The Count of Monte-Cristo/Volume 5/Chapter 113
CHAPTER CXIII
THE HOUSE IN THE ALLÉES DE MEILLAN
EN leagues were passed without a single word being pronounced. Morrel was dreaming, and Monte-Cristo was looking at the dreamer.
"Morrel," said the count to him at length, "do you repent having followed me?"
"No, count; but to leave Paris———"
"If I thought happiness might await you in Paris, Morrel, I would have left you there."
"Valentine reposes within the walls of Paris, and to leave Paris is like losing her a second time."
"Maximilian," said the count, "the friends that we have lost do not repose in the bosom of the earth, but are buried deep in our hearts; and it has been thus ordained, that we may always be accompanied by them. I have two friends, who, in this way, never depart from me; the one who gave me being, and the other who conferred knowledge and intelligence on me. Their spirits live in me. I consult them when doubtful, and if ever I do any good, it is to their good counsels that I am indebted. Listen to the voice of your heart, Morrel, and ask it whether you ought to preserve this melancholy exterior."
"My friend," said Maximilian, "the voice of my heart is very sad, and promises only sorrow."
"It is ever thus that weakened minds see everything as through a black veil; the soul forms its own horizons; your soul is darkened and consequently the sky of the future appears stormy."
"That may possibly be true," said Maximilian. And he again subsided into his thoughtful mood.
The journey was performed with that marvelous rapidity which was one of the count's sources of power; towns fled from them like shadows on their path, and trees shaken by the first winds of autumn seemed like giants madly rushing on to meet them, and retreating as rapidly when once reached. The following morning they arrived at Châlons, where the count's steamboat waited for them; without an instant being lost, the carnage was placed on board, and the two travelers embarked without delay. The boat was built for speed; her two paddle-wheels resembled two wings with which she skimmed the water like a bird.
Morrel was not insensible to that sensation of delight which is generally experienced in passing rapidly through the air, and the wind, which occasionally raised the hair from his forehead, seemed on the point of dispelling momentarily the clouds collected there. As the distance increased between the travelers and Paris, an almost superhuman serenity appeared to surround the count; he might have been taken for an exile about to revisit his native land.
Ere long Marseilles presented herself to view. Marseilles, white, warm and full of life,—Marseilles, the younger sister of Tyre and Carthage, that has succeeded to them in the empire of the Mediterranean,—Marseilles, always the younger, the older she grows,—Marseilles was seen. Powerful memories were stirred within them by the sight of that round tower, that Fort Saint-Nicolas, that Hôtel-de-Ville built by Puget, that port with its quays of brick, where they had both gamboled as children; and it was with one accord that they stopped on the Cannebière.
A vessel was setting sail for Algiers, on board of which the bustle usually attending departure prevailed. The passengers and their relations crowded on the deck, friends taking a tender but sorrowful leave of each other, some weeping, others noisy in their grief, formed a spectacle, exciting even to those who witnessed similar ones daily, but which had not the power to disturb the current of thought that had taken possession of the mind of Maximilian from the moment he had set foot on the broad pavement of the quay.
"Here," said he, leaning heavily on the arm of Monte-Cristo,—"here is the spot where my father stopped when the Pharaon entered the port; it was here that the good old man whom you saved from death and dishonor threw himself into my arms. I yet feel his warm tears on my face, and his were not the only tears shed, for many who witnessed our meeting wept also."
Monte-Cristo gently smiled and said,—"I was there;" at the same time pointing to the corner of a street.
As he spoke, and in the very direction he indicated, a groan, expressive of bitter grief, was heard; and a woman was seen waving her hand to a passenger on board the vessel about to sail. She was closely veiled. Monte-Cristo looked at her with an emotion that must have been remarked by Morrel had not his eyes been fixed on the vessel.
"Oh! heavens!" exclaimed Morrel, "I do not deceive myself—that young man who is waving his hat, that youth in the uniform of a lieutenant, is Albert de Morcerf!"
"Yes," said Monte-Cristo, "I recognized him."
"How so?—you were looking the other way."
