Chapter 52. Toxicology
It was really the Count of Monte Cristo who had just arrived at Madamede Villefort’s for the purpose of returning the procureur’s visit, andat his name, as may be easily imagined, the whole house was inconfusion.
Madame de Villefort, who was alone in her drawing-room when the countwas announced, desired that her son might be brought thither instantlyto renew his thanks to the count; and Edward, who heard this greatpersonage talked of for two whole days, made all possible haste to cometo him, not from obedience to his mother, or out of any feeling ofgratitude to the count, but from sheer curiosity, and that some chanceremark might give him the opportunity for making one of the impertinentspeeches which made his mother say:
“Oh, that naughty child! But I can’t be severe with him, he is really sobright.”
After the usual civilities, the count inquired after M. de Villefort.
“My husband dines with the chancellor,” replied the young lady; “he hasjust gone, and I am sure he’ll be exceedingly sorry not to have had thepleasure of seeing you before he went.”
Two visitors who were there when the count arrived, having gazed at himwith all their eyes, retired after that reasonable delay whichpoliteness admits and curiosity requires.
“What is your sister Valentine doing?” inquired Madame de Villefort ofEdward; “tell someone to bid her come here, that I may have the honor ofintroducing her to the count.”
“You have a daughter, then, madame?” inquired the count; “very young, Ipresume?”
“The daughter of M. de Villefort by his first marriage,” replied theyoung wife, “a fine well-grown girl.”
“But melancholy,” interrupted Master Edward, snatching the feathers outof the tail of a splendid paroquet that was screaming on its gildedperch, in order to make a plume for his hat.
Madame de Villefort merely cried, “Be still, Edward!” She then added,“This young madcap is, however, very nearly right, and merely re-echoeswhat he has heard me say with pain a hundred times; for Mademoiselle deVillefort is, in spite of all we can do to rouse her, of a melancholydisposition and taciturn habit, which frequently injure the effect ofher beauty. But what detains her? Go, Edward, and see.”
“Because they are looking for her where she is not to be found.”
“And where are they looking for her?”
“With grandpapa Noirtier.”
“And do you think she is not there?”
“No, no, no, no, no, she is not there,” replied Edward, singing hiswords.
“And where is she, then? If you know, why don’t you tell?”
“She is under the big chestnut-tree,” replied the spoiled brat, as hegave, in spite of his mother’s commands, live flies to the parrot, whichseemed keenly to relish such fare.
Madame de Villefort stretched out her hand to ring, intending to directher waiting-maid to the spot where she would find Valentine, when theyoung lady herself entered the apartment. She appeared much dejected;and any person who considered her attentively might have observed thetraces of recent tears in her eyes.
Valentine, whom we have in the rapid march of our narrative presented toour readers without formally introducing her, was a tall and gracefulgirl of nineteen, with bright chestnut hair, deep blue eyes, and thatreposeful air of quiet distinction which characterized her mother. Herwhite and slender fingers, her pearly neck, her cheeks tinted withvarying hues reminded one of the lovely Englishwomen who have been sopoetically compared in their manner to the gracefulness of a swan.
She entered the apartment, and seeing near her stepmother the strangerof whom she had already heard so much, saluted him without any girlishawkwardness, or even lowering her eyes, and with an elegance thatredoubled the count’s attention.
He rose to return the salutation.
“Mademoiselle de Villefort, my step-daughter,” said Madame de Villefortto Monte Cristo, leaning back on her sofa and motioning towardsValentine with her hand.
“And M. de Monte Cristo, King of China, Emperor of Cochin-China,” saidthe young imp, looking slyly towards his sister.
Madame de Villefort at this really did turn pale, and was very nearlyangry with this household plague, who answered to the name of Edward;but the count, on the contrary, smiled, and appeared to look at the boycomplacently, which caused the maternal heart to bound again with joyand enthusiasm.
