Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

  “I have your word, Count,” said Morrel coldly. Taking out his watch, he added: “It is half-past eleven.”

  “Morrel, consider. You would do this thing before my eyes? In my house?”

  “Then let me go hence,” replied Maximilian gloomily. “Otherwise I shall think that you do not love me for myself but for yourself.”

  “It is well,” said the Count, whose face had brightened at these words. “You wish it, and you are firmly resolved on death. You are certainly most unhappy, and, as you say, a miracle alone could save you. Sit down and wait.”

  Morrel obeyed. Monte Cristo rose and went to a cupboard, and unlocking it with a key which he wore on a gold chain, took out a small silver casket wonderfully carved; the corners represented four bending women symbolical of angels aspiring to heaven.

  He placed the casket on the table, and, opening it, took out a small gold box, the lid of which opened by the pressure of a secret spring. This box contained an unctuous, half-solid substance of an indefinable colour. It was like an iridescence of blue, purple, and gold.

  The Count took a small quantity of this substance with a gold spoon and offered it to Morrel while fixing a long and steadfast glance upon him. It was then seen that the substance was of a greenish hue.

  “This is what you asked for and what I promised to give you,” said the Count.

  Taking the spoon from the Count’s hand, the young man said: “I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Farewell, my noble and generous friend. I am going to Valentine and shall tell her all that you have done for me.”

  Slowly, but without any hesitation, and waiting only to press the Count’s hand, Morrel swallowed, or rather tasted, the mysterious substance the Count offered him.

  The lamps gradually became dim in the hands of the marble statues that held them, and the perfumes seemed to become less potent. Seated opposite to Morrel, Monte Cristo watched him in the shadow, and Morrel saw nothing but the Count’s bright eyes. An immense sadness overtook the young man.

  “My friend, I feel that I am dying.”

  Then he seemed to see Monte Cristo smile, no longer the strange, frightening smile that had several times revealed to him the mysteries of that profound mind, but with the benevolent compassion of a father toward an unreasonable child. At the same time the Count appeared to increase in stature. Nearly double his height he was outlined against the red hangings, and, as he stood there erect and proud, he looked like one of those angels with which the wicked are threatened on the Day of Judgment. Depressed and overcome, Morrel threw himself back in his chair, and a delicious torpor crept into his veins; he seemed to be entering upon the vague delirium that precedes the unknown thing they call death. He endeavoured once more to give his hand to the Count, but it would not move; he wished to articulate a last farewell, but his tongue lay heavy in his mouth like a stone at the mouth of a sepulchre. His languid eyes involuntarily closed, yet through his closed eyelids he perceived a form moving which he recognized in spite of the darkness that seemed to envelope him.

  It was the Count, who was opening a door. Immediately a brilliant light from the adjoining room inundated the one where Morrel was gently passing into oblivion. Then he saw a woman of marvellous beauty standing on the threshold. She seemed like a pale and sweetly smiling angel of mercy come to conjure the angel of vengeance.

  “Is heaven opening before me?” the dying man thought to himself. “This angel resembles the one I have lost!”

  Monte Cristo pointed to the sofa where Morrel was reclining. The young woman advanced toward it with clasped hands and a smile on her lips.

  “Valentine! Valentine!” Morrel’s soul went out to her, but he uttered no sound; only a sigh escaped his lips and he closed his eyes.

  Valentine ran up to him, and his lips opened as though in speech.

  “He is calling you,” said the Count. “He is calling you in his sleep, he to whom you have entrusted your life is calling you. Death would have separated you, but by good fortune I was near and I have overcome death! Valentine, henceforth you must never leave him, for, in order to rejoin you, he courted death. Without me you would both have died; I give you to one another. May God give me credit for the two lives I have saved!”

  Valentine seized Monte Cristo’s hand, and in a transport of irresistible joy carried it to her lips.

  “Oh, yes, yes, I do thank you, and with all my heart,” said she. “If you doubt the sincerity of my gratitude, ask Haydee, ask my dear sister Haydee, who, since our departure from France, has helped me to await this happy day that has dawned for me.”

