Chapter 48 Ideology
|
|||||
IF
THE COUNT of Monte Cristo had been for a long time familiar with the ways
of Parisian society, he would have appreciated better the significance of
the step which M. de Villefort had taken. Standing well at court, whether
the king regnant was of the older or younger branch, whether the
government was doctrinaire liberal, or conservative; looked upon by all as
a man of talent, since those who have never experienced a political check
are generally so regarded; hated by many, but warmly supported by others,
without being really liked by anybody, M. de Villefort held a high
position in the magistracy, and maintained his eminence like a Harlay or a
Molиж.
His drawing-room, under the regenerating influence of a young wife and a
daughter by his first marriage, scarcely eighteen, was still one of the
well-regulated Paris salons where the worship of traditional customs and
the observance of rigid etiquette were carefully maintained. A freezing
politeness, a strict fidelity to government principles, a profound
contempt for theories and theorists, a deep-seated hatred of
ideality,--these were the elements of private and public life displayed by
M. de Villefort. He
was not only a magistrate, he was almost a diplomatist. His relations with
the former court, of which he always spoke with dignity and respect, made
him respected by the new one, and he knew so many things, that not only
was he always carefully considered, but sometimes consulted. Perhaps this
would not have been so had it been possible to get rid of M. de Villefort;
but, like the feudal barons who rebelled against their sovereign, he dwelt
in an impregnable fortress. This fortress was his post as king's attorney,
all the advantages of which he exploited with marvellous skill, and which
he would not have resigned but to be made deputy, and thus to replace
neutrality by opposition. Ordinarily M. de Villefort made and returned
very few visits. His wife visited for him, and this was the received thing
in the world, where the weighty and multifarious occupations of the
magistrate were accepted as an excuse for what was really only calculated
pride, a manifestation of professed superiority--in fact, the application
of the axiom, "Pretend to think well of yourself, and the world will
think well of you," an axiom a hundred times more useful in society
nowadays than that of the Greeks, "Know thyself," a knowledge
for which, in our days, we have substituted the less difficult and more
advantageous science of knowing others. To
his friends M. de Villefort was a powerful protector; to his enemies, he
was a silent, but bitter opponent; for those who were neither the one nor
the other, he was a statue of the law-made man. He had a haughty bearing,
a look either steady and impenetrable or insolently piercing and
inquisitorial. Four successive revolutions had built and cemented the
pedestal upon which his fortune was based. M. de Villefort had the
reputation of being the least curious and the least wearisome man in
France. He gave a ball every year, at which he appeared for a quarter of
an hour only,--that is to say, five and forty minutes less than the king
is visible at his balls. He was never seen at the theatres, at concerts,
or in any place of public resort. Occasionally, but seldom, he played at
whist, and then care was taken to select partners worthy of him--sometimes
they were ambassadors, sometimes archbishops, or sometimes a prince, or a
president, or some dowager duchess. Such was the man whose carriage had
just now stopped before the Count of Monte Cristo's door. The valet de
chambre announced M. de Villefort at the moment when the count, leaning
over a large table, was tracing on a map the route from St. Petersburg to
China. The
procureur entered with the same grave and measured step he would have
employed in entering a court of justice. He was the same man, or rather
the development of the same man, whom we have heretofore seen as assistant
attorney at Marseilles. Nature, according to her way, had made no
deviation in the path he had marked out for himself. From being slender he
had now become meagre; once pale, he was now yellow; his deep-set eyes
were hollow, and the gold spectacles shielding his eyes seemed to be an
integral portion of his face. He dressed entirely in black, with the
exception of his white tie, and his funeral appearance was only mitigated
by the slight line of red ribbon which passed almost imperceptibly through
his button-hole, and appeared like a streak of blood traced with a
delicate brush. Although master of himself, Monte Cristo, scrutinized with
irrepressible curiosity the magistrate whose salute he returned, and who,
distrustful by habit, and especially incredulous as to social prodigies,
was much more dispised to look upon "the noble stranger," as
Monte Cristo was already called, as an adventurer in search of new fields,
or an escaped criminal, rather than as a prince of the Holy See, or a
sultan of the Thousand and One Nights. "Sir,"
said Villefort, in the squeaky tone assumed by magistrates in their
oratorical periods, and of which they cannot, or will not, divest
themselves in society, "sir, the signal service which you yesterday
rendered to my wife and son has made it a duty for me to offer you my
thanks. I have come, therefore, to discharge this duty, and to express to
you my overwhelming gratitude." And as he said this, the "eye
severe" of the magistrate had lost nothing of its habitual arrogance.
