Chapter 9. The Evening of the Betrothal
Villefort had, as we have said, hastened back to Madame de Saint-Méran’sin the Place du Grand Cours, and on entering the house found that theguests whom he had left at table were taking coffee in the salon. Renéewas, with all the rest of the company, anxiously awaiting him, and hisentrance was followed by a general exclamation.
“Well, Decapitator, Guardian of the State, Royalist, Brutus, what is thematter?” said one. “Speak out.”
“Are we threatened with a fresh Reign of Terror?” asked another.
“Has the Corsican ogre broken loose?” cried a third.
“Marquise,” said Villefort, approaching his future mother-in-law, “Irequest your pardon for thus leaving you. Will the marquis honor me by afew moments’ private conversation?”
“Ah, it is really a serious matter, then?” asked the marquis, remarkingthe cloud on Villefort’s brow.
“So serious that I must take leave of you for a few days; so,” added he,turning to Renée, “judge for yourself if it be not important.”
“You are going to leave us?” cried Renée, unable to hide her emotion atthis unexpected announcement.
“Alas,” returned Villefort, “I must!”
“Where, then, are you going?” asked the marquise.
“That, madame, is an official secret; but if you have any commissionsfor Paris, a friend of mine is going there tonight, and will withpleasure undertake them.” The guests looked at each other.
“You wish to speak to me alone?” said the marquis.
“Yes, let us go to the library, please.” The marquis took his arm, andthey left the salon.
“Well,” asked he, as soon as they were by themselves, “tell me what itis?”
“An affair of the greatest importance, that demands my immediatepresence in Paris. Now, excuse the indiscretion, marquis, but have youany landed property?”
“All my fortune is in the funds; seven or eight hundred thousandfrancs.”
“Then sell out—sell out, marquis, or you will lose it all.”
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“But how can I sell out here?”
“You have a broker, have you not?”
“Yes.”
“Then give me a letter to him, and tell him to sell out without aninstant’s delay, perhaps even now I shall arrive too late.”
“The deuce you say!” replied the marquis, “let us lose no time, then!”
And, sitting down, he wrote a letter to his broker, ordering him to sellout at the market price.
“Now, then,” said Villefort, placing the letter in his pocketbook, “Imust have another!”
“To whom?”
“To the king.”
“To the king?”
“Yes.”
“I dare not write to his majesty.”
“I do not ask you to write to his majesty, but ask M. de Salvieux to doso. I want a letter that will enable me to reach the king’s presencewithout all the formalities of demanding an audience; that wouldoccasion a loss of precious time.”
“But address yourself to the keeper of the seals; he has the right ofentry at the Tuileries, and can procure you audience at any hour of theday or night.”
“Doubtless; but there is no occasion to divide the honors of mydiscovery with him. The keeper would leave me in the background, andtake all the glory to himself. I tell you, marquis, my fortune is madeif I only reach the Tuileries the first, for the king will not forgetthe service I do him.”
“In that case go and get ready. I will call Salvieux and make him writethe letter.”
“Be as quick as possible, I must be on the road in a quarter of anhour.”
“Tell your coachman to stop at the door.”
“You will present my excuses to the marquise and Mademoiselle Renée,whom I leave on such a day with great regret.”
“You will find them both here, and can make your farewells in person.”
“A thousand thanks—and now for the letter.”
The marquis rang, a servant entered.
“Say to the Comte de Salvieux that I would like to see him.”
“Now, then, go,” said the marquis.
“I shall be gone only a few moments.”
Villefort hastily quitted the apartment, but reflecting that the sightof the deputy procureur running through the streets would be enough tothrow the whole city into confusion, he resumed his ordinary pace. Athis door he perceived a figure in the shadow that seemed to wait forhim. It was Mercédès, who, hearing no news of her lover, had comeunobserved to inquire after him.
As Villefort drew near, she advanced and stood before him. Dantès hadspoken of Mercédès, and Villefort instantly recognized her. Her beautyand high bearing surprised him, and when she inquired what had become ofher lover, it seemed to him that she was the judge, and he the accused.
“The young man you speak of,” said Villefort abruptly, “is a greatcriminal, and I can do nothing for him, mademoiselle.” Mercédès burstinto tears, and, as Villefort strove to pass her, again addressed him.
“But, at least, tell me where he is, that I may know whether he is aliveor dead,” said she.
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“I do not know; he is no longer in my hands,” replied Villefort.