  “Do you love Haydee?” asked Monte Cristo, vainly endeavouring to hide his agitation.

  “With my whole heart.”

  “Well, then, I have a favour to ask of you, Valentine,” said the Count.

  “Of me? Are you really giving me that happiness?”

  “Yes, you called Haydee your sister; be a real sister to her, Valentine; give to her all that you believe you owe to me. Protect her, both Morrel and you, for henceforth she will be alone in the world.”

  “Alone in the world?” repeated a voice behind the Count. “Why?”

  Monte Cristo turned round.

  Haydee was standing there pale and motionless, looking at the Count in mortal dread.

  “To-morrow you will be free, my daughter,” answered the Count. “You will then assume your proper place in society; I do not wish my fate to overcloud yours. Daughter of a prince! I bestow on you the wealth and the name of your father!”

  Haydee turned pale, and, in a voice choking with emotion, she said: “Then you are leaving me, my lord?”

  “Haydee! Haydee! You are young and beautiful. Forget even my name and be happy!”

  “So be it!” said Haydee. “Your orders shall be obeyed, my lord. I shall even forget your name and be happy!” and stepping back she sought to retire.

  The Count shuddered as he caught the tones of her voice which penetrated to the inmost recesses of his heart. His eyes encountered the maiden’s, and he could not bear their bril liancy.

  “My God!” cried he. “Is it possible that my suspicions are correct? Haydee, would you be happy never to leave me again?”

  “I am young,” she replied. “I love the life you made so sweet to me, and I should regret to die!”

  “Does that mean to say that if I were to leave you . . . ?”

  “I should die? Yes, my lord.”

  “Do you love me then?”

  “Oh, Valentine, he asks me whether I love him! Valentine, tell him whether you love Maximilian!”

  The Count felt his heart swelling within him; he opened his arms, and Haydee threw herself into them with a cry.

  “Oh, yes, I love you!” she said. “I love you as one loves a father, a brother, a husband! I love you as I love my life, for to me you are the noblest, the best, and the greatest of all created beings!”

  “Let it be as you wish, my sweet angel,” said the Count. “God has sustained me against my enemies and I see now He does not wish me to end my triumph with repentance. I intended punishing myself, but God has pardoned me! Love me, Haydee! Who knows? Perhaps your love will help me to forget all I do not wish to remember!”

  “What do you mean, my lord?” asked she.

  “What I mean is that one word from you, Haydee, has enlightened me more than twenty years of bitter experience. I have but you in the world, Haydee. Through you I come back to life, through you I can suffer, and through you I can be happy.”

  “Do you hear him, Valentine?” Haydee cried out. “He says he can suffer through me! Through me, who would give my life for him!”

  The Count reflected for a moment.

  “Have I caught a glimpse of the truth?” he said. “But, whether it be for recompense or punishment, I accept this fate. Come, Haydee!”

  Throwing his arms round the young girl, he shook Valentine by the hand and disappeared.

  An hour or so elapsed, and Valentine still stood beside Morrel brea
thless, voiceless, with her eyes fixed on him. At length she felt his heart beat, his lips parted to emit a slight breath, and the shudder which announces a return to life ran through his whole frame. Finally his eyes opened, though with an expressionless stare at first; then his vision returned and with it the power of feeling and grief.

  “Oh, I still live!” he cried in accents of despair. “The Count has deceived me!” Extending his hand toward the table, he seized a knife.

  “My dear one!” said Valentine with her sweet smile. “Awake and look at me!”

  With a loud cry, frantic, doubting, and dazzled as by a celestial vision, Morrel fell upon his knees.

  At daybreak the next day Morrel and Valentine were walking arm in arm along the seashore, while Valentine related how Monte Cristo had appeared in her room, how he had disclosed everything and pointed to the crime, and finally how he had miraculously saved her from death by making believe that she was dead.

