The Count of Monte Cristo (The Wild and Wanton Edition) Page 24

  Edmond did not lose a word, but comprehended very little of what was said. The voices soon ceased, and it seemed to him as if everyone had left the cell. Still he dared not to enter, as they might have left some turnkey to watch the dead. He remained, therefore, mute and motionless, hardly venturing to breathe. At the end of an hour, he heard a faint noise, which increased. It was the governor who returned, followed by the doctor and other attendants. There was a moment’s silence; — it was evident that the doctor was examining the dead body. The inquiries soon commenced.

  The doctor analyzed the symptoms of the malady to which the prisoner had succumbed, and declared that he was dead. Questions and answers followed in a nonchalant manner that made Dantes indignant, for he felt that all the world should have for the poor abbe a love and respect equal to his own.

  “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 in discharge of my official duty, that we should be perfectly assured that the prisoner is dead.” There was a moment of complete silence, during which Dantes, still listening, knew that the doctor was examining 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 to finish your duty by fulfilling the formalities described by law.”

  “Let the irons be heated,” said the doctor; “but really it is a useless precaution.” This order to heat the irons made Dantes 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 crackling of burning flesh, of which the peculiar and nauseous smell penetrated even behind the wall where Dantes was listening in horror. The perspiration poured forth upon 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 intractable.”

  “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 jailer who had charge of the abbe.

  “Never, sir,” replied the jailer, “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 did not know that I had a rival; but I hope, governor, that you will show him all proper respect.”

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

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

  “Certainly. But make haste — I cannot stay here all day.” Other footsteps, going and coming, were now heard, and a moment afterwards the noise of rustling canvas reached Dantes’ ears, the bed creaked, and the heavy footfall of a man who lifts a weight sounded on the floor; then the bed again creaked under the weight deposited upon it.

  “This evening,” said the governor.

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

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

  “Pooh, pooh;” said the doctor, with the impiety usual in 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. Meanwhile the operation of putting the body in the sack was going on.

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

  “At what hour?” inquired a turn key.

  “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 more sombre than that of solitude ensued, — the silence of death, which was all-pervasive, and struck its icy chill to the very soul of Dantes. Then he raised the flag-stone cautiously with his head, and looked carefully around the chamber. It was empty, and Dantes emerged from the tunnel.

  Chapter 20. The Cemetery of the Chateau D’If.

  On the bed, at full length, and faintly illuminated by the pale light that came from the window, lay a sack of canvas, and under its rude folds was stretched a long and stiffened form; it was Faria’s last winding-sheet, — a winding-sheet which, as the turnkey said, cost so little. Everything was in readiness. A barrier had been placed between Dantes and his old friend. No longer could Edmond look into those wide-open eyes which had seemed to be penetrating the mysteries of death; no longer could he clasp the hand which had done so much to make his existence blessed. Faria, the beneficent and cheerful 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 melancholy and gloomy reverie.

  Alone — he was alone again — again condemned to silence — again face to face with nothingness! Alone! — never again to see the face, never again to hear the voice of the only human being who united him to earth! Was not Faria’s fate the better, after all — to solve the problem of life at its source, even at the risk of horrible suffering? The idea of suicide, which his friend had driven away and kept away by his cheerful presence, now hovered like a phantom over the abbe’s 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 went on with a smile; “I will remain here, rush on the first person that opens the door, strangle him, and then they will guillotine me.” But excessive grief is like a storm at sea, where the frail bark is tossed from the depths to the top of the wave. Dantes recoiled from the idea of so infamous a 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 ago; but now to die would be, indeed, to give way to the sarcasm of destiny. No, I want to live; I shall struggle to the very last; I will yet win back 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 became silent and gazed straight before him like one overwhelmed with a strange and amazing thought. Suddenly he arose, lifted his hand to his brow as if his brain were giddy, paced twice or thrice round the dungeon, and then paused abruptly by the bed.

