The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 16. A Learned Italian-1

Chapter 16. A Learned Italian

Seizing in his arms the friend so long and ardently desired, Dantès

almost carried him towards the window, in order to obtain a better view

of his features by the aid of the imperfect light that struggled through

the grating.

He was a man of small stature, with hair blanched rather by suffering

and sorrow than by age. He had a deep-set, penetrating eye, almost

buried beneath the thick gray eyebrow, and a long (and still black)

beard reaching down to his breast. His thin face, deeply furrowed by

care, and the bold outline of his strongly marked features, betokened a

man more accustomed to exercise his mental faculties than his physical

strength. Large drops of perspiration were now standing on his brow,

while the garments that hung about him were so ragged that one could

only guess at the pattern upon which they had originally been fashioned.

The stranger might have numbered sixty or sixty-five years; but a

certain briskness and appearance of vigor in his movements made it

probable that he was aged more from captivity than the course of time.

He received the enthusiastic greeting of his young acquaintance with

evident pleasure, as though his chilled affections were rekindled and

invigorated by his contact with one so warm and ardent. He thanked him

with grateful cordiality for his kindly welcome, although he must at

that moment have been suffering bitterly to find another dungeon where

he had fondly reckoned on discovering a means of regaining his liberty.

“Let us first see,” said he, “whether it is possible to remove the

traces of my entrance here—our future tranquillity depends upon our

jailers being entirely ignorant of it.”

Advancing to the opening, he stooped and raised the stone easily in

spite of its weight; then, fitting it into its place, he said:

“You removed this stone very carelessly; but I suppose you had no tools

to aid you.”

“Why,” exclaimed Dantès, with astonishment, “do you possess any?”

“I made myself some; and with the exception of a file, I have all that

are necessary,—a chisel, pincers, and lever.”

“Oh, how I should like to see these products of your industry and

patience.”

“Well, in the first place, here is my chisel.”

So saying, he displayed a sharp strong blade, with a handle made of

beechwood.

“And with what did you contrive to make that?” inquired Dantès.

“With one of the clamps of my bedstead; and this very tool has sufficed

me to hollow out the road by which I came hither, a distance of about

fifty feet.”

“Fifty feet!” responded Dantès, almost terrified.

“Do not speak so loud, young man—don’t speak so loud. It frequently

occurs in a state prison like this, that persons are stationed outside

the doors of the cells purposely to overhear the conversation of the

prisoners.”

“But they believe I am shut up alone here.”

“That makes no difference.”

“And you say that you dug your way a distance of fifty feet to get

here?”

“I do; that is about the distance that separates your chamber from mine;

only, unfortunately, I did not curve aright; for want of the necessary

geometrical instruments to calculate my scale of proportion, instead of

taking an ellipsis of forty feet, I made it fifty. I expected, as I told

you, to reach the outer wall, pierce through it, and throw myself into

the sea; I have, however, kept along the corridor on which your chamber

opens, instead of going beneath it. My labor is all in vain, for I find

that the corridor looks into a courtyard filled with soldiers.”

“That’s true,” said Dantès; “but the corridor you speak of only bounds

one side of my cell; there are three others—do you know anything of

their situation?”

“This one is built against the solid rock, and it would take ten

experienced miners, duly furnished with the requisite tools, as many

years to perforate it. This adjoins the lower part of the governor’s

apartments, and were we to work our way through, we should only get into

some lock-up cellars, where we must necessarily be recaptured. The

fourth and last side of your cell faces on—faces on—stop a minute, now

where does it face?”

The wall of which he spoke was the one in which was fixed the loophole

by which light was admitted to the chamber. This loophole, which

gradually diminished in size as it approached the outside, to an opening

through which a child could not have passed, was, for better security,

furnished with three iron bars, so as to quiet all apprehensions even in

the mind of the most suspicious jailer as to the possibility of a

prisoner’s escape. As the stranger asked the question, he dragged the

table beneath the window.

“Climb up,” said he to Dantès.

The young man obeyed, mounted on the table, and, divining the wishes of

his companion, placed his back securely against the wall and held out

both hands. The stranger, whom as yet Dantès knew only by the number of

his cell, sprang up with an agility by no means to be expected in a

person of his years, and, light and steady on his feet as a cat or a

lizard, climbed from the table to the outstretched hands of Dantès, and

from them to his shoulders; then, bending double, for the ceiling of the

dungeon prevented him from holding himself erect, he managed to slip his

head between the upper bars of the window, so as to be able to command a

perfect view from top to bottom.

An instant afterwards he hastily drew back his head, saying, “I thought

so!” and sliding from the shoulders of Dantès as dextrously as he had

ascended, he nimbly leaped from the table to the ground.

“What was it that you thought?” asked the young man anxiously, in his

turn descending from the table.

The elder prisoner pondered the matter. “Yes,” said he at length, “it is

so. This side of your chamber looks out upon a kind of open gallery,

where patrols are continually passing, and sentries keep watch day and

night.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“Certain. I saw the soldier’s shape and the top of his musket; that made

me draw in my head so quickly, for I was fearful he might also see me.”

“Well?” inquired Dantès.

“You perceive then the utter impossibility of escaping through your

dungeon?”

