Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 4).djvu/226

 "Edmond, you will not kill my son?"

The count retreated a step, uttered a slight exclamation, and let fall the pistol he held.

"What name did you pronounce then, Madame de Morcerf?" said he.

"Yours," cried she, throwing back her veil, "yours, which I alone, perhaps, have not forgotten. Edmond, it is not Madame de Morcerf who is coming to you, it is Mercédès."

"Mercédès is dead, madame," said Monte-Cristo; "I know no one now of that name."

"Mercédès lives, sir, and she remembers, for she alone recognized you when she saw you, and even before she saw you, by your voice, Edmond,—by the simple sound of your voice, and from that moment she has followed your steps, watched you, feared you, and she needs not to inquire what hand has dealt the blow which now strikes M. de Morcerf."

"Fernand, do you mean?" replied Monte-Cristo, with bitter irony; "since we are recalling names, let us remember them all." Monte-Cristo had pronounced the name of Fernand with such an expression of hatred that Mercédès felt a thrill of horror run through every vein.

"You see, Edmond, I am not mistaken, and have cause to say, 'spare my son!'"

"And who told you, madame, I have any hostile intentions against your son?"

"No one, in truth; but a mother has a twofold sight. I guessed all; I followed him this evening to the Opera, and have seen all."

"If you have seen all, madame, you know that the son of Fernand has publicly insulted me," said Monte-Cristo, with awful calmness.

"Oh! for pity's sake!"

"You have seen that he would have thrown his glove in my face, if Morrel, one of my friends, had not stopped him."

"Listen to me: my son has also guessed who you are; he attributes his father's misfortunes to you."

"Madame, you are mistaken, they are not misfortunes,—it is a punishment. It is not I who strike M. de Morcerf; it is Providence which punishes him."

"And why do you represent Providence?" cried Mercédès. "Why do you remember, when it forgets? What are Janina and its vizier to you, Edmond? What injury has Fernand Mondego done you in betraying Ali Tebelin?"

"And, madame," replied Monte-Cristo, "all this is an affair between the French captain and the daughter of Vasiliki. It does not concern me, you are right; and if I have sworn to revenge myself, it is not on the French captain, nor on the Count de Morcerf, but on the fisherman Fernand, the husband of the Catalan Mercédès."