KAPITEL 16. A Learned Italian
Chapter 16, “A Learned Italian,” centers on the encounter between Edmond Dantès and the Abbé Faria, an elderly fellow prisoner who has tunnelled into Dantès’s cell at the Château d’If. The chapter details the elder man’s appearance, his years-long escape attempt and its failure, his identity and political backstory, Dantès’s new plan to escape, and Faria’s moral refusal to harm a sentry.
Initial Meeting with the Elder Prisoner
Dantès greets the newly discovered prisoner with intense enthusiasm, embracing him and carrying him toward the window for a better look in the dim light. The older man receives the welcome gratefully, though he realizes he has arrived in another dungeon rather than a route to freedom. He immediately urges they first conceal the entrance he has made, since their safety depends on the jailers remaining unaware of his presence.
Description of the Fellow Inmate
The stranger is described as a small, aged figure of sixty or sixty-five, with hair whitened more by suffering than by years, a deep-set penetrating eye beneath a thick gray brow, and a long still-black beard. His thin, deeply furrowed face suggests a life of mental rather than physical exertion. Though his clothes are tattered, his brisk movements imply that his vigor has been sapped by captivity more than by age. He responds warmly to Dantès’s affection, his chilled feelings rekindled by the younger man’s warmth.
Faria’s Failed Escape and Self-Made Tools
Faria replaces the loose stone to hide his entrance and remarks on Dantès’s carelessness in moving it without tools. He reveals that over the years he has fashioned for himself a chisel from a bedstead clamp, along with pincers and a lever, though he lacks a file. He explains that with this chisel he has dug roughly fifty feet through earth as hard as granite, a labor that consumed two years of scraping after four years spent making his implements. He had planned to reach the outer wall and drop into the sea, but his tunnel veered off course into a corridor opening onto a soldier-filled courtyard, rendering his effort futile.
Assessment of Cell Exit Routes
The two men survey Dantès’s cell to determine where, if anywhere, another tunnel might succeed. One wall is built against solid rock that would take a decade of experienced miners to pierce. The second adjoins the governor’s quarters and would only lead to cellar lockups and recapture. The fourth wall holds a narrow loophole barred with three iron bars, far too small for escape. From the window, Faria glimpses a sentry’s musket and confirms that an open gallery with constant patrols guards that side, making escape through Dantès’s own chamber impossible by the route Faria had hoped to take.
Faria Reveals His Identity
Dantès asks the stranger to reveal his identity. The man introduces himself as the Abbé Faria, imprisoned at the Château d’If since 1811, and before that held for three years at the fortress of Fenestrelle. He speaks of being transferred to Piedmont, of learning of Napoleon’s son the King of Rome, and asks who now reigns in France. Upon hearing it is Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI, he marvels at the inscrutability of Providence in exalating and abasing men, and reflects that history will repeat itself in France as it did in England, with constitutional changes and the stirrings of liberty.
Faria’s Imprisonment and Political Views
Faria explains that in 1807 he conceived a plan Napoleon himself would later attempt in 1811: uniting Italy into one large, compact, powerful empire rather than leaving it divided into petty principalities. Like Machiavelli, he sought a prince capable of realizing this vision but instead found a crowned simpleton who feigned to share his aims only to betray him. He likens the scheme to those of Alexander VI and Clement VII and laments that Italy seems fated to misfortune. He acknowledges that he is the “mad priest” of Château d’If, long used to amuse visitors with his supposed insanity, and that he has abandoned hope of escape, calling further attempts impious.
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