Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 3).djvu/28

8 birth. God alone knows what country will see me die. I adopt all customs, speak all languages. You believe me to be a Frenchman, for I speak French with the same facility and purity as yourself. Well, Ali, my Nubian, believes me to be an Arab; Bertuccio, my steward, takes me for a Roman; Haydée, my slave, thinks me a Greek. You may, therefore, comprehend, that being of no country, asking no protection from any government, acknowledging no man as my brother, not one of the scruples that arrest the powerful, or the obstacles which paralyze the weak, paralyze or arrest me. I have only two adversaries―I will not say two conquerors, for with perseverance I subdue even them, though they are time and distance. There is a third, and the most terrible that is my condition as a mortal being. This alone can stop me in my onward career, and before I have attained the goal at which I aim, for all the rest I have calculated. What men call the chances of fate―namely, ruin, change, circumstances―I have anticipated them all; and if any of these should overtake me, yet they will not overwhelm me. Unless I die, I shall always be what I am, and therefore, it is that I utter the things you have never heard, even from the mouths of kings―for kings have need, and other persons have fear of you. For who is there who does not say to himself, in society as incongruously organized as ours, 'Perhaps some day I shall have to do with the procureur du roi?{{'}]"

"But can you not say that too, sir? For the moment you become an inhabitant of France, you are naturally subjected to the French law."

"I know it, sir," replied Monte-Cristo; "but when I visit a country I begin to study, by all the means which are available, the men from whom I may have anything to hope or to fear, until I know them as well, perhaps better, than they know themselves. It follows from this that the procureur du roi, be he who he may, with whom I should have to deal, would assuredly be more embarrassed than I should."

"That is to say," replied Villefort, with hesitation, "that human nature being weak, every man, according to your creed, has committed faults."

"Faults or crimes," responded Monte-Cristo, with a negligent air.

"And that you alone, amongst the men whom you do not recognize as your brothers,―for you have said so," observed Villefort, in a tone that faltered somewhat,―"you alone are perfect."

"No, not perfect," was the count's reply; "only impenetrable, that's all. But let us leave off this strain, sir, if the tone of it is displeasing to you; I am no more disturbed by your justice than are you by my second-sight."

"No! no!―by no means," said Villefort, who was afraid of seeming to abandon his ground. "No; by your brilliant and almost sublime