The Count of Monte Cristo

Monte Cristo Visits Mercédès’s Home

Monte Cristo seeks out a small house shaded by linden trees and covered by an aged vine, the same dwelling once inhabited by old Dantès. The worn stone steps and unpainted door of three planks remain exactly as they were, though the entire house is now at Mercédès’s disposal rather than just the garret. The woman seen waving from the quay has just entered this house, and Monte Cristo arrives at the corner of a street nearly simultaneously. He enters familiarly through the brick-paved passage without knocking, knowing how to work the weather-beaten latch.

Count Finds Weeping Mercédès

In the sunlit garden Mercédès once found a sum of money placed there by the count, Monte Cristo hears a deep sob and discovers her seated beneath an arbor of Virginia jessamine. She has raised her veil and hidden her face in her hands, giving free rein to the grief she had restrained in her son’s presence. The scene marks the culmination of the count’s pilgrimage to the home that holds the most poignant memories of his former life.

第一百十二章 The Departure

Chapter 112. The Departure In this chapter, the Count of Monte Cristo encounters Mercédès at the old Dantès home in Marseille, where she has come to bid her son Albert farewell before he departs for Africa. Their deeply emotional conversation addresses her grief, her refusal to reproach him, her self-blame for past wrongs, his understanding of his role as an instrument of divine vengeance, her sole wish for her son’s happiness, her decline of financial assistance, and their final farewell. Mercédès ends the chapter watching her son’s ship sail away while murmuring Edmond’s name.