In the meantime, Albert had arrived within ten paces of the group of five young men; he pulled up his horse, jumped down, and, throwing the bridle to the servant, walked up to the others. He was pale and his eyes red and swollen; it was easily seen he had not slept all night. There was about his whole demeanour an unaccustomed sadness.
“Thank you, messieurs, for having granted my request!” he said. “Believe me, I am most grateful for this token of friendship.” Noticing that Morrel had stepped back as he approached, he continued: “Draw nearer, Monsieur Morrel, to you especially are my thanks due!”
“I think you must be unaware that I am Monsieur de Monte Cristo’s second,” replied Morrel.
“I was not certain, but I thought you were. All the better; the more honourable men there are here, the better pleased shall I be.”
“Monsieur Morrel, you may inform the Count of Monte Cristo that Monsieur de Morcerf has arrived,” said Château-Renaud. “We are at his service.”
“Wait, messieurs, I should like a few words with the Count of Monte Cristo,” said Albert.
“In private?” Morrel asked.
“No, before every one.”
Albert’s seconds looked at one another in surprise. Franz and Debray began whispering to one another, while Morrel, overjoyed at this unexpected incident, went in search of the Count, who was walking with Emmanuel a short distance away.
“What does he want?” asked Monte Cristo.
“I only know that he wishes to speak to you.”
“I hope he is not going to tempt me with fresh insults?”
“I do not think that is his intention,” was Morrel’s reply.
The Count approached, accompanied by Maximilian and Emmanuel, his calm and serene mien forming a strange contrast with the grief-stricken face of Albert, who also advanced toward his adversary. When three paces from each other they stopped.
“Messieurs, come nearer,” Albert said. “I do not want you to lose a word of what I have to say to the Count of Monte Cristo, for strange as it may seem to you, you must repeat it to all who will listen to you.”
“I am all attention, monsieur,” said the Count.
“I reproached you, monsieur, with having made known Monsieur de Morcerf’s conduct in Epirus,” began Albert in a tremulous voice, which became firmer as he went on. “I did not consider you had the right to punish him, however guilty he might be. Yet to-day I know better. It is not Fernand Mondego’s treachery towards Ali Pasha that makes me so ready to forgive you, it is the treachery of Fernand the fisherman towards you, and the untold sufferings his conduct has caused you. I therefore say to you, and proclaim it aloud, that you were justified in revenging yourself on my father, and I, his son, thank you for not having done more.”
Had a thunderbolt fallen in the midst of his listeners, it would not have astonished them more than did Albert’s declaration. Monte Cristo slowly raised his eyes to heaven with an expression of gratitude; he could not comprehend how Albert’s proud nature could have submitted to this sudden humiliation. He recognized in it Mercédès’ influence, and understood now why the noble woman had not refused the sacrifice which she knew would not be necessary.
“Now, Monsieur,” continued Albert, “if you consider this apology sufficient, give me your hand. In my opinion the quality of recognizing one’s faults ranks next to the rare one of infallibility, which you appear to possess. But this confession concerns me alone. I have acted well in the eyes of man, but you have acted well in the eyes of God. An angel alone could have saved one of us from death, and that angel has appeared, not to make us friends, perhaps, but at least to make us esteem one another.”
With moistened eyes and heaving bosom, Monte Cristo extended his hand to Albert, who pressed it with respectful awe as he said: “Messieurs! Monsieur de Monte Cristo accepts my apology. I was guilty of a rash act, but have now made reparation for my fault. I trust the world will not look upon me as a coward because I have followed the dictates of my conscience.”
“What has happened?” Beauchamp asked Château-Renaud. “Methinks we make a very sorry figure here.”
“In truth, Albert’s action is either most despicable or else very noble,” replied the Baron.
“What does all this mean?” Debray asked Franz. “The Count of Monte Cristo brings dishonour on Monsieur de Morcerf, and his son acknowledges that he is justified in doing so. In his place, I should consider myself bound to fight at least ten duels.”
