up.
"Where is my son?" asked Villefort; "let him be removed from the
house, that he may not see" —
"Master Edward is not down-stairs, sir," replied the valet.
"Then he must be playing in the garden; go and see."
"No, sir; Madame de Villefort sent for him half an hour ago; he
went into her room, and has not been down-stairs since." A cold
perspiration burst out on Villefort's brow; his legs trembled, and
his thoughts flew about madly in his brain like the wheels of a
disordered watch. "In Madame de Villefort's room?" he murmured and
slowly returned, with one hand wiping his forehead, and with the
other supporting himself against the wall. To enter the room he
must again see the body of his unfortunate wife. To call Edward he
must reawaken the echo of that room which now appeared like a
sepulchre; to speak seemed like violating the silence of the tomb.
His tongue was paralyzed in his mouth.
"Edward!" he stammered — "Edward!" The child did not answer.
Where, then, could he be, if he had entered his mother's room and
not since returned? He stepped forward. The corpse of Madame de
Villefort was stretched across the doorway leading to the room in
which Edward must be; those glaring eyes seemed to watch over the
threshold, and the lips bore the stamp of a terrible and mysterious
irony. Through the open door was visible a portion of the boudoir,
containing an upright piano and a blue satin couch. Villefort
stepped forward two or three paces, and beheld his child lying — no
doubt asleep — on the sofa. The unhappy man uttered an exclamation
of joy; a ray of light seemed to penetrate the abyss of despair and
darkness. He had only to step over the corpse, enter the boudoir,
take the child in his arms, and flee far, far away.
Villefort was no longer the civilized man; he was a tiger hurt
unto death, gnashing his teeth in his wound. He no longer feared
realities, but phantoms. He leaped over the corpse as if it had
been a burning brazier. He took the child in his arms, embracedbeen a burning brazier. He took the child in his arms, embraced
him, shook him, called him, but the child made no response. He
pressed his burning lips to the cheeks, but they were icy cold and
pale; he felt the stiffened limbs; he pressed his hand upon the
heart, but it no longer beat, — the child was dead. A folded paper
fell from Edward's breast. Villefort, thunderstruck, fell upon his
knees; the child dropped from his arms, and rolled on the floor by
the side of its mother. He picked up the paper, and, recognizing
his wife's writing, ran his eyes rapidly over its contents; it ran
as follows: —
"You know that I was a good mother, since it was for my son's
sake I became criminal. A good mother cannot depart without her
son."
Villefort could not believe his eyes, — he could not believe his
reason; he dragged himself towards the child's body, and examined
it as a lioness contemplates its dead cub. Then a piercing cry
escaped from his breast, and he cried, "Still the hand of God." The
presence of the two victims alarmed him; he could not bear solitude
shared only by two corpses. Until then he had been sustained by
rage, by his strength of mind, by despair, by the supreme agony
which led the Titans to scale the heavens, and Ajax to defy the
gods. He now arose, his head bowed beneath the weight of grief,
and, shaking his damp, dishevelled hair, he who had never felt
compassion for any one determined to seek his father, that he might
have some one to whom he could relate his misfortunes, — some one
by whose side he might weep. He descended the little staircase with
which we are acquainted, and entered Noirtier's room. The old man
appeared to be listening attentively and as affectionately as his
infirmities would allow to the Abbe Busoni, who looked cold and
calm, as usual. Villefort, perceiving the abbe, passed his hand
across his brow. He recollected the call he had made upon him after
the dinner at Auteuil, and then the visit the abbe had himself paidthe dinner at Auteuil, and then the visit the abbe had himself paid
to his house on the day of Valentine's death. "You here, sir!" he
exclaimed; "do you, then, never appear but to act as an escort to
death?"
Busoni turned around, and, perceiving the excitement depicted on
the magistrate's face, the savage lustre of his eyes, he understood
that the revelation had been made at the assizes; but beyond this
he was ignorant. "I came to pray over the body of your
daughter."
"And now why are you here?"
"I come to tell you that you have sufficiently repaid your debt,
and that from this moment I will pray to God to forgive you, as I
do."
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Villefort, stepping back fearfully,
"surely that is not the voice of the Abbe Busoni!"
"No!" The abbe threw off his wig, shook his head, and his hair,
no longer confined, fell in black masses around his manly face.
"It is the face of the Count of Monte Cristo!" exclaimed the
procureur, with a haggard expression.
"You are not exactly right, M. Procureur; you must go farther
back."
"That voice, that voice! — where did I first hear it?"
"You heard it for the first time at Marseilles, twenty-three
years ago, the day of your marriage with Mademoiselle de
Saint-Meran. Refer to your papers."
"You are not Busoni? — you are not Monte Cristo? Oh, heavens —
you are, then, some secret, implacable, and mortal enemy! I must
have wronged you in some way at Marseilles. Oh, woe to me!"
"Yes; you are now on the right path," said the count, crossing
his arms over his broad chest; "search — search!"
"But what have I done to you?" exclaimed Villefort, whose mind
was balancing between reason and insanity, in that cloud which is
neither a dream nor reality; "what have I done to you? Tell me,
then! Speak!"
"You condemned me to a horrible, tedious death; you killed my
father; you deprived me of liberty, of love, and happiness."
"Who are you, then? Who are you?"
"I am the spectre of a wretch you buried in the dungeons of the