  Mercedes again took the forefront of his thoughts. If she had waited for him they could easily run away and
start a life somewhere else, somewhere away from France, most especially with the treasure. They could live like royalty in a distant land and forget either of them had to endure the torturous time apart. For the first time doubt crept into Edmond’s mind. What if she had not waited, what if she moved on with her life, had children, a husband that was not him? Had he not been locked away for at least ten years, maybe more? There was a difficulty in keeping track as the days began to blur together.

  Where doubt sought to sow seeds of discord love ripped it up by the roots. He thought of the kiss Mercedes and he shared in her house at the Catalans. It was a kiss of love, not of duty, and love remained hard as stone.

  Before he could stop it, another fantasy spread before him, not one of lust or rutting, one of love and devotion. A fantasy of gently kisses and caresses on a beach surrounded by moonlight. This particular beach had changed over the years Edmond and Mercedes had been acquainted, but it always held a few constants. The sand was snow white but dotted with small shells from sea creatures. It also somehow contained a rather large collection of smooth glass beneath its surface. Legend of the place spoke of a ship wreck full of wine so delicious it turned the sea sweet for an entire day, and that the glass still washed up to the beach. Edmond could feel the speckle of sand sticking to his legs and the sharp bite of shells into his arms as they cradled Mercedes in an effort to keep her clean and unmarred. She would never allow herself to be held aloft, however. She was a lady but she most certainly did not mind the dirt and dust of sand or the thrill of hunting sea glass beneath it.

  Edmond would lay Mercedes in the sand and bring her body to life with every pass of his hand or lips. Each kiss a representation of the love he bore her. He would kiss her gently and slow as well as passionately and with a purpose. The taste of her lips in the sunshine and the bright red hue from his own lips ravaging hers were the predominate thoughts in his mind. A sight he had previously seen, a sight he had affected himself.

  “If I left you and then returned, my love, would you wait for me?” Edmond asked the fantasy of Mercedes, intent on her reply.

  “I would always wait for you, Edmond. Would you wait for me?”

  It was not even a question. Edmond would wait for her his entire life if need be.

  “Yes, my love, I would wait for you until the end of time itself.”

  “What brings this morbid conversation to your lips?” She asked, a consternated frown creasing her forehead. “Do you doubt my affection for you?”

  “Of course not, it is nothing at all.” Edmond lied in an attempt to save the purity of the dream, the integrity of the additional memory for his collection, to keep him sane.

  Edmond truly loved her sweet nature. The enduring way she could make a disgruntled old man smile or the time she could take picking wild flowers for her modest house. On that same thread Mercedes was passionate, the spark given to her by her Catalan blood.

  In the rare moments Mercedes initiated an intimate encounter, Edmond always had cause to sear that memory in his mind for future purpose. Just after Edmond asked Mercedes to be his bride, she took him to their special beach at sunset. They lay in the sand, the waves crashing on the shore below their feet. That was the first night Mercedes allowed Edmond below her skirts. She was modest but as soon as his fingers, deft from tying knots aboard the Pharaon, showed her what pleasure he could create for her she opened to him, like the first flower in winter.

  Not long after the first time he brought Mercedes to completion, she asked him to allow her to reciprocate. Edmond had his doubts but Mercedes could be stubborn as an ox and ensured she always received exactly what she sought out to achieve. Back at the beach he instructed her on how to touch his manhood, hold it, and stroke it for maximum effect. She was a quick study and the first time he spilled his seed into her palm she knew the power she possessed over him.

  The small caresses and petting they participated in with each other was just a precursor to the amazing moment they shared in her bed the first time they made love. Nothing could upend the sensation of her warm, wet, flesh squeezing him, especially as they waited so long to take their lovemaking that far. Each sound Mercedes would try to hold inside was captured forever in the memory of Edmond. His passion for ensuring her pleasure only grew from that first touch of his sun bronzed fingers on her pale bare skin.

  Another memory of Mercedes Edmond held in great esteem was the first time she whispered her love for him. They were children by the world’s standard but it did not make the heart-clenching sensation any less real.

  Mercedes would wait for him, he had no doubt, there was no other alternative, they loved one another since they were children and a life without her would be no life worth living. Once his vengeance was exacted, Mercedes would become his bride but he had to escape the Chateau d’If before he could bring all those wishes to pass.

