The Count of Monte Cristo

Questions and answers followed in a manner that made Dantès indignant, for he felt that all the world should experience for the poor abbé the love he bore him.

“I am very sorry for what you tell me,” said the governor, replying to the assurance of the doctor, “that the old man is really dead, for he was a quiet, inoffensive prisoner, happy in his folly, and required no watching.”

“Ah!” added the turnkey, “there was no occasion for watching him; he would have stayed here fifty years, I’ll answer for it, without any attempt to escape.”

“Still,” said the governor, “I believe it will be requisite, notwithstanding your certainty, and not that I doubt your science, but for my own responsibility’s sake, that we should be perfectly assured that the prisoner is dead.”

There was a moment of complete silence, during which Dantès, still listening, felt assured that the doctor was examining and touching the corpse a second time.

“You may make your mind easy,” said the doctor; “he is dead. I will answer for that.”

“You know, sir,” said the governor, persisting, “that we are not content in such cases as this with such a simple examination. In spite of all appearances, be so kind, therefore, as finish your duty by fulfilling the formalities prescribed by law.”

“Let the irons be heated,” said the doctor; “but really it is a useless precaution.”

This order to heat the irons made Dantès shudder. He heard hasty steps, the creaking of a door, people going and coming, and some minutes afterwards a turnkey entered, saying:

“Here is the brazier lighted.”

There was a moment’s silence, and then was heard the noise made by burning flesh, of which the peculiar and nauseous smell penetrated even behind the wall where Dantès was listening horrified.

At this smell of human flesh carbonised, the damp came over the young man’s brow, and he felt as if he should faint.

“You see, sir, he is really dead,” said the doctor; “this burn in the heel is decisive; the poor fool is cured of his folly, and delivered from his captivity.”

“Wasn’t his name Faria?” inquired one of the officers who accompanied the governor.

“Yes, sir; and as he said, it was an ancient name; he was, too, very learned, and rational enough on all points which did not relate to his treasure; but on that, indeed, he was obstinate.”

“It is the sort of malady which we call monomania,” said the doctor.

“You had never anything to complain of?” said the governor to the gaoler who had charge of the abbé.

“Never, sir,” replied the gaoler, “never—on the contrary, he sometimes amused me very much by telling me stories. One day, too, when my wife was ill, he gave me a prescription which cured her.”

“Ah, ah!” said the doctor, “I was ignorant that I had a competitor; but I hope, M. le Gouverneur, that you will show him all proper respect in consequence.”

“Yes, yes; make your mind easy; he shall be decently interred in the newest sack we can find. Will that satisfy you?”

“Must we do this last formality in your presence, sir?” inquired a turnkey.

“Certainly. But make haste. I cannot stay here all day.”

Fresh footsteps, going and coming, were now heard, and a moment afterwards the noise of cloth being rubbed reached Dantès’ ears, the bed creaked on its hinges, and the heavy foot of a man, who lifts a weight, resounded on the floor; then the bed again creaked under the weight deposited upon it.

“In the evening!” said the governor.

“Will there be any mass?” asked one of the attendants.

“That is impossible,” replied the governor. “The chaplain of the Château came to me yesterday to beg for leave of absence in order to take a trip to Hyères for a week. I told him I would attend to the prisoners in his absence. If the poor abbé had not been in such a hurry he might have had his requiem.”

“Pooh! pooh!” said the doctor, with the accustomed impiety of persons of his profession, “he is a churchman. God will respect his profession, and not give the devil the wicked delight of sending him a priest.”

A shout of laughter followed this brutal jest.

During this time the operation of putting the body in the sack was going on.

“This evening,” said the governor, when the task was ended.

“At what o’clock?” inquired a turnkey.

“Why, about ten or eleven o’clock.”

“Shall we watch by the corpse?”

“Of what use would it be? Shut the dungeon as if he were alive—that is all.”

