Chapter 67 At the Office of the King's Attorney
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LET
US LEAVE the banker driving his horses at their fullest speed, and follow
Madame Danglars in her morning excursion. We have said that at half-past
twelve o'clock Madame Danglars had ordered her horses, and had left home
in the carriage. She directed her course towards the Faubourg Saint
Germain, went down the Rue Mazarine, and stopped at the Passage du Pont-Neuf.
She descended, and went through the passage. She was very plainly dressed,
as would be the case with a woman of taste walking in the morning. At the
Rue Guижnижgaud she called a cab, and directed the driver to go
to the Rue de Harlay. As soon as she was seated in the vehicle, she drew
from her pocket a very thick black veil, which she tied on to her straw
bonnet. She then replaced the bonnet, and saw with pleasure, in a little
pocket-mirror, that her white complexion and brilliant eyes were alone
visible. The cab crossed the Pont-Neuf and entered the Rue de Harlay by
the Place Dauphinиж; the driver was paid as the door
opened, and stepping lightly up the stairs Madame Danglars soon reached
the Salle des Pas-Perdus. There
was a great deal going on that morning, and many business-like persons at
the Palais; business-like persons pay very little attention to women, and
Madame Danglars crossed the hall without exciting any more attention than
any other woman calling upon her lawyer. There was a great press of people
in M. de Villefort's ante-chamber, but Madame Danglars had no occasion
even to pronounce her name. The instant she appeared the door-keeper rose,
came to her, and asked her whether she was not the person with whom the
procureur had made an appointment; and on her affirmative answer being
given, he conducted her by a private passage to M. de Villefort's office.
The magistrate was seated in an arm-chair, writing, with his back towards
the door; he did not move as he heard it open, and the door-keeper
pronounce the words, "Walk in, madame," and then reclose it; but
no sooner had the man's footsteps ceased, than he started up, drew the
bolts, closed the curtains, and examined every corner of the room. Then,
when he had assured himself that he could neither be seen nor heard, and
was consequently relieved of doubts, he said,--"Thanks, madame,--thanks
for your punctuality; "and he offered a chair to Madame Danglars,
which she accepted, for her heart beat so violently that she felt nearly
suffocated. "It
is a long time, madame," said the procureur, describing a half-circle
with his chair, so as to place himself exactly opposite to Madame Danglars,--"it
is a long time since I had the pleasure of speaking alone with you, and I
regret that we have only now met to enter upon a painful
conversation." "Nevertheless,
sir, you see I have answered your first appeal, although certainly the
conversation must be much more painful for me than for you."
Villefort smiled bitterly. "It
is true, then," he said, rather uttering his thoughts aloud than
addressing his companion,--"it is true, then, that all our actions
leave their traces--some sad, others bright--on our paths; it is true that
every step in our lives is like the course of an insect on the sands;--it
leaves its track! Alas, to many the path is traced by tears." "Sir,"
said Madame Danglars, "you can feel for my emotion, can you not?
Spare me, then, I beseech you. When I look at this room,--whence so many
guilty creatures have departed, trembling and ashamed, when I look at that
chair before which I now sit trembling and ashamed,--oh, it requires all
my reason to convince me that I am not a very guilty woman and you a
menacing judge." Villefort dropped his head and sighed. "And
I," he said, "I feel that my place is not in the judge's seat,
but on the prisoner's stool." "You?"
