The Count of Monte-Cristo/Volume 1/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
THE CEMETERY OF THE CHATEAU D'IF
N the bed, at full length, and faintly lighted by the pale ray that penetrated the window, was visible a sack of coarse cloth, under the large folds of which were stretched a long and stiffened form; it was Faria's last winding-sheet — a winding-sheet which, as the turnkey said, cost so little. All, then, was completed. A material separation had taken place between Dantès and his old friend; he could no longer see those eyes which had remained open as if to look even beyond death; he could no longer clasp that hand of industry which had lifted for him the veil that had concealed hidden and obscure things. Faria, the useful and the good companion, with whom he was accustomed to live so intimately, no longer lived but in his memory. He seated himself on the edge of that terrible bed, and fell into a melancholy and gloomy reverie.
Alone! — he was alone again! — again relapsed into silence! — he found himself once again in the presence of nothingness! Alone! — no longer to see, no longer to hear the voice of the only human being who attached him to life! Was it not better, like Faria, to seek the presence of his Maker, and learn the enigma of life at the risk of passing through the mournful gate of intense suffering?
The idea of suicide, driven away by his friend, and forgotten in his presence whilst living, arose like a phantom before him in presence of his dead body.
"If I could die," he said, "I should go where he goes, and should assuredly find him again. But how to die? It is very easy," he continued, with a smile of bitterness; "I will remain here, rush on the first person that opens the door, will strangle him, and then they will guillotine me." But as it happens that in excessive griefs, as in great tempests, the abyss is found between the tops of the loftiest waves, Dantès recoiled from the idea of this infamous death, and passed suddenly from despair to an ardent desire for life and liberty.
"Die! oh, no," he exclaimed — "not die now, after having lived and suffered so long and so much! Die! yes, had I died years since; but now it would be, indeed, to give way to my bitter destiny. No, I desire to live; I desire to struggle to the very last; I wish to reconquer the happiness of which I have been deprived. Before I die I must not forget that I have my executioners to punish; and perhaps, too — who knows? — some friends to reward. Yet they will forget me here, and I shall die in my dungeon like Faria."
As he said this, he remained motionless, his eyes fixed like a man struck with a sudden idea, but whom this idea fills with amazement. Suddenly he rose, lifted his hand to his brow as if his brain were giddy, paced twice or thrice round his chamber, and then paused abruptly at the bed.
"Ah! ah!" he muttered, "who inspires me with this thought? Is it thou, gracious God? Since none but the dead pass freely from this dungeon, let me assume the place of the dead!"
Without giving himself time to reconsider his decision, and, indeed, that he might not allow his thoughts to be distracted from his desperate resolution, he bent over the appalling sack, opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew the corpse from the sack, and transported it along the gallery to his own chamber, laid it on his couch, passed round its head the rag he wore at night round his own, covered it with his counterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried vainly to close the resisting eyes, which glared horribly; turned the head toward the wall, so that the jailer might, when he brought his evening meal, believe that he was asleep, as was his frequent custom; returned along the gallery, pushed the bed against the wall, returned to the other cell, took from the hiding-place the needle and thread, flung off his rags, that they might feel naked flesh only beneath the coarse sackcloth, and getting inside the sack, placed himself in the posture in which the dead body had been laid, and sewed up the mouth of the sack withinside.
The beating of his heart might have been heard, if by any mischance the jailers had entered at that moment. Dantès might have waited until the evening visit was over, but he was afraid the governor might change his resolution, and order the dead body to be removed earlier. In that case his last hope would have been destroyed.
Now his project was settled under any circumstances, and he hoped thus to cany it into effect. If during the time he was being conveyed the grave-diggers should discover that they were conveying a live instead of a dead body, Dantès did not intend to give them time to recognize him, but, with a sudden cut of the knife, he meant to open the sack from top to bottom, and, profiting by their alarm, escape; if they tried to catch him, he would use his knife.
If they conducted him to the cemetery and laid him in the grave, he would allow himself to be covered with earth, and then, as it was night, the grave-diggers could scarcely have turned their backs, ere he would have worked his way through the soft soil and escape, hoping that the weight would not be too heavy for him to support. If he was deceived in this, and the earth proved too heavy, he would be stifled, and then, so much the better, — all would be over.
Dantès had not eaten since the previous evening, but he had not thought of hunger or thirst, nor did he now think of it. His position was too precarious to allow him even time to reflect on any thought but one.