  They had found the door of the grotto open and had gone out whilst the last stars of the night were still shining in the morning sky. After a time, Morrel perceived a man standing amongst the rocks waiting for permission to advance, and pointed him out to Valentine.

  “It is Jacopo, the captain of the yacht!” she said, making signs for him to approach.

  “Have you something to tell us?” Morrel asked.

  “I have a letter from the Count for you.”

  “From the Count!” they exclaimed together.

  “Yes, read it.”

  Morrel opened the letter and read:

  MY DEAR MAXIMILIAN,

  There is a felucca waiting for you. Jacopo will take you to Leghorn, where Monsieur Noirtier is awaiting his granddaughter to give her his blessing before you conduct her to the altar. All that is in the grotto, my house in the Champs Élysées, and my little château at Tréport are the wedding present of Edmond Dantès to the son of his old master, Morrel. Ask Mademoiselle de Villefort to accept one half, for I beseech her to give to the poor of Paris all the money which she inherits from her father, who is now insane, as also from her brother, who died last September with her stepmother.

  Tell the angel who is going to watch over you, Morrel, to pray for a man who, like Satan, believed for one moment he was the equal of God, but who now acknowledges in all Christian humility that in God alone is supreme power and infinite wisdom. Her prayers will perhaps soothe the remorse in the depths of his heart.

  Live and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that, until the day comes when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these words: Wait and hope!

  Your friend,

  EDMOND DANTÈS, Count of Monte Cristo

  During the perusal of this letter, which informed Valentine for the first time of the fate of her father and her brother, she turned pale, a painful sigh escaped from her bosom, and silent tears coursed down her cheeks; her happiness had cost her dear.

  Morrel looked around him uneasily.

  “Where is the Count, my friend?” said he. “Take me to him.”

  Jacopo raised his hand toward the horizon.

  “What do you mean?” asked Valentine. “Where is the Count? Where is Haydee?”

  “Look!” said Jacopo.

  The eyes of the two young people followed the direction of the sailor’s hand, and there, on the blue horizon separating the sky from the Mediterranean, they perceived a sail, which loomed large and white like a seagull.

  “Gone!” cried Morrel. “Farewell, my friend, my father!”

  “Gone!” murmured Valentine. “Good-bye, my friend, my sister!”

  “Who knows whether we shall ever see them again,” said Morrel, wiping away a tear.

  “My dear,” replied Valentine, “has not the Count just told us that all human wisdom is contained in the words ‘Wait and hope!’”8

  Endnotes

  1 (p. 113) CAESAR † SPADA: The idea of an enigmatic note that does not reveal its complete meaning until it is reunited with its missing other half would have struck a chord with contemporary readers in France, reminding them of an incident in Voltaire’s “Oriental” tale Zadig (1747): A poet is sentenced to die for a four-line verse insulting the local monarch, but then the other half of the sheet is fortuitously found, and the completed lines turn out to form a hymn of praise to the king.

  2 (p. 148) Such of my readers . . . Pont du Gard: It is at roughly this point that Dumas originally intended the novel to begin, with Dantès setting out on his mission of vengeance, while the story of his betrayal, imprisonment, and escape would have been parceled out in flashbacks. You can judge for yourself how much more successfully the revised version plays on the reader’s emotions.

  3 (p. 167) An inveterate Bonapartist . . . supervision: Notwithstanding Dumas’s relations with various members of the Bonaparte family, including the fact that an outing with the young prince supplied him with the book’s title, it remains notable that a novel with a hero made to suffer for his support of the Napoleonic cause should have been published while Louis-Philippe, Dumas’s former patron and employer, still sat on the throne. By 1844, however, the king was losing his grip, his abdication was quietly being urged by court figures, and Prince Bonaparte, who had already been rebuffed twice in attempts to have himself proclaimed emperor (he was imprisoned for life the second time, but escaped to England), was gathering his forces. The time may have seemed auspicious to Dumas to be seen to publicly shift his sympathies. The prince returned to France after the 1848 revolution, became president of the Republic the same year, and little more than three years later dissolved the Assembly and appointed himself Napoléon III, ruler of the Second Empire.