  “Just God!” he muttered, “whence comes this thought? Is it from thee? Since none but the dead pass freely from this dungeon, let me take 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 shroud, opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew the corpse from the sack, and bore it along the tunnel to his own chamber, laid it on his couch, tied around its head the rag he wore at night around his own, covered it with his counterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried vainly to close the resisting eyes, which glared horribly, turned the head towards the wall, so that the jailer might, when he brought the evening meal, believe that he was asleep, as was his frequent custom; entered the tunnel again, drew 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 only naked flesh beneath the coarse canvas, 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 from the inside.

  He would have been discovered by the beating of his heart, if by any mischance the jailers had entered at that moment. Dantes might have waited until the evening visit was over, but he was afraid that the governor would change his mind, and order the dead body to be removed earlier. In that case his last hope would have been destroyed. Now his plans were fully made, and this is what he intended to do. If while he was being carried out the grave-diggers should discover that they were bearing a live instead of a dead body, Dantes did not intend to give them time to recognize him, but with a sudden cut of the knife, he meant to open the sack from top to bottom, and, profiting by their alarm, escape; if they tried to catch him, he would use his knife to better purpose.

  If they took him to the cemetery and laid him in a grave, he would allow himself to be covered with earth, and then, as it was night, the grave-diggers could scarcely have turned their backs before he would have worked his way through the yielding soil and escaped. He hoped that the weight of earth would not be so great that he could not overcome it. If he was detected in this and the earth proved too heavy, he would be stifled, and then — so much the better, all would be over. Dantes had not eaten since the preceding evening, but he had not thought of hunger, nor did he think of it now. His situation was too precarious to allow him even time to reflect on any thought but one.

  The first risk that Dantes ran was, that the jailer, when he brought him his supper at seven o’clock, might perceive the change that had been made; fortunately, twenty times at least, from misanthropy or fatigue, Dantes had received his jailer in bed, and then the man placed his bread and soup on the table, and went away without saying a word. This time the jailer might not be as silent as usual, but speak to Dantes, and seeing that he received no reply, go to the bed, and thus discover all.

  When seven o’clock came, Dantes’ agony really began. His hand placed upon his heart was unable to redress its throbbings, while, with the other he wiped the perspiration from his temples. From time to time chills ran through his whole body, and c
lutched his heart in a grasp of ice. Then he thought he was going to die. Yet the hours passed on without any unusual disturbance, and Dantes knew that he had escaped the first peril. It was a good augury. At length, about the hour the governor had appointed, footsteps were heard on the stairs. Edmond felt that the moment had arrived, summoned up all his courage, held his breath, and would have been happy if at the same time he could have repressed the throbbing of his veins. The footsteps — they were double — paused at the door — and Dantes guessed that the two grave-diggers had come to seek him — this idea was soon converted into certainty, when he heard the noise they made in putting down the hand-bier. The door opened, and a dim light reached Dantes’ eyes through the coarse sack that covered him; he saw two shadows approach his bed, a third remaining at the door with a torch in its hand. The two men, approaching the ends of the bed, took the sack by its extremities.

  “He’s heavy though for an old and thin man,” said one, as he raised the head.

  “They say every year adds half a pound to the weight of the bones,” said another, lifting the feet.

  “Have you tied the knot?” inquired the first speaker.

  “What would be the use of carrying so much more weight?” was the reply, “I can do that when we get there.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” replied the companion.

  “What’s the knot for?” thought Dantes. They deposited the supposed corpse on the bier. Edmond stiffened himself in order to play the part of a dead man, and then the party, lighted by the man with the torch, who went first, ascended the stairs. Suddenly he felt the fresh and sharp night air, and Dantes knew that the mistral was blowing. It was a sensation in which pleasure and pain were strangely mingled. The bearers went on for twenty paces, then stopped, putting the bier down on the ground. One of them went away, and Dantes heard his shoes striking on the pavement.

  “Where am I?” he asked himself.