After Mercédès had gone, everything fell back into shadow at Monte Cristo's. Around him and within him his thought came to a halt; his energetic mind fell asleep as the body does after supreme fatigue.
"What!" he said to himself, while the lamp and the candles burned down mournfully and the servants waited impatiently in the antechamber; "what! this edifice so slowly prepared, raised with such toil and care, collapsed at a single blow, with a single word, beneath a breath! Ah, then, this self that I thought was something, this self of which I was so proud, this self that I had seen so small in the dungeons of the Château d'If, and that I had known how to render so great, will be tomorrow a little dust! Alas! it is not the death of the body that I regret: is not this destruction of the vital principle the repose toward which all tends, the calm that every unhappy man aspires to, that calm of matter after which I have so long sighed, toward which I advanced by the painful road of hunger, when Faria appeared in my dungeon? What is death? One degree more of calm and perhaps two of silence. No, then, it is not existence that I regret, it is the ruin of my plans so slowly elaborated, so laboriously built. Providence, which I had believed to be on their side, was then against them. God did not will that they should be accomplished!
"This burden that I lifted, almost as heavy as a world, and that I believed I could carry to the end, was according to my desire and not according to my strength; according to my will and not according to my power, and I must lay it down scarce halfway through my course. Oh! I shall become a fatalist again, I whom fourteen years of despair and ten years of hope had made providential.
"And all this, my God! because my heart, which I thought was dead, was only numb; because it has awakened, because it has beaten, because I yielded to the pain of that beating stirred up from the depths of my breast by a woman's voice!
"And yet," continued the count, sinking ever deeper into the forebodings of that terrible tomorrow which Mercédès had accepted; "and yet it is impossible that this woman, who is such a noble heart, should thus, through selfishness, have consented to let me be killed, I who am full of strength and life! It is impossible that she should push to that point the love, or rather the maternal delirium! There are virtues whose exaggeration would be a crime. No, she will have imagined some pathetic scene, she will come to throw herself between the swords, and that will be ridiculous on the field, sublime as it was here."
And the flush of pride rose to the count's brow.
"Ridiculous," he repeated, "and the ridicule will recoil upon me... I, ridiculous! Come! I would rather die."
And by thus exaggerating in advance the ill chances of the morrow, to which he had condemned himself by promising Mercédès to leave her son alive, the count came to say to himself:
"Folly, folly, folly! to make thus a display of generosity by placing oneself as an inert target at the end of that young man's pistol! Never will he believe that my death is a suicide, and yet it matters for the honor of my memory... (it is not vanity, is it not, my God? but a just pride, that is all), it matters for the honor of my memory that the world should know that I consented myself, by my will, of my own free choice, to arrest my arm already raised to strike, and that with this arm, so powerfully armed against others, I struck myself: it must be, I shall do it."
And seizing a pen, he drew from the secret drawer of his desk a paper, and at the foot of that paper, which was none other than his will made since his arrival in Paris, he traced a kind of codicil in which he made his death comprehensible even to the least clear-sighted.
"I do this, my God!" said he, his eyes raised to heaven, "as much for your honor as for mine. I have considered myself, for ten years, O my God! as the envoy of your vengeance, and it must not be that others more wretched than this Morcerf, it must not be that a Danglars, a Villefort, it must not, in short, be this Morcerf himself who should fancy that chance has rid them of their enemy. Let them know, on the contrary, that Providence, which had already decreed their punishment, was corrected by the sole power of my will, that the chastisement avoided in this world awaits them in the other, and that they have exchanged time only for eternity."
While he floated between these gloomy uncertainties, the evil dream of a man awakened by pain, day came to whiten the panes and light beneath his hands the pale azure paper on which he had just traced that supreme justification of Providence.
It was five o'clock in the morning.
Suddenly a slight noise reached his ear. Monte Cristo thought he had heard something like a stifled sigh; he turned his head, looked around him and saw no one. Only the noise was repeated distinctly enough that doubt gave way to certainty.
Then the count rose, gently opened the door of the salon, and upon a chair, her arms hanging, her beautiful pale head inclined backward, he saw Haydée, who had placed herself across the door, so that he could not go out without seeing her, but whom sleep, so powerful against youth, had surprised after the fatigue of so long a vigil.
The noise the door made in opening could not draw Haydée from her slumber.
Monte Cristo rested upon her a gaze full of tenderness and regret.