He spoke in a voice of the procureur-general, with the rigid inflexibility
of neck and shoulders which caused his flatterers to say (as we have
before observed) that he was the living statue of the law. "Monsieur,"
replied the count, with a chilling air, "I am very happy to have been
the means of preserving a son to his mother, for they say that the
sentiment of maternity is the most holy of all; and the good fortune which
occurred to me, monsieur, might have enabled you to dispense with a duty
which, in its discharge, confers an undoubtedly great honor; for I am
aware that M. de Villefort is not usually lavish of the favor which he now
bestows on me,--a favor which, however estimable, is unequal to the
satisfaction which I have in my own consciousness." Villefort,
astonished at this reply, which he by no means expected, started like a
soldier who feels the blow levelled at him over the armor he wears, and a
curl of his disdainful lip indicated that from that moment he noted in the
tablets of his brain that the Count of Monte Cristo was by no means a
highly bred gentleman. He glanced around. in order to seize on something
on which the conversation might turn, and seemed to fall easily on a
topic. He saw the map which Monte Cristo had been examining when he
entered, and said, "You seem geographically engaged, sir? It is a
rich study for you, who, as I learn, have seen as many lands as are
delineated on this map." "Yes,
sir," replied the count; "l have sought to make of the human
race, taken in the mass, what you practice every day on individuals--a
physiological study. I have believed it was much easier to descend from
the whole to a part than to ascend from a part to the whole. It is an
algebraic axiom, which makes us proceed from a known to an unknown
quantity, and not from an unknown to a known; but sit down, sir, I beg of
you." Monte
Cristo pointed to a chair, which the procureur was obliged to take the
trouble to move forwards himself, while the count merely fell back into
his own, on which he had been kneeling when M. Villefort entered. Thus the
count was halfway turned towards his visitor, having his back towards the
window, his elbow resting on the geographical chart which furnished the
theme of conversation for the moment,--a conversation which assumed, as in
the case of the interviews with Danglars and Morcerf, a turn analogous to
the persons, if not to the situation. "Ah, you philosophize,"
replied Villefort, after a moment's silence, during which, like a wrestler
who encounters a powerful opponent, he took breath; "well, sir,
really, if, like you, I had nothing else to do, I should seek a more
amusing occupation." "Why,
in truth, sir," was Monte Cristo's reply, "man is but an ugly
caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope; but you
said, I think, that I had nothing else to do. Now, really, let me ask,
sir, have you?--do you believe you have anything to do? or to speak in
plain terms, do you really think that what you do deserves being called
anything?" Villefort's
astonishment redoubled at this second thrust so forcibly made by his
strange adversary. It was a long time since the magistrate had heard a
paradox so strong, or rather, to say the truth more exactly, it was the
first time he had ever heard of it. The procureur exerted himself to
reply. "Sir," he responded, "you are a stranger, and I
believe you say yourself that a portion of your life has been spent in
Oriental countries, so you are not aware how human justice, so expeditions
in barbarous countries, takes with us a prudent and well-studied
course." "Oh,
yes--yes, I do, sir; it is the pede claudo of the ancients. I know all
that, for it is with the justice of all countries especially that I have
occupied myself--it is with the criminal procedure of all nations that I
have compared natural justice, and I must say, sir, that it is the law of
primitive nations, that is, the law of retaliation, that I have most
frequently found to be according to the law of God." "If
this law were adopted, sir," said the procureur, "it would
greatly simplify our legal codes, and in that case the magistrates would
not (as you just observed) have much to do." "It
may, perhaps, come to this in time," observed Monte Cristo; "you
know that human inventions march from the complex to the simple, and
simplicity is always perfection." "In
the meanwhile," continued the magistrate, "our codes are in full
force, with all their contradictory enactments derived from Gallic
customs, Roman laws, and Frank usages; the knowledge of all which, you
will agree, is not to be acquired without extended labor; it needs tedious
study to acquire this knowledge, and, when acquired, a strong power of
brain to retain it." "I
agree with you entirely, sir; but all that even you know with respect to
the French code, I know, not only in reference to that code, but as
regards the codes of all nations. The English, Turkish, Japanese, Hindu
laws, are as familiar to me as the French laws, and thus I was right, when
I said to you, that relatively (you know that everything is relative,
