serious duels so much as a duel forsworn."
"Thank you, gentlemen," replied Albert, with a smile of
indifference; "I shall follow your advice — not because you give
it, but because I had before intended to quit France. I thank you
equally for the service you have rendered me in being my seconds.
It is deeply engraved on my heart, and, after what you have just
said, I remember that only." Chateau-Renaud and Beauchamp looked at
each other; the impression was the same on both of them, and the
tone in which Morcerf had just expressed his thanks was so
determined that the position would have become embarrassing for all
if the conversation had continued.
"Good-by, Albert," said Beauchamp suddenly, carelessly extending
his hand to the young man. The latter did not appear to arouse from
his lethargy; in fact, he did not notice the offered hand.
"Good-by," said Chateau-Renaud in his turn, keeping his little cane
in his left hand, and saluting with his right. Albert's lips
scarcely whispered "Good-by," but his look was more explicit; it
expressed a whole poem of restrained anger, proud disdain, and
generous indignation. He preserved his melancholy and motionless
position for some time after his two friends had regained their
carriage; then suddenly unfastening his horse from the little tree
to which his servant had tied it, he mounted and galloped off in
the direction of Paris.
In a quarter of an hour he was entering the house in the Rue du
Helder. As he alighted, he thought he saw his father's pale face
behind the curtain of the count's bedroom. Albert turned away his
head with a sigh, and went to his own apartments. He cast one
lingering look on all the luxuries which had rendered life so easy
and so happy since his infancy; he looked at the pictures, whose
faces seemed to smile, and the landscapes, which appeared painted
in brighter colors. Then he took away his mother's portrait, with
its oaken frame, leaving the gilt frame from which he took it black
and empty. Then he arranged all his beautiful Turkish arms, hisand empty. Then he arranged all his beautiful Turkish arms, his
fine English guns, his Japanese china, his cups mounted in silver,
his artistic bronzes by Feucheres and Barye; examined the
cupboards, and placed the key in each; threw into a drawer of his
secretary, which he left open, all the pocket-money he had about
him, and with it the thousand fancy jewels from his vases and his
jewel-boxes; then he made an exact inventory of everything, and
placed it in the most conspicuous part of the table, after putting
aside the books and papers which had collected there.
At the beginning of this work, his servant, notwithstanding
orders to the contrary, came to his room. "What do you want?" asked
he, with a more sorrowful than angry tone. "Pardon me, sir,"
replied the valet; "you had forbidden me to disturb you, but the
Count of Morcerf has called me."
"Well!" said Albert.
"I did not like to go to him without first seeing you."
"Why?"
"Because the count is doubtless aware that I accompanied you to
the meeting this morning."
"It is probable," said Albert.
"And since he has sent for me, it is doubtless to question me on
what happened there. What must I answer?"
"The truth."
"Then I shall say the duel did not take place?"
"You will say I apologized to the Count of Monte Cristo.
Go."
The valet bowed and retired, and Albert returned to his
inventory. As he was finishing this work, the sound of horses
prancing in the yard, and the wheels of a carriage shaking his
window, attracted his attention. He approached the window, and saw
his father get into it, and drive away. The door was scarcely
closed when Albert bent his steps to his mother's room; and, no one
being there to announce him, he advanced to her bed-chamber, and
distressed by what he saw and guessed, stopped for one moment at
the door. As if the same idea had animated these two beings,
Mercedes was doing the same in her apartments that he had just done
in his. Everything was in order, — laces, dresses, jewels, linen,in his. Everything was in order, — laces, dresses, jewels, linen,
money, all were arranged in the drawers, and the countess was
carefully collecting the keys. Albert saw all these preparations
and understood them, and exclaiming, "My mother!" he threw his arms
around her neck.
The artist who could have depicted the expression of these two
countenances would certainly have made of them a beautiful picture.
All these proofs of an energetic resolution, which Albert did not
fear on his own account, alarmed him for his mother. "What are you
doing?" asked he.
"What were you doing?" replied she.
"Oh, my mother!" exclaimed Albert, so overcome he could scarcely
speak; "it is not the same with you and me — you cannot have made
the same resolution I have, for I have come to warn you that I bid
adieu to your house, and — and to you."
"I also," replied Mercedes, "am going, and I acknowledge I had
depended on your accompanying me; have I deceived myself?"
"Mother," said Albert with firmness. "I cannot make you share
the fate I have planned for myself. I must live henceforth without
rank and fortune, and to begin this hard apprenticeship I must
borrow from a friend the loaf I shall eat until I have earned one.
So, my dear mother, I am going at once to ask Franz to lend me the
small sum I shall require to supply my present wants."
"You, my poor child, suffer poverty and hunger? Oh, do not say
so; it will break my resolutions."
"But not mine, mother," replied Albert. "I am young and strong;
I believe I am courageous, and since yesterday I have learned the
power of will. Alas, my dear mother, some have suffered so much,
and yet live, and have raised a new fortune on the ruin of all the
promises of happiness which heaven had made them — on the fragments
of all the hope which God had given them! I have seen that, mother;
I know that from the gulf in which their enemies have plunged them
they have risen with so much vigor and glory that in their turn
they have ruled their former conquerors, and have punished them.