"She remembered that she had a son," said he, "and I, I forgot that I had a daughter!
Then, shaking his head sadly:
"Poor Haydée!" said he, "she wished to see me, she wished to speak to me, she feared or guessed something... Oh! I cannot depart without saying farewell to her, I cannot die without confiding her to someone."
And he softly regained his place and wrote at the foot of the first lines:
"I bequeath to Maximilien Morrel, captain of spahis and son of my former employer, Pierre Morrel, shipowner at Marseille, the sum of twenty millions, a part of which shall be offered by him to his sister Julie and his brother-in-law Emmanuel, if he does not believe, however, that this surplus of fortune should harm their happiness. These twenty millions are buried in my grotto of Monte Cristo, the secret of which Bertuccio knows.
"If his heart is free and he will wed Haydée, daughter of Ali, pacha of Janina, whom I have raised with the love of a father and who has had for me the tenderness of a daughter, he will accomplish, I will not say my last will, but my last desire.
"The present testament has already made Haydée heiress of the rest of my fortune, consisting in lands, annuities upon England, Austria and Holland, furnishings in my different palaces and houses, and which, these twenty millions deducted, as well as the several legacies made to my servants, may still amount to sixty millions."
He was finishing writing this last line, when a cry uttered behind him made the pen fall from his hands.
"Haydée," said he, "have you read?"
Indeed, the young woman, awakened by the daylight that had struck her eyelids, had risen and approached the count without her light steps, muffled by the carpet, having been heard.
"Oh! my lord," said she, joining her hands, "why do you write thus at such an hour? Why do you bequeath me all your fortune, my lord? You are leaving me then?"
"I am going on a journey, dear angel," said Monte Cristo with an expression of infinite melancholy and tenderness, "and if some misfortune were to befall me..."
The count paused.
"Well?..." asked the young girl with an accent of authority the count had never known in her and which made him start.
"Well, if some misfortune should befall me," resumed Monte Cristo, "I wish that my daughter should be happy."
Haydée smiled sadly, shaking her head.
"You are thinking of dying, my lord?" said she.
"It is a wholesome thought, my child," said the wise man.
"Well, if you die," said she, "bequeath your fortune to others, for, if you die... I shall have need of nothing."
And taking the paper, she tore it into four pieces which she threw into the middle of the salon. Then, this energy so little habitual to a slave having exhausted her strength, she fell, not asleep this time, but fainting, upon the floor.
Monte Cristo bent over her, lifted her in his arms; and, seeing that fair complexion grown pale, those beautiful eyes closed, that beautiful body lifeless and as it were abandoned, the idea came to him for the first time that she perhaps loved him otherwise than as a daughter loves a father.
"Alas!" he murmured with a profound discouragement, "I might then have been happy still!"
Then he carried Haydée to her apartment, gave her back, still fainting, into the hands of her women; and, re-entering his study, which he this time closed quickly upon himself, he recopied the destroyed testament.
As he finished, the sound of a cabriolet entering the courtyard was heard. Monte Cristo approached the window and saw Maximilien and Emmanuel alight.
"Good," said he, "it was time!"
And he sealed his testament with a triple seal.
An instant later he heard a sound of steps in the salon, and went himself to open the door. Morrel appeared upon the threshold.
He had come nearly twenty minutes ahead of time.
"I come perhaps too early, Count," said he, "but I confess to you frankly that I have not been able to sleep a wink, and the same has been true of the whole house. I needed to see you, strong with your courageous assurance, to become myself again."
Monte Cristo could not hold against this proof of affection, and it was not the hand that he offered the young man, but his two arms that he opened to him.
"Morrel," said he in an moved voice, "it is a fine day for me, that on which I feel myself loved by a man like you. Good day, Monsieur Emmanuel. You come then with me, Maximilien?"
"Why, yes!" said the young captain. "Did you doubt it?"
"But yet if I were wrong..."
"Listen, I watched you yesterday through all that scene of provocation, I thought of your assurance all night, and I said to myself that justice must be on your side, or that there is no longer any reliance to be placed on the faces of men."
"However, Morrel, Albert is your friend."
"A mere acquaintance, Count."
"You saw him for the first time the very day you saw me?"
"Yes, that is true; what would you have? you must remind me of it for me to remember it."
"Thank you, Morrel."
Then, striking a bell:
"Here," said he to Ali, who appeared at once, "have this taken to my notary. It is my will, Morrel. I being dead, you will go and learn its contents."