  4 (p. 210) flirtation between Albert and the pierrette . . . whole day: The theme of romance sparking between masked parties amid the swirling confusion of carnival was already familiar from dozens of operettas. For a later example, see the 1935 Marlene Dietrich vehicle The Devil Is a Woman, directed by Josef von Sternberg.

  5 (p. 422) “PASHA OF JANINA.” . . . story is ended”: Ali Pasha was a historical figure, a mountain bandit who became Pasha of Janina, or Iannina, in what is now Albania, in 1788. His court was described by Lord Byron in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-1818). He ruled over the Balkans for nearly thirty-five years, engaging in alliances with greater powers, such as Napoléon and the Ottoman emperors, when it suited him, and breaking them likewise. The Ottoman emperor Mahmud II finally determined to defeat him in 1820, and Ali Pasha, more than eighty years old, finally gave in two years later. He surrendered to one of Mahmud’s viziers but was seized and beheaded immediately after signing the treaty. Dumas gives his title here to the wholly fictional Ali Tebelin, and his version of the fall of Janina is purely invented and of the most purple Orientalism. Exotic spice is in fact its purpose, since, Morcerf’s downfall aside, the story is at best a bulbous appendage to the plot. The character of the beautiful, highborn Christian slave girl, purchased and educated by “a rich American,” is the glaze on the confectionary.

  6 (p. 460) further notice of Cavalcanti. . . . Count of Morcerf: Cavalcanti seems to fade out of the novel with little notice, but in the unabridged original a lengthy subplot has been brewing. Cavalcanti, it is revealed, is actually a career criminal named Benedetto, who escaped from prison with his cellmate, Caderousse, whom readers will recall as the third member of the conspiracy, along with Danglars and Fernand, that betrayed Dantès to Villefort. Caderousse, after giving vital information to Dantès in his guise as an Italian priest, has also disappeared from this edition of the novel. In the longer version, however, he is goaded by Benedetto/Cavalcanti into attempting to rob Monte Cristo’s house, but Monte Cristo has been forewarned by a mysterious letter. Monte Cristo catches Caderousse and forces him to sign a letter to Danglars attesting to Cavalcanti’s true identity, then permits him to flee. Cavalcanti murders Caderousse at the foot of the wall. After an incident-filled escape, Benedetto/Cavalcanti is finally cornered by militia in a hot
el on the outskirts of Paris and is returned to his dungeon.

  7 (p. 544) Farewell! . . . BARON DANGLARS: Danglars is here dispatched with some alacrity. In the longer version of the novel he makes his way to Italy with the 5 million in hospital funds, with which he intends to start a new life. He is intercepted by the bandit Luigi Vampa, who relieves him of the money and imprisons him in a cave. After a confrontation in which Monte Cristo reveals his true identity, Danglars is turned out into the countryside, his hair having turned white overnight.

  8 (p. 591) “‘Wait and hope!’”: It may or may not be the first time this sort of ending appeared in a work of fiction, but it would certainly not be the last. The hero who cannot receive the thanks of the characters he has saved—because by the time they realize all that he has done for them he is a mere speck on the horizon—would be invoked many times in popular culture, most famously in the adventures of the Lone Ranger.

  Inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo

  FICTION

  For Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo was a brand that brought enormous profits. In 1844, the year the novel began appearing in serialized form, Dumas started construction on an extravagant country house near Saint Germain, a resort city outside Paris. He named the opulent dwelling, fittingly, “Monte Cristo.”

  Dumas’s novel represented only the beginning of the long literary life of its extraordinarily popular main character, Edmond Dantès. Various later writers have borrowed characters or published sequels to the story. Perhaps the best known of such works were by Edmund Flagg, an American journalist, novelist, and poet, who published Edmond Dantès: The Sequel to Dumas’ Celebrated Novel of The Count of Monte-Cristo in 1878, followed soon thereafter by Monte-Cristo’s Daughter and The Wife of Monte-Cristo.