The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre Dumas

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СКАЧАТЬ should a hardy sailor, and experienced diver, like himself, shrink from a similar task; should he, who had so often for mere amsuement’s sake plunged to the bottom of the sea to fetch up the bright coral-branch, hesitate to swim a distance of three miles? He could do it in an hour, and how many times had he for pure pastime continued in the water for more than twice as long! At once Dantès resolved to follow the brave example of his energetic companion, and to remember that what has once been done may be done again.

      After continuing some time in profound meditation, the young man suddenly exclaimed, “I have found what you were in search of!”

      Faria started: “Have you indeed?” cried he, raising his head with quick anxiety; “pray let me know what it is you have discovered?”

      “The corridor through which you have bored your way from the cell you occupy here extends in the same direction as the outer gallery, does it not?”

      “It does!”

      “And is not above fifteen steps from it?”

      “About that!”

      “Well, then, I will tell you what we must do. We must pierce through the corridor by forming a side opening about the middle, as it were the top part of a cross. This time you will lay your plans more accurately; we shall get out into the gallery you have described; kill the sentinel who guards it, and make our escape. All we require to ensure success is courage, and that you possess, and strength, which I am not deficient in; as for patience, you have abundantly proved yours—you shall now see me prove mine.”

      “One instant, my dear friend,” replied the abbé; “it is clear you do not understand the nature of the courage with which I am endowed, and what use I intend making of my strength. As for patience, I consider I have abundantly exercised that on recommencing every morning the task of the overnight, and every night beginning again the task of the day. But then, young man (and I pray of you to give me your full attention), then I thought I could not be doing anything displeasing to the Almighty in trying to set an innocent being at liberty,—one who had committed no offence, and merited not condemnation.”

      “And have your notions changed?” asked Dantès, with much surprise; “do you think yourself more guilty in making the attempt since you have encountered me?”

      “No; neither do I wish to incur guilt. Hitherto I have fancied myself merely waging war against circumstances, not men. I have thought it no sin to bore through a wall, or destroy a staircase, but I cannot so easily peruade myself to pierce a heart or take away a life.”

      A slight movement of surprise escaped Dantès.

      “Is it possible,” said he, “that where your liberty is at stake you can allow any such scruple to deter you from obtaining it?”

      “Tell me,” replied Faria, “what has hindered you from knocking down your gaoler with a piece of wood torn from your bedstead, dressing yourself in his clothes, and endeavouring to escape?”

      “Simply that I never thought of such a scheme,” answered Dantès.

      “Because,” said the old man, “the natural repugnance to the commission of such a crime prevented its bare idea from occurring to you; and so it ever is with all simple and allowable things. Our natural instincts keep us from deviating from the strict line of duty. The tiger, whose nature teaches him to delight in shedding blood, needs but the organ of smelling to know when his prey is within his reach; and by following this instinct he is enabled to measure the leap necessary to enable him to spring on his victim; but man, on the contrary, loathes the idea of blood;—it is not alone that the laws of social life inspire him with a shrinking dread of taking life; his natural construction and physiological formation———”

      Dantès remained confused and silenced by this explanation of the thoughts which had unconsciously been working in his mind, or rather soul; for there are two distinct sorts of ideas, those that proceed from the head and those that emanate from the heart.

      “Since my imprisonment,” said Faria, “I have thought over all the most celebrated cases of escape recorded. Among the many that have failed in obtaining the ultimate release of the prisoner, I consider there has been a precipitation—a haste wholly incompatible with such undertakings. Those escapes that have been crowned with full success have been long meditated upon and carefully arranged—such, for instance, as the escape of the Duc de Beaufort from the Château de Vincennes, that of the Abbé Dubuquoi from Fort l’Evêque; Latude’s from the Bastille, with similar cases of successful evasion; and I have come to the conclusion, that chance frequently affords opportunities we should never ourselves have thought of. Let us, therefore, wait patiently for some favourable moment; rely upon it, you will not find me more backward than yourself in seizing it.”

      “Ah!” said Dantès, “you might well endure the tedious delay; you were constantly occupied in the task you set yourself, and when weary with toil, you had your hopes to refresh and encourage you.”

      “I assure you,” replied the old man, “I did not turn to that source for recreation or support.”

      “What did you do then?”

      “I wrote or studied.”

      “Were you then permitted the use of pens, ink, and paper?”

      “Oh, no!” answered the abbé; “I had none but what I made for myself.”

      “Do you mean to tell me,” exclaimed Dantès, “that you could invent all those things—for real ones you could not procure unaided?”

      “I do, indeed, truly say so.”

      Dantès gazed with kindling eyes and rapidly increasing admiration on the wonderful being whose hand seemed gifted with the power of a magician’s wand; some doubt, however, still lingered in his mind, which was quickly perceived by the penetrating eye of the abbé.

      “When you pay me a visit in my cell, my young friend,” said he, “I will show you an entire work, the fruits of the thoughts and reflections of my whole life; many of them meditated over in the ruins of the Coliseum of Rome, at the foot of St. Mark’s Column at Venice, and on the borders of the Arno at Florence, little imagining at the time that they would be arranged in order within the walls of the Château d’If. The work I speak of is called A Treatise on the Practicability of forming Italy into one General Monarchy, and will make one large quarto volume.”

      “And on what have you written all this?”

      “On two of my shirts. I invented a preparation that makes linen as smooth and as easy to write on as parchment.”

      “You are, then, a chemist?”

      “Somewhat:—I know Lavoisier, and was the intimate friend of Cabanis.”

      “But for such a work you must have needed books;—had you any?”

      “I possessed nearly 5000 volumes in my library at Rome, but after reading them over many times, I found out that with 150 well-chosen books a man possesses a complete analysis of all human knowledge, or at least all that is either useful or desirable to be acquainted with. I devoted three years of my life to reading and studying these 150 volumes, till I knew them nearly by heart; so that since I have been in prison, a very slight effort of memory has enabled me to recall their contents as readily as though the pages were open before me. I could recite you the whole of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Titus Livius, Tacitus, Strada, СКАЧАТЬ