The count bowed and took a pace backwards.
‘Are you refusing me?’ said Mercédès, her voice quivering.
‘Madame,’ Monte Cristo replied, ‘I beg you most humbly to forgive me, but I never eat muscat grapes.’
Mercédès let the bunch fall with a sigh. A magnificent peach was hanging from a nearby shrub, espaliered and warmed, like the vine, by the artificial heat of the greenhouse. Mercédès went over to the luscious fruit and picked it.
‘Then take this peach,’ she said.
But the count made the same gesture of refusal.
‘Again!’ she said, with such a pained note in her voice that one could feel it covered a sob. ‘Truly, I am unfortunate.’
There was a long silence. The peach, like the bunch of grapes, had fallen on the sand.
‘Monsieur le Comte,’ Mercédès said finally, looking imploringly at Monte Cristo, ‘there is a touching Arab custom that promises eternal friendship between those who have shared bread and salt under the same roof.’
‘I know it, Madame,’ the count replied. ‘But we are in France and not in Arabia; and in France there is no more eternal friendship than there is sharing of bread and salt.’
‘But we are friends, are we not?’ she said, breathing rapidly and looking directly into Monte Cristo’s eyes, while clasping his arm with both hands.
The blood rushed to the count’s heart and he became as white as death; then it rose from his heart to his throat and spread across his cheeks. For a few moments his eyes would not focus, like those of a man dazzled by a bright light. ‘Of course we are friends, Madame,’ he replied. ‘Why should we not be?’
His tone was so far from the one that Mme de Morcerf desired that she turned away with a sigh that was almost a groan. ‘Thank you,’ she said, then started to walk on. In this way they went round the whole garden without saying a word.
‘Monsieur,’ the countess suddenly resumed, after they had walked for ten minutes in silence, ‘is it true that you have seen so much, travelled so far, suffered so deeply?’
‘Yes, Madame, I have suffered a great deal,’ he said.
‘But are you happy now?’
‘Yes, of course,’ the count replied. ‘No one hears me complain.’
‘And does your present happiness calm your soul?’
‘My present happiness equals my past misery,’ said the count.
‘Have you ever married?’
‘Married?’ Monte Cristo replied, shuddering. ‘Who told you that?’
‘No one, but several times you have been seen at the opera with a beautiful young woman.’
‘She is a slave whom I bought in Constantinople, Madame, the daughter of a prince whom I took for my own, not having anyone else to cherish.’
‘So you live alone?’
‘I do.’
‘You have no sister… son… father?’
‘No one.’
‘How can you live like that, with nothing attaching you to life?’
‘It is not my fault, Madame. In Malta I loved a girl and was going to marry her, when the war came and swept me away from her like a whirlwind. I thought that she loved me enough to wait for me, even to remain faithful to my tomb. When I came back, she was married. This is the story of every man who is aged over twenty. Perhaps my heart was weaker than that of others and I suffered more than they would in my place, that’s all.’
The countess stopped for a moment, as if needing to recover her breath. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and that love has remained in your heart. One is only really in love once… Did you ever see her again?’
‘Never.’
‘Never?’
‘I did not go back to the country where she lived.’
‘To Malta?’
‘Yes, to Malta.’
‘So she is in Malta, then?’
‘I think so.’
‘And have you forgiven her what she made you suffer?’
‘Her I have forgiven, yes.’
‘But only her. You still hate those who separated you?’
The countess stood in front of Monte Cristo, still holding part of the bunch of grapes in her hand. ‘Take it,’ she said.
‘I never eat muscat grapes, Madame,’ the count replied, as if the matter had never been discussed between them before.
‘You are quite inflexible,’ she muttered. But Monte Cristo remained as impassive as though the reproach had not been addressed to him.
At this moment Albert ran up. ‘Oh, mother,’ he said. ‘A great disaster!’
‘What? What has happened?’ the countess asked, stiffening, as though she had been recalled to reality from a dream. ‘A disaster? Indeed, disasters must happen.’
