Chapter 67 - Page 2

that we have only now met to enter upon a painful
conversation."

"Nevertheless, sir, you see I have answered your first
appeal, although certainly the conversation must be much
more painful for me than for you." Villefort smiled
bitterly.

"It is true, then," he said, rather uttering his thoughts
aloud than addressing his companion, -- "it is true, then,
that all our actions leave their traces -- some sad, others
bright -- on our paths; it is true that every step in our
lives is like the course of an insect on the sands; -- it
leaves its track! Alas, to many the path is traced by
tears."

"Sir," said Madame Danglars, "you can feel for my emotion,
can you not? Spare me, then, I beseech you. When I look at
this room, -- whence so many guilty creatures have departed,
trembling and ashamed, when I look at that chair before
which I now sit trembling and ashamed, -- oh, it requires
all my reason to convince me that I am not a very guilty
woman and you a menacing judge." Villefort dropped his head
and sighed. "And I," he said, "I feel that my place is not
in the judge's seat, but on the prisoner's stool."

"You?" said Madame Danglars.

"Yes, I."

"I think, sir, you exaggerate your situation," said Madame
Danglars, whose beautiful eyes sparkled for a moment. "The
paths of which you were just speaking have been traced by
all young men of ardent imaginations. Besides the pleasure,
there is always remorse from the indulgence of our passions,
and, after all, what have you men to fear from all this? the
world excuses, and notoriety ennobles you."

"Madame," replied Villefort, "you know that I am no
hypocrite, or, at least, that I never deceive without a
reason. If my brow be severe, it is because many misfortunes
have clouded it; if my heart be petrified, it is that it
might sustain the blows it has received. I was not so in my
youth, I was not so on the night of the betrothal, when we
were all seated around a table in the Rue du Cours at
Marseilles. But since then everything has changed in and
about me; I am accustomed to brave difficulties, and, in the
conflict to crush those who, by their own free will, or by
chance, voluntarily or involuntarily, interfere with me in
my career. It is generally the case that what we most
ardently desire is as ardently withheld from us by those who
wish to obtain it, or from whom we attempt to snatch it.
Thus, the greater number of a man's errors come before him
disguised under the specious form of necessity; then, after
error has been committed in a moment of excitement, of
delirium, or of fear, we see that we might have avoided and
escaped it. The means we might have used, which we in our
blindness