"How!" cried Morrel, "you dead?"
"Eh! must not all be foreseen, dear friend? But what did you do yesterday after leaving me?"
"I went to Tortoni's, where, as I expected, I found Beauchamp and Château-Renaud. I confess to you that I was seeking them."
"For what purpose, since all that was agreed upon?"
"Listen, Count, the affair is grave, inevitable."
"Did you doubt it?"
"No. The offense was public, and everyone was already speaking of it."
"Well?"
"Well, I hoped to have the weapons changed, to substitute the sword for the pistol. The pistol is blind."
"Did you succeed?" asked Monte Cristo quickly, with an imperceptible gleam of hope.
"No, for your strength with the sword is known."
"Bah! who has betrayed me?"
"The fencing-masters you have beaten."
"And you failed?"
"They refused positively."
"Morrel," said the count, "have you ever seen me fire a pistol?"
"Never."
"Well, we have time, look."
Monte Cristo took the pistols he held when Mercédès had entered, and, pasting an ace of clubs against the plate, in four shots he successively carried away the four branches of the club.
At each shot Morrel grew pale.
He examined the balls with which Monte Cristo performed this feat of strength, and he saw that they were no larger than swan-shot.
"It is frightful," said he; "see here, Emmanuel!"
Then, turning toward Monte Cristo:
"Count," said he, "for Heaven's sake, do not kill Albert! the unhappy fellow has a mother!"
"That is just," said Monte Cristo, "and, I, I have none."
These words were uttered with a tone that made Morrel shudder.
"You are the offended party, Count."
"Doubtless; what does that mean?"
"It means that you fire first."
"I fire first?"
"Oh! that I obtained, or rather exacted; we make them enough concessions that they should make us those."
"And at how many paces?"
"At twenty."
A frightful smile passed over the count's lips.
"Morrel," said he, "do not forget what you have just seen."
"Also," said the young man, "I count only upon your emotion to save Albert."
"I, moved?" said Monte Cristo.
"Or upon your generosity, my friend; sure of your shot as you are, I may tell you a thing that would be ridiculous if I said it to another."
"Which?"
"Break his arm, wound him, but do not kill him."
"Morrel, listen to this yet," said the count, "I have no need to be encouraged to spare M. de Morcerf; M. de Morcerf, I announce it to you in advance, will be so well spared that he will return quietly with his two friends while I..."
"Well, you?"
"Oh! that is another matter, I shall be carried back."
"Come now!" cried Maximilien beside himself.
"It is as I announce it to you, my dear Morrel, M. de Morcerf will kill me."
Morrel looked at the count like a man who no longer understands.
"What has happened to you since last night, Count?"
"What happened to Brutus on the eve of the battle of Philippi: I have seen a specter."
"And that specter?"
"That specter, Morrel, told me I had lived long enough."
Maximilien and Emmanuel looked at each other; Monte Cristo drew out his watch.
"Let us depart," said he, "it is five minutes past seven, and the meeting is for eight o'clock sharp."
A carriage stood waiting, fully harnessed; Monte Cristo got into it with his two witnesses.
In crossing the corridor, Monte Cristo had stopped to listen before a door, and Maximilien and Emmanuel, who, out of discretion, had gone a few steps ahead, thought they heard a sob answered by a sigh.
At eight o'clock striking, they were at the meeting-place.
"Here we are arrived," said Morrel, putting his head out of the carriage window, "and we are the first."
"Monsieur will excuse me," said Baptistin, who had followed his master with an unspeakable terror, "but I believe I catch sight yonder of a carriage under the trees."
"Indeed," said Emmanuel, "I perceive two young men walking and seeming to wait."
Monte Cristo lightly sprang down from his calash and gave his hand to Emmanuel and to Maximilien to help them descend.
Maximilien retained the count's hand between his own.
"So much the better," said he, "here is a hand such as I like to see in a man whose life rests in the goodness of his cause."
Monte Cristo drew Morrel, not aside, but a step or two back from his brother-in-law.
"Maximilien," he asked him, "is your heart free?"
Morrel looked at Monte Cristo with astonishment.
"I do not ask you for a confidence, dear friend, I put you a simple question; answer yes or no, that is all I ask of you."
"I love a young girl, Count."
"Do you love her much?"
"More than my life."
"Come," said Monte Cristo, "there is another hope that escapes me."
Then, with a sigh:
"Poor Haydée!" he murmured.
