Chapter 17. The Abbé’s Chamber-2
2003 Words
degree, has his place on the social ladder, and is beset by stormy
passions and conflicting interests, as in Descartes’ theory of pressure
and impulsion. But these forces increase as we go higher, so that we
have a spiral which in defiance of reason rests upon the apex and not on
the base. Now let us return to your particular world. You say you were
on the point of being made captain of the Pharaon?”
“Yes.”
“And about to become the husband of a young and lovely girl?”
“Yes.”
“Now, could anyone have had any interest in preventing the
accomplishment of these two things? But let us first settle the question
as to its being the interest of anyone to hinder you from being captain
of the Pharaon. What say you?”
“I cannot believe such was the case. I was generally liked on board, and
had the sailors possessed the right of selecting a captain themselves, I
feel convinced their choice would have fallen on me. There was only one
person among the crew who had any feeling of ill-will towards me. I had
quarelled with him some time previously, and had even challenged him to
fight me; but he refused.”
“Now we are getting on. And what was this man’s name?”
“Danglars.”
“What rank did he hold on board?”
“He was supercargo.”
“And had you been captain, should you have retained him in his
employment?”
“Not if the choice had remained with me, for I had frequently observed
inaccuracies in his accounts.”
“Good again! Now then, tell me, was any person present during your last
conversation with Captain Leclere?”
“No; we were quite alone.”
“Could your conversation have been overheard by anyone?”
“It might, for the cabin door was open—and—stay; now I
recollect,—Danglars himself passed by just as Captain Leclere was giving
me the packet for the grand marshal.”
“That’s better,” cried the abbé; “now we are on the right scent. Did you
take anybody with you when you put into the port of Elba?”
“Nobody.”
“Somebody there received your packet, and gave you a letter in place of
it, I think?”
“Yes; the grand marshal did.”
“And what did you do with that letter?”
“Put it into my portfolio.”
“You had your portfolio with you, then? Now, how could a sailor find
room in his pocket for a portfolio large enough to contain an official
letter?”
“You are right; it was left on board.”
“Then it was not till your return to the ship that you put the letter in
the portfolio?”
“No.”
“And what did you do with this same letter while returning from Porto-
Ferrajo to the vessel?”
“I carried it in my hand.”
“So that when you went on board the Pharaon, everybody could see that
you held a letter in your hand?”
“Yes.”
“Danglars, as well as the rest?”
“Danglars, as well as others.”
“Now, listen to me, and try to recall every circumstance attending your
arrest. Do you recollect the words in which the information against you
was formulated?”
“Oh yes, I read it over three times, and the words sank deeply into my
memory.”
“Repeat it to me.”
Dantès paused a moment, then said, “This is it, word for word: ‘The
king’s attorney is informed by a friend to the throne and religion, that
one Edmond Dantès, mate on board the Pharaon, this day arrived from
Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been
intrusted by Murat with a packet for the usurper; again, by the usurper,
with a letter for the Bonapartist Club in Paris. This proof of his guilt
may be procured by his immediate arrest, as the letter will be found
either about his person, at his father’s residence, or in his cabin on
board the Pharaon.’”
The abbé shrugged his shoulders. “The thing is clear as day,” said he;
“and you must have had a very confiding nature, as well as a good heart,
not to have suspected the origin of the whole affair.”
“Do you really think so? Ah, that would indeed be infamous.”
“How did Danglars usually write?”
“In a handsome, running hand.”
“And how was the anonymous letter written?”
“Backhanded.”
Again the abbé smiled. “Disguised.”
“It was very boldly written, if disguised.”
“Stop a bit,” said the abbé, taking up what he called his pen, and,
after dipping it into the ink, he wrote on a piece of prepared linen,
with his left hand, the first two or three words of the accusation.
Dantès drew back, and gazed on the abbé with a sensation almost
amounting to terror.
“How very astonishing!” cried he at length. “Why your writing exactly
resembles that of the accusation.”
