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A curse on those who fear wine: it’s because they have evil thoughts and they are afraid that wine will loosen their tongues.’
‘Well,’ Dantès said, ‘listen to me, and mark what I say: if you refuse to carry two lines to Mercédès, or at least to let her know that I am here, I shall wait for you one day, hiding behind my door, and, as soon as you enter, crack your head open with this stool.’
‘That’s the usual phrase, I know. When the police are at a loss, they say they are on the trail – and the government waits patiently until they come and whisper that the trail has gone cold.’
‘The king! I thought him enough of a philosopher to realize that there is no such thing as murder in politics. You know as well as I do, my dear boy, that in politics there are no people, only ideas; no feelings, only interests. In politics, you don’t kill a man, you remove an obstacle, that’s all.
Woe to the man who, sliding into misfortune, is drawn by such dark thoughts! This is one of those dead seas that seem to offer the inviting blue of pure waters, but where the swimmer’s feet are sucked into a bituminous mire which draws him, drags him down and swallows him up.
But today it is different: I have lost everything that could make me love life and now death smiles at me like a nursemaid to the child she will rock to sleep.
‘I swear, you are frightening me!’ said Dantès. ‘Is the world full of tigers and crocodiles, then?’ ‘Yes, except that the tigers and crocodiles with two legs are more dangerous than the rest.’
‘And now,’ said the stranger, ‘farewell, goodness, humanity, gratitude … Farewell all those feelings that nourish and illuminate the heart! I have taken the place of Providence to reward the good; now let the avenging God make way for me to punish the wrongdoer!’
‘Be warned, my good host, I shall not believe a word of what you are about to tell us. And, now that that is clear, speak as long as you like, I am listening. “Once upon a time …” Off you go, then!’
‘I pretended to myself that I had got into an argument and a duel had resulted. I wanted to demonstrate something to those bandits, namely that while people fight one another in every country in the world, only a Frenchman jests as he fights.
ride. In the Bois de Boulogne I was overcome with hunger and boredom, two enemies that rarely attack together but, despite that, were leagued against me in a sort of Carlist – Republican alliance.
Well, I too am a Bonapartist, and let me tell you something: I shall kill you. From this moment on, I declare a vendetta against you, so look after and protect yourself as best you may, because the next time we are face to face, your last hour will have come.”
‘Mankind is an ugly worm when you look at it through a solar microscope. But I think you said I have nothing to do. Now, Monsieur, I ask you, do you imagine you have anything to do? Or, to put it more clearly, do you believe that what you do deserves to be called something?’
When I think of you, my blood churns, my chest swells, my heart flows over; but I shall direct all this strength, all this ardour, all this superhuman power to loving you only as long as you tell me to devote them to your service.
What! I offer you my life, I give you my soul, I dedicate the slightest beat of my heart to you; and, while I am all yours, while I whisper to myself that I should die if I were to lose you, you, on your side, are not appalled at the very idea of belonging to another man!
So, as I say, I shall wait until the final moment and when my misfortune is certain, without any hope or remedy, I shall write a confidential letter to my brother-in-law and another to the prefect of police to inform him of my intention, and in the corner of some wood, beside some ditch or on the bank of some river, I shall blow out my brains, as surely as I am the son of the most honest man who has ever lived in France.’
Because of the kind of life he had led, and because of the resolve he had made – and kept – not to shrink from anything, the count had managed to enjoy unknown pleasures in the struggle against nature, which is God, and against the world – which is, near enough, the Devil.
‘I am the spectre of an unfortunate man whom you locked up in the dungeons of the Château d’If. When this spectre finally emerged from its tomb, God put on it the mask of the Count of Monte Cristo and showered it with diamonds and gold so that you should not recognize it until today.’
Morrel smiled and said: ‘As you wish. Death is still death, that is to say forgetfulness, rest, the absence of life and so the absence of pain.’
As for you, Morrel, this is the whole secret of my behaviour towards you: there is neither happiness nor misfortune in this world, there is merely the comparison between one state and another, nothing more. Only someone who has suffered the deepest misfortune is capable of experiencing the heights of felicity. Maximilien, you must needs have wished to die, to know how good it is to live.