“Then——” pursued the young man eagerly.

“Then,” answered the elder prisoner, “the will of God be done!” And as

the old man slowly pronounced those words, an air of profound

resignation spread itself over his careworn countenance. Dantès gazed on

the man who could thus philosophically resign hopes so long and ardently

nourished with an astonishment mingled with admiration.

“Tell me, I entreat of you, who and what you are?” said he at length.

“Never have I met with so remarkable a person as yourself.”

“Willingly,” answered the stranger; “if, indeed, you feel any curiosity

respecting one, now, alas, powerless to aid you in any way.”

“Say not so; you can console and support me by the strength of your own

powerful mind. Pray let me know who you really are?”

The stranger smiled a melancholy smile. “Then listen,” said he. “I am

the Abbé Faria, and have been imprisoned as you know in this Château

d’If since the year 1811; previously to which I had been confined for

three years in the fortress of Fenestrelle. In the year 1811 I was

transferred to Piedmont in France. It was at this period I learned that

the destiny which seemed subservient to every wish formed by Napoleon,

had bestowed on him a son, named king of Rome even in his cradle. I was

very far then from expecting the change you have just informed me of;

namely, that four years afterwards, this colossus of power would be

overthrown. Then who reigns in France at this moment—Napoleon II.?”

“No, Louis XVIII.”

“The brother of Louis XVI.! How inscrutable are the ways of

Providence—for what great and mysterious purpose has it pleased Heaven

to abase the man once so elevated, and raise up him who was so abased?”

Dantès’ whole attention was riveted on a man who could thus forget his

own misfortunes while occupying himself with the destinies of others.

“Yes, yes,” continued he, “’Twill be the same as it was in England.

After Charles I., Cromwell; after Cromwell, Charles II., and then James

II., and then some son-in-law or relation, some Prince of Orange, a

stadtholder who becomes a king. Then new concessions to the people, then

a constitution, then liberty. Ah, my friend!” said the abbé, turning

towards Dantès, and surveying him with the kindling gaze of a prophet,

“you are young, you will see all this come to pass.”

“Probably, if ever I get out of prison!”

“True,” replied Faria, “we are prisoners; but I forget this sometimes,

and there are even moments when my mental vision transports me beyond

these walls, and I fancy myself at liberty.”

“But wherefore are you here?”

“Because in 1807 I dreamed of the very plan Napoleon tried to realize in

1811; because, like Machiavelli, I desired to alter the political face

of Italy, and instead of allowing it to be split up into a quantity of

petty principalities, each held by some weak or tyrannical ruler, I

sought to form one large, compact, and powerful empire; and, lastly,

because I fancied I had found my Cæsar Borgia in a crowned simpleton,

who feigned to enter into my views only to betray me. It was the plan of

Alexander VI. and Clement VII., but it will never succeed now, for they

attempted it fruitlessly, and Napoleon was unable to complete his work.

Italy seems fated to misfortune.” And the old man bowed his head.

Dantès could not understand a man risking his life for such matters.

Napoleon certainly he knew something of, inasmuch as he had seen and

spoken with him; but of Clement VII. and Alexander VI. he knew nothing.

“Are you not,” he asked, “the priest who here in the Château d’If is

generally thought to be—ill?”

“Mad, you mean, don’t you?”

“I did not like to say so,” answered Dantès, smiling.

“Well, then,” resumed Faria with a bitter smile, “let me answer your

question in full, by acknowledging that I am the poor mad prisoner of

the Château d’If, for many years permitted to amuse the different

visitors with what is said to be my insanity; and, in all probability, I

should be promoted to the honor of making sport for the children, if

such innocent beings could be found in an abode devoted like this to

suffering and despair.”

Dantès remained for a short time mute and motionless; at length he said:

“Then you abandon all hope of escape?”

“I perceive its utter impossibility; and I consider it impious to

attempt that which the Almighty evidently does not approve.”

“Nay, be not discouraged. Would it not be expecting too much to hope to

succeed at your first attempt? Why not try to find an opening in another

direction from that which has so unfortunately failed?”

“Alas, it shows how little notion you can have of all it has cost me to

effect a purpose so unexpectedly frustrated, that you talk of beginning

over again. In the first place, I was four years making the tools I

possess, and have been two years scraping and digging out earth, hard as

granite itself; then what toil and fatigue has it not been to remove

huge stones I should once have deemed impossible to loosen. Whole days

have I passed in these Titanic efforts, considering my labor well repaid

if, by night-time I had contrived to carry away a square inch of this

hard-bound cement, changed by ages into a substance unyielding as the

stones themselves; then to conceal the mass of earth and rubbish I dug

up, I was compelled to break through a staircase, and throw the fruits

of my labor into the hollow part of it; but the well is now so

completely choked up, that I scarcely think it would be possible to add

another handful of dust without leading to discovery. Consider also that

I fully believed I had accomplished the end and aim of my undertaking,

for which I had so exactly husbanded my strength as to make it just hold

out to the termination of my enterprise; and now, at the moment when I

reckoned upon success, my hopes are forever dashed from me. No, I repeat

again, that nothing shall induce me to renew attempts evidently at

variance with the Almighty’s pleasure.”

Dantès held down his head, that the other might not see how joy at the