaxed my hold for a moment, I should have fallen. I reached the lowerdoor. Outside this door a spade was placed against the wall; I took it,and advanced towards the thicket. I had provided myself with a darklantern. In the middle of the lawn I stopped to light it, then Icontinued my path.
“It was the end of November, all the verdure of the garden haddisappeared, the trees were nothing more than skeletons with their longbony arms, and the dead leaves sounded on the gravel under my feet. Myterror overcame me to such a degree as I approached the thicket, that Itook a pistol from my pocket and armed myself. I fancied continuallythat I saw the figure of the Corsican between the branches. I examinedthe thicket with my dark lantern; it was empty. I looked carefullyaround; I was indeed alone,—no noise disturbed the silence but the owl,whose piercing cry seemed to be calling up the phantoms of the night. Itied my lantern to a forked branch I had noticed a year before at theprecise spot where I stopped to dig the hole.
“The grass had grown very thickly there during the summer, and whenautumn arrived no one had been there to mow it. Still one place wherethe grass was thin attracted my attention; it evidently was there I hadturned up the ground. I went to work. The hour, then, for which I hadbeen waiting during the last year had at length arrived. How I worked,how I hoped, how I struck every piece of turf, thinking to find someresistance to my spade! But no, I found nothing, though I had made ahole twice as large as the first. I thought I had been deceived—hadmistaken the spot. I turned around, I looked at the trees, I tried torecall the details which had struck me at the time. A cold, sharp windwhistled through the leafless branches, and yet the drops fell from myforehead. I recollected that I was stabbed just as I was trampling theground to fill up the hole; while doing so I had leaned against alaburnum; behind me was an artificial rockery, intended to serve as aresting-place for persons walking in the garden; in falling, my hand,relaxing its hold of the laburnum, felt the coldness of the stone. On myright I saw the tree, behind me the rock. I stood in the same attitude,and threw myself down. I rose, and again began digging and enlarging thehole; still I found nothing, nothing—the chest was no longer there!”
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“The chest no longer there?” murmured Madame Danglars, choking withfear.
“Think not I contented myself with this one effort,” continuedVillefort. “No; I searched the whole thicket. I thought the assassin,having discovered the chest, and supposing it to be a treasure, hadintended carrying it off, but, perceiving his error, had dug anotherhole, and deposited it there; but I could find nothing. Then the ideastruck me that he had not taken these precautions, and had simply thrownit in a corner. In the last case I must wait for daylight to renew mysearch. I remained in the room and waited.”
“Oh, Heaven!”
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When daylight dawned I went down again. My first visit was to thethicket. I hoped to find some traces which had escaped me in thedarkness. I had turned up the earth over a surface of more than twentyfeet square, and a depth of two feet. A laborer would not have done in aday what occupied me an hour. But I could find nothing—absolutelynothing. Then I renewed the search. Supposing it had been thrown aside,it would probably be on the path which led to the little gate; but thisexamination was as useless as the first, and with a bursting heart Ireturned to the thicket, which now contained
“Oh,” cried Madame Danglars, “it was enough to drive you mad!”
“I hoped for a moment that it might,” said Villefort; “but thathappiness was denied me. However, recovering my strength and my ideas,‘Why,’ said I, ‘should that man have carried away the corpse?’”
“But you said,” replied Madame Danglars, “he would require it as aproof.”
“Ah, no, madame, that could not be. Dead bodies are not kept a year;they are shown to a magistrate, and the evidence is taken. Now, nothingof the kind has happened.”
“What then?” asked Hermine, trembling violently.
“Something more terrible, more fatal, more alarming for us—the childwas, perhaps, alive, and the assassin may have saved it!”
Madame Danglars uttered a piercing cry, and, seizing Villefort’s hands,exclaimed, “My child was alive?” said she; “you buried my child alive?You were not certain my child was dead, and you buried it? Ah——”
Madame Danglars had risen, and stood before the procureur, whose handsshe wrung in her feeble grasp.
“I know not; I merely suppose so, as I might suppose anything else,”replied Villefort with a look so fixed, it indicated that his powerfulmind was on the verge of despair and madness.
“Ah, my child, my poor child!” cried the baroness, falling on her chair,and stifling her sobs in her handkerchief. Villefort, becoming somewhatreassured, perceived that to avert the maternal storm gathering over hishead, he must inspire Madame Danglars with the terror he felt.
