Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 3).djvu/25

Rh Monte-Cristo pointed to a chair, which the procureur du roi was obliged to take the trouble to move forward himself, whilst the count merely fell back into his own, on which he had been kneeling when Villefort entered. Thus the count was half-way turned toward his visitor, having his back toward the window, his elbow resting on the geographical chart which afforded the subject of conversation for the moment,—a conversation which assumed, as had done those with Danglars and Morcerf, a turn analogous to the persons, if not to the situation.

"Ah, you philosophize," replied Villefort, after a moment's silence, during which, like a wrestler who encounters a powerful opponent, he took breath. "Well, sir, really, if, like you, I had nothing else to do, I should seek a more amusing occupation."

"Why, in truth, sir," was Monte-Cristo's reply, "man is but an ugly caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope; but you said, I think, that I had nothing else to do. Now, really, let me ask, sir, have you?—do you believe you have anything to do? or, to speak in plain terms, do you really think that what you do deserves being called anything?"

Villefort's astonishment redoubled at this second thrust so forcibly made by his strange adversary. It was a long time since the magistrate had heard a paradox so strong, or, rather, to say the truth more exactly, it was the first time he had ever heard of it. The procureur du roi exerted himself to reply.

"Sir," he responded, "you are a stranger, and I believe you say your self that a portion of your life has been spent in Oriental countries; thus, then, you are not aware how human justice, so expeditious in barbarous countries, takes with us a prudent and well-studied course."

"Oh, yes—yes, I do, sir, it is the pede claudo of the ancients. I know all that, for it is with the justice of all countries especially that I have occupied myself it is with the criminal procedure of all nations that I have compared natural justice, and I must say, sir, that it is the law of primitive nations, that is, the law of retaliation, that I have most frequently found to be according to the law of God."

"If this law were adopted, sir," said the procureur du roi, "it would greatly simplify our legal codes, and in that case the magistrates would not, as you have just observed, have much to do."

"It may, perhaps, come to this in time," observed Monte-Cristo, "you know that human inventions march from the complex to the simple, and simplicity is always perfection."

"In the mean while," continued the magistrate, "our codes are in full force with all their contradictory enactments derived from Gallic cus-