Edmond Dantes Part 9

DANTeS AND HIS DAUGHTER.

Even in the immediate vicinity of the Morcerf mansion, No. 27 Rue du Helder, no one was aware that its new tenant was M. Dantes, the famous Deputy from Ma.r.s.eilles. All the neighbors knew was that the palatial edifice had been purchased by a stranger, who said he was acting for his master, a man of great wealth lately arrived from the east. No repairs or alterations had been made, while the Morcerf furniture was bought with the house, the only new articles making their appearance being several huge bookcases and a number of large boxes evidently containing books, together with a host of traveling trunks filled, as was to be presumed, with the wardrobe of the family. The servants took possession during the day and were duly noted, but how or when the proprietor came could not be ascertained, while after his installation glimpses of him were exceedingly rare.

Occasionally, however, a beautiful girl, with an oriental look notwithstanding her tasteful and elegant Parisian attire, would be seen for a moment at the windows, but she invariably vanished on realizing that she was observed. Sometimes, a handsome young man stood at her side, but he also seemed anxious to avoid the scrutiny of the curious, although he evinced less timidity than his companion, always withdrawing slowly and with great deliberation.

It was after midnight. On the second floor of the pavilion once inhabited by the Viscount Albert de Morcerf was now a s.p.a.cious library.

The walls were lined with tall book-shelves, mounting to the lofty ceiling, and groaning under ponderous piles of volumes, from the huge black letter folio of the Middle Ages to the lightest duodecimo of the day; while in all parts of the chamber, on the floor, tables and chairs, and in the deep embrasures of the windows, were scattered huge ma.s.ses of papers, pamphlets, ma.n.u.scripts and charts. Over the bookcases stood marble busts of Danton, Mirabeau, Napoleon, Armand Carrel, the Duc de St. Simon and other great men whose names are identified with France; between the windows looking out on the garden, shrouded in shrubs and creeping plants, hung a full-length and magnificent picture of Fourier.

Near the centre of the apartment stood a vast table covered with books, papers, ma.n.u.scripts and writing materials, beside which stood one of those sombre and ma.s.sive arm-chairs, on the possession of which the former proprietor had so felicitated himself, bearing on a carved shield the fleur-de-lis of the Louvre, and in whose sumptuous and antique embrace had, perhaps, reposed a Richelieu, a Mazarin or a Sully. The windows were hung with heavy tapestry of ancient pattern and rich dye, and also the walls, save where covered with books. A soft and summery atmosphere, the warmth of which emanated from concealed furnaces, neutralized the chill of an autumnal night, and the mellow chiaro-oscuro of a vast astral diffused its lunar effulgence on all around.

Within this chamber was a man, who, with arms crossed upon his bosom and eyes fastened in profound and seemingly mournful contemplation upon the floor, slowly paced from one extremity of the s.p.a.cious apartment to the other.

This man was M. Dantes, representative of Ma.r.s.eilles in the French Chamber of Deputies.

"At last, at last," he murmured, "the avenging Nemesis ceases to gnaw!

At length the angel Peace begins to smile! The tempest, which, for nearly thirty years, has raved and swelled in my heart, begins to lull!

At length I commence to live--at length I realize and pursue life's true end. Let me reflect," he continued, after a pause, "let me review the past. The past! alas! my past is a painful blank! At twenty, from the very marriage-feast, from the side of her whom more than life I loved, I was torn by the envy of one man and the jealousy of another, and then, by the ambition of a third, to whom nothing was crime if it but ministered to that unhallowed impulse, I was plunged into a dungeon, whose counterpart only the vaults of h.e.l.l can furnish. For fourteen long years I was the tenant of a sombre tomb. The agony, the despair of those awful years--oh! G.o.d! oh! G.o.d!" and he shuddered and clasped his hands over his head as if to crush the recollection.

After a pause he resumed: "And then those daily vows of vengeance! oh!

vain and impotent vows as then they seemed! vows of awful agony, of fiendish retribution, though at that time I knew not all! I knew not that a venerable father had pined and died of starvation through the wrong done to me! I knew not that the woman I loved had become the bride of my destroyer! Yet those vows, awful and blasphemous as they were, those vows of vengeance have been terribly, dreadfully fulfilled! As the destroying angel of G.o.d's retributive providence, I was endowed with superhuman powers to walk the earth, to administer His justice and to execute His decrees. For fourteen years was that vengeance prepared, yet delayed. At last, it fell--it fell. All who had wronged me met their dreadful doom. Ambition was changed to madness. Avarice was tortured with bankruptcy. Falsehood sought refuge in self destruction; and all--all--all--even the meanest of those who had contributed to blight my life--perished miserably at my will! And did the guilty suffer alone?