“But, madame,” replied the count, continuing the conversation, andlooking by turns at Madame de Villefort and Valentine, “have I notalready had the honor of meeting yourself and mademoiselle before? Icould not help thinking so just now; the idea came over my mind, and asmademoiselle entered the sight of her was an additional ray of lightthrown on a confused remembrance; excuse the remark.”
“I do not think it likely, sir; Mademoiselle de Villefort is not veryfond of society, and we very seldom go out,” said the young lady.
“Then it was not in society that I met with mademoiselle or yourself,madame, or this charming little merry boy. Besides, the Parisian worldis entirely unknown to me, for, as I believe I told you, I have been inParis but very few days. No,—but, perhaps, you will permit me to call tomind—stay!”
The Count placed his hand on his brow as if to collect his thoughts.
“No—it was somewhere—away from here—it was—I do not know—but it appearsthat this recollection is connected with a lovely sky and some religiousfête; mademoiselle was holding flowers in her hand, the interesting boywas chasing a beautiful peacock in a garden, and you, madame, were underthe trellis of some arbor. Pray come to my aid, madame; do not thesecircumstances appeal to your memory?”
“No, indeed,” replied Madame de Villefort; “and yet it appears to me,sir, that if I had met you anywhere, the recollection of you must havebeen imprinted on my memory.”
“Perhaps the count saw us in Italy,” said Valentine timidly.
“Yes, in Italy; it was in Italy most probably,” replied Monte Cristo;“you have travelled then in Italy, mademoiselle?”
“Yes; madame and I were there two years ago. The doctors, anxious for mylungs, had prescribed the air of Naples. We went by Bologna, Perugia,and Rome.”
“Ah, yes—true, mademoiselle,” exclaimed Monte Cristo as if this simpleexplanation was sufficient to revive the recollection he sought. “It wasat Perugia on Corpus Christi Day, in the garden of the Hôtel des Postes,when chance brought us together; you, Madame de Villefort, and her son;I now remember having had the honor of meeting you.”
“I perfectly well remember Perugia, sir, and the Hôtel des Postes, andthe festival of which you speak,” said Madame de Villefort, “but in vaindo I tax my memory, of whose treachery I am ashamed, for I really do notrecall to mind that I ever had the pleasure of seeing you before.”
“It is strange, but neither do I recollect meeting with you,” observedValentine, raising her beautiful eyes to the count.
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“But I remember it perfectly,” interposed the darling Edward.
“I will assist your memory, madame,” continued the count; “the day hadbeen burning hot; you were waiting for horses, which were delayed inconsequence of the festival. Mademoiselle was walking in the shade ofthe garden, and your son disappeared in pursuit of the peacock.”
“And I caught it, mamma, don’t you remember?” interposed Edward, “and Ipulled three such beautiful feathers out of his tail.”
“You, madame, remained under the arbor; do you not remember, that whileyou were seated on a stone bench, and while, as I told you, Mademoisellede Villefort and your young son were absent, you conversed for aconsiderable time with somebody?”
“Yes, in truth, yes,” answered the young lady, turning very red, “I doremember conversing with a person wrapped in a long woollen mantle; hewas a medical man, I think.”
“Precisely so, madame; this man was myself; for a fortnight I had beenat that hotel, during which period I had cured my valet de chambre of afever, and my landlord of the jaundice, so that I really
acquired areputation as a skilful physician. We discoursed a long time, madame, ondifferent subjects; of Perugino, of Raphael, of manners, customs, of thefamous aqua Tofana, of which they had told you, I think you said, thatcertain individuals in Perugia had preserved the secret.”
“Yes, true,” replied Madame de Villefort, somewhat uneasily, “I remembernow.”
“I do not recollect now all the various subjects of which we discoursed,madame,” continued the count with perfect calmness; “but I perfectlyremember that, falling into the error which others had entertainedrespecting me, you consulted me as to the health of Mademoiselle deVillefort.”
“Yes, really, sir, you were in fact a medical man,” said Madame deVillefort, “since you had cured the sick.”
