CHAPTER 223: VENGEANCE REVEALED: III

While Mercedes was making her inventory, arranging her jewels, gathering her keys to leave everything in perfect order, she didn’t notice a pale, sinister face at the glass door that lit the hallway, a door from which everything could be seen and heard.

The man watching without being heard or seen probably caught everything that happened in Mercedes’s rooms. From that glass door, the pale-faced man went to the Count’s bedroom and lifted the curtain with a trembling hand, looking down at the courtyard below. He stood there for ten minutes, motionless and silent, listening to his own heartbeat. Those ten minutes felt eternal.

That’s when Albert, returning from his meeting with Monte Cristo, saw his father watching for his return from behind the curtain, and turned away. The father’s eyes widened. He knew Albert had terribly insulted the Count, and that such an insult anywhere in the world would lead to a deadly duel. Yet Albert had returned safely, so the Count must have been avenged.

An indescribable ray of joy lit that wretched face like the last ray of sun before it disappears behind clouds that look less like a soft bed and more like a tomb. But as we said, he waited in vain for his son to come explain his triumph. He understood why his son hadn’t come before going to defend his father’s honor, but afterward, why didn’t his son come throw himself into his arms?

When the Count couldn’t find Albert, he sent for the servant, who he knew was authorized to tell him everything. Ten minutes later, General Morcerf appeared on the steps wearing a black coat with a military collar, black pants, and black gloves. He’d clearly given orders in advance, because as he reached the bottom step, his carriage emerged from the coach house, ready for him. The valet threw his military cloak into the carriage, with two swords wrapped inside, and shut the door before taking his seat beside the driver. The driver waited for orders.

"To the Champs-Élysées," the General said. "The Count of Monte Cristo’s house. Hurry!"

The horses bounded forward, and in five minutes they stopped before the Count’s door. Monsieur de Morcerf opened the door himself, and as the carriage rolled away, he walked up the path, rang the bell, and entered.

Moments later, Baptistin announced the Count of Morcerf to Monte Cristo. The latter, leading Haydée aside, ordered that Morcerf be shown to the drawing room. The General was pacing for the third time when he turned and saw Monte Cristo at the door.

"Ah, it’s Monsieur de Morcerf," Monte Cristo said quietly. "I thought I’d misheard."

"Yes, it’s me," the Count said, a frightful contortion of his lips making it hard for him to speak clearly.

"May I know what brings me the pleasure of seeing Monsieur de Morcerf so early?"

"Didn’t you have a meeting with my son this morning?" the General asked.

"I did," the Count replied.

"And I know my son had good reasons to want to fight you and try to kill you."

"Yes, sir, very good ones. But you see, despite them, he didn’t kill me. He didn’t even fight."

"Yet he believed you caused his father’s dishonor, the terrible ruin that’s fallen on my house."

"True, sir," Monte Cristo said with dreadful calmness, "a contributing cause, but not the main one."

"So you must have apologized or explained?"

"I explained nothing. He apologized to me."

"And how do you explain his behavior?"

"He probably realized there was someone more guilty than me."

"And who was that?"

"His father."

"That may be," the Count said, turning pale, "but you know guilty men don’t like being proven guilty."

"I know. I expected this result."

"You expected my son to be a coward?" the Count cried.

"Albert de Morcerf is no coward!" Monte Cristo said.

"A man who holds a sword in his hand, faces a mortal enemy, and doesn’t fight is a coward! Why isn’t he here so I can tell him so?"

"Sir," Monte Cristo replied coldly, "I didn’t expect you came here to discuss your family affairs. Go tell Albert that yourself, and he’ll know what to answer."

"Oh no, no," the General said with a faint smile. "You’re right. I came to tell you that I also see you as my enemy. I came to tell you that I hate you instinctively. It feels like I’ve always known you and always hated you. In short, since young people today won’t fight, it’s up to us. Don’t you think so, sir?"

"Certainly. And when I said I foresaw the result, I was referring to your visit."