‘Monsieur de Villefort is here.’
‘So?’
‘He has come to fetch his wife and daughter.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the Marquise de Saint-Méran has arrived in Paris, with the news that Monsieur de Saint-Méran died on leaving Marseille, at the first post. Madame de Villefort, who was very merry, did not want to understand or believe in this misfortune, but Mademoiselle Valentine guessed everything from the first words, despite her father’s attempt to disguise it from her. The blow struck her down like a bolt of lightning and she fell in a dead faint.’
‘What is Monsieur de Saint-Méran to Mademoiselle de Villefort?’ the count asked.
‘Her maternal grandfather. He was coming to Paris to speed up his granddaughter’s marriage to Franz.’
‘Really?’
‘Now Franz is delayed. Why is Monsieur de Saint-Méran not also an ancestor of Mademoiselle Danglars?’
‘Albert! Albert,’ Mme de Morcerf said, gently reprimanding him. ‘What are you saying? Oh, Monsieur le Comte, he has such a great respect for you: tell him he shouldn’t say such things.’ She took a step forward.
Monte Cristo was looking so oddly at her, with an expression that was at once so abstracted and so full of affectionate admiration, that she advanced again, took his hand and that of her son, and joined them together. ‘We are friends, are we not?’ she said.
‘Well, now, Madame,’ said the count. ‘Your friend? I should not pretend to that. But, in any case, I am your most respectful servant.’
The countess left with an inexpressible weight on her heart and had not gone more than ten yards when the count even saw her dab her eyes with a handkerchief.
‘Have you fallen out over something, my mother and you?’ Albert asked with astonishment.
‘On the contrary,’ the count replied, ‘since she has just told me in front of you that we are friends.’ And they went back to the drawing-room which Valentine had just left with M. and Mme de Villefort. It goes without saying that Morrel followed them.
LXXII
MADAME DE SAINT-MÉRAN
A mournful scene had just taken place in M. de Villefort’s house. After the departure of the two ladies for the ball, all Mme de Villefort’s efforts having failed definitely to persuade her husband to accompany her, the crown prosecutor had shut himself up as usual in his study with a pile of dossiers which would have terrified another man but which, in normal circumstances, would hardly have been enough to satisfy his mania for work.
This time, however, the dossiers were merely a façade; Villefort was not shutting himself up to work but to reflect; and, once the door was shut and the order had been given that he should be disturbed only in an emergency, he sat down in the chair and went over in his mind everything that in the past week or so had filled his cup of bitter sorrows and dark memories to overflowing.
Then, instead of starting on the pile of dossiers in front of him, he opened a drawer in his desk, released a secret spring and took out a bundle of personal papers, precious manuscripts which he had put in order and labelled, with figures known only to him, the names of all those who had become his enemies – whether in his political career, his business dealings, his legal practice or his secret love affairs.
By this time the
number was so huge that he began to tremble; and yet all these names, powerful and fearful as they were, had often brought a smile to his face, as a traveller may smile when, on reaching the summit of the mountain, he looks at the narrow peaks, impassable trails and steep precipices beneath him, up which he struggled for so long to reach his present station.
When he had gone through all the names in his memory, re-read them, studied them and commented on each list, he shook his head. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘None of those enemies would have waited and toiled patiently until now to come and crush me with this secret. Foul deeds will rise, as Hamlet1 says, and sometimes fly through the air like a will-o’-the-wisp, but these are flames that light us a moment to deceive. The story must have been told by the Corsican to some priest, and by him in turn to others. Monte Cristo learned it and wanted to verify it…
‘But why want to verify?’ he wondered after a moment’s reflection. ‘What interest can a dark, mysterious and inconsequential event like that have for Monsieur de Monte Cristo, Monsieur Zaccone, son of a Maltese shipowner and operator of a Thessalian silver mine, who is paying his first visit to France? Among the jumble of information I obtained from that Abbé Busoni and Lord Wilmore, the friend and the enemy, only one thing stands out clearly and plainly in my view, which is that at no time, in no event and under no circumstances can there have been the slightest contact between him and me.’
