Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/46

26 sparkling, and Andrea was surprised to find himself eating with as good an appetite as though nothing had happened. Then he went to bed and almost immediately fell into that deep sleep which is sure to visit men of twenty years of age, even when they are torn with remorse. Now, here we are obliged to own that Andrea ought to have felt remorse, but that he did not.

This was the plan which appeared to him to afford the best chance of his security. Before daybreak he would awake, leave the hotel after rigorously discharging his bill, and reaching the forest, he would, under pretense of making studies in painting, test the hospitality of some peasants; procure himself the dress of a woodcutter and a hatchet, casting off the lion's skin to assume that of the woodman; then, with his hands covered with dirt, his hair darkened by means of a leadened comb, his complexion embrowned with a preparation for which one of his old comrades had given him the receipt, he intended, through different forests, to reach the nearest frontier, walking by night and sleeping in the day in the forests and quarries, and only entering inhabited districts to buy a loaf from time to time. Once past the frontier, Andrea proposed making money of his diamonds; and, by uniting the proceeds to ten bank-notes he always carried about with him in case of accident, he would then find himself possessor of about fifty thousand livres, which he philosophically considered as no very deplorable condition, after all. Moreover, he reckoned much on its being to the interest of Danglars to hush up the rumor of their own misadventures. These were the reasons which, added to the fatigue, caused Andrea to sleep so soundly. In order that he might wake early, he did not close the shutters, but contented himself with bolting the door and placing on the table an unclasped and long-pointed knife whose temper he well knew, and which was never absent from him.

About seven in the morning Andrea was awakened by a ray of sunlight, which, warm and brilliant, played upon his face. In all well-organized brains, the predominating idea—and there always is one—is sure to be the last thought before sleeping, and the first upon waking in the morning. Andrea had scarcely opened his eyes when his predominating idea presented itself, and whispered in his ear that he had slept too long. He jumped out of bed and ran to the window. A gendarme was crossing the court. A gendarme is one of the most striking objects in the world, even to a man void of uneasiness; but for one who has a timid conscience, and with good cause, too, the yellow, blue, and white uniform is really very alarming.

"Why is that gendarme there?" asked Andrea of himself.

Then, all at once, he replied with that logic which the reader has, doubtless, remarked in him, "There is nothing astonishing in seeing a