As for Monte Cristo, his head was bowed, his arms hung listless. He was crushed under the weight of twenty-four years’ memories. He was not thinking of Albert, Beauchamp, or Château-Renaud, nor yet of anyone around him; he was thinking of the courageous woman who had come to him to crave her son’s life. He had offered her his, and now she had saved it by confessing a terrible family secret, capable of killing for ever the young man’s love for her.
Chapter LIX
REVENGE
The Count of Monte Cristo bowed to the five young men with a sad smile, and, getting into his carriage, drove away with Maximilian and Emmanuel. Albert stood wrapt in deep and melancholy thought for a few moments, then suddenly loosing his horse from the tree around which his servant had tied the bridle, he sprang lightly into the saddle and returned to Paris at a gallop. A quarter of an hour later he entered his house in the Rue du Helder. As he dismounted from his horse, he thought he saw his father’s pale face peeping from behind the curtain of his bedroom. Albert turned away his head with a sigh and went to his own apartments. Once there, he cast a last lingering look at all the luxuries that had made his life so easy and happy from his childhood. He looked once more at the pictures; the faces seemed to smile at him and the landscapes to be animated with brighter colours. Taking from its oak frame the portrait of his mother, he rolled it up, leaving empty and bare the gilt frame that had surrounded it. Then he put all his precious knick-knacks in order; went to the cupboards and placed the key in each door; threw into a drawer of his writing-desk all the money he had about him; gathered together all the countless pieces of jewellery that were lying about in cups, in jewel-cases, and on brackets, and made an exact inventory of all, placing it in a conspicuous place on a table from which he first removed all the books and papers which encumbered it.
While he was in the midst of this work and in spite of the instructions Albert had given that he was not to be disturbed, his servant entered.
“What do you want?” Morcerf asked him in a sad, rather than an annoyed tone of voice.
“Excuse me, monsieur,” said the valet, “I know you forbade me to disturb you, but the Count of Morcerf has sent for me.”
“Well?”
“I did not wish to go to him before I had received your instructions.”
“Why?”
“Because the Count doubtless knows that I accompanied you to the Bois de Vincennes.”
“No doubt.”
“And if he asks me what happened, what reply shall I make?”
“Tell the truth.”
“Then I am to say that the duel did not take place?”
“Say that I apologized to the Count of Monte Cristo. Go!”
The valet bowed and went out, and Albert returned to his inventory. When he had finished, his thoughts turned to his mother, and as no one was there to announce him, he went straight to her bedroom, but, distressed by what he saw and still more by what he guessed, he paused on the threshold.
As though one mind animated these two beings, Mercédès was doing in her room what Albert had been doing in his. Everything was in disorder; lace, clothing, jewellery, money, all was carefully placed in the drawers, and the Countess was just collecting the keys. Albert saw all these preparations and understood; calling out “Mother!” he threw his arms around her neck. The painter who could have caught the expression on those two faces just then would certainly have made a beautiful picture!
All these signs of a firm decision which gave him no cause for fear where he himself was concerned alarmed him for
his mother.
“What are you doing, Mother dear?” he asked.
“What have you been doing?” was her reply.
“Oh, Mother!” cried Albert, almost too overwhelmed to speak. “It does not affect you as it does me. No, you surely cannot have taken the same resolutions as I have! I am come to inform you that I am leaving this house . . . and you?”
“I am leaving it, too, Albert,” replied Mercédès. “I must confess, I had reckoned on being accompanied by my son. Was I mistaken?”
“Mother, I cannot let you share the life I have chosen. I must live henceforth without name and without fortune; to start my apprenticeship, I must borrow from a friend my daily bread till I can earn it myself. So I am going from here, Mother, to Franz, to ask him to lend me the small sum of money I think will be necessary.”
“You are going to suffer hunger, poverty, my son?” exclaimed Mercédès. “Oh, say not so or you will break all my resolution.”