“Molière or Beaumarchais would reply to you, madame, that it wasprecisely because I was not, that I had cured my patients; for myself, Iam content to say to you that I have studied chemistry and the naturalsciences somewhat deeply, but still only as an amateur, you understand.”
At this moment the clock struck six.
“It is six o’clock,” said Madame de Villefort, evidently agitated.“Valentine, will you not go and see if your grandpapa will have hisdinner?”
Valentine rose, and saluting the count, left the apartment withoutspeaking.
“Oh, madame,” said the count, when Valentine had left the room, “was iton my account that you sent Mademoiselle de Villefort away?”
“By no means,” replied the young lady quickly; “but this is the hourwhen we usually give M. Noirtier the unwelcome meal that sustains hispitiful existence. You are aware, sir, of the deplorable condition of myhusband’s father?”
“Yes, madame, M. de Villefort spoke of it to me—a paralysis, I think.”
“Alas, yes; the poor old gentleman is entirely helpless; the mind aloneis still active in this human machine, and that is faint and flickering,like the light of a lamp about to expire. But excuse me, sir, fortalking of our domestic misfortunes; I interrupted you at the momentwhen you were telling me that you were a skilful chemist.”
“No, madame, I did not say as much as that,” replied the count with asmile; “quite the contrary. I have studied chemistry because, havingdetermined to live in eastern climates I have been desirous of followingthe example of King Mithridates.”
“Mithridates, rex Ponticus,” said the young scamp, as he tore somebeautiful portraits out of a splendid album, “the individual who tookcream in his cup of poison every morning at breakfast.”
“Edward, you naughty boy,” exclaimed Madame de Villefort, snatching themutilated book from the urchin’s grasp, “you are positively pastbearing; you really disturb the conversation; go, leave us, and joinyour sister Valentine in dear grandpapa Noirtier’s room.”
“The album,” said Edward sulkily.
“What do you mean?—the album!”
“I want the album.”
“How dare you tear out the drawings?”
“Oh, it amuses me.”
“Go—go at once.”
“I won’t go unless you give me the album,” said the boy, seating himselfdoggedly in an armchair, according to his habit of never giving way.
“Take it, then, and pray disturb us no longer,” said Madame deVillefort, giving the album to Edward, who then went towards the door,led by his mother. The count followed her with his eyes.
“Let us see if she shuts the door after him,” he muttered.
Madame de Villefort closed the door carefully after the child, the countappearing not to notice her; then casting a scrutinizing glance aroundthe chamber, the young wife returned to her chair, in which she seatedherself.
“Allow me to observe, madame,” said the count, with that kind tone hecould assume so well, “you are really very severe with that dear cleverchild.”
“Oh, sometimes severity is quite necessary,” replied Madame deVillefort, with all a mother’s real firmness.
“It was his Cornelius Nepos that Master Edward was repeating when hereferred to King Mithridates,” continued the count, “and you interruptedhim in a quotation which proves that his tutor has by no means neglectedhim, for your son is really advanced for his years.”
“The fact is, count,” answered the mother, agreeably flattered, “he hasgreat aptitude, and learns all that is set before him. He has but onefault, he is somewhat wilful; but really, on referring for the moment towhat he said, do you truly believe that Mithridates used theseprecautions, and that these precautions were efficacious?”
“I think so, madame, because I myself have made use of them, that Imight not be poisoned at Naples, at Palermo, and at Smyrna—that is tosay, on three several occasions when, but for these precautions, I musthave lost my life.”
“And your precautions were successful?”
“Completely so.”
“Yes, I remember now your mentioning to me at Perugia something of thissort.”
“Indeed?” said the count with an air of surprise, remarkably wellcounterfeited; “I really did not remember.”
“I inquired of you if poisons acted equally, and with the same effect,on men of the North as on men of the South; and you answered me that thecold and sluggish habits of the North did not present the same aptitudeas the rich and energetic temperaments of the natives of the South.”
“And that is the case,” observed Monte Cristo. “I have seen Russiansdevour, without being visibly inconvenienced, vegetable substances whichwould infallibly have killed a Neapolitan or an Arab.”