The first risk that Dantès ran was, that the jailer, when he brought him his supper at seven o'clock, might perceive the substitution he had effected: fortunately, twenty times at least, from misanthropy or fatigue, Dantès had received his jailer in bed, and then the man placed his bread and soup on the table, and went away without saying a word. This time the jailer might not be silent as usual, but speak to Dantès, and seeing that he received no reply, go to the bed, and thus discover all.
When seven o'clock came, Dantès' agony really commenced. His hand placed upon his heart was unable to repress its throbbings, whilst, with the other, he wiped the perspiration from his temples. From time to time shudderings ran through his whole frame, and compressed his heart as if it were in an icy vise. Then he thought he was going to die. Yet the hours passed on without any stir in the château, and Dantès felt he had escaped the first danger: it was a good augury.
At length, about the hour the governor had appointed, footsteps were heard on the stairs. Edmond felt that the moment had arrived, and summoning up all his courage, held his breath, happy if at the same time he could have repressed in like manner the hasty pulsation of his arteries. They stopped at the door — there were two steps, and Dantès guessed it was the two grave-diggers who came to seek him. This idea was soon converted into certainty, when he heard the noise they made in putting down the hand-bier.
The door opened, and a dim light reached Dantès' eyes through the coarse sack that covered him; he saw two shadows approach his bed, a third remaining at the door with a torch in his hand. Each of these two men, approaching the ends of the bed; took the sack by its extremities.
"He's heavy, though, for an old and thin man," said one, as he raised the head.
"They say every year adds half a pound to the weight of the bones," said another, lifting the feet.
"Have you tied the knot?" inquired the first speaker.
"What would be the use of carrying so much more weight?" was the reply; "I can do that when we get there."
"Yes, you're right," replied the companion.
"What's the knot for?" thought Dantès.
They deposited the supposed corpse on the bier. Edmond stiffened himself in order to play his part of a dead man, and then the party, lighted by the man with the torch, who went first, ascended the stairs. Suddenly he felt the fresh and sharp night air, and Dantès recognized the Mistral. It was a sudden sensation, at the same time replete with delight and agony.
The bearers advanced twenty paces, then stopped, putting their bier down on the ground. One of them went away, and Dantès heard his shoes on the pavement.
"Where am I then?" he asked himself.
"Really, he is by no means a light load!" said the other bearer, sitting on the edge of the hand-barrow.
Dantès' first impulse was to escape, but fortunately he did not attempt it.
"Light me, you sir," said the other bearer, "or I shall not find what I am looking for."
The man with the torch complied, although not asked in the most polite terms.
"What can he be looking for?" thought Edmond. "The spade, perhaps."
An exclamation of satisfaction indicated that the grave-digger had found the object of his search. "Here it is at last," he said, "not without some trouble, though."
"Yes," was the answer, "but it has lost nothing by waiting."
As he said this, the man came toward Edmond, who heard a heavy and sounding substance laid down beside him, and at the same moment a cord was fastened round his feet with sudden and painful violence.
"Well, have you tied the knot?" inquired the grave-digger, who was looking on.
"Yes, and pretty tight too, I can tell you," was the answer.
"Move on, then." And the bier was lifted once more, and they proceeded.
They advanced fifty paces farther, and then stopped to open a door, then went forward again. The noise of the waves dashing against the rocks on which the chateau is built reached Dantès' ear distinctly as they progressed.
"Bad weather!" observed one of the bearers; "not a pleasant night for a dip in the sea."
"Why, yes, the abbé runs a chance of being wet," said the other; and then there was a burst of brutal laughter.
Dantès did not comprehend the jest, but his hair stood erect on his head.
"Well, here we are at last," said one of them.
"A little farther — a little farther," said the other. "You know very well that the last was stopped on his way, dashed on the rocks, and the governor told us next day that we were careless fellows."
They ascended five or six more steps, and then Dantès felt that they took him one by the head and the other by the heels, and swung him to and fro.
"One! "said the grave-diggers, "two! three, and away!"
And at the same instant Dantès felt himself flung into the air like wounded bird, falling, falling, with a rapidity that made his blood curdle. Although drawn downward by the same heavy weight which hastened his rapid descent, it seemed to him as if the time were a century. At last, with a terrific dash, he entered the ice-cold water, and he did so he uttered a shrill cry, stifled in a moment by his immersion beneath the waves.
Dantès had been flung into the sea, into whose depths he was dragged by a thirty-six pound shot tied to his feet.
The sea is the cemetery of the Château d'If.
