CXVII. Le 5 octobre.

CXVII

The 5th of October.

It was about six in the evening, a day the color of opal, through which a fine autumn sun filtered its golden rays, falling from the sky upon the bluish sea.

The heat of the day had gradually died away, and one began to feel that light breeze which seems the respiration of nature awakening after the burning siesta of noon, a delicious breath that refreshes the shores of the Mediterranean and carries from bank to bank the perfume of the trees, mingled with the sharp scent of the sea.

Upon that immense lake which stretches from Gibraltar to the Dardanelles and from Tunis to Venice, a light yacht, pure and elegant in form, glided through the first vapors of evening. Its motion was that of the swan which opens its wings to the wind and seems to slide upon the water. It advanced, rapid and graceful at once, leaving behind it a phosphorescent furrow.

Little by little the sun, whose last rays we have saluted, had disappeared at the western horizon; but, as if to justify the brilliant dreams of mythology, its indiscreet fires, reappearing at the summit of each wave, seemed to reveal that the god of flame had just hidden himself in the bosom of Amphitrite, who vainly tried to conceal her lover in the folds of her azure mantle.

The yacht advanced rapidly, though apparently there was scarcely wind enough to float the curled hair of a young girl.

Standing upon the prow, a man of lofty stature, with a bronzed complexion and a dilated eye, saw the land approach him in the shape of a dark mass disposed in a cone, and rising from the midst of the waves like an immense Catalan hat.

"Is that Monte-Cristo?" asked the traveler, in a grave voice full of deep sadness, to whose orders the little yacht seemed momentarily subjected.

"Yes, Excellency," replied the master, "we are arriving."

"We are arriving!" murmured the traveler with an indefinable accent of melancholy.

Then he added in a low voice:

"Yes, that will be the port."

And he plunged again into his thought, which was expressed by a smile sadder than tears would have been.

A few minutes later, a flash of flame was seen on shore, which was immediately extinguished, and the report of a firearm reached the yacht.

"Excellency," said the master, "here is the signal from the shore; will you answer it yourself?"

"What signal?" asked the traveler.

The master extended his hand toward the island, up the sides of which there rose, isolated and whitish, a broad flake of smoke which broke apart as it spread.

"Ah! yes," said he, as if waking from a dream, "give it."

The master handed him a loaded carbine; the traveler took it, raised it slowly, and fired in the air.

Ten minutes later the sails were furled, and the anchor dropped five hundred paces from a small port.

The boat was already in the sea, with four rowers and the pilot; the traveler descended, and instead of seating himself at the stern, furnished for him with a blue carpet, stood with folded arms.

The rowers waited, their oars half lifted, like birds drying their wings.

"Go!" said the traveler.

The eight oars fell into the sea with a single stroke and without splashing a drop of water; then the bark, yielding to the impulse, glided rapidly.

In an instant they were in a small cove formed by a natural indentation; the boat touched upon a bed of fine sand.

"Excellency," said the pilot, "mount upon the shoulders of two of our men; they will carry you to land."

The young man answered this invitation with a gesture of complete indifference, freed his legs from the boat, and let himself slide into the water, which rose to his waist.

"Ah! Excellency," murmured the pilot, "that is wrong of you, and you will get us scolded by the master."

The young man continued advancing toward the shore, following two sailors who chose the best bottom.

At the end of some thirty paces they had landed; the young man shook his feet upon dry ground, and looked around him for the probable path that would be pointed out to him, for it was quite night.

At the moment he turned his head, a hand rested upon his shoulder, and a voice made him start.

"Good day, Maximilien," said this voice, "you are punctual, thank you!"

"Is it you, Count?" cried the young man with a movement that resembled joy, and pressing the hand of Monte-Cristo in both of his.

"Yes, as you see, as punctual as you; but you are dripping, my dear friend: you must change, as Calypso would say to Telemachus. Come, then, there is a dwelling all prepared for you here, in which you will forget fatigue and cold."

Monte-Cristo perceived that Morrel was turning round; he waited.

The young man, in fact, saw with surprise that not a word had been spoken by those who had brought him, that he had not paid them, and yet they were gone. One already heard the beat of the oars of the boat returning toward the little yacht.

"Ah! yes," said the count, "you are looking for your sailors?"

"No doubt, I have given them nothing, and yet they are gone."