But Villefort said this without believing his own words. The worst thing, for him, was not the revelation of what he had done, because he could deny it, or even reply to the accusation. It was not the Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin2 suddenly appearing in bloody letters on the wall; what troubled him was not knowing to what body the hand that traced them belonged.
Just as he was trying to reassure himself – and, in place of the political career which he had sometimes envisaged in his ambitious imaginings, he was resigning himself to a future confined to the joys of family life, for fear of awakening this long-dormant enemy – he heard the sound of a carriage outside, then the steps of an old person on the stairs, followed by sobs and exclamations of ‘Alas!’, of the kind that servants emit when they want to make themselves interesting because of their masters’ sorrows.
He hastened to pull back the bolt on his study door and soon, unannounced, an old woman came in, a shawl on her arm and a hat in her hand. Her white hair disclosed a brow as dull as yellowed ivory and her eyes, in the corners of which age had etched deep wrinkles, had almost vanished, so swollen were they with tears.
‘Oh, Monsieur!’ she said. ‘Oh, Monsieur! What a misfortune! I too shall die of it! Oh, yes, I shall surely die!’ And, collapsing into the nearest armchair, she dissolved into tears.
The servants, standing at the door and not daring to advance into the room, turned to look at Noirtier’s old manservant who, having heard the noise from his master’s room and hurried across, was now standing behind the rest. Villefort got up and ran over to his mother-in-law – for she it was.
‘Heaven preserve us, Madame!’ he exclaimed. ‘What has happened? Who has put you in this state? And is Monsieur de Saint-Méran not with you?’
‘Monsieur de Saint-Méran is dead,’ the old marchioness said, coming directly to the matter, but without any sign of feeling, in a kind of stupor.
Villefort started back and struck his hands together. ‘Dead!’ he stammered. ‘Dead, like that… so suddenly?’
‘A week ago,’ Mme de Saint-Méran continued. ‘We were getting into the carriage after dinner. For some days, Monsieur de Saint-Méran had been unwell, yet the idea of seeing our dear Valentine gave him strength despite his pain. He was just starting out when, six leagues from Marseille, after taking his usual pills, he fell into an unnaturally deep sleep. I was unwilling to wake him, but then his face seemed to go red and the veins in his temples to beat more violently than usual. However, as it was now night and getting too dark to see, I let him sleep. Shortly afterwards he gave a dull, heart-rending cry, like a man tormented by a nightmare, and sharply threw back his head. I called the valet, had the coach stopped, called to Monsieur de Saint-Méran and got him to breathe my sal volatile, but it was all over, he was dead and I journeyed to Aix seated beside his corpse.’
Villefort stood there, thunderstruck, his mouth gaping. ‘You called a doctor, I suppose?’ he said.
‘Immediately, but, as I told you, it was too late.’
‘Of course, but at least he could say from what illness the poor marquis died.’
‘Yes, Monsieur, he did that. It appears to have been an apoplectic stroke.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Monsieur de Saint-Méran always used to say that if he died far from Paris he would like his body to be brought to rest in the family vault. I had it put into a lead coffin and it is on its way, a few days’ drive behind me.’
‘Oh, poor mother!’ said Villefort. ‘To be entrusted with such a task, and after such a blow!’
‘God gave me strength; and in any case the dear marquis would surely have done for me what I did for him. It is true that, since I left him behind me there, I have felt I am going mad. I can no longer weep, yet I feel that one should do so, as long as one is suffering. Where is Valentine, Monsieur? We were coming for her; I want to see Valentine.’
Villefort thought that it would be frightful to reply that Valentine was at the ball. He simply told the marchioness that her granddaughter had gone out with her stepmother and that she would be informed.
‘Now, Monsieur, at once, I beg you,’ said the old lady.
Villefort slipped his arm under that of Mme de Saint-Méran and took her to her apartment. ‘Rest, mother,’ he said.