“And you really believe the result would be still more sure with us thanin the East, and in the midst of our fogs and rains a man wouldhabituate himself more easily than in a warm latitude to thisprogressive absorption of poison?”
“Certainly; it being at the same time perfectly understood that heshould have been duly fortified against the poison to which he had notbeen accustomed.”
“Yes, I understand that; and how would you habituate yourself, forinstance, or rather, how did you habituate yourself to it?”
“Oh, very easily. Suppose you knew beforehand the poison that would bemade use of against you; suppose the poison was, for instance,brucine——”
“Brucine is extracted from the false angostura8 is it not?” inquiredMadame de Villefort.
“Precisely, madame,” replied Monte Cristo; “but I perceive I have notmuch to teach you. Allow me to compliment you on your knowledge; suchlearning is very rare among ladies.”
“Oh, I am aware of that,” said Madame de Villefort; “but I have apassion for the occult sciences, which speak to the imagination likepoetry, and are reducible to figures, like an algebraic equation; but goon, I beg of you; what you say interests me to the greatest degree.”
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“Well,” replied Monte Cristo “suppose, then, that this poison wasbrucine, and you were to take a milligramme the first day, twomilligrammes the second day, and so on. Well, at the end of ten days youwould have taken a centigramme, at the end of twenty days, increasinganother milligramme, you would have taken three hundred centigrammes;that is to say, a dose which you would support without inconvenience,and which would be very dangerous for any other person who had not takenthe same precautions as yourself. Well, then, at the end of a month,when drinking water from the same carafe, you would kill the person whodrank with you, without your perceiving, otherwise than from slightinconvenience, that there was any poisonous substance mingled with thiswater.”
“Do you know any other counter-poisons?”
“I do not.”
“I have often read, and read again, the history of Mithridates,” saidMadame de Villefort in a tone of reflection, “and had always consideredit a fable.”
“No, madame, contrary to most history, it is true; but what you tell me,madame, what you inquire of me, is not the result of a chance query, fortwo years ago you asked me the same questions, and said then, that for avery long time this history of Mithridates had occupied your mind.”
“True, sir. The two
favorite studies of my youth were botany andmineralogy, and subsequently, when I learned that the use of simplesfrequently explained the whole history of a people, and the entire lifeof individuals in the East, as flowers betoken and symbolize a loveaffair, I have regretted that I was not a man, that I might have been aFlamel, a Fontana, or a Cabanis.”
“And the more, madame,” said Monte Cristo, “as the Orientals do notconfine themselves, as did Mithridates, to make a cuirass of hispoisons, but they also made them a dagger. Science becomes, in theirhands, not only a defensive weapon, but still more frequently anoffensive one; the one serves against all their physical sufferings, theother against all their enemies. With opium, belladonna, brucea, snake-wood, and the cherry-laurel, they put to sleep all who stand in theirway. There is not one of those women, Egyptian, Turkish, or Greek, whomhere you call ‘good women,’ who do not know how, by means of chemistry,to stupefy a doctor, and in psychology to amaze a confessor.”
“Really,” said Madame de Villefort, whose eyes sparkled with strangefire at this conversation.
“Oh, yes, indeed, madame,” continued Monte Cristo, “the secret dramas ofthe East begin with a love philtre and end with a death potion—beginwith paradise and end with—hell. There are as many elixirs of every kindas there are caprices and peculiarities in the physical and moral natureof humanity; and I will say further—the art of these chemists is capablewith the utmost precision to accommodate and proportion the remedy andthe bane to yearnings for love or desires for vengeance.”
“But, sir,” remarked the young woman, “these Eastern societies, in themidst of which you have passed a portion of your existence, are asfantastic as the tales that come from their strange land. A man caneasily be put out of the way there, then; it is, indeed, the Bagdad andBassora of the Thousand and One Nights. The sultans and viziers who ruleover society there, and who constitute what in France we call thegovernment, are really Haroun-al-Raschids and Giaffars, who not onlypardon a poisoner, but even make him a prime minister, if his crime hasbeen an ingenious one, and who, under such circumstances, have the wholestory written in letters of gold, to divert their hours of idleness andennui.”
