“And how was M. de Saint-Meran related to Mademoiselle de Villefort?” said the count.
“He was her grandfather on the mother’s side. He was coming here to hasten her marriage with Franz.”
“Ah, indeed?”
“So Franz must wait. Why was not M. de Saint-Meran also grandfather to Mademoiselle Danglars?”
“Albert, Albert,” said Madame de Morcerf, in a tone of mild reproof, “what are you saying? Ah, count, he esteems you so highly, tell him that he has spoken amiss.” And she took two or three steps forward. Monte Cristo watched her with an air so thoughtful, and so full of affectionate admiration, that she turned back and grasped his hand; at the same time she seized that of her son, and joined them together.
“We are friends; are we not?” she asked.
“Oh, madame, I do not presume to call myself your friend, but at all times I am your most respectful servant.” The countess left with an indescribable pang in her heart, and before she had taken ten steps the count saw her raise her handkerchief to her eyes. “Do not my mother and you agree?” asked Albert, astonished.
“On the contrary,” replied the count, “did you not hear her declare that we were friends?” They re-entered the drawing-room, which Valentine and Madame de Villefort had just quitted. It is perhaps needless to add that Morrel departed almost at the same time.
Chapter 72
* * *
Madame De Saint-meran.
A gloomy scene had indeed just passed at the house of M. de Villefort. After the ladies had departed for the ball, whither all the entreaties of Madame de Villefort had failed in persuading him to accompany them, the procureur had shut himself up in his study, according to his custom. with a heap of papers calculated to alarm any one else, but which generally scarcely satisfied his inordinate desires. But this time the papers were a mere matter of form. Villefort had secluded himself, not to study, but to reflect; and with the door locked and orders given that he should not be disturbed excepting for important business, he sat down in his arm-chair and began to ponder over the events, the remembrance of which had during the last eight days filled his mind with so many gloomy thoughts and bitter recollections. Then, instead of plunging into the mass of documents piled before him, he opened the drawer of his desk. touched a spring, and drew out a parcel of cherished memoranda, amongst which he had carefully arranged, in characters only known to himself, the names of all those who, either in his political career, in money matters, at the bar, or in his mysterious love affairs, had become his enemies.
Their number was formidable, now that he had begun to fear, and yet these names, powerful though they were, had often caused him to smile with the same kind of satisfaction experienced by a traveller who from the summit of a mountain beholds at his feet the craggy eminences, the almost impassable paths, and the fearful chasms, through which he has so perilously climbed. When he had run over all these names in his memory, again read and studied them, commenting meanwhile upon his lists, he shook his head.
“No,” he murmured, “none of my enemies would have waited so patiently and laboriously for so long a space of time, that they might now come and crush me with this secret. Sometimes, as Hamlet says —
‘Foul deeds will rise, Tho, all the earth o’erwhelm them to men’s eyes;’
but, like a phosphoric light, they rise but to mislead. The story has been told by the Corsican to some priest, who in his turn has repeated it. M. de Monte Cristo may have heard it, and to enlighten himself — but why should he wish to enlighten himself upon the subject?” asked Villefort, after a moment’s reflection, “what interest can this M. de Monte Cristo or M. Zaccone, — son of a shipowner of Malta, discoverer of a mine in Thessaly, now visiting Paris for the first time, — what interest, I say, can he take in discovering a gloomy, mysterious, and useless fact like this? However, among all the incoherent details given to me by the Abbe Busoni and by Lord Wilmore, by that friend and that enemy, one thing appears certain and clear in my opinion — that in no period, in no case, in no circumstance, could there have been any contact between him and me.”