Chapter 83 - Page 2

gave the pen to Caderousse, who collected all
his strength, signed it, and fell back on his bed, saying:
"You will relate all the rest, reverend sir; you will say he
calls himself Andrea Cavalcanti. He lodges at the Hotel des
Princes. Oh, I am dying!" He again fainted. The abbe made
him smell the contents of the phial, and he again opened his
eyes. His desire for revenge had not forsaken him.

"Ah, you will tell all I have said, will you not, reverend
sir?"

"Yes, and much more."

"What more will you say?"

"I will say he had doubtless given you the plan of this
house, in the hope the count would kill you. I will say,
likewise, he had apprised the count, by a note, of your
intention, and, the count being absent, I read the note and
sat up to await you."

"And he will be guillotined, will be not?" said Caderousse.
"Promise me that, and I will die with that hope."

"I will say," continued the count, "that he followed and
watched you the whole time, and when he saw you leave the
house, ran to the angle of the wall to conceal himself."

"Did you see all that?"

"Remember my words: 'If you return home safely, I shall
believe God has forgiven you, and I will forgive you also.'"

"And you did not warn me!" cried Caderousse, raising himself
on his elbows. "You knew I should be killed on leaving this
house, and did not warn me!"

"No; for I saw God's justice placed in the hands of
Benedetto, and should have thought it sacrilege to oppose
the designs of providence."

"God's justice! Speak not of it, reverend sir. If God were
just, you know how many would be punished who now escape."

"Patience," said the abbe, in a tone which made the dying
man shudder; "have patience!" Caderousse looked at him with
amazement. "Besides," said the abbe, "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 clinched hands towards heaven.

"Listen," said the abbe, 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 have ruined your best friend."

"Help!" cried Caderousse; "I require a surgeon, not