Chapter 167: Chapter 167

"Oh, that’s very easy to explain. Last February, you were the first person to tell me about the Haitian funds. You’d dreamed that a ship entered the harbor at Le Havre with news that a payment we’d written off as lost was actually going to be made. I know how accurate your dreams are, so I immediately bought as many shares of the Haitian debt as I could. I made four hundred thousand francs from it, and I honestly paid you one hundred thousand. You spent it however you liked, that was your business."

"In March, there was competition for a railway contract. Three companies were bidding, each offering equal guarantees. You told me your instinct, and even though you claim to know nothing about investments, I think you actually understand certain matters very clearly, anyway, your instinct told you the contract would go to the company called the Southern. I bought two-thirds of their shares. As you predicted, the share price tripled, and I picked up a million francs. I paid you two hundred fifty thousand for your personal spending. How you spent it is no business of mine."

"When are you getting to the point?" cried the baroness, shaking with anger and impatience.

"Patience, madame. I’m getting there."

"In April, you had dinner at the minister’s house. You overheard a private conversation about Spanish politics, about the expulsion of Don Carlos, a political figure. I bought Spanish shares. The expulsion happened, and I made six hundred thousand francs the day Carlos crossed back over the border. You took fifty thousand from that. It was yours, you did whatever you wanted with it, and I asked no questions. But the fact remains that you received five hundred thousand this year alone." The most update n0vels are published on novel{f}ire.net

"Ah, yes. It was right after that when you ruined everything."

"Really, your way of speaking-"

"It expresses exactly what I mean, and that’s all I care about. Well, three days later, you discussed politics with Mr. Debray. From his words, you got the impression that Don Carlos had returned to Spain. So I sold my shares. The news spread, and I didn’t just sell, I practically gave them away. The next day, I discovered the news was false. Because of that false report, I lost seven hundred thousand francs."

"And since I gave you a quarter of my profits, I think you owe me a quarter of my losses. A quarter of seven hundred thousand francs is one hundred seventy-five thousand."

"What you’re saying is absurd, and I don’t see why Mr. Debray’s name keeps coming up in this conversation."

"Because if you don’t have the one hundred seventy-five thousand francs I’m claiming, you must have lent them to your friends, and Mr. Debray is one of your friends."

"How dare you!" exclaimed the baroness.

"Oh, spare me the theatrics, the gestures, the screaming, the melodrama. Otherwise you’ll force me to point out that I see Debray leaving here, pocketing the entire five hundred thousand you’ve handed over to him this year, while he smiles to himself, thinking he’s discovered what the most skilled gamblers never found, a game where he wins without playing and loses nothing when he loses."

The baroness’s rage exploded. "You bastard!" she cried. "Are you seriously claiming you didn’t know what you’re now accusing me of?"

"I’m not saying I knew, and I’m not saying I didn’t know. I’m simply pointing out that if you look at my behavior over the last four years, since we stopped being husband and wife, you’ll see it’s always been consistent."

"Some time after our separation, you wanted to study music under that famous singer who performed at the Italian Theater. At the same time, I felt like learning to dance from that dancer who became so popular in London. That cost me, for both of us, one hundred thousand francs. I said nothing, because we need peace in this house, and one hundred thousand for a lady and gentleman to get proper instruction in music and dance isn’t too much."

"But you quickly got bored with singing and decided to study politics with the minister’s secretary instead. You understand, it means nothing to me as long as you pay for your lessons out of your own money. But today I find out you’re drawing from mine, and your apprenticeship is costing me seven hundred thousand francs per month. That stops now, madame. Either the politician gives his lessons for free and I’ll tolerate him, or he never sets foot in my house again. Do you understand me?"

"This is too much," cried Hermine, choking on her words. "You’re worse than despicable."

"But I see you didn’t even stop there-"

"You’re right. Let’s leave the personal attacks aside and reason calmly. I’ve never interfered in your affairs except for your own good. Treat me the same way. You say you have nothing to do with my money. Fine. Do what you want with your own money, but don’t fill or empty mine. Besides, how do I know this wasn’t a political trick? Maybe the minister, angry at seeing me in the opposition party and jealous of my public support, conspired with Mr. Debray to ruin me?"

"Why? Who ever heard of such a thing, a false telegraph message? It’s almost impossible for wrong signals to be sent the way they were in those last two telegrams. It was done deliberately to target me. I’m sure of it."

"Sir," said the baroness quietly, "don’t you know that the telegraph operator was fired? That they talked about prosecuting him? That they issued orders for his arrest, and those orders would have been carried out if he hadn’t escaped? Which proves he was either insane or guilty. It was a mistake."

"Yes, a mistake that made fools laugh, that gave the minister a sleepless night, that caused his secretaries to waste reams of paper, but that cost me seven hundred thousand francs."

"But sir," said Hermine suddenly, "if all this is caused by Mr. Debray, as you say, why come to me about it instead of going directly to him? Why do you accuse the woman when you mean to blame the man?"

"Do I know Mr. Debray? Do I want to know him? Do I want to know that he gives investment advice? Do I want to follow it? Do I speculate? No, you do all that, not me."

"Still, it seems to me that since you profit from it-"

Danglars shrugged his shoulders. "Foolish woman," he said. "Women think they’re so clever because they’ve managed two or three affairs without becoming the talk of Paris. But know this: even if you had hidden your indiscretions from your husband, and most husbands choose not to see, you’d still be just a pale imitation of most of your society friends. But that hasn’t been the case with me. I see everything, and I always have for the last sixteen years."

"You may have hidden a thought here or there, but not a single step, not one action, not one mistake has escaped me, while you congratulated yourself on your cleverness and firmly believed you’d deceived me. What’s been the result? Thanks to my pretended ignorance, every one of your friends, from Mr. Villefort to Mr. Debray, has trembled before me. Not one has failed to treat me as the master of this house, which is the only title I care about regarding you. Not one would have dared to speak of me the way I’ve spoken of them today."

"I’ll allow you to make me hated, but I will not let you make me look ridiculous. And above all, I forbid you to ruin me."

The baroness had been relatively composed until the name Villefort was mentioned. But then she went pale. Rising as if struck by lightning, she stretched out her hands as though warding off a ghost. She took two or three steps toward her husband, as if to tear from him some secret he didn’t know, or one he was withholding for some cruel calculation.

"Mr. Villefort! What do you mean?"

"I mean that Mr. de Nargonne, your first husband, being neither a philosopher nor a businessman, or perhaps being both, saw there was nothing to gain from a prosecutor. He died of grief or anger when he discovered, after being away for nine months, that you’d been six months pregnant. I’m brutal, I not only admit it, I boast of it. It’s one of the reasons for my success in business. Why did he kill himself instead of you? Because he had no money to protect. My life belongs to my money."

"Mr. Debray has cost me seven hundred thousand francs. Let him pay his share of the loss, and we’ll continue as before. If not, let him go bankrupt for the two hundred fifty thousand, and do what all bankrupts do, disappear. He’s a charming fellow when his information is correct, but when it’s not, there are fifty others in the world who could do better."

Madame Danglars stood frozen. She tried to respond to this final attack, but she collapsed into a chair, thinking of Villefort, of that terrible dinner, of the strange series of disasters that had struck her household in recent days, turning her normally calm home into a scene of scandalous conflict.

Danglars didn’t even look at her, though she did her best to appear faint. He closed the bedroom door behind him without another word and returned to his own rooms.

When Madame Danglars finally recovered from her semi-conscious state, she could almost believe the entire confrontation had been nothing but an unpleasant nightmare.