"But what are your intentions?"
"To say that I shall live here, like the Mercedes 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."
"Mercedes," 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 will, unless it be the will never to decide.
I have been so overwhelmed by the many storms that have broken over my head, that I am become passive 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, I will accept it."
"Ah, madame," said Monte Cristo, "you should not talk thus!
It is not so we should evince our resignation to the will of heaven; on the contrary, we are all free agents."
"Alas!" exclaimed Mercedes, "if it were so, if I possessed free-will, but without the power to render that will efficacious, 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 Mercedes, 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, Mercedes rushed up the stairs and disappeared.
Monte Cristo slowly left the house and turned towards the quay.
But Mercedes did not witness his departure, although she was seated at the little window of the room which had been occupied by old Dantes.
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!"
Chapter 113.
The Past.
The count departed with a sad heart from the house in which he had left Mercedes, probably never to behold her again.
Since the death of little Edward a great change had taken place in Monte Cristo.
Having reached the summit of his vengeance by a long and tortuous path, he saw an abyss of doubt yawning before him.
More than this, the conversation which had just taken place between Mercedes and himself had awakened so many recollections in his heart that he felt it necessary to combat with them.
A man of the count's temperament could not long indulge in that melancholy which can exist in common minds, but which destroys superior ones.
He thought he must have made an error in his calculations if he now found cause to blame himself.
"I cannot have deceived myself," he said; "I must look upon the past in a false light.
What!" he continued, "can I have been following a false path?--can the end which I proposed be a mistaken end?--can one hour have sufficed to prove to an architect that the work upon which he founded all his hopes was an impossible, if not a sacrilegious, undertaking?
I cannot reconcile myself to this idea--it would madden me.
The reason why I am now dissatisfied is that I have not a clear appreciation of the past.
The past, like the country through which we walk, becomes indistinct as we advance.
My position is like that of a person wounded in a dream; he feels the wound, though he cannot recollect when he received it.
Come, then, thou regenerate man, thou extravagant prodigal, thou awakened sleeper, thou all-powerful visionary, thou invincible millionaire,--once again review thy past life of starvation and wretchedness, revisit the scenes where fate and misfortune conducted, and where despair received thee. Too many diamonds, too much gold and splendor, are now reflected by the mirror in which Monte Cristo seeks to behold Dantes. Hide thy diamonds, bury thy gold, shroud thy splendor, exchange riches for poverty, liberty for a prison, a living body for a corpse!"
As he thus reasoned, Monte Cristo walked down the Rue de la Caisserie.
It was the same through which, twenty-four years ago, he had been conducted by a silent and nocturnal guard; the houses, to-day so smiling and animated, were on that night dark, mute, and closed.
"And yet they were the same," murmured Monte Cristo, "only now it is broad daylight instead of night; it is the sun which brightens the place, and makes it appear so cheerful."
He proceeded towards the quay by the Rue Saint-Laurent, and advanced to the Consigne; it was the point where he had embarked.
A pleasure-boat with striped awning was going by. Monte Cristo called the owner, who immediately rowed up to him with the eagerness of a boatman hoping for a good fare.
The weather was magnificent, and the excursion a treat.
The sun, red and flaming, was sinking into the embrace of the welcoming ocean. The sea, smooth as crystal, was now and then disturbed by the leaping of fish, which were pursued by some unseen enemy and sought for safety in another element; while on the extreme verge of the horizon might be seen the fishermen's boats, white and graceful as the sea-gull, or the merchant vessels bound for Corsica or Spain.
But notwithstanding the serene sky, the gracefully formed boats, and the golden light in which the whole scene was bathed, the Count of Monte Cristo, wrapped in his cloak, could think only of this terrible voyage, the details of which were one by one recalled to his memory. The solitary light burning at the Catalans; that first sight of the Chateau d'If, which told him whither they were leading him; the struggle with the gendarmes when he wished to throw himself overboard; his despair when he found himself vanquished, and the sensation when the muzzle of the carbine touched his forehead--all these were brought before him in vivid and frightful reality.
Like the streams which the heat of the summer has dried up, and which after the autumnal storms gradually begin oozing drop by drop, so did the count feel his heart gradually fill with the bitterness which formerly nearly overwhelmed Edmond Dantes.
Clear sky, swift-flitting boats, and brilliant sunshine disappeared; the heavens were hung with black, and the gigantic structure of the Chateau d'If seemed like the phantom of a mortal enemy.
As they reached the shore, the count instinctively shrunk to the extreme end of the boat, and the owner was obliged to call out, in his sweetest tone of voice,
"Sir, we are at the landing."
Monte Cristo remembered that on that very spot, on the same rock, he had been violently dragged by the guards, who forced him to ascend the slope at the points of their bayonets.