The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo is an 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas about the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantès, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. It provides the story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge.

See also: The Count of Monte Cristo, a 2002 film loosely based upon the book

XXXVII

Chapter 37 : The Catacombs of Saint Sebastian

You have, then, not forgotten that I saved your life; that is strange, for it is a week ago.

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XLV

Chapter 45 : The Rain of Blood

Ah, here comes your proud and selfish nature to the fore! Well, well, I have once again found a man ready to hack at another's self-respect with a hatchet, but who cries out when his own is pricked with a pin.
- Dantes
- Variant translation: Ah, there is your proud and selfish nature. You would expose the self-love of another with a hatchet, but you shrink if your own is attacked with a needle.

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LIV

Chapter 54. A Flurry in Stocks

But really, my dear Count, we are talking as much of women as they do of us: it is unpardonable.
- Albert

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LXI

Chapter 61 : How a Gardener May Get Rid of the Dormice that Eat His Peaches

No one would have thought in looking at this old, weather-beaten, floral-decked tower (which might be likened to an elderly dame dressed up to receive her grandchildren at a birthday feast) that it would have been capable of telling strange things, if,—in addition to the menacing ears which the proverb says all walls are provided with, — it had also a voice. The garden was crossed by a path of red gravel, edged by a border of thick box, of many years' growth, and of a tone and color that would have delighted the heart of Delacroix, our modern Rubens. This path was formed in the shape of the figure of 8, thus, in its windings, making a walk of sixty feet in a garden of only twenty.
Never had Flora, the fresh and smiling goddess of gardeners, been honored with a purer or more scrupulous worship than that which was paid to her in this little enclosure. In fact, of the twenty rose-trees which formed the parterre, not one bore the mark of the slug, nor were there evidences anywhere of the clustering aphis which is so destructive to plants growing in a damp soil.

"Calm yourself, my friend," said the count, with the smile which he made at will either terrible or benevolent, and which now expressed only the kindliest feeling; "I am not an inspector, but a traveller, brought here by a curiosity he half repents of, since he causes you to lose your time."

Monte Cristo had seen enough. Every man has a devouring passion in his heart, as every fruit has its worm; that of the telegraph man was horticulture. He began gathering the grape-leaves which screened the sun from the grapes, and won the heart of the gardener. "Did you come here, sir, to see the telegraph?" he said.
"Yes, if it isn't contrary to the rules."
"Oh, no," said the gardener; "not in the least, since there is no danger that anyone can possibly understand what we are saying."
"I have been told," said the count, "that you do not always yourselves understand the signals you repeat."
"That is true, sir, and that is what I like best," said the man, smiling.
"Why do you like that best?"
"Because then I have no responsibility. I am a machine then, and nothing else, and so long as I work, nothing more is required of me."
"Is it possible," said Monte Cristo to himself, "that I can have met with a man that has no ambition? That would spoil my plans."

"Oh, sir, what are you proposing?"
"A jest."

"Now you are rich," said Monte Cristo.
"Yes," replied the man, "but at what a price!"
"Listen, friend," said Monte Cristo. "I do not wish to cause you any remorse; believe me, then, when I swear to you that you have wronged no man, but on the contrary have benefited mankind."

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