Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 4).djvu/166

 "Patience!" said the abbé, in a tone which made the dying man shudder—"have patience!"

Caderousse looked at him with amazement.

"Besides," said the abbé, "God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is first a father, then a judge."

"Do you, then, believe in God?" said Caderousse.

"Had I been so unhappy as not to believe in him until now," said Monte-Cristo, "I must believe on seeing you."

Caderousse raised his clenched hands toward heaven.

"Listen," said the abbé, extending his hand over the wounded man, as if to command him to believe; "this is what the God in whom, on your death-bed, you refuse to believe, has done for you; he gave you health, strength, regular employment, even friends—a life, in fact, which a man might enjoy with a calm conscience. Instead of improving these gifts, rarely granted so abundantly, this has been your course: you have given yourself up to sloth and drunkenness, and in a fit of intoxication ruined your best friend."

"Help!" cried Caderousse, "I require a surgeon, not a priest; perhaps I am not mortally wounded—I may not die; perhaps they can yet save my life."

"Your wounds are so far mortal, that without the three drops I gave you, you would now be dead. Listen, then."

"Ah!" murmured Caderousse, "what a strange priest you are! you drive the dying to despair, instead of consoling them."

"Listen," continued the abbé. "When you had betrayed your friend, God began not to strike, but to warn you; poverty overtook you; you had already passed half your life in coveting that which you might have honorably acquired, and already you contemplated crime under the excuse of want, when God worked a miracle in your behalf, sending you, by my hands, a fortune—brilliant, indeed, for you, who had never possessed any. But this unexpected, unhoped-for, unheard-of fortune sufficed you no longer when you once possessed it; you wished to double it; and how?—by a murder! You succeeded, and then God snatched it from you, and brought you to justice."

"It was not I who wished to kill the Jew," said Caderousse; "it was La Carconte."

"Yes," said Monte-Cristo, "and God, I cannot say in justice, for his justice would have slain you—but God, in his mercy, spared your life."

"Pardieu! to transport me for life; how merciful!"

"You thought it a mercy then, miserable wretch! The coward, who feared death, rejoiced at perpetual disgrace, for, like all galley-slaves, you said, 'I may escape from prison; I cannot from the grave.' And