“By no means, madame; the fanciful exists no longer in the East. There,disguised under other names, and concealed under other costumes, arepolice agents, magistrates, attorneys-general, and bailiffs. They hang,behead, and impale their criminals in the most agreeable possiblemanner; but some of these, like clever rogues, have contrived to escapehuman justice, and succeed in their fraudulent enterprises by cunningstratagems. Amongst us a simpleton, possessed by the demon of hate orcupidity, who has an enemy to destroy, or some near relation to disposeof, goes straight to the grocer’s or druggist’s, gives a false name,which leads more easily to his detection than his real one, and underthe pretext that the rats prevent him from sleeping, purchases five orsix grammes of arsenic—if he is really a cunning fellow, he goes to fiveor six different druggists or grocers, and thereby becomes only five orsix times more easily traced;—then, when he has acquired his specific,he administers duly to his enemy, or near kinsman, a dose of arsenicwhich would make a mammoth or mastodon burst, and which, without rhymeor reason, makes his victim utter groans which alarm the entireneighborhood. Then arrive a crowd of policemen and constables. Theyfetch a doctor, who opens the dead body, and collects from the entrailsand stomach a quantity of arsenic in a spoon. Next day a hundrednewspapers relate the fact, with the names of the victim and themurderer. The same evening the grocer or grocers, druggist or druggists,come and say, ‘It was I who sold the arsenic to the gentleman;’ andrather than not recognize the guilty purchaser, they will recognizetwenty. Then the foolish criminal is taken, imprisoned, interrogated,confronted, confounded, condemned, and cut off by hemp or steel; or ifshe be a woman of any consideration, they lock her up for life. This isthe way in which you Northerns understand chemistry, madame. Desrueswas, however, I must confess, more skilful.”
“What would you have, sir?” said the lady, laughing; “we do what we can.All the world has not the secret of the Medicis or the Borgias.”
“Now,” replied the count, shrugging his shoulders, “shall I tell you thecause of all these stupidities? It is because, at your theatres, by whatat least I could judge by reading the pieces they play, they see personsswallow the contents of a phial, or suck the button of a ring, and falldead instantly. Five minutes afterwards the curtain falls, and thespectators depart. They are ignorant of the consequences of the murder;they see neither the police commissary with his badge of office, nor thecorporal with his four men; and so the poor fools believe that the wholething is as easy as lying. But go a little way from France—go either toAleppo or Cairo, or only to Naples or Rome, and you will see peoplepassing by you in the streets—people erect, smiling, and fresh-colored,of whom Asmodeus, if you were holding on by the skirt of his mantle,would say, ‘That man was poisoned three weeks ago; he will be a dead manin a month.’”
“Then,” remarked Madame de Villefort, “they have again discovered thesecret of the famous aqua Tofana that they said was lost at Perugia.”
“Ah, but madame, does mankind ever lose anything? The arts change aboutand make a tour of the world; things take a different name, and thevulgar do not follow them—that is all; but there is always the sameresult. Poisons act particularly on some organ or another—one on thestomach, another on the brain, another on the intestines. Well, thepoison brings on a cough, the cough an inflammation of the lungs, orsome other complaint catalogued in the book of science, which, however,by no means precludes it from being decidedly mortal; and if it werenot, would be sure to become so, thanks to the remedies applied byfoolish doctors, who are generally bad chemists, and which will act infavor of or against the malady, as you please; and then there is a humanbeing killed according to all the rules of art and skill, and of whomjustice learns nothing, as was said by a terrible chemist of myacquaintance, the worthy Abbé Adelmonte of Taormina, in Sicily, who hasstudied these national phenomena very profoundly.”
“It is quite frightful, but deeply interesting,” said the young lady,motionless with attention. “I thought, I must confess, that these tales,were inventions of the Middle Ages.”