sir)--that relatively to what I have done, you have very little to do; but
that relatively to all I have learned, you have yet a great deal to
learn." "But
with what motive have you learned all this?" inquired Villefort, in
astonishment. Monte Cristo smiled. "Really, sir," he observed,
"I see that in spite of the reputation which you have acquired as a
superior man, you look at everything from the material and vulgar view of
society, beginning with man, and ending with man--that is to say, in the
most restricted, most narrow view which it is possible for human
understanding to embrace." "Pray,
sir, explain yourself," said Villefort, more and more astonished,
"I really do--not--understand you--perfectly." "I
say, sir, that with the eyes fixed on the social organization of nations,
you see only the springs of the machine, and lose sight of the sublime
workman who makes them act; I say that you do not recognize before you and
around you any but those office-holders whose commissions have been signed
by a minister or king; and that the men whom God has put above those
office-holders, ministers, and kings, by giving them a mission to follow
out, instead of a post to fill--I say that they escape your narrow,
limited field of observation. It is thus that human weakness fails, from
its debilitated and imperfect organs. Tobias took the angel who restored
him to light for an ordinary young man. The nations took Attila, who was
doomed to destroy them, for a conqueror similar to other conquerors, and
it was necessary for both to reveal their missions, that they might be
known and acknowledged; one was compelled to say, 'I am the angel of the
Lord'; and the other, 'I am the hammer of God,' in order that the divine
essence in both might be revealed." "Then,"
said Villefort, more and more amazed, and really supposing he was speaking
to a mystic or a madman, "you consider yourself as one of those
extraordinary beings whom you have mentioned?" "And
why not?" said Monte Cristo coldly. "Your
pardon, sir," replied Villefort, quite astounded, "but you will
excuse me if, when I presented myself to you, I was unaware that I should
meet with a person whose knowledge and understanding so far surpass the
usual knowledge and understanding of men. It is not usual with us
corrupted wretches of civilization to find gentlemen like yourself,
possessors, as you are, of immense fortune--at least, so it is said--and I
beg you to observe that I do not inquire, I merely repeat;--it is not
usual, I say, for such privileged and wealthy beings to waste their time
in speculations on the state of society, in philosophical reveries,
intended at best to console those whom fate has disinherited from the
goods of this world." "Really,
sir," retorted the count, "have you attained the eminent
situation in which you are, without having admitted, or even without
having met with exceptions? and do you never use your eyes, which must
have acquired so much finesse and certainty, to divine, at a glance, the
kind of man by whom you are confronted? Should not a magistrate be not
merely the best administrator of the law, but the most crafty expounder of
the chicanery of his profession, a steel probe to search hearts, a
touchstone to try the gold which in each soul is mingled with more or less
of alloy?" "Sir,"
said Villefort, "upon my word, you overcome me. I really never heard
a person speak as you do." "Because
you remain eternally encircled in a round of general conditions, and have
never dared to raise your wings into those upper spheres which God has
peopled with invisible or exceptional beings." "And
you allow then, sir, that spheres exist, and that these marked and
invisible beings mingle amongst us?" "Why
should they not? Can you see the air you breathe, and yet without which
you could not for a moment exist?" "Then
we do not see those beings to whom you allude?" "Yes,
we do; you see them whenever God pleases to allow them to assume a
material form. You touch them, come in contact with them, speak to them,
and they reply to you." "Ah,"
said Villefort, smiling, "I confess I should like to be warned when
one of these beings is in contact with me." "You
have been served as you desire, monsieur, for you were warned just now,
and I now again warn you." "Then
you yourself are one of these marked beings?" "Yes,
monsieur, I believe so; for until now, no man has found himself in a
position similar to mine. The dominions of kings are limited either by
mountains or rivers, or a change of manners, or an alteration of language.
My kingdom is bounded only by the world, for I am not an Italian, or a
Frenchman, or a Hindu, or an American, or a Spaniard--I am a cosmopolite.
No country can say it saw my birth. God alone knows what country will see
me die. I adopt all customs, speak all languages. You believe me to be a
Frenchman, for I speak French with the same facility and purity as
yourself. Well, Ali, my Nubian, believes me to be an Arab; Bertuccio, my
steward, takes me for a Roman; Haidижe, my slave, thinks me a Greek.
