The Count of Monte Cristo

第八十六章 The Trial

In this climactic courtroom scene, Haydée calmly presents a written record from the slave-merchant El-Kobbir detailing how the French colonel Fernand Mondego sold her and her mother to the Sublime Porte after betraying her father, Ali Tepelini, pasha of Yanina. Confronting Morcerf directly, she identifies him as the officer who surrendered the castle, forged the pardon, murdered Selim the fire-keeper, and trafficked her family for gold, exposing the telltale wound on his right hand where the merchant’s coins fell. Overwhelmed by her accusations and unable to mount a defense, Morcerf flees the chamber like a madman, and the committee of inquiry unanimously convicts him of felony, treason, and conduct unbecoming a member of the House, while Haydée withdraws with majestic composure to veil her face and bow to the councillors.

Haydée Presents the Arabic Sale Record

Haydée, maintaining a calm more dreadful than anger, hands the president an Arabic record of her sale. Because some documents were expected in foreign languages, an interpreter and a noble peer versed in Arabic (from the Egyptian campaign) are present to follow the translation as it is read aloud.

El-Kobbir’s Sale Document Is Read in Court

The translator reads El-Kobbir’s sworn record: he acknowledges receiving, for transmission to the sublime emperor, an emerald worth 800,000 francs from the Count of Monte Cristo as ransom for an eleven-year-old Christian slave named Haydée, the acknowledged daughter of the late Ali Tepelini, pasha of Yanina, and his favorite Vasiliki. Haydée and her mother—who died upon reaching Constantinople—had been sold by a French colonel named Fernand Mondego, in the service of the Vizier, for 400,000 francs. The document bears the imperial seal, lending it full authority. A dreadful silence follows; the count stares at Haydée with a gaze of fire and blood.