"Indeed, Count!" cried Morrel, "if I knew you less, I should think you less brave than you are!"
"Because I think of someone I am about to leave, and I sigh! Come now, Morrel, is it for a soldier to know himself so ill in courage? is it the life I regret? What does it matter to me, who have passed twenty years between life and death, to live or to die? Besides, be easy, Morrel, this weakness, if weakness it be, is for you alone. I know that the world is a salon from which one must depart politely and honestly, that is to say, bowing and paying one's gaming debts."
"So much the better," said Morrel, "that is talking. By the way, have you brought your weapons?"
"I! what for? I hope these gentlemen will have theirs."
"I am going to inquire," said Morrel.
"Yes, but no negotiations, you understand?"
"Oh! be easy."
Morrel advanced toward Beauchamp and Château-Renaud. These, seeing Maximilien's movement, came a few steps to meet him.
The three young men saluted, if not with affability, at least with courtesy.
"Pardon, gentlemen," said Morrel, "but I do not perceive M. de Morcerf!"
"This morning," answered Château-Renaud, "he sent us word that he would join us on the ground only."
"Ah!" said Morrel.
Beauchamp drew out his watch.
"Eight hours five minutes; there is no time lost, Monsieur Morrel," said he.
"Oh!" answered Maximilien, "it was not with that intention I spoke."
"Besides," interrupted Château-Renaud, "here is a carriage."
Indeed, a carriage was advancing at a brisk trot by one of the avenues leading to the crossroads where they were.
"Gentlemen," said Morrel, "no doubt you have provided yourselves with pistols. M. de Monte Cristo declares he renounces the right he had to use his own."
"We had foreseen this delicacy on the part of the count, Monsieur Morrel," answered Beauchamp, "and I have brought weapons, which I bought eight or ten days ago, believing I should need them for a like affair. They are perfectly new and have served no one yet. Will you examine them?"
"Oh! Monsieur Beauchamp," said Morrel, bowing, "when you assure me that M. de Morcerf knows not these weapons, you think well, do you not, that your word suffices me?"
"Gentlemen," said Château-Renaud, "it was not Morcerf who was coming to us in that carriage, it was, faith! it was Franz and Debray."
Indeed, the two announced young men advanced.
"You here, gentlemen!" said Château-Renaud, exchanging a handshake with each. "And by what chance?"
"Because," said Debray, "Albert begged us this morning to meet him on the ground."
Beauchamp and Château-Renaud looked at each other with astonished faces.
"Gentlemen," said Morrel, "I think I understand."
"Let us see!"
"Yesterday afternoon, I received a letter from M. de Morcerf, who begged me to meet him at the Opera."
"And I too," said Debray.
"And I too," said Franz.
"And we too," said Château-Renaud and Beauchamp.
"He wished you present at the provocation," said Morrel, "he wishes you present at the combat."
"Yes," said the young men, "that is it, Monsieur Maximilien; and, in all probability, you have guessed rightly."
"But, with all that," murmured Château-Renaud, "Albert does not come; he is ten minutes late."
"There he is," said Beauchamp, "he is on horseback; see, he comes at full gallop followed by his servant."
"What imprudence," said Château-Renaud, "to come on horseback to fight with the pistol! I who had so well lectured him!"
"And then, see," said Beauchamp, "with a collar at his cravat, with an open coat, with a white waistcoat; why did he not have a bull's-eye drawn on his stomach at once? it would have been simpler and sooner finished!"
Meanwhile, Albert had arrived within ten paces of the group formed by the five young men; he stopped his horse, sprang to the ground, and threw the bridle upon his servant's arm.
Albert approached. He was pale, his eyes were red and swollen. One saw that he had not slept a wink all night. There was, spread over all his countenance, a shade of sad gravity unusual to him.
"Thank you, gentlemen," said he, "for having kindly responded to my invitation: believe that I am more grateful than I can say for this mark of friendship."
Morrel, at Morcerf's approach, had taken a dozen steps backward and stood apart.
"And to you also, Monsieur Morrel," said Albert, "my thanks are due. Come nearer, then, you are not superfluous."
"Monsieur," said Maximilien, "you perhaps ignore that I am the witness of M. de Monte Cristo?"
"I was not sure of it, but I suspected it. So much the better, the more men of honor there are here, the more satisfied I shall be."
"Monsieur Morrel," said Château-Renaud, "you may announce to the Count of Monte Cristo that M. de Morcerf is arrived, and that we are at his disposal."