"Do not concern yourself with that, Maximilien," said Monte-Cristo, laughing, "I have an arrangement with the navy that the access to my island shall be free of all dues of carriage and travel. I am a subscriber, as they say in civilized countries."

Morrel looked at the count with astonishment.

"Count," he said to him, "you are no longer the same as at Paris."

"How so?"

"Yes, here you laugh."

The brow of Monte-Cristo suddenly darkened.

"You are right to recall me to myself, Maximilien," said he; "seeing you again was a happiness for me, and I forgot that all happiness is passing."

"Oh! no, no, Count!" cried Morrel, seizing again the two hands of his friend; "laugh, on the contrary, be happy, you, and prove to me by your indifference that life is bad only to those who suffer. Oh! you are charitable; you are good, you are great, my friend, and it is to give me courage that you affect this gaiety."

"You are mistaken, Morrel," said Monte-Cristo; "it is that I was indeed happy."

"Then you forget me myself; so much the better!"

"How so?"

"Yes, for you know, friend, as the gladiator entering the circus said to the sublime emperor, I say to you: 'He who is about to die salutes you.'"

"Are you not consoled?" asked Monte-Cristo with a strange glance.

"Oh!" said Morrel with a look full of bitterness, "did you really believe I could be?"

"Listen," said the count; "you hear my words well, do you not, Maximilien? You do not take me for a vulgar man, for a rattle that emits vague and meaningless sounds. When I ask you if you are consoled, I speak to you as a man for whom the human heart has no more secrets. Well, Morrel, let us descend together to the bottom of your heart and sound it. Is it still that fiery impatience of grief which makes the body bound like the lion pricked by the mosquito? Is it still that devouring thirst which is extinguished only in the tomb? Is it that idealization of regret which hurls the living out of life in pursuit of the dead? or is it only the prostration of exhausted courage, the boredom which stifles the ray of hope that would fain shine? is it the loss of memory, bringing the impotence of tears? Oh! my dear friend, if that is it, if you can weep no more, if you believe your benumbed heart dead, if you have no strength but in God, no gaze but for heaven, friend, let us set aside the words too narrow for the sense our soul gives them. Maximilien, you are consoled, complain no more."

"Count," said Morrel, in his voice at once gentle and firm, "Count, listen to me, as one listens to a man who speaks with finger extended toward the earth, eyes raised to heaven: I have come near you to die in the arms of a friend. Certainly, there are those I love: I love my sister Julie, I love her husband Emmanuel; but I need strong arms opened to me and a smile at my last moments; my sister would melt in tears and faint; I should see her suffer, and I have suffered enough; Emmanuel would snatch the weapon from my hands and fill the house with his cries. You, Count, whose word I have, you who are more than a man, you whom I should call a god if you were not mortal, you, you will lead me gently and with tenderness, will you not, to the gates of death?"

"Friend," said the count, "I still have a doubt: would you have so little strength that you take pride in displaying your grief?"

"No, see, I am simple," said Morrel, extending his hand to the count, "and my pulse beats neither faster nor slower than usual. No, I feel at the end of the road; no, I shall go no further. You spoke to me of waiting and hoping; do you know what you did, unhappy sage that you are? I waited a month, that is to say, I suffered a month! I hoped (man is a poor and miserable creature), I hoped, for what? I know not, something unknown, absurd, senseless! a miracle... which? God alone can say, he who has mingled with our reason that folly called hope. Yes, I waited; yes, I hoped, Count, and in the quarter of an hour we have been speaking you have a hundred times, without knowing it, broken and tortured my heart, for each of your words has proved to me that there is no more hope for me. Oh, Count! how softly and voluptuously I shall rest in death!"

Morrel pronounced these last words with an outburst of energy that made the count start.

"My friend," continued Morrel, seeing the count was silent, "you designated the 5th of October to me as the term of the respite you asked of me... my friend, this is the 5th of October..."

Morrel drew out his watch.

"It is nine o'clock; I have yet three hours to live."

"Be it so," replied Monte-Cristo; "come."

Morrel followed the count mechanically, and they were already in the grotto before Maximilien had perceived it.

He found carpets beneath his feet; a door opened; perfumes enveloped him; a vivid light struck his eyes.

Morrel stopped, hesitating to advance; he distrusted the enervating delights that surrounded him.