You may, therefore, comprehend, that being of no country, asking no
protection from any government, acknowledging no man as my brother, not
one of the scruples that arrest the powerful, or the obstacles which
paralyze the weak, paralyzes or arrests me. I have only two adversaries--I
will not say two conquerors, for with perseverance I subdue even
them,--they are time and distance. There is a third, and the most
terrible--that is my condition as a mortal being. This alone can stop me
in my onward career, before I have attained the goal at which I aim, for
all the rest I have reduced to mathematical terms. What men call the
chances of fate--namely, ruin, change, circumstances--I have fully
anticipated, and if any of these should overtake me, yet it will not
overwhelm me. Unless I die, I shall always be what I am, and therefore it
is that I utter the things you have never heard, even from the mouths of
kings--for kings have need, and other persons have fear of you. For who is
there who does not say to himself, in a society as incongruously organized
as ours, 'Perhaps some day I shall have to do with the king's
attorney'?" "But
can you not say that, sir? The moment you become an inhabitant of France,
you are naturally subjected to the French law." "I
know it sir," replied Monte Cristo; "but when I visit a country
I begin to study, by all the means which are available, the men from whom
I may have anything to hope or to fear, till I know them as well as,
perhaps better than, they know themselves. It follows from this, that the
king's attorney, be he who he may, with whom I should have to deal, would
assuredly be more embarrassed than I should." "That
is to say," replied Villefort with hesitation, "that human
nature being weak, every man, according to your creed, has committed
faults." "Faults
or crimes," responded Monte Cristo with a negligent air. "And
that you alone, amongst the men whom you do not recognize as your
brothers--for you have said so," observed Villefort in a tone that
faltered somewhat--"you alone are perfect." "No,
not perfect," was the count's reply; "only impenetrable, that's
all. But let us leave off this strain, sir, if the tone of it is
displeasing to you; I am no more disturbed by your justice than are you by
my second-sight." "No,
no,--by no means," said Villefort, who was afraid of seeming to
abandon his ground. "No; by your brilliant and almost sublime
conversation you have elevated me above the ordinary level; we no longer
talk, we rise to dissertation. But you know how the theologians in their
collegiate chairs, and philosophers in their controversies, occasionally
say cruel truths; let us suppose for the moment that we are theologizing
in a social way, or even philosophically, and I will say to you, rude as
it may seem, 'My brother, you sacrifice greatly to pride; you may be above
others, but above you there is God.'" "Above
us all, sir," was Monte Cristo's response, in a tone and with an
emphasis so deep that Villefort involuntarily shuddered. "I have my
pride for men--serpents always ready to threaten every one who would pass
without crushing them under foot. But I lay aside that pride before God,
who has taken me from nothing to make me what I am." "Then,
count, I admire you," said Villefort, who, for the first time in this
strange conversation, used the aristocratic form to the unknown personage,
whom, until now, he had only called monsieur. "Yes, and I say to you,
if you are really strong, really superior, really pious, or impenetrable,
which you were right in saying amounts to the same thing--then be proud,
sir, for that is the characteristic of predominance. Yet you have
unquestionably some ambition." "I
have, sir." "And
what may it be?" "I
too, as happens to every man once in his life, have been taken by Satan
into the highest mountain in the earth, and when there he showed me all
the kingdoms of the world, and as he said before, so said he to me, 'Child
of earth, what wouldst thou have to make thee adore me?' I reflected long,
for a gnawing ambition had long preyed upon me, and then I replied,
'Listen,--I have always heard of providence, and yet I have never seen
him, or anything that resembles him, or which can make me believe that he
exists. I wish to be providence myself, for I feel that the most
beautiful, noblest, most sublime thing in the world, is to recompense and
punish.' Satan bowed his head, and groaned. 'You mistake,' he said,
'providence does exist, only you have never seen him, because the child of
God is as invisible as the parent. You have seen nothing that resembles
him, because he works by secret springs, and moves by hidden ways. All I
can do for you is to make you one of the agents of that providence.' The
bargain was concluded. I may sacrifice my soul, but what matters it?"
added Monte Cristo. "If the thing were to do again, I would again do
it." Villefort looked at Monte Cristo with extreme amazement.
