The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 17. The Abbé’s Chamber-3

remarks corresponded with what he already knew, or applied to the sort

of knowledge his nautical life had enabled him to acquire. A part of the

good abbé’s words, however, were wholly incomprehensible to him; but,

like the aurora which guides the navigator in northern latitudes, opened

new vistas to the inquiring mind of the listener, and gave fantastic

glimpses of new horizons, enabling him justly to estimate the delight an

intellectual mind would have in following one so richly gifted as Faria

along the heights of truth, where he was so much at home.

“You must teach me a small part of what you know,” said Dantès, “if only

to prevent your growing weary of me. I can well believe that so learned

a person as yourself would prefer absolute solitude to being tormented

with the company of one as ignorant and uninformed as myself. If you

will only agree to my request, I promise you never to mention another

word about escaping.”

The abbé smiled.

“Alas, my boy,” said he, “human knowledge is confined within very narrow

limits; and when I have taught you mathematics, physics, history, and

the three or four modern languages with which I am acquainted, you will

know as much as I do myself. Now, it will scarcely require two years for

me to communicate to you the stock of learning I possess.”

“Two years!” exclaimed Dantès; “do you really believe I can acquire all

these things in so short a time?”

“Not their application, certainly, but their principles you may; to

learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory

makes the one, philosophy the other.”

“But cannot one learn philosophy?”

“Philosophy cannot be taught; it is the application of the sciences to

truth; it is like the golden cloud in which the Messiah went up into

heaven.”

“Well, then,” said Dantès, “What shall you teach me first? I am in a

hurry to begin. I want to learn.”

“Everything,” said the abbé. And that very evening the prisoners

sketched a plan of education, to be entered upon the following day.

Dantès possessed a prodigious memory, combined with an astonishing

quickness and readiness of conception; the mathematical turn of his mind

rendered him apt at all kinds of calculation, while his naturally

poetical feelings threw a light and pleasing veil over the dry reality

of arithmetical computation, or the rigid severity of geometry. He

already knew Italian, and had also picked up a little of the Romaic

dialect during voyages to the East; and by the aid of these two

languages he easily comprehended the construction of all the others, so

that at the end of six months he began to speak Spanish, English, and

German.

In strict accordance with the promise made to the abbé, Dantès spoke no

more of escape. Perhaps the delight his studies afforded him left no

room for such thoughts; perhaps the recollection that he had pledged his

word (on which his sense of honor was keen) kept him from referring in

any way to the possibilities of flight. Days, even months, passed by

unheeded in one rapid and instructive course. At the end of a year

Dantès was a new man. Dantès observed, however, that Faria, in spite of

the relief his society afforded, daily grew sadder; one thought seemed

incessantly to harass and distract his mind. Sometimes he would fall

into long reveries, sigh heavily and involuntarily, then suddenly rise,

and, with folded arms, begin pacing the confined space of his dungeon.

One day he stopped all at once, and exclaimed:

“Ah, if there were no sentinel!”

“There shall not be one a minute longer than you please,” said Dantès,

who had followed the working of his thoughts as accurately as though his

brain were enclosed in crystal so clear as to display its minutest

operations.

“I have already told you,” answered the abbé, “that I loathe the idea of

shedding blood.”

“And yet the murder, if you choose to call it so, would be simply a

measure of self-preservation.”

“No matter! I could never agree to it.”

“Still, you have thought of it?”

“Incessantly, alas!” cried the abbé.

“And you have discovered a means of regaining our freedom, have you

not?” asked Dantès eagerly.

“I have; if it were only possible to place a deaf and blind sentinel in

the gallery beyond us.”

“He shall be both blind and deaf,” replied the young man, with an air of

determination that made his companion shudder.

“No, no,” cried the abbé; “impossible!”

Dantès endeavored to renew the subject; the abbé shook his head in token

of disapproval, and refused to make any further response. Three months

passed away.

“Are you strong?” the abbé asked one day of Dantès. The young man, in

reply, took up the chisel, bent it into the form of a horseshoe, and

then as readily straightened it.

“And will you engage not to do any harm to the sentry, except as a last

resort?”

“I promise on my honor.”

“Then,” said the abbé, “we may hope to put our design into execution.”

“And how long shall we be in accomplishing the necessary work?”

“At least a year.”

“And shall we begin at once?”

“At once.”

“We have lost a year to no purpose!” cried Dantès.

“Do you consider the last twelve months to have been wasted?” asked the

abbé.

“Forgive me!” cried Edmond, blushing deeply.

“Tut, tut!” answered the abbé, “man is but man after all, and you are

about the best specimen of the genus I have ever known. Come, let me

show you my plan.”

The abbé then showed Dantès the sketch he had made for their escape. It

consisted of a plan of his own cell and that of Dantès, with the passage

which united them. In this passage he proposed to drive a level as they

do in mines; this level would bring the two prisoners immediately

beneath the gallery where the sentry kept watch; once there, a large

excavation would be made, and one of the flag-stones with which the

gallery was paved be so completely loosened that at the desired moment

it would give way beneath the feet of the soldier, who, stunned by his

fall, would be immediately bound and gagged by Dantès before he had

power to offer any resistance. The prisoners were then to make their way

through one of the gallery windows, and to let themselves down from the

outer walls by means of the abbé’s ladder of cords.