Alas! impious, remorseless, horrible revenge! The innocent and the criminal suffered alike. A might approaching omnipotence was vouchsafed me, but no power of omniscience to direct my hand or stay its effects.

Blind and mad I knew not what I did. Those I most loved fell beneath the blow which crushed those I most abhorred, and shared the same fate. The terrible agencies I had summoned as my slaves became my masters. The fiends which, as ministers of G.o.d's justice, garbed in the guise of angels of light, I had, by hideous necromancy, evoked to aid me in righteous retribution, proved the dark demons of h.e.l.l and derided all orders to accomplish my bidding. The awful engines I had set in motion I found myself powerless to arrest or control. Effects ceased not with the causes in which they had their origin. The stroke of vengeance, aimed at foes, recoiled on friends--recoiled on myself. And when I fain would stop, when I would arrest the awful havoc which my will had commenced, the dark ministers I had called up howled in my ears, 'On! on! on!

vengeance is thine! vengeance is thine!' They mocked my terror and laughed at my apprehensions.

"At last there seemed a pause. Fate appeared to have done her worst, to have executed her decrees. The blind agencies of vengeance blasted no more, because there seemed no more to blast. The misery I had caused I strove to alleviate, the innocent hearts I had crushed I endeavored to heal; rejoicing in the joy I had created and the affection I gratified, once more I loved--loved, but, oh! not as I first had loved--not with that deep, adoring, delirious pa.s.sion of my youth, and yet with a subdued, fraternal feeling I loved; in the calm and sweet seclusion of a favored clime, parted from the world with all its miseries and its crimes, environed by all that man or nature could contribute to human bliss, I began to dream of happiness, in the happiness I had created.

But, alas! I forgot that man's happiness lies not in his own hand, but in the hand of his Maker. I forgot that an omniscient eye pursued me, that a blasphemed and omnipotent Power was over me. The blow paused--hovered--fell, not upon me, not on the guilty, but again it fell on the innocent; and she, who was my only hope, my beloved Haydee, my wife, was s.n.a.t.c.hed from my heart, ruthlessly murdered by that fiend, Benedetto!"

The unhappy man pressed his hand to his forehead, and for some time paced the chamber in silence; then, approaching a small alcove at one extremity of the apartment, he raised the heavy and sumptuous hangings and revealed a small silver casket of exquisite workmanship and appointments, that sparkled as the mellow light poured in upon it. M.

Dantes knelt beside the ebony table on which this casket rested, and for some moments seemed absorbed in prayer; then, rising and taking the casket in his hands, he touched a spring, when the lid flew open, disclosing a miniature portrait of Haydee, set in a frame of gold, ornamented with flashing diamonds and emeralds; he gazed long and lovingly at this portrait, that seemed designed to show how exquisitely fair G.o.d's creatures may be, after which he kissed it reverently, closed the casket, restored it to the table, and slowly dropped the hangings to their place. Resuming his walk, he said, mournfully: "But the deepest wound will close; the heaviest grief, the bitterest woe, becomes a.s.suaged. Time, the comforter, soothes and consoles. From this stroke of bereavement I at length awoke, and, at the same moment, awoke to the conviction that my whole past had been an error; that my life had been a lie; that the years which had succeeded my imprisonment had been more utterly lost than those pa.s.sed within my dungeon itself; and there came to me the conviction that time, talent, power and wealth had been worse than wasted--that the wondrous riches, undreamed of save in the wildest flights of oriental fiction, and by a miracle bestowed upon me, were designed for n.o.bler, holier purposes than to subserve a fiendish and blasphemous vengeance for even unutterable wrongs, or to minister to the gratification of pride, and the satisfaction of selfish tastes and appet.i.tes, however refined and sublimated.

