Ten

A LEARNED GENTLEMAN FROM ITALY

Running towards the friend so long desired, Dantes almost carried him towards the window so as to see his face better in the light.

He was a small man, his hair white with suffering rather than age. His eyes were deep-set, and he had a long beard, still black. It seemed as if he had not great strength of body; he appeared to be rather a worker with the mind than with the hands. The warm manner in which Dantes received him seemed to move his heart, long grown cold within these prison walls. He thanked Edmond for his kindness, though he must have been suffering very much at finding another room where he had hoped to find the free and open air.

"Let us first see," he said, "whether it is possible to hide these marks here. We must make sure that the keeper may not discover our hidden path." He went to the opening, took the stone in his hands and picked it up as if its weight was nothing. Then, fitting it into its place, he said, "You took out this stone very carelessly. What did you use for the work?"

Dantes showed him the broken pieces of the water-pot.

"Oh," he said, "I have better things than those. I made them out of pieces of my bed. With this thing which I hold in my hand I have cut a path at least forty feet long."

"Forty feet!"

"Do not speak so loud, young man! Don't speak so loud. Men often wait outside the doors in a prison like this to hear what is said by the prisoners."

"But they believe that I am shut up alone here."

"That makes no difference."

"You say you made a path forty feet long to arrive here?"

"I do. This is the distance between your room and mine. But I did not draw the circle right. I made it ten feet too wide. The hole which I have made would only take me into the courtyard, which is full of soldiers."

"You have reached this room. There are three other sides to it. Could we not make a way under one of these three walls. Do you know what is outside them?"

"One is built against the rock; nothing can be done there. One wall is against the lower part of the Governor's house: if we got there, we should certainly be caught. And this side looks out—stop a minute! Now where does it open?"

The side of which he spoke, was that in which the small window was fixed. It was very high up in the wall, so small that only a child could have got through it, and three strong bars had been fixed across it so as to make even harder that which was never really possible.

Pulling the table across the room he set it under the window. Then he said to Dantes, "Climb up." Dantes did so; he put his back against the wall, and held out both hands. The other man, whom Dantes as yet knew only as "Number 27," jumped up on to the table, and from there on to the hands of Dantes, and then on to Dantes' neck. He then put his head through the top bars of the window so as to see the whole wall perfectly from top to bottom. Very soon after this he drew his head back very quickly, saying, "I thought so!" He then got down as quickly and as easily as he had climbed up. Dantes was surprised at the quickness of so old a man.

"What made you say those words?" asked Dantes as he also got down from the table.

He did not answer, but stood thinking.

"Yes," he said at last. "This side of your room looks out onto a kind of open pathway upon which there is a soldier keeping watch day and night."

"Are you quite sure of that?"

"Certain. I saw the top of the soldier's head; that was what made me draw back so quickly. I was afraid he might see me."

"Well?" said Dantes.

"You see, then, that it is not possible to escape through these walls."

"Then," said the young man quickly, "then—?"

"Then," answered the older man, "such is the wish of God, and we can do nothing more." And, as he slowly spoke these words, a look of deep sadness spread over his care-worn face.

Dantes looked with wonder at this person who could so quickly and so quietly give up the hopes to which he had held for years.

"Tell me, I pray you," he said at last, "who and what you are. I have never met so strange and wonderful a person."

"Certainly," replied the other. "But why do you wish to hear about one who has no longer any power to help you?"

"Do not say that. You can help me with the strength of your own powerful mind. Pray let me know who you really are."

"Then listen," said he. "My name is Faria. I have been a prisoner in the Chateau d'If since the year 1811. Before that I was three years in the Prison of Fenestrelle."

"But why are you here?"

"Italy is, as you know, broken up into a number of small separate countries, each with its own separate ruler. My desire was to make it one great country under one great king. I thought that I had found that great king; but he was only a fool. He listened to me only so that he might learn my plans and destroy me. And now perhaps that great work will never be done. Napoleon began to make Italy one; but he was unable to complete his work. God has not been kind to Italy." The old man said these last words with deep sadness.

Dantes could not understand this at all. He could not understand why a man should set his life in danger for such a cause.

"Do not be angry at my question," said Dantes, beginning to think that the keeper must be right as to the state of the old man's mind, "but are you not the prisoner who is thought by all in the Chateau d'If to be—to be—ill?"

"Mad, you mean, don't you?"

"Well, I did not like to say so."

"Well, then," continued Faria with a sad laugh, "let me answer your question in full, by telling you that I am the poor mad prisoner of the Chateau d'If. For many years, persons who have visited the prison have laughed at what was said to be my madness. Perhaps children would be brought to see and laugh at me—if there were any such angels of happiness in this House of Tears."

Dantes remained for a short time without speaking or moving. At last he said, "Then you give up all hope of escaping?

"I see that it is not possible, and I think it wrong to try to do that which God clearly does not desire."

"No, do not lose hope. Is it not expecting too much to think that all should go well the first time? Why not try to find some other way?"

"Ah, that only shows how little you know of the labour it has cost me to do this. How can you speak of beginning again? It took me four years to make these things with which to cut away the earth. I have been two years cutting out the earth, hard as stone itself. How I have worked to move great stones which at first seemed not possible to move! Sometimes I have laboured all night and been glad if, in the morning, I have made one inch of way. To hide this mass of earth and stones I was forced to break through into an old well, and now the well is completely full: I think it would not be possible to add another stone without being discovered. Remember that I fully believed that, at the end of all this, I should be free; and I used my strength carefully, so that it might just hold out to the end. And, just at the last minute, my hopes were for ever seized away from me. No, nothing would ever make me begin again. It is not the wish of God."