“Yes, no doubt, but improved upon by ours. What is the use of time,rewards of merit, medals, crosses, Monthyon prizes, if they do not leadsociety towards more complete perfection? Yet man will never be perfectuntil he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, andthat is half the battle.”
“So,” added Madame de Villefort, constantly returning to her object,“the poisons of the Borgias, the Medicis, the Renées, the Ruggieris, andlater, probably, that of Baron de Trenck, whose story has been somisused by modern drama and romance——”
“Were objects of art, madame, and nothing more,” replied the count. “Doyou suppose that the real savant addresses himself stupidly to the mereindividual? By no means. Science loves eccentricities, leaps and bounds,trials of strength, fancies, if I may be allowed so to term them. Thus,for instance, the excellent Abbé Adelmonte, of whom I spoke just now,made in this way some marvellous experiments.”
“Really?”
“Yes; I will mention one to you. He had a remarkably fine garden, fullof vegetables, flowers, and fruit. From amongst these vegetables heselected the most simple—a cabbage, for instance. For three days hewatered this cabbage with a distillation of arsenic; on the third, thecabbage began to droop and turn yellow. At that moment he cut it. In theeyes of everybody it seemed fit for table, and preserved its wholesomeappearance. It was only poisoned to the Abbé Adelmonte. He then took thecabbage to the room where he had rabbits—for the Abbé Adelmonte had acollection of rabbits, cats, and guinea-pigs, fully as fine as hiscollection of vegetables, flowers, and fruit. Well, the Abbé Adelmontetook a rabbit, and made it eat a leaf of the cabbage. The rabbit died.What magistrate would find, or even venture to insinuate, anythingagainst this? What procureur has ever ventured to draw up an accusationagainst M. Magendie or M. Flou
rens, in consequence of the rabbits, cats,and guinea-pigs they have killed?—not one. So, then, the rabbit dies,and justice takes no notice. This rabbit dead, the Abbé Adelmonte hasits entrails taken out by his cook and thrown on the dunghill; on thisdunghill is a hen, who, pecking these intestines, is in her turn takenill, and dies next day. At the moment when she is struggling in theconvulsions of death, a vulture is flying by (there are a good manyvultures in Adelmonte’s country); this bird darts on the dead fowl, andcarries it away to a rock, where it dines off its prey. Three daysafterwards, this poor vulture, which has been very much indisposed sincethat dinner, suddenly feels very giddy while flying aloft in the clouds,and falls heavily into a fish-pond. The pike, eels, and carp eatgreedily always, as everybody knows—well, they feast on the vulture. Nowsuppose that next day, one of these eels, or pike, or carp, poisoned atthe fourth remove, is served up at your table. Well, then, your guestwill be poisoned at the fifth remove, and die, at the end of eight orten days, of pains in the intestines, sickness, or abscess of thepylorus. The doctors open the body and say with an air of profoundlearning, ‘The subject has died of a tumor on the liver, or of typhoidfever!’”
“But,” remarked Madame de Villefort, “all these circumstances which youlink thus to one another may be broken by the least accident; thevulture may not see the fowl, or may fall a hundred yards from the fish-pond.”
“Ah, that is where the art comes in. To be a great chemist in the East,one must direct chance; and this is to be achieved.”
Madame de Villefort was in deep thought, yet listened attentively.
“But,” she exclaimed, suddenly, “arsenic is indelible, indestructible;in whatsoever way it is absorbed, it will be found again in the body ofthe victim from the moment when it has been taken in sufficient quantityto cause death.”
