Chapter 91 Mother and Son
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THE
COUNT of Monte Cristo bowed to the five young men with a melancholy and
dignified smile, and got into his carriage with Maximilian and Emmanuel.
Albert, Beauchamp, and Chateau-Renaud remained alone. Albert looked at his
two friends, not timidly, but in a way that appeared to ask their opinion
of what he had just done. "Indeed,
my dear friend," said Beauchamp first, who had either the most
feeling or the least dissimulation, "allow me to congratulate you;
this is a very unhoped-for conclusion of a very disagreeable affair."
Albert
remained silent and wrapped in thought. Chateau-Renaud contented himself
with tapping his boot with his flexible cane. "Are we not
going?" said he, after this embarrassing silence. "When you
please," replied Beauchamp; "allow me only to compliment M. de
Morcerf, who has given proof to-day of rare chivalric generosity." "Oh,
yes," said Chateau-Renaud. "It
is magnificent," continued Beauchamp, "to be able to exercise so
much self-control!" "Assuredly;
as for me, I should have been incapable of it," said Chateau-Renaud,
with most significant coolness. "Gentlemen,"
interrupted Albert, "I think you did not understand that something
very serious had passed between M. de Monte Cristo and myself." "Possibly,
possibly," said Beauchamp immediately; "but every simpleton
would not be able to understand your heroism, and sooner or later you will
find yourself compelled to explain it to them more energetically than
would be convenient to your bodily health and the duration of your life.
May I give you a friendly counsel? Set out for Naples, the Hague, or St.
Petersburg--calm countries, where the point of honor is better understood
than among our hot-headed Parisians. Seek quietude and oblivion, so that
you may return peaceably to France after a few years. Am I not right, M.
de Chateau-Renaud?" "That
is quite my opinion," said the gentleman; "nothing induces
serious duels so much as a duel forsworn." "Thank
you, gentlemen," replied Albert, with a smile of indifference;
"I shall follow your advice--not because you give it, but because I
had before intended to quit France. I thank you equally for the service
you have rendered me in being my seconds. It is deeply engraved on my
heart, and, after what you have just said, I remember that only."
Chateau-Renaud and Beauchamp looked at each other; the impression was the
same on both of them, and the tone in which Morcerf had just expressed his
thanks was so determined that the position would have become embarrassing
for all if the conversation had continued. "Good-by,
Albert," said Beauchamp suddenly, carelessly extending his hand to
the young man. The latter did not appear to arouse from his lethargy; in
fact, he did not notice the offered hand. "Good-by," said
Chateau-Renaud in his turn, keeping his little cane in his left hand, and
saluting with his right. Albert's lips scarcely whispered
"Good-by," but his look was more explicit; it expressed a whole
poem of restrained anger, proud disdain, and generous indignation. He
preserved his melancholy and motionless position for some time after his
two friends had regained their carriage; then suddenly unfastening his
horse from the little tree to which his servant had tied it, he mounted
and galloped off in the direction of Paris. In
a quarter of an hour he was entering the house in the Rue du Helder. As he
alighted, he thought he saw his father's pale face behind the curtain of
the count's bedroom. Albert turned away his head with a sigh, and went to
his own apartments. He cast one lingering look on all the luxuries which
had rendered life so easy and so happy since his infancy; he looked at the
pictures, whose faces seemed to smile, and the landscapes, which appeared
painted in brighter colors. Then he took away his mother's portrait, with
its oaken frame, leaving the gilt frame from which he took it black and
empty. Then he arranged all his beautiful Turkish arms, his fine English
guns, his Japanese china, his cups mounted in silver, his artistic bronzes
by Feucheres and Barye; examined the cupboards, and placed the key in
each; threw into a drawer of his secretary, which he left open, all the
pocket-money he had about him, and with it the thousand fancy jewels from
his vases and his jewel-boxes; then he made an exact inventory of
everything, and placed it in the most conspicuous part of the table, after
putting aside the books and papers which had collected there. At the
beginning of this work, his servant, notwithstanding orders to the
contrary, came to his room. "What do you want?" asked he, with a
more sorrowful than angry tone. "Pardon me, sir," replied the
valet; "you had forbidden me to disturb you, but the Count of Morcerf
has called me." "Well!"
said Albert. "I
did not like to go to him without first seeing you." "Why?"
"Because
the count is doubtless aware that I accompanied you to the meeting this
morning." "It
is probable," said Albert. "And
since he has sent for me, it is doubtless to question me on what happened
there. What must I answer?" "The
truth." "Then
I shall say the duel did not take place?" "You
will say I apologized to the Count of Monte Cristo. Go." The
valet bowed and retired, and Albert returned to his inventory. As he was
finishing this work, the sound of horses prancing in the yard, and the
wheels of a carriage shaking his window, attracted his attention. He
approached the window, and saw his father get into it, and drive away. The
door was scarcely closed when Albert bent his steps to his mother's room;
and, no one being there to announce him, he advanced to her bed-chamber,
and distressed by what he saw and guessed, stopped for one moment at the
door. As if the same idea had animated these two beings, Mercижdииs was doing the same in her
apartments that he had just done in his. Everything was in order,--laces,
dresses, jewels, linen, money, all were arranged in the drawers, and the
countess was carefully collecting the keys. Albert saw all these
preparations and understood them, and exclaiming, "My mother!"