Monte-Cristo drew him gently.

"Is it not fitting," said he, "that we employ the three hours remaining to us like those ancient Romans who, condemned by Nero, their emperor and their heir, sat down to table crowned with flowers, and breathed death with the perfume of heliotropes and roses?"

Morrel smiled.

"As you wish," said he; "death is still death, that is to say, oblivion, that is to say, rest, that is to say, the absence of life and therefore of pain."

He sat down; Monte-Cristo took his place opposite him.

They were in that marvelous dining hall we have already described, where marble statues bore upon their heads baskets always full of flowers and fruit.

Morrel had looked at everything vaguely, and it was probable he had seen nothing.

"Let us talk as men," said he, looking fixedly at the count.

"Speak," replied the latter.

"Count," resumed Morrel, "you are the sum of all human knowledge, and you give me the impression of having descended from a world more advanced and more learned than ours."

"There is some truth in that, Morrel," said the count with that melancholy smile which made him so beautiful; "I have descended from a planet called sorrow."

"I believe all you tell me without seeking to fathom its sense, Count; and the proof is that you told me to live, and I lived; that you told me to hope, and I almost hoped. I shall dare then to say to you, Count, as if you were already dead once: Count, does it hurt very much?"

Monte-Cristo looked at Morrel with an indefinable expression of tenderness.

"Yes," said he; "yes, doubtless, it hurts very much, if you brutally break that mortal envelope which obstinately asks to live. If you make your flesh cry under the imperceptible teeth of a dagger; if you pierce with an unintelligent ball, ever ready to stray in its path, that brain which the least shock pains, certainly you will suffer, and you will quit life odiously, finding it, amid your desperate agony, better than a rest bought so dear."

"Yes, I understand," said Morrel; "death, like life, has its secrets of pain and of voluptuousness: all is to know them."

"Exactly, Maximilien, and you have just said the great word. Death is, according to the care we take to put ourselves well or ill with her, either a friend who rocks us as softly as a nurse, or an enemy who violently tears the soul from the body. One day, when our world shall have lived yet a thousand years, when man shall have mastered all the destructive forces of nature to make them serve the general well-being of humanity; when man shall know, as you were saying just now, the secrets of death, death will become as soft and as voluptuous as sleep tasted in the arms of our beloved."

"And if you wished to die, Count, you would know how to die thus, would you not?"

"Yes."

Morrel extended his hand to him.

"I understand now," said he, "why you gave me rendezvous here, in this desolate island in the midst of an Ocean, in this underground palace a sepulcher to make a Pharaoh envious: it is that you love me, is it not, Count? it is that you love me enough to give me one of those deaths of which you spoke just now, a death without agony, a death which permits me to expire pronouncing the name of Valentine and pressing your hand?"

"Yes, you have guessed rightly, Morrel," said the count simply; "and that is how I understand it."

"Thanks; the idea that tomorrow I shall suffer no more is sweet to my poor heart."

"Do you regret nothing?" asked Monte-Cristo.

"No," answered Morrel.

"Not even me?" asked the count with profound emotion.

Morrel paused; his eye so pure grew dim all at once, then shone with unwonted brightness; a large tear sprang from it and rolled, tracing a silver furrow upon his cheek.

"What!" said the count; "you have a regret left from the earth, and you die!"

"Oh! I beseech you," cried Morrel in a weakened voice, "not another word, Count, do not prolong my torment!"

The count thought Morrel was failing.

That momentary belief revived in him the horrible doubt already overthrown once at the Château d'If.

"I am busying myself," thought he, "with restoring this man to happiness; I regard this restitution as a weight thrown into the balance over against the scale where I have let fall the evil. Now, if I were mistaken, if this man were not unhappy enough to deserve happiness! alas! what would become of me, who cannot forget the evil save by retracing the good?"

"Listen, Morrel," said he; "your grief is immense, I see it; but nevertheless you believe in God, and you will not risk the salvation of your soul."

Morrel smiled sadly.

"Count," said he, "you know that I do not make poetry coldly; but, I swear to you, my soul is no longer mine."

"Listen, Morrel," said Monte-Cristo; "I have no relative in the world, you know it. I have grown accustomed to regard you as my son; well, to save my son, I would sacrifice my life, still more my fortune."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, Morrel, that you would quit life because you do not know all the enjoyments that life permits to a great fortune. Morrel, I possess nearly a hundred millions; I give them to you; with such a fortune you may attain all the results you propose to yourself. Are you ambitious? every career will be open to you. Stir the world, change its face, give yourself up to senseless practices, be criminal if need be, but live."