“You understand, then, that if it were so,” said he, rising in his turn,and approaching the baroness, to speak to her in a lower tone, “we arelost. This child lives, and someone knows it lives—someone is inpossession of our secret; and since Monte Cristo speaks before us of achild disinterred, when that child could not be found, it is he who isin possession of our secret.”
“Just God, avenging God!” murmured Madame Danglars.
Villefort’s only answer was a stifled groan.
“But the child—the child, sir?” repeated the agitated mother.
“How I have searched for him,” replied Villefort, wringing his hands;“how I have called him in my long sleepless nights; how I have longedfor royal wealth to purchase a million of secrets from a million of men,and to find mine among them! At last, one day, when for the hundredthtime I took up my spade, I asked myself again and again what theCorsican could have done with the child. A child encumbers a fugitive;perhaps, on perceiving it was still alive, he had thrown it into theriver.”
“Impossible!” cried Madame Danglars: “a man may murder another out ofrevenge, but he would not deliberately drown a child.”
“Perhaps,” continued Villefort, “he had put it in the foundlinghospital.”
“Oh, yes, yes,” cried the baroness; “my child is there!”
“I ran to the hospital, and learned that the same night—the night of the20th of September—a child had been brought there, wrapped in part of afine linen napkin, purposely torn in half. This portion of the napkinwas marked with half a baron’s crown, and the letter H.”
“Truly, truly,” said Madame Danglars, “all my linen is marked thus;Monsieur de Nargonne was a baron, and my name is Hermine. Thank God, mychild was not then dead!”
“No, it was not dead.”
“And you can tell me so without fearing to make me die of joy? Where isthe child?”
Villefort shrugged his shoulders.
“Do I know?” said he; “and do you believe that if I knew I would relateto you all its trials and all its adventures as would a dramatist or anovel writer? Alas, no, I know not. A woman, about six months after,came to claim it with the other half of the napkin. This woman gave allthe requisite particulars, and it was intrusted to her.”
“But you should have inquired for the woman; you should have tracedher.”
“And what do you think I did? I feigned a criminal process, and employedall the most acute bloodhounds and skilful agents in search of her. Theytraced her to Châlons, and there they lost her.”
“They lost her?”
“Yes, forever.”
Madame Danglars had listened to this recital with a sigh, a tear, or ashriek for every detail. “And this is all?” said she; “and you stoppedthere?”
“Oh, no,” said Villefort; “I never ceased to search and to inquire.However, the last two or three years I had allowed myself some respite.But now I will begin with more perseverance and fury than ever, sincefear urges me, not my conscience.”
“But,” replied Madame Danglars, “the Count of Monte Cristo can knownothing, or he would not seek our society as he does.”
“Oh, the wickedness of man is very great,” said Villefort, “since itsurpasses the goodness of God. Did you observe that man’s eyes while hewas speaking to us?”
“No.”
“But have you ever watched him carefully?”
“Doubtless he is capricious, but that is all; one thing alone struckme,—of all the exquisite things he placed before us, he touched nothing.I might have suspected he was poisoning us.”
“And you see you would have been deceived.”
“Yes, doubtless.”
“But believe me, that man has other projects. For that reason I wishedto see you, to speak to you, to warn you against everyone, butespecially against him. Tell me,” cried Villefort, fixing his eyes moresteadfastly on her than he had ever done before, “did you ever reveal toanyone our connection?”
“Never, to anyone.”
“You understand me,” replied Villefort, affectionately; “when I sayanyone,—pardon my urgency,—to anyone living I mean?”
“Yes, yes, I understand very well,” ejaculated the baroness; “never, Iswear to you.”
“Were you ever in the habit of writing in the evening what hadtranspired in the morning? Do you keep a journal?”
“No, my life has been passed in frivolity; I wish to forget it myself.”
“Do you talk in your sleep?”
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“I sleep soundly, like a child; do you not remember?”
The color mounted to the baroness’s face, and Villefort turned awfullypale.
“It is true,” said he, in so low a tone that he could hardly be heard.
“Well?” said the baroness.
“Well, I understand what I now have to do,” replied Villefort. “In lessthan one week from this time I will ascertain who this M. de MonteCristo is, whence he comes, where he goes, and why he speaks in ourpresence of children that have been disinterred in a garden.”
Villefort pronounced these words with an accent which would have madethe count shudder had he heard him. Then he pressed the hand thebaroness reluctantly gave him, and led her respectfully back to thedoor. Madame Danglars returned in another cab to the passage, on theother side of which she found her carriage, and her coachman sleepingpeacefully on his box while waiting for her.