said Madame Danglars. "Yes,
I." "I
think, sir, you exaggerate your situation," said Madame Danglars,
whose beautiful eyes sparkled for a moment. "The paths of which you
were just speaking have been traced by all young men of ardent
imaginations. Besides the pleasure, there is always remorse from the
indulgence of our passions, and, after all, what have you men to fear from
all this? the world excuses, and notoriety ennobles you." "Madame,"
replied Villefort, "you know that I am no hypocrite, or, at least,
that I never deceive without a reason. If my brow be severe, it is because
many misfortunes have clouded it; if my heart be petrified, it is that it
might sustain the blows it has received. I was not so in my youth, I was
not so on the night of the betrothal, when we were all seated around a
table in the Rue du Cours at Marseilles. But since then everything has
changed in and about me; I am accustomed to brave difficulties, and, in
the conflict to crush those who, by their own free will, or by chance,
voluntarily or involuntarily, interfere with me in my career. It is
generally the case that what we most ardently desire is as ardently
withheld from us by those who wish to obtain it, or from whom we attempt
to snatch it. Thus, the greater number of a man's errors come before him
disguised under the specious form of necessity; then, after error has been
committed in a moment of excitement, of delirium, or of fear, we see that
we might have avoided and escaped it. The means we might have used, which
we in our blindness could not see, then seem simple and easy, and we say,
'Why did I not do this, instead of that?' Women, on the contrary, are
rarely tormented with remorse; for the decision does not come from
you,--your misfortunes are generally imposed upon you, and your faults the
results of others' crimes." "In
any case, sir, you will allow," replied Madame Danglars, "that,
even if the fault were alone mine, I last night received a severe
punishment for it." "Poor
thing," said Villefort, pressing her hand, "it was too severe
for your strength, for you were twice overwhelmed, and yet"-- "Well?"
"Well,
I must tell you. Collect all your courage, for you have not yet heard
all." "Ah,"
exclaimed Madame Danglars, alarmed, "what is there more to
hear?" "You
only look back to the past, and it is, indeed, bad enough. Well, picture
to yourself a future more gloomy still--certainly frightful, perhaps
sanguinary." The baroness knew how calm Villefort naturally was, and
his present excitement frightened her so much that she opened her mouth to
scream, but the sound died in her throat. "How has this terrible past
been recalled?" cried Villefort; "how is it that it has escaped
from the depths of the tomb and the recesses of our hearts, where it was
buried, to visit us now, like a phantom, whitening our cheeks and flushing
our brows with shame?" "Alas,"
said Hermine, "doubtless it is chance." "Chance?"
replied Villefort; "No, no, madame, there is no such thing as
chance." "Oh,
yes; has not a fatal chance revealed all this? Was it not by chance the
Count of Monte Cristo bought that house? Was it not by chance he caused
the earth to be dug up? Is it not by chance that the unfortunate child was
disinterred under the trees?--that poor innocent offspring of mine, which
I never even kissed, but for whom I wept many, many tears. Ah, my heart
clung to the count when he mentioned the dear spoil found beneath the
flowers." "Well,
no, madame,--this is the terrible news I have to tell you," said
Villefort in a hollow voice--"no, nothing was found beneath the
flowers; there was no child disinterred--no. You must not weep, no, you
must not groan, you must tremble!" "What
can you mean?" asked Madame Danglars, shuddering. "I
mean that M. de Monte Cristo, digging underneath these trees, found
neither skeleton nor chest, because neither of them was there!" "Neither
of them there?" repeated Madame Danglars, her staring, wide-open eyes
expressing her alarm. "Neither
of them there!" she again said, as though striving to impress herself
with the meaning of the words which escaped her. "No,"
said Villefort, burying his face in his hands, "no, a hundred times
no!" "Then
you did not bury the poor child there, sir? Why did you deceive me? Where
did you place it? tell me--where?" "There!