Then the steps retreated, and the voices died away in the distance; the noise of the door with its creaking hinges and bolts ceased, and a silence duller than any solitude ensued, the silence of death, which pervaded all, and struck its icy chill through the young man’s whole frame. Then he raised the flagstone cautiously with his head, and looked carefully round the chamber.

It was empty, and Dantès, quitting the passage, entered it.

20 The Cemetery of the Château d’If (#ulink_0b63d6fb-abe4-52fe-b3bc-26b2a080191d)

ON THE BED, at full length, and faintly lighted by the pale ray that penetrated the window, was visible a sack of coarse cloth, under the large folds of which were stretched a long and stiffened form; it was Faria’s last winding-sheet—a winding-sheet which, as the turnkey said, cost so little. All then was completed. A material separation had taken place between Dantès and his old friend,—he could no longer see those eyes which had remained open as if to look even beyond death,—he could no longer clasp that hand of industry which had lifted for him the veil that had concealed hidden and obscure things. Faria, the usual and the good companion, with whom he was accustomed to live so intimately, no longer breathed. He seated himself on the edge of that terrible bed, and fell into a melancholy and gloomy reverie.

Alone! he was alone again! again relapsed into silence! he found himself once again in the presence of nothingness!

Alone! no longer to see,—no longer to hear the voice of the only human being who attached him to life! Was it not better, like Faria, to seek the presence of his Maker and learn the enigma of life at the risk of passing through the mournful gate of intense suffering?

The idea of suicide, driven away by his friend, and forgotten in his presence whilst living, arose like a phantom before him in presence of his dead body.

“If I could die,” he said, “I should go where he goes, and should assuredly find him again. But how to die? It is very easy,” he continued, with a smile of bitterness; “I will remain here, rush on the first person that opens the door, will strangle him, and then they will guillotine me.”

But as it happens that in excessive griefs, as in great tempests, the abyss is found between the tops of the loftiest waves, Dantès recoiled from the idea of this infamous death, and passed suddenly from despair to an ardent desire for life and liberty.

“Die! oh, no,” he exclaimed, “not die now, after having lived and suffered so long and so much! Die! yes, had I died years since; but now it would be indeed to give way to my bitter destiny. No, I desire to live, I desire to struggle to the very last, I wish to reconquer the happiness of which I have been deprived. Before I die, I must not forget that I have my executioners to punish, and, perhaps, too, who knows, some friends to reward. Yet they will forget me here, and I shall die in my dungeon like Faria.”

As he said this, he remained motionless, his eyes fixed like a man struck with a sudden idea, but whom this idea fills with amazement. Suddenly he rose, lifted his hand to his brow as if his brain were giddy, paced twice or thrice round his chamber, and then paused abruptly at the bed.

“Ah! ah!” he muttered, “who inspires me with this thought? Is that thou, gracious God? Since none but the dead pass freely from this dungeon, let me assume the place of the dead!”

Without giving himself time to reconsider his decision, and, indeed, that he might not allow his thoughts to be distracted from his desperate resolution, he bent over the appalling sack, opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew the corpse from the sack, and transported it along the gallery to his own chamber, laid it on his couch, passed round its head the rag he wore at night round his own, covered it with his counterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried vainly to close the resisting eyes which glared horrible, turned the head towards the wall, so that the gaoler might, when he brought his evening meal, believe that he was asleep, as was his frequent custom; returned along the gallery, threw the bed against the wall, returned to the other cell, took from the hiding-place the needle and thread, flung off his rags that they might feel naked flesh only beneath the coarse sackcloth, and getting inside the sack, placed himself in the posture in which the dead body had been laid, and sewed up the mouth of the sack withinside.

The beating of his heart might have been heard if by any mischance the gaolers had entered at that moment.

Dantès might have waited until the evening visit was over, but he was afraid the governor might change his resolution, and order the dead body to be removed earlier.

In that case his last hope would have been destroyed.