"I looked around me--the world was full of misery--and the same disposition which had plunged me into a dungeon was crushing the hearts and hopes of millions of my race. My bosom softened by bereavement yearned toward my suffering fellows, and the path of duty, peace and happiness seemed open to my desolate and despairing heart. Resolution followed conviction; the world was my field; liberty, equality and fraternity were my objects. Not France alone, with her miserable millions, but Russia with her serfs, Poland with her wrongs, the enslaved Italian, the oppressed German, the starving son of Erin, the squalid operative of England, the priest-ridden slave of Jesuit Spain, and the oppressed but free-born Switzer. Great men and good men I found had already, with superhuman skill, constructed a system, a machine for the amelioration of mankind's condition, which needed only the co-operation of boundless wealth to set it in motion. That wealth was mine! The common house for the laborer, the asylum for the insane, for the orphan, the Magdalen, the dest.i.tute, the sick, the friendless, the deserted, the bereaved, or the asylum for the victim of his own vices, or the vices of others, for the depravity which originates in misery, ignorance or fate--all these my riches could sustain. Around me, in the accomplishment of this design, the uncounted wealth intrusted to my stewardship has already gathered the mightiest minds in every department of intellect, and the best hearts; and if but a few years are vouchsafed us to carry out the system we have adopted, all Europe, despite her throned and sceptred tyrants, impiously claiming the right to oppress by the will of G.o.d, shall be free! Silently but surely, the principle of human liberty is ceaselessly at work, undermining thrones and overthrowing dynasties. The hush that precedes the tornado even now broods over Europe; nations slumber the heavy sleep that preludes the earthquake. The hour of revolution is at hand--of social regeneration, disenthrallment, redemption, over all the world. In every capital of Europe the mine is prepared--the train laid to be lighted, and from this solitary chamber the free thought on the lightning's pinion flies to Vienna, St. Petersburg, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, London, over mountain and plain--over sea and land--through the forest wilderness and the thronged city; taken up by the press, it makes thrones totter and tyrants tremble--tremble at an influence which emanates they know not whence and contemplates a purpose they know not what--an influence whose mystery they are impotent to penetrate, and whose shadowy but awful right they are powerless to resist!"

At that instant the silvery tinkle of a bell was heard at the table, and a low and continuous whizzing as of clockwork at once commenced. The Deputy advanced hastily to the table. The register of the electric telegraph like a living thing was unfolding the secrets of events at that moment transpiring at the furthest extremity of the Kingdom!

Eagerly seizing the slip of paper which was gliding through the machine, he glanced over the cabalistic cipher there traced.

"Lyons--Ma.r.s.eilles--Rome--Algeria," he murmured. "All goes well." And while the wonderful register, like a thing of life, still whizzed, clicked and delivered its magic scroll, covered with characters unintelligible to all but him for whose eye they were designed, he touched a spring, and a row of ivory keys resembling those of a piano-forte was revealed. Then rapidly touching them with the fingers of one hand, while he held up before him the endless slip of paper in the other as it was evolved, he transferred its cabalistic contents, character by character, to their distant destination.

And when the day dawned on Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Madrid, the intelligence thus concentrated, and thus distributed in that solitary chamber, was laid by the press before a hundred thousand eyes, in a language which each could comprehend, for in every capital of Europe unbounded wealth had established a press which groaned in unceasing parturition for human rights, causing princes to tremble and ministers to wonder and grow pale; over each press, thus set in motion as if literally by an electric touch a thousand miles away, presided men of the greatest powers and most varied attainments which philanthropy or covetousness could enlist, while the result of their labors was sown broadcast among the poorest and humblest, without price or compensation, pouring light upon their darkened understandings and giving them knowledge of their rights.

Nor was the newspaper press alone active. The feuilleton press was also at work; and magazines, reviews, pamphlets, whole libraries of volumes, were flung like Sibylline leaves on the four winds of heaven. Fiction, the drama, religion, art, literature, moral and mechanical science--all departments of intellect--silently, unseen, yet surely exerted their omnipotent influence for the attainment of one single glorious end--the happiness, rights, freedom of man; all this was under the guidance of one powerful mind and benevolent heart, wielding the resistless necromancy of countless and exhaustless treasure! Not a point in all Europe whence influence could radiate and be distributed was there at which this man, in one brief year, had not set in motion the press and the telegraph, those tremendous levers of the age to move the world, and all the more powerfully to move it because oft unseen. Not a court was there of emperor or prince, czar or kaiser, king, duke or potentate in which dwelt not his emissary, who suspected, least of all, knew everything that occurred, and, on the lightning's wing, dispatched it to its destination, so that the most important decrees of the cabinet-council of Vienna were exposed to the whole world by the Parisian press long before they had been communicated by Metternich to his sovereign. And thus, often, the ruler first learned the purposes of the Minister. Not a city or village was there in all Europe which nourished not in its bosom the germ of reform and revolution, while the great principle of a.s.sociation combined, embodied, and concentrated into a focus energies and influences which would otherwise have proved comparatively powerless.

The click and buzz of the register ceased--the engine had revealed its secret--the shadowy tale had been caught up as it fell and given to the press of all Europe, thence to be laid before men's minds.

Exhausted by the severe mental toil, and by the lateness of the hour, the Deputy sank back into his arm-chair and clasped his hands.