But listen to me--listen--and you will pity me who has for twenty years
alone borne the heavy burden of grief I am about to reveal, without
casting the least portion upon you." "Oh,
you frighten me! But speak; I will listen." "You
recollect that sad night, when you were half-expiring on that bed in the
red damask room, while I, scarcely less agitated than you, awaited your
delivery. The child was born, was given to me--motionless, breathless,
voiceless; we thought it dead." Madame Danglars moved rapidly, as
though she would spring from her chair, but Villefort stopped, and clasped
his hands as if to implore her attention. "We thought it dead,"
he repeated; "I placed it in the chest, which was to take the place
of a coffin; I descended to the garden, I dug a hole, and then flung it
down in haste. Scarcely had I covered it with earth, when the arm of the
Corsican was stretched towards me; I saw a shadow rise, and, at the same
time, a flash of light. I felt pain; I wished to cry out, but an icy
shiver ran through my veins and stifled my voice; I fell lifeless, and
fancied myself killed. Never shall I forget your sublime courage, when,
having returned to consciousness, I dragged myself to the foot of the
stairs, and you, almost dying yourself, came to meet me. We were obliged
to keep silent upon the dreadful catastrophe. You had the fortitude to
regain the house, assisted by your nurse. A duel was the pretext for my
wound. Though we scarcely expected it, our secret remained in our own
keeping alone. I was taken to Versailles; for three months I struggled
with death; at last, as I seemed to cling to life, I was ordered to the
South. Four men carried me from Paris to Chalons, walking six leagues a
day; Madame de Villefort followed the litter in her carriage. At Chalons I
was put upon the Saone, thence I passed on to he Rhone, whence I
descended, merely with the current, to Arles; at Arles I was again placed
on my litter, and continued my journey to Marseilles. My recovery lasted
six months. I never heard you mentioned, and I did not dare inquire for
you. When I returned to Paris, I learned that you, the widow of M. de
Nargonne, had married M. Danglars. "What
was the subject of my thoughts from the time consciousness returned to me?
Always the same--always the child's corpse, coming every night in my
dreams, rising from the earth, and hovering over the grave with menacing
look and gesture. I inquired immediately on my return to Paris; the house
had not been inhabited since we left it, but it had just been let for nine
years. I found the tenant. I pretended that I disliked the idea that a
house belonging to my wife's father and mother should pass into the hands
of strangers. I offered to pay them for cancelling the lease; they
demanded 6,000 francs. I would have given 10,000--I would have given
20,000. I had the money with me; I made the tenant sign the deed of
resilition, and when I had obtained what I so much wanted, I galloped to
Auteuil. "No
one had entered the house since I had left it. It was five o'clock in the
afternoon; I ascended into the red room, and waited for night. There all
the thoughts which had disturbed me during my year of constant agony came
back with double force. The Corsican, who had declared the vendetta
against me, who had followed me from N?mes to Paris, who had hid himself
in the garden, who had struck me, had seen me dig the grave, had seen me
inter the child,--he might become acquainted with your person,--nay, he
might even then have known it. Would he not one day make you pay for
keeping this terrible secret? Would it not be a sweet revenge for him when
he found that I had not died from the blow of his dagger? It was therefore
necessary, before everything else, and at all risks, that I should cause
all traces of the past to disappear--that I should destroy every material
vestige; too much reality would always remain in my recollection. It was
for this I had annulled the lease--it was for this I had come--it was for
this I was waiting. Night arrived; I allowed it to become quite dark. I
was without a light in that room; when the wind shook all the doors,
behind which I continually expected to see some spy concealed, I trembled.
I seemed everywhere to hear your moans behind me in the bed, and I dared
not turn around. My heart beat so violently that I feared my wound would
open. At length, one by one, all the noises in the neighborhood ceased. I
understood that I had nothing to fear, that I should neither be seen nor
heard, so I decided upon descending to the garden. "Listen,
Hermine; I consider myself as brave as most men, but when I drew from my
breast the little key of the staircase, which I had found in my coat--that
little key we both used to cherish so much, which you wished to have
fastened to a golden ring--when I opened the door, and saw the pale moon
shedding a long stream of white light on the spiral staircase like a
spectre, I leaned against the wall, and nearly shrieked. I seemed to be
going mad. At last I mastered my agitation. I descended the staircase step
by step; the only thing I could not conquer was a strange trembling in my
knees. I grasped the railings; if I had relaxed my hold for a moment, I
should have fallen. I reached the lower door. Outside this door a spade
was placed against the wall; I took it, and advanced towards the thicket.