And desirous of putting an end to the interview, he pushed by her, andclosed the door, as if to exclude the pain he felt. But remorse is notthus banished; like Virgil’s wounded hero, he carried the arrow in hiswound, and, arrived at the salon, Villefort uttered a sigh that wasalmost a sob, and sank into a chair.
Then the first pangs of an unending torture seized upon his heart. Theman he sacrificed to his ambition, that innocent victim immolated on thealtar of his father’s faults, appeared to him pale and threatening,leading his affianced bride by the hand, and bringing with him remorse,not such as the ancients figured, furious and terrible, but that slowand consuming agony whose pangs are intensified from hour to hour up tothe very moment of death. Then he had a moment’s hesitation. He hadfrequently called for capital punishment on criminals, and owing to hisirresistible eloquence they had been condemned, and yet the slightestshadow of remorse had never clouded Villefort’s brow, because they wereguilty; at least, he believed so; but here was an innocent man whosehappiness he had destroyed. In this case he was not the judge, but theexecutioner.
As he thus reflected, he felt the sensation we have described, and whichhad hitherto been unknown to him, arise in his bosom, and fill him withvague apprehensions. It is thus that a wounded man tremblesinstinctively at the approach of the finger to his wound until it behealed, but Villefort’s was one of those that never close, or if theydo, only close to reopen more agonizing than ever. If at this moment thesweet voice of Renée had sounded in his ears pleading for mercy, or thefair Mercédès had entered and said, “In the name of God, I conjure youto restore me my affianced husband,” his cold and trembling hands wouldhave signed his release; but no voice broke the stillness of thechamber, and the door was opened only by Villefort’s valet, who came totell him that the travelling carriage was in readiness.
Villefort rose, or rather sprang, from his chair, hastily opened one ofthe drawers of his desk, emptied all the gold it contained into hispocket, stood motionless an instant, his hand pressed to his head,muttered a few inarticulate sounds, and then, perceiving that hisservant had placed his cloak on his shoulders, he sprang into thecarriage, ordering the postilions to drive to M. de Saint-Méran’s. Thehapless Dantès was doomed.
As the marquis had promised, Villefort found the marquise and Renée inwaiting. He started when he saw Renée, for he fancied she was againabout to plead for Dantès. Alas, her emotions were wholly personal: shewas thinking only of Villefort’s departure.
She loved Villefort, and he left her at the moment he was about tobecome her husband. Villefort knew not when he should return, and Renée,far from pleading for Dantès, hated the man whose crime separated herfrom her lover.
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eanwhile what of Mercédès? She had met Fernand at the corner of the Ruede la Loge; she had returned to the Catalans, and had despairingly castherself on her couch. Fernand, kneeling by her side, took her hand, andcovered it with kisses that Mercédès did not even feel. She passed thenight thus. The lamp went out for want of oil, but she paid no heed tothe darkness, and dawn came, but she knew not that it was day. Grief hadmade her blind to all but one object—that was Edmond.
“Ah, you are there,” said she, at length, turning towards Fernand.
“I have not quitted you since yesterday,” returned Fernand sorrowfully.
M. Morrel had not readily given up the fight. He had learned that Dantèshad been taken to prison, and he had gone to all his friends, and theinfluential persons of the city; but the report was already incirculation that Dantès was arrested as a Bonapartist agent; and as themost sanguine looked upon any attempt of Napoleon to remount the throneas impossible, he met with nothing but refusal, and had returned home indespair, declaring that the matter was serious and that nothing morecould be done.
Caderousse was equally restless and uneasy, but instead of seeking, likeM. Morrel, to aid Dantès, he had shut himself up with two bottles ofblack currant brandy, in the hope of drowning reflection. But he did notsucceed, and became too intoxicated to fetch any more drink, and yet notso intoxicated as to forget what had happened. With his elbows on thetable he sat between the two empty bottles, while spectres danced in thelight of the unsnuffed candle—spectres such as Hoffmann strews over hispunch-drenched pages, like black, fantastic dust.
Danglars alone was content and joyous—he had got rid of an enemy andmade his own situation on the Pharaon secure. Danglars was one of thosemen born with a pen behind the ear, and an inkstand in place of a heart.Everything with him was multiplication or subtraction. The life of a manwas to him of far less value than a numeral, especially when, by takingit away, he could increase the sum total of his own desires. He went tobed at his usual hour, and slept in peace.
Villefort, after having received M. de Salvieux’s letter, embracedRenée, kissed the marquise’s hand, and shaken that of the marquis,started for Paris along the Aix road.
Old Dantès was dying with anxiety to know what had become of Edmond. Butwe know very well what had become of Edmond.