The count smiled, as he was in the habit: of doing when he did, not want to make any reply, and he again turned his looks toward the veiled woman, who soon disappeared at the corner of the street. Turning to his friend:
"Dear Maximilian," said the count, "have you nothing to do in this region?" "I have to weep over the grave of my father," replied Morrel, in a broken voice.
"Well, then, go, wait for me there, and I will soon join you."
"You leave me, then?"
"Yes; I also have a pious visit to pay."
Morrel allowed his hand to fall into that which the count extended to him; then with an inexpressibly melancholy inclination of the head he quitted the count, and bent his steps to the east of the city. Monte-Cristo remained on the same spot until Maximilian was out of sight; he then walked slowly toward the Allées de Meillan to seek out the small house with which our readers must have been familiar at the commencement of this story.
It yet stood under the shade of the fine avenue of lime-trees, which forms one of the most frequent walks of the idlers of Marseilles; covered by an immense vine, which spreads its aged and blackened branches over the stone front, burned yellow by the ardent sun of the south. Two stone steps, worn away by the friction of the feet, led to the door, made of three planks, which, owing to their never having made acquaintance with paint or varnish, parted annually to reunite again when the damp season arrived. This house, with all its crumbling antiquity and apparent misery, was yet cheerful and picturesque, and was the same that old Dantès formerly inhabited—the only difference being that the old man occupied merely the garret, while the whole house was now placed at the command of Mercédès by the count.
The woman whom the count had seen leave the ship with so much regret entered this house; she had scarcely closed the door after her when Monte-Cristo appeared at the corner of a street, so that he found and lost her again almost at the same instant. The worn-out steps were old acquaintances of his; he knew better than any one else how to open that weather-beaten door with a large-headed nail, which served to raise the latch within. He entered without knocking, or giving any other intimation of his presence, as if he had been the friend or the master of the place. At the end of a passage, paved with bricks, was seen a little garden, bathed in sunshine, and rich in warmth and light—it was in this garden that Mercédès found in the place indicated by the count, the sum of money which he, through a sense of delicacy, intimated had been placed there four-and-twenty years previously. The trees of the garden were easily seen from the steps of the street-door.
Monte-Cristo, on stepping into the house, heard a sigh, almost resembling a deep sob; he looked in the direction whence it came, and there, under an arbor of Virginian jasmine, with its thick foliage and beautiful long purple flowers, he perceived Mercédès seated with her head bowed, and weeping bitterly. She had raised her veil, and with her face hidden by her hands, was giving free scope to those sighs and tears which had been so long restrained by the presence of her son.
Monte-Cristo advanced a few paces, which were heard on the gravel. Mercédès raised her head, and uttered a cry of terror on beholding a man before her.
"Madame," said the count, "it is no longer in my power to restore you to happiness, but I offer you consolation; will you deign to accept it as coming from a friend?"
"I am, indeed, most wretched," replied Mercédès. "Alone in the world, I had but my son, and he has left me!" "He possesses a noble heart, madame," replied the count, "and he has acted rightly. He feels that every man owes a tribute to his country; some contribute their talents, others their industry; those devote their blood, these their nightly labors, to the same cause. Had he remained with you, his life must have become a hateful burden, nor would he have participated in your griefs. He will increase in strength and honor by struggling with adversity, which he will convert into prosperity. Leave him to build up the future for you, and I venture to say you will confide it to safe hands."
"Oh!" replied the wretched woman, mournfully shaking her head, "the prosperity of which you speak, and which, from the bottom of my heart, I pray God in his mercy to grant him, I can never enjoy. The bitter cup of adversity has been drained by me to the very dregs, and I feel that the grave is not far distant. You have acted kindly, count, in bringing me back to the place where I have enjoyed so much bliss. I ought to meet death on the same spot where happiness was once all my own."
"Alas!" said Monte-Cristo, "your words sear and embitter my heart, the more so as you have every reason to hate me. I have been the cause of all your misfortunes; but why do you pity, instead of blame me? You render me still more unhappy———"
"Hate you, blame you—you, Edmond! Hate—reproach the man that has spared my son's life! For was it not your fatal and sanguinary intention to destroy that son of whom M. de Morcerf was so proud? Oh! look at me well, and discover, if you can, even the semblance of a reproach in me."