"Good. Are you prepared?"

"Yes, sir."

"You know we’ll fight until one of us is dead," the General said through clenched teeth.

"Until one of us dies," Monte Cristo repeated, moving his head slightly up and down.

"Then let’s go. We need no witnesses."

"True," Monte Cristo said. "It’s unnecessary, we know each other so well!"

"On the contrary," the Count said. "We know so little about each other."

"Really?" Monte Cristo said with the same unshakable coolness. "Let’s see. Aren’t you the soldier Fernand who deserted on the eve of Waterloo? Aren’t you Lieutenant Fernand who served as a guide and spy for the French army in Spain? Aren’t you Captain Fernand who betrayed, sold, and murdered his benefactor, Ali? And haven’t all these Fernands combined to make you Lieutenant-General, the Count of Morcerf, a nobleman of France?"

"Ah!" the General cried as if branded with hot iron. "Wretch! To throw my shame in my face when you’re about to kill me! No, I didn’t say I was a stranger to you. I know you’ve dug into the darkness of my past and read every page of my life by some infernal light. But perhaps I’m more honorable in my shame than you are under your pompous disguise. No, I know you know me. But I only know you as an adventurer wrapped in gold and jewels. You call yourself the Count of Monte Cristo in Paris, Sinbad the Sailor in Italy, I forget what in Malta. But it’s your real name I want to know, among your hundred names, so I can pronounce it when we meet to fight, at the moment I plunge my sword through your heart."

Monte Cristo turned deathly pale. His eyes seemed to burn with devouring fire. He leaped toward a dressing room near his bedroom, and in less than a moment, tearing off his necktie, coat, and vest, he put on a sailor’s jacket and hat. His long black hair tumbled out from beneath it. He returned like this, terrifying and implacable, walking with his arms crossed toward the General, who couldn’t understand why he’d disappeared. Seeing him return, the General felt his teeth chatter and his legs weaken. He drew back until he found a table to support himself.

"Fernand!" Monte Cristo cried. "Of my hundred names, I only need to tell you one to destroy you! But you’ve guessed it now, haven’t you? Or rather, you remember it? Despite all my sorrows and tortures, I show you today a face that revenge has made young again, a face you must have seen often in your dreams since your marriage to Mercedes, my fiancée!"

The General, head thrown back, hands extended, eyes fixed, stared silently at this dreadful apparition. Seeking the wall for support, he slid along it until he reached the door. He went out backward, uttering a single mournful, lamentable, distressing cry:

"Edmond Dantès!"

Then, with sounds unlike any human voice, he dragged himself to the door, stumbled across the courtyard, and fell into his valet’s arms.

"Home, home," he said in a barely intelligible voice.

The fresh air and the shame of exposing himself before his servants partly revived him, but the ride was short. As he neared his house, all his wretchedness returned. He stopped a short distance away and got out.

The door stood wide open. A hired carriage was standing in the middle of the yard, a strange sight before such a noble mansion. The Count looked at it with terror but didn’t dare ask what it meant. He rushed toward his apartment.

Two people were coming down the stairs. He only had time to hide in an alcove to avoid them. It was Mercedes, leaning on her son’s arm, leaving the house. They passed close to the unhappy man concealed behind the curtain. Mercedes’s dress almost brushed against him. His son’s warm breath carried these words:

"Courage, Mother. Come, this is no longer our home!"

The words faded. The footsteps disappeared in the distance. The General pulled himself up, clinging to the curtain. He let out the most dreadful sob that ever escaped from a father abandoned by both wife and son. Soon he heard the iron step of the carriage, then the driver’s voice, then the heavy vehicle rolling away, shaking the windows. He rushed to his bedroom to see one more time all he’d loved in the world. But the carriage drove on, and neither Mercedes nor her son appeared at the window to take a last look at the house or the deserted father and husband.

At the very moment the carriage wheels crossed through the gateway, a gunshot rang out, and thick smoke escaped through a window pane shattered by the explosion.