I had provided myself with a dark lantern. In the middle of the lawn I
stopped to light it, then I continued my path. "It
was the end of November, all the verdure of the garden had disappeared,
the trees were nothing more than skeletons with their long bony arms, and
the dead leaves sounded on the gravel under my feet. My terror overcame me
to such a degree as I approached the thicket, that I took a pistol from my
pocket and armed myself. I fancied continually that I saw the figure of
the Corsican between the branches. I examined the thicket with my dark
lantern; it was empty. I looked carefully around; I was indeed alone,--no
noise disturbed the silence but the owl, whose piercing cry seemed to be
calling up the phantoms of the night. I tied my lantern to a forked branch
I had noticed a year before at the precise spot where I stopped to dig the
hole. "The
grass had grown very thickly there during the summer, and when autumn
arrived no one had been there to mow it. Still one place where the grass
was thin attracted my attention; it evidently was there I had turned up
the ground. I went to work. The hour, then, for which I had been waiting
during the last year had at length arrived. How I worked, how I hoped, how
I struck every piece of turf, thinking to find some resistance to my
spade! But no, I found nothing, though I had made a hole twice as large as
the first. I thought I had been deceived--had mistaken the spot. I turned
around, I looked at the trees, I tried to recall the details which had
struck me at the time. A cold, sharp wind whistled through the leafless
branches, and yet the drops fell from my forehead. I recollected that I
was stabbed just as I was trampling the ground to fill up the hole; while
doing so I had leaned against a laburnum; behind me was an artificial
rockery, intended to serve as a resting-place for persons walking in the
garden; in falling, my hand, relaxing its hold of the laburnum, felt the
coldness of the stone. On my right I saw the tree, behind me the rock. I
stood in the same attitude, and threw myself down. I rose, and again began
digging and enlarging the hole; still I found nothing, nothing--the chest
was no longer there!" "The
chest no longer there?" murmured Madame Danglars, choking with fear. Think
not I contented myself with this one effort," continued Villefort.
"No; I searched the whole thicket. I thought the assassin, having
discovered the chest, and supposing it to be a treasure, had intended
carrying it off, but, perceiving his error, had dug another hole, and
deposited it there; but I could find nothing. Then the idea struck me that
he had not taken these precautions, and had simply thrown it in a corner.
In the last case I must wait for daylight to renew my search. I remained
the room and waited." "Oh,
heavens!" When
daylight dawned I went down again. My first visit was to the thicket. I
hoped to find some traces which had escaped me in the darkness. I had
turned up the earth over a surface of more than twenty feet square, and a
depth of two feet. A laborer would not have done in a day what occupied me
an hour. But I could find nothing--absolutely nothing. Then I renewed the
search. Supposing it had been thrown aside, it would probably be on the
path which led to the little gate; but this examination was as useless as
the first, and with a bursting heart I returned to the thicket, which now
contained no hope for me." "Oh,"
cried Madame Danglars, "it was enough to drive you mad!" "I
hoped for a moment that it might," said Villefort; "but that
happiness was denied me. However, recovering my strength and my ideas,
'Why,' said I, 'should that man have carried away the corpse?'" "But
you said," replied Madame Danglars, "he would require it as a
proof." "Ah,
no, madame, that could not be. Dead bodies are not kept a year; they are
shown to a magistrate, and the evidence is taken. Now, nothing of the kind
has happened." "What
then?" asked Hermine, trembling violently. "Something
more terrible, more fatal, more alarming for us--the child was, perhaps,
alive, and the assassin may have saved it!" Madame
Danglars uttered a piercing cry, and, seizing Villefort's hands,
exclaimed, "My child was alive?" said she; "you buried my
child alive? You were not certain my child was dead, and you buried it?
Ah"-- Madame
Danglars had risen, and stood before the procureur, whose hands she wrung
in her feeble grasp. "I know not; I merely suppose so, as I might
suppose anything else," replied Villefort with a look so fixed, it
indicated that his powerful mind was on the verge of despair and madness.
"Ah, my child, my poor child!" cried the baroness, falling on
her chair, and stifling her sobs in her handkerchief. Villefort, becoming
somewhat reassured, perceived that to avert the maternal storm gathering
over his head, he must inspire Madame Danglars with the terror he felt.
