The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre Dumas

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       17 In the Abbé’s Cell

      AFTER HAVING PASSED with tolerable ease through the subterranean passage, which, however, did not permit of their holding themselves erect, the two friends reached the farther end of the corridor, into which the cell of the abbé opened. From that point, the opening became much narrower, barely permitting an individual to creep through on his hands and knees. The floor of the abbé’s cell was paved, and it had been by raising one of the stones in the most obscure corner that Faria had been able to commence the laborious task of which Dantès had witnessed the completion.

      As he entered the chamber of his friend, Dantès cast around one eager and searching glance in quest of the expected marvels; but nothing more than common met his view.

      “It is well,” said the abbé, “we have some hours before us; it is now just a quarter past twelve o’clock.”

      Instinctively Dantès turned round to observe by what watch or clock the abbé had been able so accurately to specify the hour.

      “Look at this ray of light, which enters by my window,” said the abbé, “and then observe the lines traced on the wall. Well, by means of these lines, which are in accordance with the double motion of the earth, as well as the ellipses it describes round the sun, I am enabled to ascertain the precise hour with more minuteness than if I possessed a watch, for that might be broken or deranged in its movements, while the sun and earth never vary in their appointed paths.”

      This last explanation was wholly lost upon Dantès, who had always imagined, from seeing the sun rise from behind the mountains and set in the Mediterranean, that it moved, and not the earth. A double movement in the globe he inhabited, and of which he could feel nothing, appeared to him perfectly impossible; still, though unable to comprehend the full meaning of his companion’s allusions, each word that fell from his lips seemed fraught with the wonders of science, as admirable deserving of being brought fully to light as were the glittering treasures he could just recollect having visited during his earliest youth in a voyage he made to Guzerat and Golconda.

      “Come!” said he to the abbé, “show me the wonderful inventions you told me of—I am all impatience to behold them.”

      The abbé smiled, and proceeding to the disused fireplace, raised, by the help of his chisel, a long stone which had doubtless been the hearth, beneath which was a cavity of considerable depth, serving as a safe depository of the articles mentioned to Dantès.

      “What do you wish to see first?” asked the abbé.

      “Oh! your great work on the monarchy of Italy!”

      Faria then drew forth from its hiding-place three or four rolls of linen, laid one over the other, like the folds of papyrus found in mummy-cases; these rolls consisted of slips of cloth about four inches wide, and eighteen long; they were all carefully numbered and closely covered with writing, so legible that Dantès could easily read it, as well as make out the sense—it being in Italian, a language he, as a Provençal, perfectly understood.

      “There!” said he, “there is the work complete—I wrote the word finis at the end of the last page about a week ago. I have torn up two of my shirts, and as many handkerchiefs as I was master of, to complete the precious pages. Should I ever get out of prison, and find a printer courageous enough to publish what I have composed, my literary reputation is for ever secured.”

      “I see,” answered Dantès. “Now let me behold the curious pens with which you have written your work.”

      “Look!” said Faria, showing to the young man a slender stick about six inches long, and much resembling the size of the handle of a fine painting-brush, to the end of which was tied by a piece of thread one of those cartilages of which the abbé had before spoken to Dantès—it was pointed, and divided at the nib like an ordinary pen.

      Dantès examined it with intense admiration; then looked around to see the instrument with which it had been shaped so correctly into form.

      “Ah, I see!” said Faria; “you are wondering where I found my penknife, are not you? Well, I must confess that I look upon that article of my ingenuity as the very perfection of all my handiworks. I made it, as well as this knife, out of an old iron candlestick.” The penknife was sharp and keen as a razor;—as for the other knife, it possessed the double advantage of being capable of serving either as a dagger or a knife.

      Dantès examined the various articles shown to him with the same attention he had bestowed on the curiosities and strange СКАЧАТЬ