"Count, I have your word," answered Morrel coldly; "and," added he, drawing out his watch, "it is half past eleven."

"Morrel! do you think of it, before my eyes, in my house?"

"Then let me depart," said Maximilien, grown gloomy; "or I shall believe that you love me not for myself, but for yourself."

And he rose.

"It is well," said Monte-Cristo, whose face brightened at these words; "you wish it, Morrel, and you are inflexible; yes! you are profoundly unhappy, and you have said it, only a miracle could cure you; sit down, Morrel, and wait."

Morrel obeyed. Monte-Cristo rose in his turn and went to fetch from a carefully locked cupboard, the key of which he wore suspended from a gold chain, a small silver casket marvelously sculptured and chased, whose angles represented four arched figures, like those caryatides with desolate springs, figures of women, symbols of angels aspiring to heaven.

He placed the casket upon the table.

Then opening it, he drew from it a small gold box, the lid of which lifted by the pressure of a secret spring. This box contained an unctuous substance, half solid, whose color was indefinable, thanks to the reflection of the polished gold, the sapphires, rubies, and emeralds that adorned the box. It was like a shimmer of azure, of purple, and of gold.

The count took a small quantity of this substance with a vermeil spoon, and offered it to Morrel, fixing a long look upon him.

One could then see that this substance was greenish.

"This is what you asked of me," said he; "this is what I promised you."

"Living still," said the young man, taking the spoon from the hands of Monte-Cristo, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

The count took a second spoon, and dipped again into the gold box.

"What are you going to do, friend?" asked Morrel, arresting his hand.

"Faith, Morrel," said he, smiling, "I believe, God forgive me, that I am as weary of life as you, and since the occasion presents itself..."

"Stop!" cried the young man; "oh! you, who are loved, whom one loves, you who have the faith of hope, oh! do not do what I am about to do; on your part it would be a crime. Adieu, my noble and generous friend, I shall tell Valentine all that you have done for me."

And slowly, without any hesitation save a pressure of the left hand which he extended to the count, Morrel swallowed or rather savored the mysterious substance offered by Monte-Cristo.

Then both were silent. Ali, silent and attentive, brought the tobacco and the narghilehs, served the coffee, and disappeared.

Little by little the lamps paled in the hands of the marble statues that upheld them, and the perfume of the censers seemed less penetrating to Morrel.

Seated opposite him, Monte-Cristo looked at him from out the shadow, and Morrel saw shining only the eyes of the count.

An immense sorrow seized the young man; he felt the narghileh escape from his hands; objects gradually lost their form and color; his troubled eyes saw doors and curtains open in the wall.

"Friend," said he, "I feel that I am dying, thank you."

He made an effort to extend his hand to him once more, but his powerless hand fell beside him.

Then it seemed to him that Monte-Cristo smiled, no longer with his strange and frightful laugh which had several times let him glimpse the mysteries of that profound soul, but with the kindly compassion that fathers have for their little children when they talk foolishly.

At the same time the count grew in his eyes; his stature, almost doubled, was outlined upon the red hangings; he had thrown back his black hair, and he appeared standing and proud like one of those angels with whom the wicked are threatened on the day of the last judgment.

Morrel, overcome, tamed, fell back in his armchair: a velvety torpor insinuated itself into each of his veins. A change of ideas, so to speak, furnished his brow, as a new arrangement of designs furnishes the kaleidoscope.

Stretched out, unnerved, panting, Morrel felt living in him nothing but that dream: it seemed to him he entered with full sails into the vague delirium which precedes that other unknown called death.

He tried yet once to extend his hand to the count, but this time his hand did not even move; he wished to articulate a supreme farewell; his tongue rolled heavily in his throat like a stone stopping a sepulcher.

His eyes charged with languor closed despite him: however, behind his eyelids an image stirred, which he recognized despite the obscurity in which he believed himself enveloped.

It was the count who had just opened the door.

Immediately, an immense light radiating in a neighboring chamber, or rather in a marvelous palace, flooded the hall where Morrel was abandoning himself to his sweet agony.

