vultures; so we opened the bird, and this time all special symptoms
had disappeared, there were only general symptoms. There was no
peculiar indication in any organ — an excitement of the nervous
system — that was it; a case of cerebral congestion — nothing more.
The fowl had not been poisoned — she had died of apoplexy. Apoplexy
is a rare disease among fowls, I believe, but very common among
men." Madame de Villefort appeared more and more thoughtful.
"It is very fortunate," she observed, "that such substances
could only be prepared by chemists; otherwise, all the world would
be poisoning each other."
"By chemists and persons who have a taste for chemistry," said
Monte Cristo carelessly.
"And then," said Madame de Villefort, endeavoring by a struggle,
and with effort, to get away from her thoughts, "however skilfully
it is prepared, crime is always crime, and if it avoid human
scrutiny, it does not escape the eye of God. The Orientals are
stronger than we are in cases of conscience, and, very prudently,
have no hell — that is the point."
"Really, madame, this is a scruple which naturally must occur to
a pure mind like yours, but which would easily yield before sound
reasoning. The bad side of human thought will always be defined by
the paradox of Jean Jacques Rousseau, — you remember, — the
mandarin who is killed five hundred leagues off by raising the tip
of the finger. Man's whole life passes in doing these things, and
his intellect is exhausted by reflecting on them. You will find
very few persons who will go and brutally thrust a knife in the
heart of a fellow-creature, or will administer to him, in order to
remove him from the surface of the globe on which we move with life
and animation, that quantity of arsenic of which we just now
talked. Such a thing is really out of rule — eccentric or stupid.
To attain such a point, the blood must be heated to thirty-six
degrees, the pulse be, at least, at ninety, and the feelings
excited beyond the ordinary limit. But suppose one pass, as isexcited beyond the ordinary limit. But suppose one pass, as is
permissible in philology, from the word itself to its softened
synonym, then, instead of committing an ignoble assassination you
make an `elimination;' you merely and simply remove from your path
the individual who is in your way, and that without shock or
violence, without the display of the sufferings which, in the case
of becoming a punishment, make a martyr of the victim, and a
butcher, in every sense of the word, of him who inflicts them. Then
there will be no blood, no groans, no convulsions, and above all,
no consciousness of that horrid and compromising moment of
accomplishing the act, — then one escapes the clutch of the human
law, which says, `Do not disturb society!' This is the mode in
which they manage these things, and succeed in Eastern climes,
where there are grave and phlegmatic persons who care very little
for the questions of time in conjunctures of importance."
"Yet conscience remains," remarked Madame de Villefort in an
agitated voice, and with a stifled sigh.
"Yes," answered Monte Cristo "happily, yes, conscience does
remain; and if it did not, how wretched we should be! After every
action requiring exertion, it is conscience that saves us, for it
supplies us with a thousand good excuses, of which we alone are
judges; and these reasons, howsoever excellent in producing sleep,
would avail us but very little before a tribunal, when we were
tried for our lives. Thus Richard III., for instance, was
marvellously served by his conscience after the putting away of the
two children of Edward IV.; in fact, he could say, `These two
children of a cruel and persecuting king, who have inherited the
vices of their father, which I alone could perceive in their
juvenile propensities — these two children are impediments in my
way of promoting the happiness of the English people, whose
unhappiness they (the children) would infallibly have caused.' Thus
was Lady Macbeth served by her conscience, when she sought to givewas Lady Macbeth served by her conscience, when she sought to give
her son, and not her husband (whatever Shakespeare may say), a
throne. Ah, maternal love is a great virtue, a powerful motive — so
powerful that it excuses a multitude of things, even if, after
Duncan's death, Lady Macbeth had been at all pricked by her
conscience."
Madame de Villefort listened with avidity to these appalling
maxims and horrible paradoxes, delivered by the count with that
ironical simplicity which was peculiar to him. After a moment's
silence, the lady inquired, "Do you know, my dear count," she said,
"that you are a very terrible reasoner, and that you look at the
world through a somewhat distempered medium? Have you really
measured the world by scrutinies, or through alembics and
crucibles? For you must indeed be a great chemist, and the elixir
you administered to my son, which recalled him to life almost
instantaneously" —
"Oh, do not place any reliance on that, madame; one drop of that
elixir sufficed to recall life to a dying child, but three drops
would have impelled the blood into his lungs in such a way as to
have produced most violent palpitations; six would have suspended
his respiration, and caused syncope more serious than that in which
he was; ten would have destroyed him. You know, madame, how
suddenly I snatched him from those phials which he so imprudently
touched?"
"Is it then so terrible a poison?"
"Oh, no. In the first place, let us agree that the word poison
does not exist, because in medicine use is made of the most violent
poisons, which become, according as they are employed, most
salutary remedies."
"What, then, is it?"
"A skilful preparation of my friend's the worthy Abbe Adelmonte,
who taught me the use of it."
"Oh," observed Madame de Villefort, "it must be an admirable
anti-spasmodic."
"Perfect, madame, as you have seen," replied the count; "and I
frequently make use of it — with all possible prudence though, be
it observed," he added with a smile of intelligence.