"Count," he inquired, "have you any relations?" "No,
sir, I am alone in the world." "So
much the worse." "Why?"
asked Monte Cristo. "Because
then you might witness a spectacle calculated to break down your pride.
You say you fear nothing but death?" "I
did not say that I feared it; I only said that death alone could check the
execution of my plans." "And
old age?" "My
end will be achieved before I grow old." "And
madness?" "I
have been nearly mad; and you know the axiom,--non bis in idem. It is an
axiom of criminal law, and, consequently, you understand its full
application." "Sir,"
continued Villefort, "there is something to fear besides death, old
age, and madness. For instance, there is apoplexy--that lightning-stroke
which strikes but does not destroy you, and yet which brings everything to
an end. You are still yourself as now, and yet you are yourself no longer;
you who, like Ariel, verge on the angelic, are but an inert mass, which,
like Caliban, verges on the brutal; and this is called in human tongues,
as I tell you, neither more nor less than apoplexy. Come, if so you will,
count, and continue this conversation at my house, any day you may be
willing to see an adversary capable of understanding and anxious to refute
you, and I will show you my father, M. Noirtier de Villefort, one of the
most fiery Jacobins of the French Revolution; that is to say, he had the
most remarkable audacity, seconded by a most powerful organization--a man
who has not, perhaps, like yourself seen all the kingdoms of the earth,
but who has helped to overturn one of the greatest; in fact, a man who
believed himself, like you, one of the envoys, not of God, but of a
supreme being; not of providence, but of fate. Well, sir, the rupture of a
blood-vessel on the lobe of the brain has destroyed all this, not in a
day, not in an hour, but in a second. M. Noirtier, who, on the previous
night, was the old Jacobin, the old senator, the old Carbonaro, laughing
at the guillotine, the cannon, and the dagger--M. Noirtier, playing with
revolutions--M. Noirtier, for whom France was a vast chess-board, from
which pawns, rooks, knights, and queens were to disappear, so that the
king was checkmated--M. Noirtier, the redoubtable, was the next morning
poor M. Noirtier, the helpless old man, at the tender mercies of the
weakest creature in the household, that is, his grandchild, Valentine; a
dumb and frozen carcass, in fact, living painlessly on, that time may be
given for his frame to decompose without his consciousness of its
decay." "Alas,
sir," said Monte Cristo "this spectacle is neither strange to my
eye nor my thought. I am something of a physician, and have, like my
fellows, sought more than once for the soul in living and in dead matter;
yet, like providence, it has remained invisible to my eyes, although
present to my heart. A hundred writers since Socrates, Seneca, St.
Augustine, and Gall, have made, in verse and prose, the comparison you
have made, and yet I can well understand that a father's sufferings may
effect great changes in the mind of a son. I will call on you, sir, since
you bid me contemplate, for the advantage of my pride, this terrible
spectacle, which must have been so great a source of sorrow to your
family." "It
would have been so unquestionably, had not God given me so large a
compensation. In contrast with the old man, who is dragging his way to the
tomb, are two children just entering into life--Valentine, the daughter by
my first wife--Mademoiselle Renижe
de Saint-Mижran--and
Edward, the boy whose life you have this day saved." "And
what is your deduction from this compensation, sir?" inquired Monte
Cristo. "My
deduction is," replied Villefort, "that my father, led away by
his passions, has committed some fault unknown to human justice, but
marked by the justice of God. That God, desirous in his mercy to punish
but one person, has visited this justice on him alone." Monte Cristo
with a smile on his lips, uttered in the depths of his soul a groan which
would have made Villefort fly had he but heard it. "Adieu, sir,"
said the magistrate, who had risen from his seat; "I leave you,
bearing a remembrance of you--a remembrance of esteem, which I hope will
not be disagreeable to you when you know me better; for I am not a man to
bore my friends, as you will learn. Besides, you have made an eternal
friend of Madame de Villefort." The count bowed, and contented
himself with seeing Villefort to the door of his cabinet, the procureur
being escorted to his carriage by two footmen, who, on a signal from their
master, followed him with every mark of attention. When he had gone, Monte
Cristo breathed a profound sigh, and said,--"Enough of this poison,
let me now seek the antidote." Then sounding his bell, he said to
Ali, who entered, "I am going to madam's chamber--have the carriage
ready at one o'clock." |
|||||
|
©2005 - 2010 ???? . All Rights Reserved.