he threw his arms around her neck. The
artist who could have depicted the expression of these two countenances
would certainly have made of them a beautiful picture. All these proofs of
an energetic resolution, which Albert did not fear on his own account,
alarmed him for his mother. "What are you doing?" asked he. "What
were you doing?" replied she. "Oh,
my mother!" exclaimed Albert, so overcome he could scarcely speak;
"it is not the same with you and me--you cannot have made the same
resolution I have, for I have come to warn you that I bid adieu to your
house, and--and to you." "I
also," replied Mercижdииs, "am going, and I
acknowledge I had depended on your accompanying me; have I deceived
myself?" "Mother,"
said Albert with firmness. "I cannot make you share the fate I have
planned for myself. I must live henceforth without rank and fortune, and
to begin this hard apprenticeship I must borrow from a friend the loaf I
shall eat until I have earned one. So, my dear mother, I am going at once
to ask Franz to lend me the small sum I shall require to supply my present
wants." "You,
my poor child, suffer poverty and hunger? Oh, do not say so; it will break
my resolutions." "But
not mine, mother," replied Albert. "I am young and strong; I
believe I am courageous, and since yesterday I have learned the power of
will. Alas, my dear mother, some have suffered so much, and yet live, and
have raised a new fortune on the ruin of all the promises of happiness
which heaven had made them--on the fragments of all the hope which God had
given them! I have seen that, mother; I know that from the gulf in which
their enemies have plunged them they have risen with so much vigor and
glory that in their turn they have ruled their former conquerors, and have
punished them. No. mother; from this moment I have done with the past, and
accept nothing from it--not even a name, because you can understand that
your son cannot bear the name of a man who ought to blush for it before
another." "Albert,
my child," said Mercижdииs, "if I had a stronger
heart that is the counsel I would have given you; your conscience has
spoken when my voice became too weak; listen to its dictates. You had
friends, Albert; break off their acquaintance. But do not despair; you
have life before you, my dear Albert, for you are yet scarcely twenty-two
years old; and as a pure heart like yours wants a spotless name, take my
father's--it was Herrera. I am sure, my dear Albert, whatever may be your
career, you will soon render that name illustrious. Then, my son, return
to the world still more brilliant because of your former sorrows; and if I
am wrong, still let me cherish these hopes, for I have no future to look
forward to. For me the grave opens when I pass the threshold of this
house." "I
will fulfil all your wishes, my dear mother," said the young man.
"Yes, I share your hopes; the anger of heaven will not pursue us,
since you are pure and I am innocent. But, since our resolution is formed,
let us act promptly. M. de Morcerf went out about half an hour ago; the
opportunity in favorable to avoid an explanation." "I
am ready, my son," said Mercижdииs.
Albert
ran to fetch a carriage. He recollected that there was a small furnished
house to let in the Rue de Saints-Pииres,
where his mother would find a humble but decent lodging, and thither he
intended conducting the countess. As the carriage stopped at the door, and
Albert was alighting, a man approached and gave him a letter. Albert
recognized the bearer. "From the count," said Bertuccio. Albert
took the letter, opened, and read it, then looked round for Bertuccio, but
he was gone. He returned to Mercижdииs with tears in his eyes and
heaving breast, and without uttering a word he gave her the letter. Mercижdииs read:-- Albert,--While
showing you that I have discovered your plans, I hope also to convince you
of my delicacy. You are free, you leave the count's house, and you take
your mother to your home; but reflect, Albert, you owe her more than your
poor noble heart can pay her. Keep the struggle for yourself, bear all the
suffering, but spare her the trial of poverty which must accompany your
first efforts; for she deserves not even the shadow of the misfortune
which has this day fallen on her, and providence is not willing that the
innocent should suffer for the guilty. I know you are going to leave the
Rue du Helder without taking anything with you. Do not seek to know how I
discovered it; I know it--that is sufficient. Now,
listen, Albert. Twenty-four years ago I returned, proud and joyful, to my
country. I had a betrothed, Albert, a lovely girl whom I adored, and I was
bringing to my betrothed a hundred and fifty louis, painfully amassed by
ceaseless toil. This money was for her; I destined it for her, and,
knowing the treachery of the sea I buried our treasure in the little
garden of the house my father lived in at Marseilles, on the Allижes de Meillan. Your mother, Albert, knows that poor
house well. A short time since I passed through Marseilles, and went to
see the old place, which revived so many painful recollections; and in the
evening I took a spade and dug in the corner of the garden where I had
concealed my treasure. The iron box was there--no one had touched
it--under a beautiful fig-tree my father had planted the day I was born,
which overshadowed the spot. Well, Albert, this money, which was formerly
designed to promote the comfort and tranquillity of the woman I adored,
may now, through strange and painful circumstances, be devoted to the same
purpose. Oh, feel for me, who could offer millions to that poor woman, but
who return her only the piece of black bread forgotten under my poor roof
since the day I was torn from her I loved. You are a
generous man, Albert, but perhaps you may be blinded by pride or
resentment; if you refuse me, if you ask another for what I have a right
to offer you, I will say it is ungenerous of you to refuse the life of
your mother at the hands of a man whose father was allowed by your father
to die in all the horrors of poverty and despair. Albert
stood pale and motionless to hear what his mother would decide after she
had finished reading this letter. Mercижdииs
turned her eyes with an ineffable look towards heaven. "I accept
it," said she; "he has a right to pay the dowry, which I shall
take with me to some convent!" Putting the letter in her bosom, she
took her son's arm, and with a firmer step than she even herself expected
she went down-stairs. |
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