“Precisely so,” cried Monte Cristo—“precisely so; and this is what Isaid to my worthy Adelmonte. He reflected, smiled, and replied to me bya Sicilian proverb, which I believe is also a French proverb, ‘My son,the world was not made in a day—but in seven. Return on Sunday.’ On theSunday following I did return to him. Instead of having watered hiscabbage with arsenic, he had watered it this time with a solution ofsalts, having their basis in strychnine, strychnos colubrina, as thelearned term it. Now, the cabbage had not the slightest appearance ofdisease in the world, and the rabbit had not the smallest distrust; yet,five minutes afterwards, the rabbit was dead. The fowl pecked at therabbit, and the next day was a dead hen. This time we were the vultures;so we opened the bird, and this time all special symptoms haddisappeared, there were only general symptoms. There was no peculiarindication in any organ—an excitement of the nervous system—that was it;a case of cerebral congestion—nothing more. The fowl had not beenpoisoned—she had died of apoplexy. Apoplexy is a rare disease amongfowls, I believe, but very common among men.”
Madame de Villefort appeared more and more thoughtful.
“It is very fortunate,” she observed, “that such substances could onlybe prepared by chemists; otherwise, all the world would be poisoningeach other.”
“By chemists and persons who have a taste for chemistry,” said MonteCristo carelessly.
“And then,” said Madame de Villefort, endeavoring by a struggle, andwith effort, to get away from her thoughts, “however skilfully it isprepared, crime is always crime, and if it avoid human scrutiny, it doesnot escape the eye of God. The Orientals are stronger than we are incases of conscience, and, very prudently, have no hell—that is thepoint.”
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“Really, madame, this is a scruple which naturally must occur to a puremind like yours, but which would easily yield before sound reasoning.The bad side of human thought will always be defined by the paradox ofJean Jacques Rousseau,—you remember,—the mandarin who is killed fivehundred leagues off by raising the tip of the finger. Man’s whole lifepasses in doing these things, and his intellect is exhausted byreflecting on them. You will find very few persons who will go andbrutally thrust a knife in the heart of a fellow-creature, or willadminister to him, in order to remove him from the surface of the globeon which we move with life and animation, that quantity of arsenic ofwhich we just now talked. Such a thing is really out of rule—eccentricor stupid. To attain such a point, the blood must be heated to thirty-six degrees, the pulse be, at least, at ninety, and the feelings excitedbeyond the ordinary limit. But suppose one pass, as is permissible inphilology, from the word itself to its softened synonym, then, insteadof committing an ignoble assassination you make an ‘elimination;’ youmerely and simply remove from your path the individual who is in yourway, and that without shock or violence, without the display of thesufferings which, in the case of becoming a punishment, make a martyr ofthe victim, and a butcher, in every sense of the word, of him whoinflicts them. Then there will be no blood, no groans, no convulsions,and above all, no consciousness of that horrid and compromising momentof accomplishing the act,—then one escapes the clutch of the human law,which says, ‘Do not disturb society!’ This is the mode in which theymanage these things, and succeed in Eastern climes, where there aregrave and phlegmatic persons who care very little for the questions oftime in conjunctures of importance.”
“Yet conscience remains,” remarked Madame de Villefort in an agitatedvoice, and with a stifled sigh.
“Yes,” answered Monte Cristo “happily, yes, conscience does remain; andif it did not, how wretched we should be! After every action requiringexertion, it is conscience that saves us, for it supplies us with athousand good excuses, of which we alone are judges; and these reasons,howsoever excellent in producing sleep, would avail us but very littlebefore a tribunal, when we were tried for our lives. Thus Richard III.,for instance, was marvellously served by his conscience after theputting away of the two children of Edward IV.; in fact, he could say,‘These two children of a cruel and persecuting king, who have inheritedthe vices of their father, which I alone could perceive in theirjuvenile propensities—these two children are impediments in my way ofpromoting the happiness of the English people, whose unhappiness they(the children) would infallibly have caused.’ Thus was Lady Macbethserved by her conscience, when she sought to give her son, and not herhusband (whatever Shakespeare may say), a throne. Ah, maternal love is agreat virtue, a powerful motive—so powerful that it excuses a multitudeof things, even if, after Duncan’s death, Lady Macbeth had been at allpricked by her conscience.”
Madame de Villefort listened with avidity to these appalling maxims andhorrible paradoxes, delivered by the count with that ironical simplicitywhich was peculiar to him.