“Simply because that accusation had been written with the left hand; and
I have noticed that——”
“What?”
“That while the writing of different persons done with the right hand
varies, that performed with the left hand is invariably uniform.”
“You have evidently seen and observed everything.”
“Let us proceed.”
“Oh, yes, yes!”
“Now as regards the second question.”
“I am listening.”
“Was there any person whose interest it was to prevent your marriage
with Mercédès?”
“Yes; a young man who loved her.”
“And his name was——”
“Fernand.”
“That is a Spanish name, I think?”
“He was a Catalan.”
“You imagine him capable of writing the letter?”
“Oh, no; he would more likely have got rid of me by sticking a knife
into me.”
“That is in strict accordance with the Spanish character; an
assassination they will unhesitatingly commit, but an act of cowardice,
never.”
“Besides,” said Dantès, “the various circumstances mentioned in the
letter were wholly unknown to him.”
“You had never spoken of them yourself to anyone?”
“To no one.”
“Not even to your mistress?”
“No, not even to my betrothed.”
“Then it is Danglars.”
“I feel quite sure of it now.”
“Wait a little. Pray, was Danglars acquainted with Fernand?”
“No—yes, he was. Now I recollect——”
“What?”
“To have seen them both sitting at table together under an arbor at Père
Pamphile’s the evening before the day fixed for my wedding. They were in
earnest conversation. Danglars was joking in a friendly way, but Fernand
looked pale and agitated.”
“Were they alone?”
“There was a third person with them whom I knew perfectly well, and who
had, in all probability made their acquaintance; he was a tailor named
Caderousse, but he was very drunk. Stay!—stay!—How strange that it
should not have occurred to me before! Now I remember quite well, that
on the table round which they were sitting were pens, ink, and paper.
Oh, the heartless, treacherous scoundrels!” exclaimed Dantès, pressing
his hand to his throbbing brows.
“Is there anything else I can assist you in discovering, besides the
villany of your friends?” inquired the abbé with a laugh.
“Yes, yes,” replied Dantès eagerly; “I would beg of you, who see so
completely to the depths of things, and to whom the greatest mystery
seems but an easy riddle, to explain to me how it was that I underwent
no second examination, was never brought to trial, and, above all, was
condemned without ever having had sentence passed on me?”
“That is altogether a different and more serious matter,” responded the
abbé. “The ways of justice are frequently too dark and mysterious to be
easily penetrated. All we have hitherto done in the matter has been
child’s play. If you wish me to enter upon the more difficult part of
the business, you must assist me by the most minute information on every
point.”
“Pray ask me whatever questions you please; for, in good truth, you see
more clearly into my life than I do myself.”
“In the first place, then, who examined you,—the king’s attorney, his
deputy, or a magistrate?”
“The deputy.”
“Was he young or old?”
“About six or seven-and-twenty years of age, I should say.”
“So,” answered the abbé. “Old enough to be ambitious, but too young to
be corrupt. And how did he treat you?”
“With more of mildness than severity.”
“Did you tell him your whole story?”
“I did.”
“And did his conduct change at all in the course of your examination?”
“He did appear much disturbed when he read the letter that had brought
me into this scrape. He seemed quite overcome by my misfortune.”
“By your misfortune?”
“Yes.”
“Then you feel quite sure that it was your misfortune he deplored?”
“He gave me one great proof of his sympathy, at any rate.”
“And that?”
“He burnt the sole evidence that could at all have criminated me.”
“What? the accusation?”
“No; the letter.”
“Are you sure?”
“I saw it done.”
“That alters the case. This man might, after all, be a greater scoundrel
than you have thought possible.”
“Upon my word,” said Dantès, “you make me shudder. Is the world filled
with tigers and crocodiles?”
“Yes; and remember that two-legged tigers and crocodiles are more
dangerous than the others.”
“Never mind; let us go on.”
“With all my heart! You tell me he burned the letter?”