Morrel made a movement to discharge his commission. Beauchamp, at the same time, was drawing the box of pistols from the carriage.
"Wait, gentlemen," said Albert, "I have two words to say to the Count of Monte Cristo."
"In private?" asked Morrel.
"No, Monsieur, before everyone."
Albert's witnesses looked at each other quite surprised; Franz and Debray exchanged a few words in a low voice, and Morrel, rejoiced at this unexpected incident, went to fetch the count, who was walking in a side alley with Emmanuel.
"What does he want of me?" asked Monte Cristo.
"I know not, but he asks to speak to you."
"Oh!" said Monte Cristo, "let him not tempt God with some new outrage!"
"I do not think that is his intention," said Morrel.
The count advanced, accompanied by Maximilien and Emmanuel: his face calm and full of serenity made a strange contrast with the troubled face of Albert, who approached, on his side, followed by the four young men.
At three paces from one another, Albert and the count stopped.
"Gentlemen," said Albert, "draw near; I desire that not a word of what I shall have the honor to say to the Count of Monte Cristo be lost; for what I shall have the honor to say to him must be repeated by you to whoever will hear it, strange as my discourse may seem to you."
"I wait, Monsieur," said the count.
"Monsieur," said Albert, in a voice trembling at first, but growing firmer and firmer, "Monsieur, I reproached you with having divulged the conduct of M. de Morcerf in Epirus; for, guilty as M. le Comte de Morcerf might be, I did not believe it was you who had the right to punish him. But today, Monsieur, I know that this right is yours. It is not the treason of Fernand Mondego toward Ali-Pacha that makes me so prompt to excuse you, it is the treason of the sinner Fernand toward you, it is the unheard-of misfortunes which were the sequel of that treason. So I say it, so I proclaim it aloud: yes, Monsieur, you were right to avenge yourself on my father, and I, his son, thank you for not having done more!"
Thunder, fallen amid the spectators of this unexpected scene, would not have more astonished them than this declaration of Albert.
As for Monte Cristo, his eyes had slowly lifted to heaven with an expression of infinite gratitude, and he could not enough admire how this fiery nature of Albert, whose courage he had sufficiently known amid the Roman bandits, had all at once bent to this sudden humiliation. Thus he recognized the influence of Mercédès, and understood how this noble heart had not opposed the sacrifice which she knew in advance must be useless.
"Now, Monsieur," said Albert, "if you find the excuses I have just made to you sufficient, your hand, I pray you. After the so rare merit of infallibility which seems to be yours, the first of all merits, in my opinion, is to know how to acknowledge one's faults. But this avowal concerns me alone. I acted well according to men, but you, you acted well according to God. An angel alone could save one of us from death, and the angel descended from heaven, if not to make of us two friends—alas! fate renders that impossible—at least two men who esteem each other."
Monte Cristo, his eye moist, his breast heaving, his mouth half open, offered Albert a hand which the latter seized and pressed with a feeling that resembled respectful dread.
"Gentlemen," said he, "the Count of Monte Cristo is pleased to accept my excuses. I had acted precipitately toward him. Precipitation is a bad counselor: I had acted ill. Now my fault is repaired. I hope well that the world will not hold me coward because I have done what my conscience ordered me to do. But, in any case, if one were mistaken as to my character," added the young man, raising his head with pride and as if he addressed a challenge to his friends and his enemies, "I should strive to set opinions right."
"What happened then last night?" asked Beauchamp of Château-Renaud; "it seems to me we are playing here a sorry part."
"Indeed, what Albert has just done is either very wretched or very fine," answered the baron.
"Ah! come now," said Debray to Franz, "what does that mean? How! the Count of Monte Cristo dishonors M. de Morcerf, and he was right in the eyes of his son! But, though I had ten Janinas in my family, I should feel bound to but one thing, which would be to fight ten times."
As for Monte Cristo, his brow bent, his arms inert, crushed beneath the weight of four-and-twenty years of memories, he thought neither of Albert, nor of Beauchamp, nor of Château-Renaud, nor of anyone of those who were there: he thought of that courageous woman who had come to ask him for the life of her son, to whom he had offered his own and who had just saved it by the terrible avowal of a family secret, capable of killing forever in that young man the sentiment of filial piety.
"Always Providence!" he murmured; "ah! it is only from today that I am well certain of being the envoy of God!"