Then he saw come to the threshold of that hall, and upon the limit of the two chambers, a woman of wondrous beauty.

Pale and gently smiling, she seemed the angel of mercy conjuring the angel of vengeance.

"Is it already heaven opening for me?" thought the dying man; "this angel resembles her I have lost."

Monte-Cristo pointed with his finger, to the young woman, the sofa where Morrel reposed.

She advanced toward him with joined hands and a smile upon her lips.

"Valentine! Valentine!" cried Morrel from the depths of his soul.

But his mouth uttered no sound; and as if all his strength were united in that inward emotion, he breathed a sigh and closed his eyes.

Valentine threw herself toward him.

The lips of Morrel made yet a movement.

"He is calling you," said the count; "he is calling you from the depth of his sleep, he to whom you had confided your destiny, and death would have parted you: but I was there by good fortune, and I have conquered death! Valentine, henceforth you must not part upon earth; for, to find each other again, he was precipitating himself into the tomb. Without me you would both have died; I restore you one to the other: may God credit me with these two lives that I save!"

Valentine seized the hand of Monte-Cristo, and in an irresistible impulse of joy she bore it to her lips.

"Oh! thank me well," said the count; "oh! tell me again, without wearying of telling me, tell me again that I have made you happy! you know not how much I need that certainty."

"Oh! yes, yes, I thank you with all my soul," said Valentine; "and if you doubt that my thanks are sincere, well, ask Haydée, question my dear sister Haydée, who since our departure from France has made me wait patiently, speaking to me of you, for the happy day which dawns today for me."

"Do you then love Haydée?" asked Monte-Cristo with an emotion he vainly strove to disguise.

"Oh! with all my soul."

"Well, listen, Valentine," said the count; "I have a favor to ask of you."

"Of me, great God! Am I happy enough for that?..."

"Yes, you have called Haydée your sister: may she indeed be your sister, Valentine; render to her, to her, all that you think you owe to me; protect her, Morrel and you, for"—the voice of the count was near dying in his throat—"for henceforth she will be alone in the world..."

"Alone in the world!" repeated a voice behind the count; "and why?"

Monte-Cristo turned round.

Haydée was there standing, pale and frozen, looking at the count with a gesture of mortal stupefaction.

"Because tomorrow, my daughter, you will be free," replied the count; "because you will resume in the world the place due to you; because I will not that my destiny obscure yours. Daughter of a prince! I restore to you the riches and the name of your father."

Haydée grew pale, opened her diaphanous hands as does the virgin who commends herself to God, and in a voice hoarse with tears:

"Thus, my lord, you leave me?" said she.

"Haydée! Haydée! you are young, you are beautiful; forget even my name and be happy."

"It is well," said Haydée; "your orders shall be executed, my lord; I shall forget even your name and I shall be happy."

And she made a step backward to retire.

"Oh! my God!" cried Valentine, all the while supporting the numb head of Morrel upon her shoulder; "do you not see how pale she is, do you not understand what she suffers?"

Haydée said to her with a heart-rending expression:

"Why would you then that he understand me, my sister? he is my master and I am his slave; he has the right to see nothing."

The count shuddered at the accents of that voice which went to awaken even the most secret fibers of his heart; his eyes met those of the young girl and could not bear their brightness.

"My God! my God!" said Monte-Cristo; "would that which you had left me to suspect then be true! Haydée, would you then be happy not to leave me?"

"I am young," she answered softly; "I love the life you have always made so sweet to me, and I should regret to die."

"Does that then mean that if I left you, Haydée..."

"I should die, my lord, yes!"

"But you love me then?"

"Oh! Valentine, he asks if I love him! Valentine, tell him then if you love Maximilien!"

The count felt his breast expand and his heart dilate; he opened his arms, Haydée sprang into them with a cry.

"Oh! yes, I love you!" said she; "I love you as one loves a father, a brother, a husband! I love you as one loves one's life, as one loves one's God, for you are to me the fairest, the best, and the greatest of created beings!"

"Let it then be as you wish, my cherished angel!" said the count; "God, who raised me up against my enemies and made me victorious, God, I see it well, wills not to put this repentance at the end of my victory; I would punish myself, God wills to forgive me. Love me then, Haydée! Who knows? your love may make me forget that which I must forget."

