The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 17. The Abbé’s Chamber-1

Chapter 17. The Abbé’s Chamber

After having passed with tolerable ease through the subterranean

passage, which, however, did not admit of their holding themselves

erect, the two friends reached the further end of the corridor, into

which the abbé’s cell opened; from that point the passage became much

narrower, and barely permitted one to creep through on hands and knees.

The floor of the abbé’s cell was paved, and it had been by raising one

of the stones in the most obscure corner that Faria had been able to

commence the laborious task of which Dantès had witnessed the

completion.

As he entered the chamber of his friend, Dantès cast around one eager

and searching glance in quest of the expected marvels, but nothing more

than common met his view.

“It is well,” said the abbé; “we have some hours before us—it is now

just a quarter past twelve o’clock.” Instinctively Dantès turned round

to observe by what watch or clock the abbé had been able so accurately

to specify the hour.

“Look at this ray of light which enters by my window,” said the abbé,

“and then observe the lines traced on the wall. Well, by means of these

lines, which are in accordance with the double motion of the earth, and

the ellipse it describes round the sun, I am enabled to ascertain the

precise hour with more minuteness than if I possessed a watch; for that

might be broken or deranged in its movements, while the sun and earth

never vary in their appointed paths.”

This last explanation was wholly lost upon Dantès, who had always

imagined, from seeing the sun rise from behind the mountains and set in

the Mediterranean, that it moved, and not the earth. A double movement

of the globe he inhabited, and of which he could feel nothing, appeared

to him perfectly impossible. Each word that fell from his companion’s

lips seemed fraught with the mysteries of science, as worthy of digging

out as the gold and diamonds in the mines of Guzerat and Golconda, which

he could just recollect having visited during a voyage made in his

earliest youth.

“Come,” said he to the abbé, “I am anxious to see your treasures.”

The abbé smiled, and, proceeding to the disused fireplace, raised, by

the help of his chisel, a long stone, which had doubtless been the

hearth, beneath which was a cavity of considerable depth, serving as a

safe depository of the articles mentioned to Dantès.

“What do you wish to see first?” asked the abbé.

“Oh, your great work on the monarchy of Italy!”

Faria then drew forth from his hiding-place three or four rolls of

linen, laid one over the other, like folds of papyrus. These rolls

consisted of slips of cloth about four inches wide and eighteen long;

they were all carefully numbered and closely covered with writing, so

legible that Dantès could easily read it, as well as make out the

sense—it being in Italian, a language he, as a Provençal, perfectly

understood.

“There,” said he, “there is the work complete. I wrote the word finis at

the end of the sixty-eighth strip about a week ago. I have torn up two

of my shirts, and as many handkerchiefs as I was master of, to complete

the precious pages. Should I ever get out of prison and find in all

Italy a printer courageous enough to publish what I have composed, my

literary reputation is forever secured.”

“I see,” answered Dantès. “Now let me behold the curious pens with which

you have written your work.”

“Look!” said Faria, showing to the young man a slender stick about six

inches long, and much resembling the size of the handle of a fine

painting-brush, to the end of which was tied, by a piece of thread, one

of those cartilages of which the abbé had before spoken to Dantès; it

was pointed, and divided at the nib like an ordinary pen. Dantès

examined it with intense admiration, then looked around to see the

instrument with which it had been shaped so correctly into form.

“Ah, yes,” said Faria; “the penknife. That’s my masterpiece. I made it,

as well as this larger knife, out of an old iron candlestick.” The

penknife was sharp and keen as a razor; as for the other knife, it would

serve a double purpose, and with it one could cut and thrust.

Dantès examined the various articles shown to him with the same

attention that he had bestowed on the curiosities and strange tools

exhibited in the shops at Marseilles as the works of the savages in the

South Seas from whence they had been brought by the different trading

vessels.

“As for the ink,” said Faria, “I told you how I managed to obtain

that—and I only just make it from time to time, as I require it.”

“One thing still puzzles me,” observed Dantès, “and that is how you

managed to do all this by daylight?”

“I worked at night also,” replied Faria.

“Night!—why, for Heaven’s sake, are your eyes like cats’, that you can

see to work in the dark?”

“Indeed they are not; but God has supplied man with the intelligence

that enables him to overcome the limitations of natural conditions. I

furnished myself with a light.”

“You did? Pray tell me how.”

“I separated the fat from the meat served to me, melted it, and so made

oil—here is my lamp.” So saying, the abbé exhibited a sort of torch very

similar to those used in public illuminations.

“But how do you procure a light?”

“Oh, here are two flints and a piece of burnt linen.”

“And matches?”

“I pretended that I had a disorder of the skin, and asked for a little

sulphur, which was readily supplied.”

Dantès laid the different things he had been looking at on the table,

and stood with his head drooping on his breast, as though overwhelmed by

the perseverance and strength of Faria’s mind.

“You have not seen all yet,” continued Faria, “for I did not think it

wise to trust all my treasures in the same hiding-place. Let us shut

this one up.” They put the stone back in its place; the abbé sprinkled a

little dust over it to conceal the traces of its having been removed,

rubbed his foot well on it to make it assume the same appearance as the

other, and then, going towards his bed, he removed it from the spot it

stood in. Behind the head of the bed, and concealed by a stone fitting

in so closely as to defy all suspicion, was a hollow space, and in this

space a ladder of cords between twenty-five and thirty feet in length.

