The Count of Monte Cristo

by Alexandre Dumas

A curse on those who fear wine: it’s because they have evil thoughts and they are afraid that wine will loosen their tongues.’

So Dantès, who three months earlier had wanted nothing except freedom, felt already not free enough, but wanted wealth. It was not the fault of Dantès, but of God who, while limiting the power of man, has created in him infinite desires!

‘Come now, be a man!’ he thought. ‘We are used to adversity; let’s not be crushed by a mere disappointment, or else I shall have suffered for nothing. The heart breaks when it has swelled too much in the warm breath of hope, then finds itself enclosed in cold reality.

Only I have remained poor, as you see, destitute and forgotten by God.’ ‘You are wrong there, my friend,’ said the abbé. ‘God may sometimes appear to forget, when his justice is resting; but the time always comes when he remembers, and here is the proof.’