The Count of Monte Cristo

Onlookers React to the Unexpected Reconciliation

The witnesses react with astonishment to the unexpected reconciliation. Beauchamp asks Château-Renaud what happened during the night, and the baron responds that Albert’s behavior is either very despicable or very noble. Debray expresses confusion to Franz, noting that Monte Cristo’s dishonorable conduct toward Morcerf appears justified by the very son affected. The group struggles to comprehend the scene they have just witnessed.

Monte Cristo Reflects on Mercédès’ Sacrifice

Monte Cristo bows under the weight of twenty-four years’ reminiscences, his head bent and arms powerless. He does not think of Albert or the other witnesses, but of the courageous woman—Mercédès—who came to plead for her son’s life and who has now saved it by revealing a dreadful family secret capable of destroying every feeling of filial piety in her son. He murmurs that only now is he fully convinced of being the emissary of God, attributing the reconciliation to Providence.

第九十一章 Mother and Son

After Albert returns home following the unexpected conclusion of his affair with the Count of Monte Cristo, he discovers his mother Mercédès preparing to leave as well, arranging her possessions with the same careful attention he has just given to his own rooms; their parallel efforts reveal a shared understanding that the family’s honor requires abandoning the house on the Rue du Helder and all its luxurious associations. When Mercédès learns that her son intends to forge a new existence without his father’s tainted name, she offers him her maiden name of Herrera, encouraging him to render it illustrious through his future achievements, though she declares that for her the grave awaits beyond the threshold of this house. As mother and son prepare to depart for humble lodgings, Bertuccio delivers a letter from Monte Cristo in which he reveals that he had buried treasure for his beloved Mercédès twenty-four years ago in the garden of his father’s house in Marseilles, and he insists that Albert spare his mother the suffering of poverty by accepting this black bread offered in place of the millions he wishes he could provide. Mercédès accepts the Count’s offering, declaring with an ineffable look toward heaven that he has the right to pay the dowry she will carry with her into a convent, and she descends the stairs with her son, strengthened by this mysterious provision for her future.