Dantès closely and eagerly examined it; he found it firm, solid, and

compact enough to bear any weight.

“Who supplied you with the materials for making this wonderful work?”

“I tore up several of my shirts, and ripped out the seams in the sheets

of my bed, during my three years’ imprisonment at Fenestrelle; and when

I was removed to the Château d’If, I managed to bring the ravellings

with me, so that I have been able to finish my work here.”

“And was it not discovered that your sheets were unhemmed?”

“Oh, no, for when I had taken out the thread I required, I hemmed the

edges over again.”

“With what?”

“With this needle,” said the abbé, as, opening his ragged vestments, he

showed Dantès a long, sharp fish-bone, with a small perforated eye for

the thread, a small portion of which still remained in it.

“I once thought,” continued Faria, “of removing these iron bars, and

letting myself down from the window, which, as you see, is somewhat

wider than yours, although I should have enlarged it still more

preparatory to my flight; however, I discovered that I should merely

have dropped into a sort of inner court, and I therefore renounced the

project altogether as too full of risk and danger. Nevertheless, I

carefully preserved my ladder against one of those unforeseen

opportunities of which I spoke just now, and which sudden chance

frequently brings about.”

While affecting to be deeply engaged in examining the ladder, the mind

of Dantès was, in fact, busily occupied by the idea that a person so

intelligent, ingenious, and clear-sighted as the abbé might probably be

able to solve the dark mystery of his own misfortunes, where he himself

could see nothing.

“What are you thinking of?” asked the abbé smilingly, imputing the deep

abstraction in which his visitor was plunged to the excess of his awe

and wonder.

“I was reflecting, in the first place,” replied Dantès, “upon the

enormous degree of intelligence and ability you must have employed to

reach the high perfection to which you have attained. What would you not

have accomplished if you had been free?”

“Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would probably, in a

state of freedom, have evaporated in a thousand follies; misfortune is

needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect.

Compression is needed to explode gunpowder. Captivity has brought my

mental faculties to a focus; and you are well aware that from the

collision of clouds electricity is produced—from electricity, lightning,

from lightning, illumination.”

“No,” replied Dantès. “I know nothing. Some of your words are to me

quite empty of meaning. You must be blessed indeed to possess the

knowledge you have.”

The abbé smiled. “Well,” said he, “but you had another subject for your

thoughts; did you not say so just now?”

“I did!”

“You have told me as yet but one of them—let me hear the other.”

“It was this,—that while you had related to me all the particulars of

your past life, you were perfectly unacquainted with mine.”

“Your life, my young friend, has not been of sufficient length to admit

of your having passed through any very important events.”

“It has been long enough to inflict on me a great and undeserved

misfortune. I would fain fix the source of it on man that I may no

longer vent reproaches upon Heaven.”

“Then you profess ignorance of the crime with which you are charged?”

“I do, indeed; and this I swear by the two beings most dear to me upon

earth,—my father and Mercédès.”

“Come,” said the abbé, closing his hiding-place, and pushing the bed

back to its original situation, “let me hear your story.”

Dantès obeyed, and commenced what he called his history, but which

consisted only of the account of a voyage to India, and two or three

voyages to the Levant, until he arrived at the recital of his last

cruise, with the death of Captain Leclere, and the receipt of a packet

to be delivered by himself to the grand marshal; his interview with that

personage, and his receiving, in place of the packet brought, a letter

addressed to a Monsieur Noirtier—his arrival at Marseilles, and

interview with his father—his affection for Mercédès, and their nuptual

feast—his arrest and subsequent examination, his temporary detention at

the Palais de Justice, and his final imprisonment in the Château d’If.

From this point everything was a blank to Dantès—he knew nothing more,

not even the length of time he had been imprisoned. His recital

finished, the abbé reflected long and earnestly.

“There is,” said he, at the end of his meditations, “a clever maxim,

which bears upon what I was saying to you some little while ago, and

that is, that unless wicked ideas take root in a naturally depraved

mind, human nature, in a right and wholesome state, revolts at crime.

Still, from an artificial civilization have originated wants, vices, and

false tastes, which occasionally become so powerful as to stifle within

us all good feelings, and ultimately to lead us into guilt and

wickedness. From this view of things, then, comes the axiom that if you

visit to discover the author of any bad action, seek first to discover

the person to whom the perpetration of that bad action could be in any

way advantageous. Now, to apply it in your case,—to whom could your

disappearance have been serviceable?”

“To no one, by Heaven! I was a very insignificant person.”

“Do not speak thus, for your reply evinces neither logic nor philosophy;

everything is relative, my dear young friend, from the king who stands

in the way of his successor, to the employee who keeps his rival out of

a place. Now, in the event of the king’s death, his successor inherits a

crown,—when the employee dies, the supernumerary steps into his shoes,

and receives his salary of twelve thousand livres. Well, these twelve

thousand livres are his civil list, and are as essential to him as the

twelve millions of a king. Everyone, from the highest to the lowest