Chapter 110.00: Chapter 111. Expiation

Chapter 111. Expiation

Notwithstanding the
density of the crowd, M. De Villefort saw it open before him. There is
something so awe-inspiring in great afflictions that even in the worst times
the first emotion of a crowd has generally been to sympathize with the sufferer
in a great catastrophe. Many people have been assassinated in a tumult, but
even criminals have rarely been insulted during trial. Thus Villefort passed
through the mass of spectators and officers of the Palais, and withdrew. Though
he had acknowledged his guilt, he was protected by his grief. There are some
situations which men understand by instinct, but which reason is powerless to
explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives utterance to the most
natural and vehement outburst of sorrow. Those who hear the bitter cry are as
much impressed as if they listened to an entire poem, and when the sufferer is
sincere they are right in regarding his outburst as sublime.

It would be difficult to describe the state of stupor in which Villefort left
the Palais. Every pulse beat with feverish excitement, every nerve was
strained, every vein swollen, and every part of his body seemed to suffer
distinctly from the rest, thus multiplying his agony a thousand-fold. He made
his way along the corridors through force of habit; he threw aside his
magisterial robe, not out of deference to etiquette, but because it was an
unbearable burden, a veritable garb of Nessus, insatiate in torture. Having
staggered as far as the Rue Dauphine, he perceived his carriage, awoke his
sleeping coachman by opening the door himself, threw himself on the cushions,
and pointed towards the Faubourg Saint-Honoré; the carriage drove on.

All the weight of his fallen fortune seemed suddenly to crush him; he could not
foresee the consequences; he could not contemplate the future with the
indifference of the hardened criminal who merely faces a contingency already
familiar.

God was still in his heart. “God,” he murmured, not knowing what he
said,—“God—God!” Behind the event that had overwhelmed him he saw the hand of
God. The carriage rolled rapidly onward. Villefort, while turning restlessly on
the cushions, felt something press against him. He put out his hand to remove
the object; it was a fan which Madame de Villefort had left in the carriage;
this fan awakened a recollection which darted through his mind like lightning.
He thought of his wife.

“Oh!”
he exclaimed, as though a red-hot iron were piercing his heart.

During the last hour his own crime had alone been presented to his mind; now
another object, not less terrible, suddenly presented itself. His wife! He had
just acted the inexorable judge with her, he had condemned her to death, and
she, crushed by remorse, struck with terror, covered with the shame inspired by
the eloquence of his irreproachable virtue,—she, a poor, weak woman,
without help or the power of defending herself against his absolute and supreme
will,—she might at that very moment, perhaps, be preparing to die!

An hour had elapsed since her condemnation; at that moment, doubtless, she was
recalling all her crimes to her memory; she was asking pardon for her sins;
perhaps she was even writing a letter imploring forgiveness from her virtuous
husband—a forgiveness she was purchasing with her death! Villefort again
groaned with anguish and despair.

“Ah,”
he exclaimed, “that woman became criminal only from associating with me!
I carried the infection of crime with me, and she has caught it as she would
the typhus fever, the cholera, the plague! And yet I have punished her—I have
dared to tell her—_I_ have—‘Repent and die!’ But no, she must not die; she
shall live, and with me. We will flee from Paris and go as far as the earth
reaches. I told her of the scaffold; oh, Heavens, I forgot that it awaits me
also! How could I pronounce that word? Yes, we will fly; I will confess all to
her,—I will tell her daily that I also have committed a crime! —Oh, what an
alliance—the tiger and the serpent; worthy wife of such as I am! She
must live that my infamy may diminish hers.”

And Villefort dashed open the window in front of the carriage.

“Faster, faster!”
he cried, in a tone which electrified the coachman. The
horses, impelled by fear, flew towards the house.

“Yes, yes,”
repeated Villefort, as he approached his home—“yes, that woman must
live; she must repent, and educate my son, the sole survivor, with the
exception of the indestructible old man, of the wreck of my house. She loves
him; it was for his sake she has committed these crimes. We ought never to
despair of softening the heart of a mother who loves her child. She will
repent, and no one will know that she has been guilty. The events which have
taken place in my house, though they now occupy the public mind, will be
forgotten in time, or if, indeed, a few enemies should persist in remembering
them, why then I will add them to my list of crimes. What will it signify if
one, two, or three more are added? My wife and child shall escape from this
gulf, carrying treasures with them; she will live and may yet be happy, since
her child, in whom all her love is centred, will be with her. I shall have
performed a good action, and my heart will be lighter.”

And the procureur breathed more freely than he had done for some time.

The carriage stopped at the door of the house. Villefort leaped out of the
carriage, and saw that his servants were surprised at his early return; he
could read no other expression on their features. Neither of them spoke to him;
they merely stood aside to let him pass by, as usual, nothing more. As he
passed by M. Noirtier’s room, he perceived two figures through the half-open
door; but he experienced no curiosity to know who was visiting his father;
anxiety carried him on further.

“Come,”
he said, as he ascended the stairs leading to his wife’s room, “nothing
is changed here.”

He then closed the door of the landing.

“No one must disturb us,”
he said; “I must speak freely to her, accuse myself,
and say”—he approached the door, touched the crystal handle, which yielded to
his hand. “Not locked,” he cried; “that is well.”

And he entered the little room in which Edward slept; for though the child went
to school during the day, his mother could not allow him to be separated from
her at night. With a single glance Villefort’s eye ran through the room.