"You understand, then, that if it were so," said he, rising in
his turn, and approaching the baroness, to speak to her in a lower tone,
"we are lost. This child lives, and some one knows it lives--some one
is in possession of our secret; and since Monte Cristo speaks before us of
a child disinterred, when that child could not be found, it is he who is
in possession of our secret." "Just
God, avenging God!" murmured Madame Danglars. Villefort's
only answer was a stifled groan. "But
the child--the child, sir?" repeated the agitated mother. "How
I have searched for him," replied Villefort, wringing his hands;
"how I have called him in my long sleepless nights; how I have longed
for royal wealth to purchase a million of secrets from a million of men,
and to find mine among them! At last, one day, when for the hundredth time
I took up my spade, I asked myself again and again what the Corsican could
have done with the child. A child encumbers a fugitive; perhaps, on
perceiving it was still alive, he had thrown it into the river." "Impossible!"
cried Madame Danglars: "a man may murder another out of revenge, but
he would not deliberately drown a child." "Perhaps,"
continued Villefort, "he had put it in the foundling hospital." "Oh,
yes, yes," cried the baroness; "my child is there!" "I
ran to the hospital, and learned that the same night--the night of the
20th of September--a child had been brought there, wrapped in part of a
fine linen napkin, purposely torn in half. This portion of the napkin was
marked with half a baron's crown, and the letter H." "Truly,
truly," said Madame Danglars, "all my linen is marked thus;
Monsieur de Nargonne was a baronet, and my name is Hermine. Thank God, my
child was not then dead!" "No,
it was not dead." "And
you can tell me so without fearing to make me die of joy? Where is the
child?" Villefort shrugged his shoulders. "Do I know?" said
he; "and do you believe that if I knew I would relate to you all its
trials and all its adventures as would a dramatist or a novel writer?
Alas, no, I know not. A woman, about six months after, came to claim it
with the other half of the napkin. This woman gave all the requisite
particulars, and it was intrusted to her." "But
you should have inquired for the woman; you should have traced her." "And
what do you think I did? I feigned a criminal process, and employed all
the most acute bloodhounds and skilful agents in search of her. They
traced her to Chalons, and there they lost her." "They
lost her?" "Yes,
forever." Madame Danglars had listened to this recital with a sigh, a
tear, or a shriek for every detail. "And this is all?" said she;
"and you stopped there?" "Oh,
no," said Villefort; "I never ceased to search and to inquire.
However, the last two or three years I had allowed myself some respite.
But now I will begin with more perseverance and fury than ever, since fear
urges me, not my conscience." "But,"
replied Madame Danglars, "the Count of Monte Cristo can know nothing,
or he would not seek our society as he does." "Oh,
the wickedness of man is very great," said Villefort, "since it
surpasses the goodness of God. Did you observe that man's eyes while he
was speaking to us?" "No."
"But
have you ever watched him carefully?" "Doubtless
he is capricious, but that is all; one thing alone struck me,--of all the
exquisite things he placed before us, he touched nothing. I might have
suspected he was poisoning us." "And
you see you would have been deceived." "Yes,
doubtless." "But
believe me, that man has other projects. For that reason I wished to see
you, to speak to you, to warn you against every one, but especially
against him. Tell me," cried Villefort, fixing his eyes more
steadfastly on her than he had ever done before, "did you ever reveal
to any one our connection?" "Never,
to any one." "You
understand me," replied Villefort, affectionately; "when I say
any one,--pardon my urgency,--to any one living I mean?" "Yes,
yes, I understand very well," ejaculated the baroness; "never, I
swear to you." "Were
you ever in the habit of writing in the evening what had transpired in the
morning? Do you keep a journal?" "No,
my life has been passed in frivolity; I wish to forget it myself." "Do
you talk in your sleep?" "I
sleep soundly, like a child; do you not remember?" The color mounted
to the baroness's face, and Villefort turned awfully pale. "It
is true," said he, in so low a tone that he could hardly be heard. "Well?"
said the baroness. "Well,
I understand what I now have to do," replied Villefort. "In less
than one week from this time I will ascertain who this M. de Monte Cristo
is, whence he comes, where he goes, and why he speaks in our presence of
children that have been disinterred in a garden." Villefort
pronounced these words with an accent which would have made the count
shudder had he heard him. Then he pressed the hand the baroness
reluctantly gave him, and led her respectfully back to the door. Madame
Danglars returned in another cab to the passage, on the other side of
which she found her carriage, and her coachman sleeping peacefully on his
box while waiting for her. |
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