“He did; saying at the same time, ‘You see I thus destroy the only proof
existing against you.’”
“This action is somewhat too sublime to be natural.”
“You think so?”
“I am sure of it. To whom was this letter addressed?”
“To M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Héron, No. 13, Paris.”
“Now can you conceive of any interest that your heroic deputy could
possibly have had in the destruction of that letter?”
“Why, it is not altogether impossible he might have had, for he made me
promise several times never to speak of that letter to anyone, assuring
me he so advised me for my own interest; and, more than this, he
insisted on my taking a solemn oath never to utter the name mentioned in
the address.”
“Noirtier!” repeated the abbé; “Noirtier!—I knew a person of that name
at the court of the Queen of Etruria,—a Noirtier, who had been a
Girondin during the Revolution! What was your deputy called?”
“De Villefort!” The abbé burst into a fit of laughter, while Dantès
gazed on him in utter astonishment.
“What ails you?” said he at length.
“Do you see that ray of sunlight?”
“I do.”
“Well, the whole thing is more clear to me than that sunbeam is to you.
Poor fellow! poor young man! And you tell me this magistrate expressed
great sympathy and commiseration for you?”
“He did.”
“And the worthy man destroyed your compromising letter?”
“Yes.”
“And then made you swear never to utter the name of Noirtier?”
“Yes.”
“Why, you poor short-sighted simpleton, can you not guess who this
Noirtier was, whose very name he was so careful to keep concealed? This
Noirtier was his father!”
Had a thunderbolt fallen at the feet of Dantès, or hell opened its
yawning gulf before him, he could not have been more completely
transfixed with horror than he was at the sound of these unexpected
words. Starting up, he clasped his hands around his head as though to
prevent his very brain from bursting, and exclaimed, “His father! his
father!”
“Yes, his father,” replied the abbé; “his right name was Noirtier de
Villefort.”
At this instant a bright light shot through the mind of Dantès, and
cleared up all that had been dark and obscure before. The change that
had come over Villefort during the examination, the destruction of the
letter, the exacted promise, the almost supplicating tones of the
magistrate, who seemed rather to implore mercy than to pronounce
punishment,—all returned with a stunning force to his memory. He cried
out, and staggered against the wall like a drunken man, then he hurried
to the opening that led from the abbé’s cell to his own, and said, “I
must be alone, to think over all this.”
When he regained his dungeon, he threw himself on his bed, where the
turnkey found him in the evening visit, sitting with fixed gaze and
contracted features, dumb and motionless as a statue. During these hours
of profound meditation, which to him had seemed only minutes, he had
formed a fearful resolution, and bound himself to its fulfilment by a
solemn oath.
Dantès was at length roused from his reverie by the voice of Faria, who,
having also been visited by his jailer, had come to invite his fellow-
sufferer to share his supper. The reputation of being out of his mind,
though harmlessly and even amusingly so, had procured for the abbé
unusual privileges. He was supplied with bread of a finer, whiter
quality than the usual prison fare, and even regaled each Sunday with a
small quantity of wine. Now this was a Sunday, and the abbé had come to
ask his young companion to share the luxuries with him.
Dantès followed him; his features were no longer contracted, and now
wore their usual expression, but there was that in his whole appearance
that bespoke one who had come to a fixed and desperate resolve. Faria
bent on him his penetrating eye.
“I regret now,” said he, “having helped you in your late inquiries, or
having given you the information I did.”
“Why so?” inquired Dantès.
“Because it has instilled a new passion in your heart—that of
vengeance.”
Dantès smiled. “Let us talk of something else,” said he.
Again the abbé looked at him, then mournfully shook his head; but in
accordance with Dantès’ request, he began to speak of other matters. The
elder prisoner was one of those persons whose conversation, like that of
all who have experienced many trials, contained many useful and
important hints as well as sound information; but it was never
egotistical, for the unfortunate man never alluded to his own sorrows.
Dantès listened with admiring attention to all he said; some of his
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