The Count of Monte Cristo

That evening, at the Opera, Albert led Beauchamp and Château-Renaud into the count’s box and, in a voice that all in the lobby could hear, demanded an explanation. The count, still and cold as marble, listened to the accusations and the trembling insults of the young man, watched him crumple a glove in his clenched fist, then stretched out his hand and took it from him. “I consider your glove thrown, sir,” he said, “and will return it to you wrapped around a bullet.” Morrel, who had come at Albert’s request, seized his friend’s arm and dragged him from the box. A duel was arranged for the next morning, at eight o’clock, in the Bois de Vincennes, with pistols.

At home that night, the count sat with his pistols when his study door opened upon a veiled woman. She threw back her veil, and there, in the lamplight, stood Mercédès — no longer the young Catalane who had waited under the arbor of La Réserve, but the mother who had come to plead for her son’s life. “Edmond, you will not kill my son!” she cried.

The count recoiled, his pistol clattering to the floor. For a moment, beneath the iron mask of the man he had become, the old wounds tore open. He showed her the letter, that yellowed, rust-stained letter, written by Danglars and posted by Fernand, which had delivered him to the Château d’If on the eve of his wedding. He told her of fourteen years in a dungeon, of his father dead of hunger, of her marriage to his betrayer. He told her, in the calm, terrible voice of a man who has suffered past all reckoning, that he had risen from his tomb to punish the guilty.

Mercédès fell to her knees, but he raised her, for he could not bear to see her in the dust. He promised that Albert should live — but declared that he himself, having been publicly insulted in the face of all Paris, could no longer endure to live. “I must die,” he said, and the bitter smile that crossed his face was the smile of a man who had been conquered by love after he had thought himself invincible.

When she had gone, the count stood alone in the silence of the night, the clock of the Invalides striking one. He pressed his forehead into his hands. “What a fool I was,” he murmured, “not to tear my heart out on the day when I resolved to avenge myself.”

Chapter 90. The Meeting – Chapter 99. The Law

The pre-dawn hours at the Count of Monte Cristo’s home hung heavy with grief after Mercédès’ departure the night before. The count’s usually sharp, vengeance-driven mind had gone quiet, worn out by a love for his former betrothed he had long believed buried. He had promised Mercédès he would not kill her son Albert in their scheduled duel, and settled on a grim resolve: he would not fight, would let Albert’s bullet find its mark, and die as he had for fourteen years in the Château d’If—alone, his secrets intact. He added a codicil to his will framing his death as voluntary, bequeathing his vast fortune to Haydée, the Greek girl he had raised as a daughter, and leaving twenty million francs hidden in his Monte Cristo grotto to Maximilian Morrel, on the condition that if Morrel’s heart was free, he would marry Haydée and care for her as he had for the son of his old patron Pierre Morrel.

He was still writing the final line of the codicil when a soft sigh from the antechamber caught his attention. Haydée had fallen asleep on a chair by the door, having waited hours to beg him not to go to the duel, too young and weary to stay awake. Moved by her devotion, he carried her to her room, then returned to rewrite the will she had torn to pieces in her distress. As he sealed it with three wax stamps, the crunch of carriage wheels announced Morrel and Emmanuel’s arrival, twenty minutes early for the duel. Morrel, pale with sleepless worry, begged the count not to kill Albert, appealing to his mercy for the young man’s mother. Monte Cristo showed no fear, demonstrating his unmatched pistol skill by shooting the four sides of an ace of clubs at twenty paces, then admitted quietly he had no intention of harming Albert: he intended to die. Morrel could not argue with his calm certainty, and the three men climbed into the carriage to head to the dueling ground outside Paris.

At the Bois de Vincennes, Albert arrived first, his face haggard and eyes red from crying, having not slept since challenging the count. But instead of calling for the duel to begin, he stepped forward and publicly apologized, admitting his father Fernand had betrayed both Ali Pasha of Yanina and Edmond Dantès, and that Monte Cristo was fully justified in exposing his treachery. The assembled witnesses stared in shock; Monte Cristo’s eyes filled with tears as he realized Mercédès had sacrificed her own pride and her son’s honor to spare his life. He accepted the apology, and the duel was over before it began. He left with Morrel and Emmanuel, his heart lighter than it had been in years, while Albert rode back to Paris alone to pack his belongings, preparing to leave his father’s tainted name and fortune behind.

Monte Cristo headed to his Champs-Élysées home, where his steward Bertuccio reported that Mercédès and Albert’s valet Florentin both believed the countess was preparing to leave her Rue du Helder home with her son. He sent Bertuccio off with a letter of warning, then shared a tender reunion with Haydée, whose joy at his safe return made him dare to hope, for the first time in years, that he might yet know happiness beyond his quest for vengeance. That hope was shattered a moment later when Baptistin announced the arrival of Count de Morcerf. Fernand stormed into the drawing room, furious and half-mad with grief, denouncing Monte Cristo as the cause of his family’s ruin and challenging him to a duel. With cold precision, Monte Cristo revealed his true identity: Edmond Dantès, the young sailor Fernand had betrayed to a life in the Château d’If for the sake of marrying Mercédès. Fernand staggered back in horror, and fled the house. When he returned home, he found the mansion empty: Mercédès and Albert had abandoned him forever, and as their hackney coach rumbled through the gates, a single gunshot echoed from his study.