“Not here,”
he said; “doubtless she is in her bedroom.” He rushed towards the
door, found it bolted, and stopped, shuddering.

“Héloïse!”
he cried. He fancied he heard the sound of a piece of furniture
being removed.

“Héloïse!”
he repeated.

“Who is there?”
answered the voice of her he sought. He thought that voice more
feeble than usual.

“Open the door!”
cried Villefort. “Open; it is I.”

But notwithstanding this request, notwithstanding the tone of anguish in which
it was uttered, the door remained closed. Villefort burst it open with a
violent blow. At the entrance of the room which led to her boudoir, Madame de
Villefort was standing erect, pale, her features contracted, and her eyes
glaring horribly.

“Héloïse, Héloïse!”
he said, “what is the matter? Speak!” The young woman
extended her stiff white hands towards him.

“It is done, monsieur,”
she said with a rattling noise which seemed to tear her
throat. “What more do you want?” and she fell full length on the floor.

Villefort ran to her and seized her hand, which convulsively clasped a crystal
bottle with a golden stopper. Madame de Villefort was dead. Villefort, maddened
with horror, stepped back to the threshhold of the door, fixing his eyes on the
corpse.

“My son!”
he exclaimed suddenly, “where is my son? —Edward, Edward!” and he
rushed out of the room, still crying, “Edward, Edward!” The name was pronounced
in such a tone of anguish that the servants ran up.

“Where is my son?”
asked Villefort; “let him be removed from the house, that he
may not see——”

“Master Edward is not downstairs, 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 downstairs 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, 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 anyone determined to seek his father, that he might have someone
to whom he could relate his misfortunes,—someone 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 Abbé Busoni, who looked
cold and calm, as usual. Villefort, perceiving the abbé, passed his hand across
his brow. The past came to him like one of those waves whose wrath foams
fiercer than the others.

He recollected the call he had made upon him after the dinner at Auteuil, and
then the visit the abbé 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 Abbé Busoni!”

“No!”
The abbé 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-Méran. 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 Château d’If.
God gave that spectre the form of the Count of Monte Cristo when he at length
issued from his tomb, enriched him with gold and diamonds, and led him to you!”

“Ah, I recognize you—I recognize you!”
exclaimed the king’s attorney; “you
are——”

“I am Edmond Dantès!”

“You are Edmond Dantès,”
cried Villefort, seizing the count by the wrist; “then
come here!”

And up the stairs he dragged Monte Cristo; who, ignorant of what had happened,
followed him in astonishment, foreseeing some new catastrophe.

“There, Edmond Dantès!”
he said, pointing to the bodies of his wife and child,

“see, are you well avenged?”

Monte Cristo became pale at this horrible sight; he felt that he had passed
beyond the bounds of vengeance, and that he could no longer say, “God is for
and with me.” With an expression of indescribable anguish he threw himself upon
the body of the child, reopened its eyes, felt its pulse, and then rushed with
him into Valentine’s room, of which he double-locked the door.

“My child,”
cried Villefort, “he carries away the body of my child! Oh, curses,
woe, death to you!”

He tried to follow Monte Cristo; but as though in a dream he was transfixed to
the spot,—his eyes glared as though they were starting through the sockets; he
griped the flesh on his chest until his nails were stained with blood; the
veins of his temples swelled and boiled as though they would burst their narrow
boundary, and deluge his brain with living fire. This lasted several minutes,
until the frightful overturn of reason was accomplished; then uttering a loud
cry followed by a burst of laughter, he rushed down the stairs.

A quarter of an hour afterwards the door of Valentine’s room opened, and Monte
Cristo reappeared. Pale, with a dull eye and heavy heart, all the noble
features of that face, usually so calm and serene, were overcast by grief. In
his arms he held the child, whom no skill had been able to recall to life.
Bending on one knee, he placed it reverently by the side of its mother, with
its head upon her breast. Then, rising, he went out, and meeting a servant on
the stairs, he asked:

“Where is M. De Villefort?”

The servant, instead of answering, pointed to the garden. Monte Cristo ran down
the steps, and advancing towards the spot designated beheld Villefort,
encircled by his servants, with a spade in his hand, and digging the earth with
fury.

“It is not here!”
he cried. “It is not here!”

And then he moved farther on, and began again to dig.

Monte Cristo approached him, and said in a low voice, with an expression almost
humble:

“Sir, you have indeed lost a son; but——”

Villefort interrupted him; he had neither listened nor heard.

“Oh, I will find it,”
he cried; “you may pretend he is not here, but I
will find him, though I dig forever!”

Monte Cristo drew back in horror.

“Oh,”
he said, “he is mad!” And as though he feared that the walls of the
accursed house would crumble around him, he rushed into the street, for the
first time doubting whether he had the right to do as he had done. “Oh, enough
of this,—enough of this,” he cried; “let me save the last.” On entering his
house, he met Morrel, who wandered about like a ghost awaiting the heavenly
mandate for return to the tomb.

“Prepare yourself, Maximilian,”
he said with a smile; “we leave Paris
tomorrow.”

“Have you nothing more to do there?”
asked Morrel.

“No,”
replied Monte Cristo; “God grant I may not have done too much already.”

The next day they indeed left, accompanied only by Baptistin. Haydée had taken
away Ali, and Bertuccio remained with Noirtier.