"Glorious, omnipotent science!" he exclaimed in low and trembling, yet eager and enthusiastic tones. "Wealth must yield in power to thee, for what wealth can rival thy achievements or secure thy results? Thou hast girt the earth with web-work, forced the lightning to syllable the unspoken thought and made man's mind ubiquitous like G.o.d's; ere long, thou wilt have knit together with thy magic spells a world of mankind into one vast brotherhood!"

M. Dantes ceased and, closing his eyes wearily, continued to think over the possibilities of the future. As he sat there motionless and seemingly asleep, a light footfall was heard in the apartment and his daughter stood before him. Zuleika was now sixteen, tall and matured beyond her years; she greatly resembled her dead mother, Haydee, the beautiful Greek, and the half-oriental costume she wore helped to render the resemblance still more striking; her abundant hair was the hue of the raven's wing, her feet and hands were those of a fairy, while her large and expressive eyes flashed like diamonds, and her parted lips, as red as rubies, disclosed perfect teeth of the whiteness of pearls. A shade of anxiety settled upon her handsome countenance as she bent over her weary father. The Deputy opened his eyes and glanced at her.

"Why are you up so late, my child?" he asked, fondly. "I thought you were sleeping soundly long ere this."

"I was waiting for you, papa," replied Zuleika, in a low, musical voice, that sounded like a chime of tiny bells; "I could not retire to my couch while you were toiling."

M. Dantes pointed to a stool; the young girl brought it and seated herself at his feet; he drew her to his knee, smoothing her tresses gently and affectionately.

"So you would not desert me, darling?" he said, with a glad smile.

"No, indeed, dear papa," answered she, nestling closer to him.

"Will you always love me as you do now, Zuleika?" asked the father, looking down into the liquid depths of her eyes.

"Oh! papa, what a question, what a singular question!" said the girl, springing to her feet, throwing her arms around his neck, and kissing him again and again.

"But love of another kind and for another will come along after awhile,"

said the Deputy sadly, "and then you will forget your father."

Zuleika blushed and hung her head in maidenly modesty; then she exclaimed:

"No, no, papa; never will I forget you whatever may happen!"

"Ah! my darling, you know not what you are saying; it is only natural for a woman to cast her father aside and cleave unto her husband."

"But, papa, I have not even a lover yet, and, besides, I am not a woman; I am merely a little girl and your own, true, loving daughter."

"Yes, yes, but you must remember that last year, young as you were then, you attracted marked attention from several youthful Romans of the best families in the Eternal City, and that one of them, the Viscount Giovanni Ma.s.setti, went so far as to ask me for your hand."

At the mention of Ma.s.setti's name the blush upon Zuleika's cheek deepened. She trembled slightly, but said nothing; her heart fluttered painfully, but the pain was not altogether disagreeable. The young Viscount was evidently not unpleasing to her.

M. Dantes resumed, looking at her fixedly the while:

"My daughter, as you were then attending the convent school I felt it my duty to deny Giovanni Ma.s.setti's solicitation, nay, his ardent, impetuous prayer, but I did not deprive him of all hope; I gave him permission to urge his suit with you personally after a year from that time had elapsed. Did I do right?"

Zuleika maintained silence, but blushed and trembled more than ever, while her heart fluttered so that she placed her hand upon her breast to still it.

"Come, come, my daughter, answer me," said the Deputy, kindly, "did I do right? Tell me what your little heart says."

"I do not know, oh! I do not know!" cried Zuleika, bursting into tears.

"There, there now," said her father, soothingly; "I did not mean either to frighten or wound you. If the Viscount is displeasing to you I will answer his letter to-morrow and tell him as gently as possible that he has no hope of winning your hand."

"What! have you received a letter from Giovanni?" exclaimed Zuleika, with sudden interest, her tears vanishing instantly and her pretty face brightening up.

"Ho! ho!" said M. Dantes to himself, "Mademoiselle has waked up in earnest now." Then he added aloud: "Yes, one came this afternoon. The Viscount is in Paris, and has claimed the privilege I accorded him a year ago, provided you interposed no objection. However, the matter can speedily be settled. Young Ma.s.setti is a man of honor, and will not for an instant think of troubling with his attentions a lady to whom they cannot prove acceptable."

"Oh! papa, papa, don't tell him that; he wouldn't come here if you did; besides, did--did--did I ever tell you that Giovanni's attentions would prove unacceptable to me?"

"No, not in so many words," answered M. Dantes, archly, "but I inferred as much from your manner and tears just now. So I am to understand that you do not want me to reply to the Viscount's letter, am I?"

"Oh! yes, I want you to reply to his letter, but--but----"

"But what, darling?"