Faria sat down upon Edmond's bed. Edmond remained standing, lost in deep thought. He himself had never thought of escape. There are things that seem so far from being possible that the mind does not take them in. To make a path forty feet long under the ground, to labour at it for over two years, so as to reach at the end of that time a rock high above the sea; to jump down almost a hundred feet into the waves, perhaps only to fall on to the rocks at the foot, perhaps to be shot by the soldiers as soon as your head came up again above the water; having done all this, to swim for your life three miles before you could reach the shore—these were things so fearful to think of that Dantes had never dreamed of such a plan. But the sight of an old man holding on to life so bravely gave a new turn to his thoughts and brought new strength to him. Here was a man, far less used to using his hands, as well as weaker and older than himself, who had made such a plan; and only a small mistake in the drawing had brought it to nothing. If, then, one man had done this wonderful thing, why should not Dantes also try to make his escape? What has once been done may be done again.

After continuing for some time in deep thought, the young man suddenly said, "I have found what you were seeking."

Faria looked up quickly. "Have you indeed?" cried he. "Pray let me know what it is you have discovered."

"At one place the way which you have made must be very near that outside path."

"It must be."

"Not more than fifteen steps from it?"

"About that."

"Well, then, I will tell you what we must do. We must cut through so as to reach that pathway. We shall kill the soldier who is on guard there, and make our escape. All that we need is to be brave: you have shown yourself brave. And we need strength; of that I have enough."

"Wait, my dear friend," replied Faria. "You do not understand in what way I am brave, or what use I mean to make of my strength. Up till now I have made war against things, not against men. I have not thought it wrong to cut through a wall, but I cannot so easily believe that it is not wrong to cut through the heart, and the life, of a man."

Dantes was surprised.

"Is it possible," he said, "that, when it is a matter of your escape from this prison, you would allow such a thought to hold you back?"

"Tell me," replied Faria, "what has held you back from killing your keeper with a piece of wood broken from your bed, dressing yourself in his clothes, and trying to escape in that way?"

"Only this, that I never thought of such a plan."

"And why did you not think of it? Because the thought of such an act is a fearful thing. God has written it in the hearts of bears and wolves that they should take life, and they drink blood with delight. But with man it is not so. To man the thought of blood is a fearful thing. It is not the laws only that make men fear to take life. The very soul of man draws back in fear from it."

Dantes was silenced. The old man had spoken just those same thoughts which had been in Edmond's mind, or rather—in his soul. For there are two different kinds of thoughts, those that come from the head and those that rise up from the heart.

"Since I have been here," said Faria, "I have thought over all those persons who have tried to escape from prison, and who have done so—or have been caught. Those who have been caught have been, always, those who hurried. There is no place for hurry in a matter of this kind. And I have been led to believe that chance often supplies openings for escape which we should never ourselves have thought of."

"Ah," said Dantes, "you might well suffer the long waiting; for you laboured at the work which you had planned; and, when you were tired in body, you had your hopes to fill your mind."

"Oh, no," replied the old man, "I did not spend the rest of my time in that way."

"What did you do, then?"

"I wrote, or studied."

"Were you allowed the use of pen and paper?"

"No," he answered, "I had none but what I made for myself."

Dantes looked with bright eyes and increasing wonder at this strange man in whose hands there seemed to lie such wonderful power. But some doubt still remained in Edmond's mind, which was quickly noticed by Faria.

"When you visit my room, my young friend," said he, "I will show you an entire book, the thoughts of my whole life. Many of those thoughts came to me in Rome, in Venice, in Florence. Little did I dream that they would be set in order and written down within the walls of Chateau d'If. The subject of the book is a History of Italy, and of the question of forming it into one country under one king."

"But for such a work you must have needed books. Had you any?"

"I had about five thousand books in my house in Rome. After reading them over many times I found that one hundred and forty of them contained all the wisdom and all the facts known to man—or at least all that is worth knowing. I gave three years of my life to reading and studying these one hundred and forty books, till I knew them all. Although I am in prison, I can remember them as easily as if the books were open before me. I can say to you the whole of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Livy, Tacitus, Strada, Jornandes, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Machiavelli, and Bossuet. Notice, I give only the most important names and writers."

"Of course you speak a great number of tongues so as to be able to have read them."

"I know five. Also with the help of old Greek, the Greek of Thucydides, I have learnt the Greek of today. I do not speak it so well as I could wish, but I am still trying to become better at it."

"How?" said Dantes. "How can you hope to do so?"

"I wrote down all the words I knew; I turned them this way and that, and used them in every possible way, so as to make me able to express my thoughts with their help. I know about one thousand words, which is all that is really necessary, although I believe there are over one hundred thousand words to be found. I cannot hope to speak very quickly or gracefully, but I should certainly find it quite easy to express my needs and my wishes; and that would be quite as much as I should ever require."

Stronger grew the wonder of Dantes. It seemed as if he were speaking to a wizard. Still hoping that he might find something which would prove him to be only a man like himself, he added, "But, if you had no pens, how did you write that book of which you speak?

"I made some very good pens, really better than any others. If they were only known, people would use no other pens than these. You know those very large fish which are sometimes given to us for dinner. Well, I used the bones from the heads of those fishes. From these bones I have also made very good needles. You cannot believe the joy with which I looked forward to the days on which fish is given to us, for each increased my stock of pens. For I may tell you that my studies in history have given me the greatest of pleasure. While I look back into the past, I forget the present; and, while following the free course of history, I no longer remember that I am myself shut in by the dark walls of a prison."

"But when," asked Dantes, "will you show me all this?"

"Whenever you please," replied Faria.

"Oh, then let it be now," cried the young man.

"Follow me then," said Faria. He entered the underground way, in which he was soon out of sight.

Dantes followed.