At that word, the marchioness looked up and, seeing the man who reminded her of the much-mourned daughter who seemed to live again for her in Valentine, struck by the name of ‘mother’, she burst into tears and sank to her knees before a chair in which she buried her venerable head. Villefort told the women to look after her, while old Barrois hurried across in a state of consternation to his master: nothing terrifies old people so much as when death leaves their side to strike down another old person. Then, while Mme de Saint-Méran, still kneeling, began to pray from the depths of her heart, Villefort sent for a carriage and took it himself to collect his wife and daughter from Mme de Morcerf’s. He was so pale when he got to the door of the drawing-room that Valentine ran across to him, crying: ‘Oh, father! Something terrible has happened!’
‘Your grandmother has just arrived, Valentine,’ he said.
‘And grandfather?’ the girl asked, trembling.
M. de Villefort’s only reply was to give her his arm. He was only just in time because Valentine reeled, nearly fainting. Mme de Villefort hurried over to support her and helped her husband to get her into the carriage, saying: ‘How strange! Who would have thought it! This truly is strange!’ With that, the stricken family drove off, casting its sadness like a black veil across the rest of the gathering.
Valentine found Barrois waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. ‘Monsieur Noirtier would like to see you this evening,’ he whispered.
‘Tell him to expect me when I have seen my dear grandmother,’ Valentine said, her delicate soul having realized that Mme de Saint-Méran was the person who needed her most at that time.
She found her in bed. Silent caresses, painful swelling of the heart, broken sighs and burning tears were the only positive events in what passed between them. Mme de Villefort was also present, on her husband’s arm, and was full of respect for the poor widow – or so at least it seemed.
After a short while she leant across to whisper in her husband’s ear: ‘With your permission, I think I should retire, because the sight of me appears to make your mother-in-law more distressed.’
Mme de Saint-Méran overheard the remark. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said in Valentine’s ear. ‘Let her go; but you, stay.’
Mme de Villefort went out and Valentine was left alone at her grandmother’s bedside because
the crown prosecutor, dismayed by this unexpected death, followed his wife.
Barrois, however, had gone back to Noirtier’s side the first time; the old man had heard the commotion in the house and sent his servant, as we said, to find out the cause of it. When he returned, the lively and, above all, intelligent eyes asked for his message.
‘Alas, Monsieur,’ said Barrois, ‘something terrible has happened: Madame de Saint-Méran is here and her husband is dead.’
M. de Saint-Méran and Noirtier had never been close, but the effect on one old man of hearing that another has died is well known. Noirtier let his head fall on his chest, like a man weighed down with sorrow or deep in thought, then shut one eye.
‘Mademoiselle Valentine?’ Barrois asked.
Noirtier indicated: ‘Yes.’
‘Monsieur knows very well that she is at the ball, because she came to say goodbye and to show him her dress.’
Noirtier again shut his left eye.
‘You want to see her?’
The old man indicated that he did.
‘Well, no doubt they are going to fetch her from Madame de Morcerf’s. I shall await her on her return and tell her to come up. Is that correct?’
‘Yes,’ said the paralysed man.
This is why Barrois was waiting for Valentine’s return and, as we have seen, informed her of her grandfather’s wishes. Consequently, Valentine went up to M. Noirtier’s on leaving Mme de Saint-Méran who, despite her distress, had finally succumbed to tiredness and was sleeping feverishly. Within her reach they had put a little table with a carafe of orange juice, her usual drink, and a glass. When that was done, the girl left the marchioness’s bedside to go up to Noirtier.
She went to kiss the old man, who looked at her with such tenderness that the young woman felt new tears rising to her eyes from a well that she thought had dried. The old man looked insistently at her.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Valentine. ‘What you are saying is that I still have one good grandfather; is that it?’ The old man indicated that this was indeed what his look had meant.
‘Luckily, alas!’ said Valentine. ‘Because, without that, what would become of me?’