“But not mine, Mother dear,” replied Albert. “I am young and strong and I think I am brave, and I have also learned since yesterday what force of will means. Alas! Mother, there are those who have suffered so much and yet have not succumbed to their sufferings, but instead have built up a new fortune on the ruins of their former happiness. I have learnt this, Mother, and I have seen such men; I know that they have risen with such vigour and glory from the abyss into which their enemies had cast them that they have overthrown their former conquerors. No, Mother, from to-day I have done with the past, and I will accept nothing from it, not even my name, for you understand, do you not, Mother, that your son could not bear the name of a man who should blush before every other man?”
“Albert, my son, had I been stronger, that is the advice I should have given you,” said Mercédès. “Your conscience has spoken to you when my enfeebled voice was still; follow its dictates, my son. You had friends, Albert; break with them, but, for your mother’s sake, do not despair. Life still has its charms at your age, for you can barely count twenty-two summers, and as a noble character such as yours must carry with it a name without blemish, take my father’s. It was Herrara. Whatever career you pursue, you will soon make this name illustrious. When you have accomplished this, my son, make your appearance again in a world rendered more beautiful by your past sufferings. But, even though the golden future I foresee for you should not come to pass, let me at least cherish the hope. I have nothing else left to me; for me there is no future, and when I leave this house, I go towards my tomb.”
“I shall do as you wish, Mother,” the young man said. “Your hopes are mine. God’s anger cannot follow us, you who are so noble and I who am so innocent. But since we have taken our resolution, let us act with all speed. Monsieur de Morcerf left the house about an hour ago. The opportunity is therefore propitious, and we shall be relieved of the necessity of giving any explanations.”
“I am ready,” said Mercédès.
Albert ran into the boulevard for a cab to take them away. He thought of a nice little furnished house in the Rue des Saints-Pères where his mother would find a humble but comfortable lodging. As the cab drew up at the door and Albert alighted, a man approached and handed him a letter. Albert recognized the Count of Monte Cristo’s steward.
“From the Count,” said Bertuccio.
Albert took the letter and read it; then, with tears in his eyes and his breast heaving with emotion, he went in to find Mercédès and handed it to her without a word.
Mercédès read:
ALBERT,
While showing you that I have discovered the plans you are contemplating, I hope to prove to you also that I have a sense of what is right. You are free, you are leaving the Count’s house, taking with you your mother. But remember, Albert, you owe her more than your poor noble heart can give her. Keep the struggle to yourself, bear all the suffering alone and save her the misery that must inevitably accompany your first efforts, for she has not deserved even one fraction of the misfortune that has this day befallen her.
I know you are both leaving the Rue du Helder without taking anything with you. Do not try to discover how I know it; it is enough that I do know it.
Listen, Albert, to what I have to say. Twenty-four years ago, I returned to my country a proud and happy man. I had a sweetheart, Albert, a noble young girl whom I adored, and I was bringing to her a hundred and fifty louis which I had painfully amassed by ceaseless toil. This money was for her, and, knowing how treacherous the sea is, I buried the treasure in the little garden behind the house in Marseilles which your mother knows so well.
Recently I passed through Marseilles on my way from Paris. I went to see this house of sad memories. In the evening I took a spade and dug in the corner where I had buried my treasure. The iron chest was still in the same place: no one had touched it. It is in the corner that is shaded by a beautiful fig tree my father planted on the day of my birth.
By a strange and sad coincidence this money, which was to have contributed to the comfort of the woman I adored, will to- day serve the same purpose. Oh! understand well my meaning. You are a generous man, Albert, but maybe you are blinded by pride or resentment. If you refuse me, if you ask another for what I have the right to offer you, I can but say it is ungenerous of you to refuse what is offered to your mother by one whose father was made to suffer the horrors of hunger and despair by your father.
Albert waited in silence for his mother’s decision after she had finished reading the letter.
“I accept,” said she. “He has the right to pay the dowry I shall take with me to the convent.”
