“And you did not warn me!” cried Caderousse, raising himself on his elbows. “You knew I should be killed on leaving this house, and did not warn me!”
“No; for I saw God’s justice placed in the hands of Benedetto, and should have thought it sacrilege to oppose the designs of providence.”
“God’s justice! Speak not of it, reverend sir. If God were just, you know how many would be punished who now escape.”
“Patience,” said the abbe, in a tone which made the dying man shudder; “have patience!” Caderousse looked at him with amazement. “Besides,” said the abbe, “God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge.”
“Do you then believe in God?” said Caderousse.
“Had I been so unhappy as not to believe in him until now,” said Monte Cristo, “I must believe on seeing you.” Caderousse raised his clinched hands towards heaven.
“Listen,” said the abbe, extending his hand over the wounded man, as if to command him to believe; “this is what the God in whom, on your death-bed, you refuse to believe, has done for you — he gave you health, strength, regular employment, even friends — a life, in fact, which a man might enjoy with a calm conscience. Instead of improving these gifts, rarely granted so abundantly, this has been your course — you have given yourself up to sloth and drunkenness, and in a fit of intoxication have ruined your best friend.”
“Help!” cried Caderousse; “I require a surgeon, not a priest; perhaps I am not mortally wounded — I may not die; perhaps they can yet save my life.”
“Your wounds are so far mortal that, without the three drops I gave you, you would now be dead. Listen, then.”
“Ah,” murmured Caderousse, “what a strange priest you are; you drive the dying to despair, instead of consoling them.”
“Listen,” continued the abbe. “When you had betrayed your friend God began not to strike, but to warn you. Poverty overtook you. You had already passed half your life in coveting that which you might have honorably acquired; and already you contemplated crime under the excuse of want, when God worked a miracle in your behalf, sending you, by my hands, a fortune — brilliant, indeed, for you, who had never possessed any. But this unexpected, unhoped-for, unheard-of fortune sufficed you no longer when you once possessed it; you wished to double it, and how? — by a murder! You succeeded, and then God snatched it from you, and brought you to justice.”
“It was not I who wished to kill the Jew,” said Caderousse; “it was La Carconte.”
“Yes,” said Monte Cristo, “and God, — I cannot say in justice, for his justice would have slain you, — but God, in his mercy, spared your life.”
“Pardieu, to transport me for life, how merciful!”
“You thought it a mercy then, miserable wretch! The coward who feared death rejoiced at perpetual disgrace; for like all galley-slaves, you said, ‘I may escape from prison, I cannot from the grave.’ And you said truly; the way was opened for you unexpectedly. An Englishman visited Toulon, who had vowed to rescue two men from infamy, and his choice fell on you and your companion. You received a second fortune, money and tranquillity were restored to you, and you, who had been condemned to a felon’s life, might live as other men. Then, wretched creature, then you tempted God a third time. ‘I have not enough,’ you said, when you had more than you before possessed, and you committed a third crime, without reason, without excuse. God is wearied; he has punished you.” Caderousse was fast sinking. “Give me drink,” said he: “I thirst — I burn!” Monte Cristo gave him a glass of water. “And yet that villain, Benedetto, will escape!”
“No one, I tell you, will escape; Benedetto will be punished.”
“Then, you, too, will be punished, for you did not do your duty as a priest — you should have prevented Benedetto from killing me.”
“I?” said the count, with a smile which petrified the dying man, “when you had just broken your knife against the coat of mail which protected my breast! Yet perhaps if I had found you humble and penitent, I might have prevented Benedetto from killing you; but I found you proud and blood-thirsty, and I left you in the hands of God.”