As the procureur had told Madame Danglars, Valentine was not yet
recovered. Bowed down with fatigue, she was indeed confined to her
bed; and it was in her own room, and from the lips of Madame de
Villefort, that she heard all the strange events we have related, —
we mean the flight of Eugenie and the arrest of Andrea Cavalcanti,
or rather Benedetto, together with the accusation of murder
pronounced against him. But Valentine was so weak that this recital
scarcely produced the same effect it would have done had she been
in her usual state of health. Indeed, her brain was only the seat
of vague ideas, and confused forms, mingled with strange fancies,
alone presented themselves before her eyes.
During the daytime Valentine's perceptions remained tolerably
clear, owing to the constant presence of M. Noirtier, who caused
himself to be carried to his granddaughter's room, and watched her
with his paternal tenderness; Villefort also, on his return from
the law courts, frequently passed an hour or two with his father
and child. At six o'clock Villefort retired to his study, at eight
M. d'Avrigny himself arrived, bringing the night draught prepared
for the young girl, and then M. Noirtier was carried away. A nurse
of the doctor's choice succeeded them, and never left till about
ten or eleven o'clock, when Valentine was asleep. As she went
down-stairs she gave the keys of Valentine's room to M. de
Villefort, so that no one could reach the sick-room excepting
through that of Madame de Villefort and little Edward.
Every morning Morrel called on Noirtier to receive news of
Valentine, and, extraordinary as it seemed, each day found him less
uneasy. Certainly, though Valentine still labored under dreadful
nervous excitement, she was better; and moreover, Monte Cristo had
told him when, half distracted, he had rushed to the count's house,
that if she were not dead in two hours she would be saved. Now four
days had elapsed, and Valentine still lived.
The nervous excitement of which we speak pursued Valentine evenThe nervous excitement of which we speak pursued Valentine even
in her sleep, or rather in that state of somnolence which succeeded
her waking hours; it was then, in the silence of night, in the dim
light shed from the alabaster lamp on the chimney-piece, that she
saw the shadows pass and repass which hover over the bed of
sickness, and fan the fever with their trembling wings. First she
fancied she saw her stepmother threatening her, then Morrel
stretched his arms towards her; sometimes mere strangers, like the
Count of Monte Cristo came to visit her; even the very furniture,
in these moments of delirium, seemed to move, and this state lasted
till about three o'clock in the morning, when a deep, heavy slumber
overcame the young girl, from which she did not awake till
daylight. On the evening of the day on which Valentine had learned
of the flight of Eugenie and the arrest of Benedetto, — Villefort
having retired as well as Noirtier and d'Avrigny, — her thoughts
wandered in a confused maze, alternately reviewing her own
situation and the events she had just heard.
Eleven o'clock had struck. The nurse, having placed the beverage
prepared by the doctor within reach of the patient, and locked the
door, was listening with terror to the comments of the servants in
the kitchen, and storing her memory with all the horrible stories
which had for some months past amused the occupants of the
ante-chambers in the house of the king's attorney. Meanwhile an
unexpected scene was passing in the room which had been so
carefully locked. Ten minutes had elapsed since the nurse had left;
Valentine, who for the last hour had been suffering from the fever
which returned nightly, incapable of controlling her ideas, was
forced to yield to the excitement which exhausted itself in
producing and reproducing a succession and recurrence of the same
fancies and images. The night-lamp threw out countless rays, each
resolving itself into some strange form to her disordered
imagination, when suddenly by its flickering light Valentineimagination, when suddenly by its flickering light Valentine
thought she saw the door of her library, which was in the recess by
the chimney-piece, open slowly, though she in vain listened for the
sound of the hinges on which it turned.
At any other time Valentine would have seized the silken
bell-pull and summoned assistance, but nothing astonished her in
her present situation. Her reason told her that all the visions she
beheld were but the children of her imagination, and the conviction
was strengthened by the fact that in the morning no traces remained
of the nocturnal phantoms, who disappeared with the coming of
daylight. From behind the door a human figure appeared, but the
girl was too familiar with such apparitions to be alarmed, and
therefore only stared, hoping to recognize Morrel. The figure
advanced towards the bed and appeared to listen with profound
attention. At this moment a ray of light glanced across the face of
the midnight visitor.
"It is not he," she murmured, and waited, in the assurance that
this was but a dream, for the man to disappear or assume some other
form. Still, she felt her pulse, and finding it throb violently she
remembered that the best method of dispelling such illusions was to
drink, for a draught of the beverage prepared by the doctor to
allay her fever seemed to cause a reaction of the brain, and for a
short time she suffered less. Valentine therefore reached her hand
towards the glass, but as soon as her trembling arm left the bed
the apparition advanced more quickly towards her, and approached
the young girl so closely that she fancied she heard his breath,
and felt the pressure of his hand.
This time the illusion, or rather the reality, surpassed
anything Valentine had before experienced; she began to believe
herself really alive and awake, and the belief that her reason was
this time not deceived made her shudder. The pressure she felt was
evidently intended to arrest her arm, and she slowly withdrew it.
Then the figure, from whom she could not detach her eyes, and who