Placing the letter against her heart, she took her son’s arm and went down the stairs with a step that surprised her by its firmness.
Meanwhile Monte Cristo had also returned to town with Emmanuel and Maximilian, and was sitting wrapt in thought when the door suddenly opened. The Count frowned.
“Monsieur le Comte de Morcerf,” announced Baptistin, as though this name was excuse enough for his admittance.
“Ask Monsieur de Morcerf into the salon.”
When Monte Cristo joined the General, he was pacing the length of the floor for the third time.
“Ah, it is really you, Monsieur de Morcerf,” said Monte Cristo calmly. “I thought I had not heard aright.”
“Yes, it is I,” said the Count, with a frightful contraction of the lips which prevented him from articulating clearly.
“I only require to know now to what I owe the pleasure of seeing the Count of Morcerf at such an early hour,” continued Monte Cristo.
“You had a meeting with my son this morning, monsieur?”
“You knew about it?”
“I also know that my son had very good reason to fight you and to do his utmost to kill you.”
“He had, but you see that, nothwithstanding these reasons, he did not kill me; in fact he did not fight.”
“Yet he looked upon you as the cause of his father’s dishonour and the terrible calamity that has now befallen my house.”
“That is true, monsieur,” said Monte Cristo, with dreadful calmness; “the secondary cause, but not the principal one.”
“No doubt you made some sort of apology or gave some explanation?”
“I gave him no explanation, and it was he who apologized.”
“But to what do you attribute such conduct?”
“To conviction; probably he discovered there was one more guilty than I.”
“Who is that man?”
“His father!”
“That may be,” said the Count, “but you know the guilty do not like to hear themselves convicted of their guilt.”
“I know, and I expected all this.”
“You expected my son to be a coward?” cried the Count.
“Monsieur Albert de Morcerf is not a coward!” said Monte Cristo.
“A man who holds a sword in his hand, with an enemy within reach of it, is a coward if he does not strike. Ah, that he were here that I might tell him so!”
> “I presume you have not come here to tell me your little family affairs,” replied Monte Cristo coldly. “Go and say that to Monsieur Albert, perhaps he will know what answer to give you.”
“No, no, I have not come for that!” replied the General, with a smile which disappeared immediately. “I came to tell you that I, too, look upon you as my enemy. I have come to tell you that I instinctively hate you, that I seem to have known and hated you always! As the young men of this generation no longer fight, it is for us to do so. Are you of this opinion?”
“Certainly. But let me tell you that when I said I was expecting this, I was referring to your visit.”
“All the better. Your preparations are made?”
“I am always ready, monsieur.”
“You understand that we shall fight till one of us drops?” said the General, clenching his teeth in rage.
“Till one of us drops,” repeated the Count of Monte Cristo, slowly nodding his head.
“Let us go, then; we have no need of seconds.”
“Indeed, it were useless,” replied Monte Cristo. “We know each other so well.”
“On the contrary, it is because we do not know each other.”
“Bah!” said Monte Cristo, with the same exasperating coolness. “Are you not the soldier Fernand who deserted on the eve of the battle of Waterloo? Are you not the Lieutenant Fernand who served the French army as guide and spy in Spain? Are you not the Colonel Fernand who betrayed, sold, and assassinated his benefactor, Ali? And have not all these Fernands combined made Lieutenant-General Count of Morcerf, Peer of France?”
“Villain! to reproach me with my shame when you are perhaps about to kill me!” cried the General, as though struck by a red-hot iron. “I did not say I was unknown to you. I know well that, demon that you are, you have penetrated the obscurity of my past and have read, by the light of what torch I know not, every page of my life. But perhaps there is more honour in my shame than in all your outward pomp. No, no, I am known to you, but I do not know you, adventurer sewn up in gold and precious stones! In Paris you call yourself the Count of Monte Cristo, in Italy Sindbad the Sailor, in Malta—who knows? I have forgotten. It is your real name I now ask and wish to know, so that I may pronounce it in the field when I plunge my sword into your heart.”