After a moment’s silence, the lady inquired:
“Do you know, my dear count,” she said, “that you are a very terriblereasoner, and that you look at the world through a somewhat distemperedmedium? Have you really measured the world by scrutinies, or throughalembics and crucibles? For you must indeed be a great chemist, and theelixir you administered to my son, which recalled him to life almostinstantaneously——”
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“Oh, do not place any reliance on that, madame; one drop of that elixirsufficed to recall life to a dying child, but three drops would haveimpelled the blood into his lungs in such a way as to have produced mostviolent palpitations; six would have suspended his respiration, andcaused syncope more serious than that in which he was; ten would havedestroyed him. You know, madame, how suddenly I snatched him from thosephials which he so imprudently touched?”
“Is it then so terrible a poison?”
“Oh, no! In the first place, let us agree that the word poison does notexist, because in medicine use is made of the most violent poisons,which become, according as they are employed, most salutary remedies.”
“What, then, is it?”
“A skilful preparation of my friend’s the worthy Abbé Adelmonte, whotaught me the use of it.”
“Oh,” observed Madame de Villefort, “it must be an admirable anti-spasmodic.”
“Perfect, madame, as you have seen,
” replied the count; “and Ifrequently make use of it—with all possible prudence though, be itobserved,” he added with a smile of intelligence.
“Most assuredly,” responded Madame de Villefort in the same tone. “Asfor me, so nervous, and so subject to fainting fits, I should require aDoctor Adelmonte to invent for me some means of breathing freely andtranquillizing my mind, in the fear I have of dying some fine day ofsuffocation. In the meanwhile, as the thing is difficult to find inFrance, and your abbé is not probably disposed to make a journey toParis on my account, I must continue to use Monsieur Planche’s anti-spasmodics; and mint and Hoffman’s drops are among my favorite remedies.Here are some lozenges which I have made up on purpose; they arecompounded doubly strong.”
Monte Cristo opened the tortoise-shell box, which the lady presented tohim, and inhaled the odor of the lozenges with the air of an amateur whothoroughly appreciated their composition.
“They are indeed exquisite,” he said; “but as they are necessarilysubmitted to the process of deglutition—a function which it isfrequently impossible for a fainting person to accomplish—I prefer myown specific.”
“Undoubtedly, and so should I prefer it, after the effects I have seenproduced; but of course it is a secret, and I am not so indiscreet as toask it of you.”
“But I,” said Monte Cristo, rising as he spoke—“I am gallant enough tooffer it you.”
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“How kind you are.”
“Only remember one thing—a small dose is a remedy, a large one ispoison. One drop will restore life, as you have seen; five or six willinevitably kill, and in a way the more terrible inasmuch as, poured intoa glass of wine, it would not in the slightest degree affect its flavor.But I say no more, madame; it is really as if I were prescribing foryou.”
The clock struck half-past six, and a lady was announced, a friend ofMadame de Villefort, who came to dine with her.
“If I had had the honor of seeing you for the third or fourth time,count, instead of only for the second,” said Madame de Villefort; “if Ihad had the honor of being your friend, instead of only having thehappiness of being under an obligation to you, I should insist ondetaining you to dinner, and not allow myself to be daunted by a firstrefusal.”
“A thousand thanks, madame,” replied Monte Cristo “but I have anengagement which I cannot break. I have promised to escort to theAcadémie a Greek princess of my acquaintance who has never seen yourgrand opera, and who relies on me to conduct her thither.”
“Adieu, then, sir, and do not forget the prescription.”
“Ah, in truth, madame, to do that I must forget the hour’s conversationI have had with you, which is indeed impossible.”
Monte Cristo bowed, and left the house. Madame de Villefort remainedimmersed in thought.
“He is a very strange man,” she said, “and in my opinion is himself theAdelmonte he talks about.”
As to Monte Cristo the result had surpassed his utmost expectations.
“Good,” said he, as he went away; “this is a fruitful soil, and I feelcertain that the seed sown will not be cast on barren ground.”
Next morning, faithful to his promise, he sent the prescriptionrequested.