The count looked up, and fixed his eyes on Mercédès, who, partly rising from her seat, extended both her hands toward him.
"Oh, look at me," continued she, with a feeling of profound melancholy; "my eyes no longer dazzle by their brilliancy, for the time has long fled since I used to smile on Edmond Dantès, who anxiously looked out for me from the window of yonder garret, then inhabited by his old father. Years of grief have created an abyss between those days and the present. I neither reproach you nor hate you, my friend! Oh, no, Edmond, it is myself that I blame, myself that I hate! Oh, miserable creature that I am!" cried she, clasping her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven. "I once possessed piety, innocence, and love, the three ingredients of the happiness of angels, and, wretch that I am, I have doubted God."
Monte-Cristo approached her, and silently took her hand.
"No," said she, withdrawing it gently—no, my friend, touch me not. You have spared me, yet of all those who have fallen under your venvengeance I was the most guilty. They were influenced by hatred by avarice, and by self-love; but I was base, and, for want of courage acted against my judgment. Nay, do not press my hand, Edmond' you are thinking of some kind expression, I am sure, to console me but
do not bestow it on me, for I am no longer worthy of kindness. See" (and she exposed her face completely to view),—"see, misfortune has silvered my hair, my eyes have shed so many tears that they are encircled by a rim of purple, and my brow is wrinkled. You, Edmond, on the contrary, you are still young, handsome, dignified; it is because you have had faith, because you have had strength, because you trusted in God, and he has supported and strengthened you in all your trials; I have been cowardly, I have denied, abandoned God, and—look at me now!"
As Mercédès spoke, the tears chased each other down her wan cheeks; the unhappy woman's heart was breaking, as memory recalled the changeful events of her life. Monte-Cristo, however, took her hand and imprinted a kiss on it; but she herself felt that it was with no greater warmth than he would have bestowed one on the hand of some marble statue of a saint.
"There are predestined existences," continued she, "in which a first fault destroys the prospects of a whole life. I believed you dead; why did I survive you? What good has it done me to mourn for you eternally in the secret recesses of my heart?—only to make a woman of nine-and-thirty look like one fifty years of age. Why, having recognized you, and I the only one to do so—why was I able to save my son alone? Ought I not also to have rescued the man that I had accepted for a husband, guilty though he were? Yet I let him die! What do I say? Oh, merciful heavens! was I not accessory to his death by my supine insensibility, by my contempt for him, not remembering, or not willing to remember, that it was for my sake he had become a traitor and a perjurer? In what am I benefited by accompanying my son so far, since I now abandon him, and allow him to depart alone to the baneful climate of Africa? Oh, I have been base, cowardly, I tell you; I have abjured my affections, and, like all renegades, I am of evil omen to those who surround me!"
"No, Mercédès," said Monte-Cristo, "no; you judge yourself with too much severity. You are a noble-minded woman, and it was your grief that disarmed me. Still, I was but an agent, led on by an invisible and offended Deity, who chose not to withhold the fatal blow that I was destined to hurl. I take that God to witness, at whose feet I have prostrated myself daily for the last ten years, that I would have sacrificed my life to you, and, with my life, the projects that were indissolubly linked with it. But—and I say it with some pride, Mercédès—God required me, and I lived. Examine the past and the present, and endeavor to dive into futurity, and then say whether I am not a Divine instrument. The most dreadful misfortunes, the most frightful sufferings, the abandonment of all those who loved me, the persecution of those who did not know me, formed the trials of my youth; when suddenly, from captivity, solitude, misery, I was restored to light and liberty, and became the possessor of a fortune so brilliant, so unbounded, so unheard-of, that I must have been blind not to be conscious that God had endowed me with it to work out his own great designs. From that time I viewed this fortune as confided to me for a particular purpose. Not a thought was given to a life which you once, Mercédès, had the power to render blissful; not one hour of peaceful calm was mine, but I felt myself driven on like an exterminating angel. Like those adventurous
captains about to embark on some enterprise full of danger, I laid in my provisions, I loaded my arms, I collected every means of attack and defense; I inured my body to the most violent exercises, my Soul to the bitterest trials; I taught my arm to slay, my eyes to behold excruciating sufferings, and my mouth to smile at the most horrid tacles. From good-natured, confiding, and forgiving, I became revengeful, cunning, and wicked, or rather, immovable as fate. Then I launched out into the path that was opened to me; I overcame every obstacle, and reached the goal; but woe to those who met me in my career!"