Dantès’ eyes sparkled with joy, and he rubbed his hands with delight at

the idea of a plan so simple, yet apparently so certain to succeed. That

very day the miners began their labors, with a vigor and alacrity

proportionate to their long rest from fatigue and their hopes of

ultimate success. Nothing interrupted the progress of the work except

the necessity that each was under of returning to his cell in

anticipation of the turnkey’s visits. They had learned to distinguish

the almost imperceptible sound of his footsteps as he descended towards

their dungeons, and happily, never failed of being prepared for his

coming. The fresh earth excavated during their present work, and which

would have entirely blocked up the old passage, was thrown, by degrees

and with the utmost precaution, out of the window in either Faria’s or

Dantès’ cell, the rubbish being first pulverized so finely that the

night wind carried it far away without permitting the smallest trace to

remain.

More than a year had been consumed in this undertaking, the only tools

for which had been a chisel, a knife, and a wooden lever; Faria still

continuing to instruct Dantès by conversing with him, sometimes in one

language, sometimes in another; at others, relating to him the history

of nations and great men who from time to time have risen to fame and

trodden the path of glory. The abbé was a man of the world, and had,

moreover, mixed in the first society of the day; he wore an air of

melancholy dignity which Dantès, thanks to the imitative powers bestowed

on him by nature, easily acquired, as well as that outward polish and

politeness he had before been wanting in, and which is seldom possessed

except by those who have been placed in constant intercourse with

persons of high birth and breeding.

At the end of fifteen months the level was finished, and the excavation

completed beneath the gallery, and the two workmen could distinctly hear

the measured tread of the sentinel as he paced to and fro over their

heads. Compelled, as they were, to await a night sufficiently dark to

favor their flight, they were obliged to defer their final attempt till

that auspicious moment should arrive; their greatest dread now was lest

the stone through which the sentry was doomed to fall should give way

before its right time, and this they had in some measure provided

against by propping it up with a small beam which they had discovered in

the walls through which they had worked their way. Dantès was occupied

in arranging this piece of wood when he heard Faria, who had remained in

Edmond’s cell for the purpose of cutting a peg to secure their rope-

ladder, call to him in a tone indicative of great suffering. Dantès

hastened to his dungeon, where he found him standing in the middle of

the room, pale as death, his forehead streaming with perspiration, and

his hands clenched tightly together.

“Gracious heavens!” exclaimed Dantès, “what is the matter? what has

happened?”

“Quick! quick!” returned the abbé, “listen to what I have to say.”

Dantès looked in fear and wonder at the livid countenance of Faria,

whose eyes, already dull and sunken, were surrounded by purple circles,

while his lips were white as those of a corpse, and his very hair seemed

to stand on end.

“Tell me, I beseech you, what ails you?” cried Dantès, letting his

chisel fall to the floor.

“Alas,” faltered out the abbé, “all is over with me. I am seized with a

terrible, perhaps mortal illness; I can feel that the paroxysm is fast

approaching. I had a similar attack the year previous to my

imprisonment. This malady admits but of one remedy; I will tell you what

that is. Go into my cell as quickly as you can; draw out one of the feet

that support the bed; you will find it has been hollowed out for the

purpose of containing a small phial you will see there half-filled with

a red-looking fluid. Bring it to me—or rather—no, no!—I may be found

here, therefore help me back to my room while I have the strength to

drag myself along. Who knows what may happen, or how long the attack may

last?”

In spite of the magnitude of the misfortune which thus suddenly

frustrated his hopes, Dantès did not lose his presence of mind, but

descended into the passage, dragging his unfortunate companion with him;

then, half-carrying, half-supporting him, he managed to reach the abbé’s

chamber, when he immediately laid the sufferer on his bed.

“Thanks,” said the poor abbé, shivering as though his veins were filled

with ice. “I am about to be seized with a fit of catalepsy; when it

comes to its height I shall probably lie still and motionless as though

dead, uttering neither sigh nor groan. On the other hand, the symptoms

may be much more violent, and cause me to fall into fearful convulsions,

foam at the mouth, and cry out loudly. Take care my cries are not heard,

for if they are it is more than probable I should be removed to another

part of the prison, and we be separated forever. When I become quite

motionless, cold, and rigid as a corpse, then, and not before,—be

careful about this,—force open my teeth with the knife, pour from eight

to ten drops of the liquor contained in the phial down my throat, and I

may perhaps revive.”

“Perhaps!” exclaimed Dantès in grief-stricken tones.

“Help! help!” cried the abbé, “I—I—die—I——”

So sudden and violent was the fit that the unfortunate prisoner was

unable to complete the sentence; a violent convulsion shook his whole

frame, his eyes started from their sockets, his mouth was drawn on one

side, his cheeks became purple, he struggled, foamed, dashed himself

about, and uttered the most dreadful cries, which, however, Dantès

prevented from being heard by covering his head with the blanket. The

fit lasted two hours; then, more helpless than an infant, and colder and

paler than marble, more crushed and broken than a reed trampled under