"Do you hear him, Valentine?" cried Haydée; "he says that through me he can suffer! through me, who would give my life for him!"

The count collected himself an instant.

"Have I glimpsed the truth?" said he; "O my God! no matter! reward or chastisement, I accept this destiny. Come, Haydée, come..."

And throwing his arm around the waist of the young girl, he pressed the hand of Valentine and disappeared.

About an hour passed, during which, breathless, voiceless, eyes fixed, Valentine remained near Morrel. At length she felt his heart beat, an imperceptible breath opened his lips, and that slight shiver which announces the return of life ran through the whole body of the young man.

At length his eyes reopened, but fixed and as if senseless at first; then sight returned to him, precise, real; with sight, feeling; with feeling, pain.

"Oh!" cried he, with the accent of despair, "I still live! the count has deceived me!"

And his hand extended toward the table, and seized a knife.

"Friend," said Valentine, with her adorable smile, "awake, then, and look on my side."

Morrel uttered a great cry, and, delirious, full of doubt, dazzled as by a celestial vision, he fell upon his two knees...

The next day, at the first rays of dawn, Morrel and Valentine were walking arm in arm upon the shore, Valentine relating to Morrel how Monte-Cristo had appeared in her chamber, how he had unveiled all to her, how he had made her touch the crime with her finger, and finally how he had miraculously saved her from death, while letting it be believed that she was dead.

They had found the door of the grotto open, and they had gone out; the sky let shine in its matutinal azure the last stars of the night.

Then Morrel perceived in the gloom of a group of rocks a man who awaited a sign to advance; he showed this man to Valentine.

"Ah! it is Jacopo," said she; "the captain of the yacht."

And with a gesture she called him toward her and toward Maximilien.

"You have something to say to us?" asked Morrel.

"I was to give you this letter from the count."

"From the count!" murmured the two young people together.

"Yes, read."

Morrel opened the letter and read:

"My dear Maximilien,

"There is a felucca for you at anchor. Jacopo will conduct you to Leghorn, where M. Noirtier awaits his granddaughter, whom he wishes to bless before she follows you to the altar. All that is in this grotto, my friend, my house of the Champs-Élysées and my little château of Tréport are the wedding gift that Edmond Dantès makes to the son of his patron Morrel. Mlle de Villefort will kindly take half, for I beseech her to give to the poor of Paris all the fortune that comes to her from her father, now mad, and from her brother, deceased last September with his stepmother.

"Tell the angel who is to watch over your life, Morrel, to pray sometimes for a man who, like Satan, believed himself for an instant the equal of God, and who has recognized, with all the humility of a Christian, that in the hands of God alone are supreme power and infinite wisdom. These prayers will perhaps soften the remorse he carries in the depths of his heart.

"As for you, Morrel, here is the whole secret of my conduct toward you: there is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world, there is the comparison of one state with another, that is all. He alone who has known extreme misfortune is apt to feel extreme felicity. One must have wished to die, Maximilien, to know how good it is to live.

"Live then and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that, until the day when God deigns to unveil the future to man, all human wisdom will be in these two words:

"Wait and hope!

"Your friend,

"EDMOND DANTES

"_Count of MONTE-CRISTO_."

During the reading of this letter, which told her of the madness of her father and the death of her brother, death and madness of which she was ignorant, Valentine grew pale, a painful sigh escaped her breast, and tears, no less poignant for being silent, rolled upon her cheeks; her happiness cost her dear.

Morrel looked around him with uneasiness.

"But," said he, "truly the count exaggerates his generosity; Valentine will be content with my modest fortune. Where is the count, my friend? lead me to him."

Jacopo extended his hand toward the horizon.

"What! what do you mean?" asked Valentine. "Where is the count? where is Haydée?"

"Look," said Jacopo.

The eyes of the two young people fixed upon the line indicated by the sailor, and, upon the line of dark blue which at the horizon separated the sky from the Mediterranean, they perceived a white sail, large as the wing of a gull.

"Gone!" cried Morrel; "gone! Adieu, my friend, my father!"

"Gone!" murmured Valentine; "adieu, my friend! adieu, my sister!"

"Who knows if we shall ever see them again?" said Morrel, wiping away a tear.

"My friend," said Valentine, "did not the count just tell us that human wisdom is all in these two words:

"_Wait and hope!_"

THE END

“Stories of the world, in your language.”