"Enough!" said Mercédès, "enough, Edmond! Believe me that she who alone recognized you has been the only one to comprehend you; and had she crossed your path, and you had crushed her like a frail glass, still, Edmond, still she must have admired you! Like the gulf between me and the past, there is an abyss between you, Edmond, and the rest of mankind; and I tell you freely, that the comparison I draw between you and other men will ever be one of my greatest tortures. No, there is nothing in the world to resemble you in worth and goodness! But we must say farewell, Edmond, and let us part."
"Before I leave you, Mercédès, have you no request to make?" said the count.
"I desire but one thing in this world, Edmond—the happiness of my son."
"Pray to the Almighty to spare his life, and I will take upon myself to promote his happiness."
"Thanks, thanks, Edmond!"
"But have you no request to make for yourself, Mercédès!"
"For myself I want nothing. I live, as it were, between two graves. The one that of Edmond Dantès, lost to me long, long since. He had my love! That word ill becomes my faded lip now, but it is a memory dear to my heart, and one that I would not lose for all that the world contains. The other grave is that of the man who met his death from the hand of Edmond Dantès. I approve of the deed, but I must pray for the dead."
"Your son shall be happy, Mercédès," repeated the count.
"Then I shall enjoy as much happiness as this world can possibly confer."
"But what are your intentions?"
Mercédès smiled sadly.
"To say that I shall live here, like the Mercédès of other times, gaining my bread by labor, would not be true, nor would you believe me. I have no longer the strength to do anything but to spend my days in prayer. However, I shall have no occasion to work, for the little sum of money buried by you, and which I found in the place you mentioned, will be sufficient to maintain me. Rumor will probably be busy respecting me, my occupations, my manner of living—that will signify but little, that concerns God, you, and myself."
"Mercédès," said the count, "I do not say it to blame you, but you made an unnecessary sacrifice in relinquishing the whole of the fortune amassed by M. de Morcerf; half of it, at least, by right belonged to you, in virtue of your vigilance and economy."
"I perceive what you are intending to propose to me, but I cannot accept it, Edmond—my son would not permit it."
"Nothing shall be done without the full approbation of Albert de Morcerf. I will make myself acquainted with his intentions, and will submit to them. But if he be willing to accept my offers, will you oppose them?"
"You well know, Edmond, that I am no longer a reasoning creature; I have no decision, unless it be never to decide. I have been so overwhelmed by the many storms that have broken over my head, that I have lost the will to do so. I am in the hands of the Almighty, like a sparrow in the talons of an eagle. I live, because it is not ordained for me to die. If succor be sent to me, God wills it, and I will accept it."
"Ah, madame," said Monte-Cristo, "you should not talk thus! God wishes us to comprehend him and discuss his power; it is for this that he has given us a free will."
"Alas!" exclaimed Mercédès, "speak not so! if I believed that I possessed a free will, it would drive me to despair."
Monte-Cristo dropped his head and shrank from the vehemence of her grief.
"Will you not even say you will see me again?" he asked.
"On the contrary, we shall meet again," said Mercédès, pointing to heaven with solemnity. "I tell you so to prove to you that I still hope."
And after pressing her own trembling hand upon that of the count, Mercédès rushed up the stairs and disappeared. Monte-Cristo slowly left the house and turned toward the quay. But Mercédès saw not his departure, though she was seated at the little window of the room which had been occupied by old Dantès. Her eyes were straining to see the ship which was carrying her son over the vast sea, but still her voice involuntarily murmured softly:
"Edmond! Edmond! Edmond!"