Chapter 111

CHAPTER 111
Expiation.

Notwithstanding the density of the crowd, M. de Villefort
saw it open before him. There is something so awe-inspiring
in great afflictions that even in the worst times the first
emotion of a crowd has generally been to sympathize with the
sufferer in a great catastrophe. Many people have been
assassinated in a tumult, but even criminals have rarely
been insulted during trial. Thus Villefort passed through
the mass of spectators and officers of the Palais, and
withdrew. Though he had acknowledged his guilt, he was
protected by his grief. There are some situations which men
understand by instinct, but which reason is powerless to
explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives
utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of
sorrow. Those who hear the bitter cry are as much impressed
as if they listened to an entire poem, and when the sufferer
is sincere they are right in regarding his outburst as
sublime.

It would be difficult to describe the state of stupor in
which Villefort left the Palais. Every pulse beat with
feverish excitement, every nerve was strained, every vein
swollen, and every part of his body seemed to suffer
distinctly from the rest, thus multiplying his agony a
thousand-fold. He made his way along the corridors through
force of habit; he threw aside his magisterial robe, not out
of deference to etiquette, but because it was an unbearable
burden, a veritable garb of Nessus, insatiate in torture.
Having staggered as far as the Rue Dauphine, he perceived
his carriage, awoke his sleeping coachman by opening the
door himself, threw himself on the cushions, and pointed
towards the Faubourg Saint-Honore; the carriage drove on.
The weight of his fallen fortunes seemed suddenly to crush
him; he could not foresee the consequences; he could not
contemplate the future with the indifference of the hardened
criminal who merely faces a contingency already familiar.
God was still in his heart. "God," he murmured, not knowing
what he said, -- "God -- God!" Behind the event that had
overwhelmed him he saw the hand of God. The carriage rolled
rapidly onward. Villefort, while turning restlessly on the
cushions, felt something press against him. He put out his
hand to remove the object; it was a fan which Madame de
Villefort had left in the carriage; this fan awakened a
recollection which darted through his mind like lightning.
He thought of his wife.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, as though a redhot iron were piercing
his heart. During the last hour his own crime had alone been
presented to his mind; now another object, not less
terrible, suddenly presented itself. His wife! He had just
acted the inexorable judge with