blaming me? You render me still more unhappy" —
"Hate you, blame you — you, Edmond! Hate, reproach, the man that
has spared my son's life! For was it not your fatal and sanguinary
intention to destroy that son of whom M. de Morcerf was so proud?
Oh, look at me closely, and discover if you can even the semblance
of a reproach in me." The count looked up and fixed his eyes on
Mercedes, who arose partly from her seat and extended both her
hands towards him. "Oh, look at me," continued she, with a feeling
of profound melancholy, "my eyes no longer dazzle by their
brilliancy, for the time has long fled since I used to smile on
Edmond Dantes, who anxiously looked out for me from the window of
yonder garret, then inhabited by his old father. Years of grief
have created an abyss between those days and the present. I neither
reproach you nor hate you, my friend. Oh, no, Edmond, it is myself
that I blame, myself that I hate! Oh, miserable creature that I
am!" cried she, clasping her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven.
"I once possessed piety, innocence, and love, the three ingredients
of the happiness of angels, and now what am I?" Monte Cristo
approached her, and silently took her hand. "No," said she,
withdrawing it gently — "no, my friend, touch me not. You have
spared me, yet of all those who have fallen under your vengeance I
was the most guilty. They were influenced by hatred, by avarice,
and by self-love; but I was base, and for want of courage acted
against my judgment. Nay, do not press my hand, Edmond; you are
thinking, I am sure, of some kind speech to console me, but do not
utter it to me, reserve it for others more worthy of your kindness.
See" (and she exposed her face completely to view) — "see,
misfortune has silvered my hair, my eyes have shed so many tears
that they are encircled by a rim of purple, and my brow is
wrinkled. You, Edmond, on the contrary, — you are still young,
handsome, dignified; it is because you have had faith; because youhandsome, dignified; it is because you have had faith; because you
have had strength, because you have had trust in God, and God has
sustained you. But as for me, I have been a coward; I have denied
God and he has abandoned me."
Mercedes burst into tears; her woman's heart was breaking under
its load of memories. Monte Cristo took her hand and imprinted a
kiss on it; but she herself felt that it was a kiss of no greater
warmth than he would have bestowed on the hand of some marble
statue of a saint. "It often happens," continued she, "that a first
fault destroys the prospects of a whole life. I believed you dead;
why did I survive you? What good has it done me to mourn for you
eternally in the secret recesses of my heart? — only to make a
woman of thirty-nine look like a woman of fifty. Why, having
recognized you, and I the only one to do so — why was I able to
save my son alone? Ought I not also to have rescued the man that I
had accepted for a husband, guilty though he were? Yet I let him
die! What do I say? Oh, merciful heavens, was I not accessory to
his death by my supine insensibility, by my contempt for him, not
remembering, or not willing to remember, that it was for my sake he
had become a traitor and a perjurer? In what am I benefited by
accompanying my son so far, since I now abandon him, and allow him
to depart alone to the baneful climate of Africa? Oh, I have been
base, cowardly, I tell you; I have abjured my affections, and like
all renegades I am of evil omen to those who surround me!"
"No, Mercedes," said Monte Cristo, "no; you judge yourself with
too much severity. You are a noble-minded woman, and it was your
grief that disarmed me. Still I was but an agent, led on by an
invisible and offended Deity, who chose not to withhold the fatal
blow that I was destined to hurl. I take that God to witness, at
whose feet I have prostrated myself daily for the last ten years,
that I would have sacrificed my life to you, and with my life thethat I would have sacrificed my life to you, and with my life the
projects that were indissolubly linked with it. But — and I say it
with some pride, Mercedes — God needed me, and I lived. Examine the
past and the present, and endeavor to dive into futurity, and then
say whether I am not a divine instrument. The most dreadful
misfortunes, the most frightful sufferings, the abandonment of all
those who loved me, the persecution of those who did not know me,
formed the trials of my youth; when suddenly, from captivity,
solitude, misery, I was restored to light and liberty, and became
the possessor of a fortune so brilliant, so unbounded, so
unheard-of, that I must have been blind not to be conscious that
God had endowed me with it to work out his own great designs. From
that time I looked upon this fortune as something confided to me
for an especial purpose. Not a thought was given to a life which
you once, Mercedes, had the power to render blissful; not one hour
of peaceful calm was mine; but I felt myself driven on like an
exterminating angel. Like adventurous captains about to embark on
some enterprise full of danger, I laid in my provisions, I loaded
my weapons, I collected every means of attack and defence; I inured
my body to the most violent exercises, my soul to the bitterest
trials; I taught my arm to slay, my eyes to behold excruciating
sufferings, and my mouth to smile at the most horrid spectacles.
Good-natured, confiding, and forgiving as I had been, I became
revengeful, cunning, and wicked, or rather, immovable as fate. Then
I launched out into the path that was opened to me. I overcame
every obstacle, and reached the goal; but woe to those who stood in
my pathway!"
"Enough," said Mercedes; "enough, Edmond! Believe me, that she
who alone recognized you has been the only one to comprehend you;
and had she crossed your path, and you had crushed her like glass,
still, Edmond, still she must have admired you! Like the gulf
between me and the past, there is an abyss between you, Edmond, and