think."
"Alas, yes; the poor old gentleman is entirely helpless; the
mind alone is still active in this human machine, and that is faint
and flickering, like the light of a lamp about to expire. But
excuse me, sir, for talking of our domestic misfortunes; I
interrupted you at the moment when you were telling me that you
were a skilful chemist."
"No, madame, I did not say as much as that," replied the count
with a smile; "quite the contrary. I have studied chemistry
because, having determined to live in eastern climates I have been
desirous of following the example of King Mithridates."
"Mithridates rex Ponticus," said the young scamp, as he tore
some beautiful portraits out of a splendid album, "the individual
who took cream in his cup of poison every morning at
breakfast."
"Edward, you naughty boy," exclaimed Madame de Villefort,
snatching the mutilated book from the urchin's grasp, "you are
positively past bearing; you really disturb the conversation; go,
leave us, and join your sister Valentine in dear grandpapa
Noirtier's room."
"The album," said Edward sulkily.
"What do you mean? — the album!"
"I want the album."
"How dare you tear out the drawings?"
"Oh, it amuses me."
"Go — go at once."
"I won't go unless you give me the album," said the boy, seating
himself doggedly in an arm-chair, according to his habit of never
giving way.
"Take it, then, and pray disturb us no longer," said Madame de
Villefort, giving the album to Edward, who then went towards the
door, led by his mother. The count followed her with his eyes.
"Let us see if she shuts the door after him," he muttered.
Madame de Villefort closed the door carefully after the child, the
count appearing not to notice her; then casting a scrutinizing
glance around the chamber, the young wife returned to her chair, in
which she seated herself. "Allow me to observe, madame," said the
count, with that kind tone he could assume so well, "you are really
very severe with that dear clever child."
"Oh, sometimes severity is quite necessary," replied Madame de"Oh, sometimes severity is quite necessary," replied Madame de
Villefort, with all a mother's real firmness.
"It was his Cornelius Nepos that Master Edward was repeating
when he referred to King Mithridates," continued the count, "and
you interrupted him in a quotation which proves that his tutor has
by no means neglected him, for your son is really advanced for his
years."
"The fact is, count," answered the mother, agreeably flattered,
"he has great aptitude, and learns all that is set before him. He
has but one fault, he is somewhat wilful; but really, on referring
for the moment to what he said, do you truly believe that
Mithridates used these precautions, and that these precautions were
efficacious?"
"I think so, madame, because I myself have made use of them,
that I might not be poisoned at Naples, at Palermo, and at Smyrna —
that is to say, on three several occasions when, but for these
precautions, I must have lost my life."
"And your precautions were successful?"
"Completely so."
"Yes, I remember now your mentioning to me at Perugia something
of this sort."
"Indeed?" said the count with an air of surprise, remarkably
well counterfeited; "I really did not remember."
"I inquired of you if poisons acted equally, and with the same
effect, on men of the North as on men of the South; and you
answered me that the cold and sluggish habits of the North did not
present the same aptitude as the rich and energetic temperaments of
the natives of the South."
"And that is the case," observed Monte Cristo. "I have seen
Russians devour, without being visibly inconvenienced, vegetable
substances which would infallibly have killed a Neapolitan or an
Arab."
"And you really believe the result would be still more sure with
us than in the East, and in the midst of our fogs and rains a man
would habituate himself more easily than in a warm latitude to this
progressive absorption of poison?"
"Certainly; it being at the same time perfectly understood that
he should have been duly fortified against the poison to which hehe should have been duly fortified against the poison to which he
had not been accustomed."
"Yes, I understand that; and how would you habituate yourself,
for instance, or rather, how did you habituate yourself to it?"
"Oh, very easily. Suppose you knew beforehand the poison that
would be made use of against you; suppose the poison was, for
instance, brucine"—
"Brucine is extracted from the false angostura* is it not?"
inquired Madame de Villefort.
"Precisely, madame," replied Monte Cristo; "but I perceive I
have not much to teach you. Allow me to compliment you on your
knowledge; such learning is very rare among ladies."
(* Brucoea ferruginea.)
"Oh, I am aware of that," said Madame de Villefort; "but I have
a passion for the occult sciences, which speak to the imagination
like poetry, and are reducible to figures, like an algebraic
equation; but go on, I beg of you; what you say interests me to the
greatest degree."
"Well," replied Monte Cristo "suppose, then, that this poison
was brucine, and you were to take a milligramme the first day, two
milligrammes the second day, and so on. Well, at the end of ten
days you would have taken a centigramme, at the end of twenty days,
increasing another milligramme, you would have taken three hundred
centigrammes; that is to say, a dose which you would support
without inconvenience, and which would be very dangerous for any
other person who had not taken the same precautions as yourself.
Well, then, at the end of a month, when drinking water from the
same carafe, you would kill the person who drank with you, without
your perceiving, otherwise than from slight inconvenience, that
there was any poisonous substance mingled with this water."
"Do you know any other counter-poisons?"
"I do not."
"I have often read, and read again, the history of Mithridates,"
said Madame de Villefort in a tone of reflection, "and had always
considered it a fable."
"No, madame, contrary to most history, it is true; but what you
tell me, madame, what you inquire of me, is not the result of a