Chapter 218: Chapter 218

"It’s written in the holy scriptures," Monte Cristo said coldly, "that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. If God himself decreed this law, who am I to mercy than the Almighty?"

"Edmond," Mercédès said, extending her arms toward him, "I’ve adored you since the day we met. I’ve cherished your memory all these years. Please, my friend, don’t force me to destroy the noble image of you I’ve kept in my heart. If you knew how many prayers I’ve said for you! While I thought you were alive, and even after I believed you were dead... Yes, dead! I imagined your body buried in some dark dungeon, or thrown into a pit by cruel jailers, and I wept for you."

"For ten years, I had the same nightmare every night. They told me you’d tried to escape, that you’d taken another prisoner’s place, that you’d been sewn into a burial shroud and thrown from the castle walls into the sea. They said your scream as you hit the rocks revealed to your jailers that they’d murdered you. Edmond, I swear on my son’s life, for ten years I relived that horror every night. For ten years I heard your death cry in my dreams. I too have suffered!"

"Have you watched your father die of starvation while you were powerless to help?" Monte Cristo thrust his hands through his hair. "Have you seen the woman you loved marry your worst enemy while you rotted in a dungeon?"

"No," Mercédès interrupted, "but I’ve seen the man I loved about to murder my son!"

The anguish in her voice, the absolute despair, it cracked something inside Monte Cristo. The lion faltered. The avenger was defeated.

"What are you asking of me?" he said quietly. "Your son’s life? Fine. He’ll live."

Mercédès let out a cry of relief that brought tears to Monte Cristo’s eyes, tears that vanished almost as quickly as they appeared.

She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her lips. "Oh, thank you! Thank you, Edmond! Now you’re exactly the man I always believed you were, the man I’ve always loved. Now I can finally say it!"

"Good," Monte Cristo replied, his voice hollow. "Because that version of Edmond won’t be around much longer. He’s about to return to the grave, like a ghost fading back into darkness."

"What are you saying?"

"I’m saying that since you’ve asked this of me, Mercédès, I must die."

"Die? What are you talking about? Where is this coming from?"

"You can’t possibly think I’ll continue living after being publicly humiliated in front of an entire theater, in front of your friends and your son’s friends, challenged by a boy who’ll treat my forgiveness as a personal victory? What I valued most in this world, after you, was my own dignity and strength. That strength was my life. With one word, you’ve crushed it. So I’ll die."

"But there won’t be a duel if you forgive him!"

"There will be a duel," Monte Cristo said solemnly. "But instead of your son’s blood staining the ground, it will be mine."

Mercédès screamed and rushed toward him. But she stopped suddenly. "Edmond," she said, "there’s a God watching over us. He brought you back to life and let me see you again. I trust Him. And while I wait for His help, I trust your word. You promised my son would live. You promised!"

"Yes, he’ll live," Monte Cristo said, surprised that she’d accepted his sacrifice with such composure. Latest content publıshed on novel·fire.net

Mercédès reached for his hand. "Edmond," she said, tears streaming down her face, "what you’re doing is so noble. So selfless. To take pity on a desperate woman when you had every reason to refuse... I’ve grown old with grief, and I know I can’t remind you of the Mercédès you once loved just by looking at her now. But believe me when I say I’ve suffered too. My life has been empty of joy, devoid of hope. Yet something still lives in my heart, the love I had for you. What you’re doing is beautiful. It’s magnificent."

"You say that now," Monte Cristo murmured. "But you don’t understand the true extent of what I’m sacrificing." His voice grew distant, almost mystical. "Imagine if God, after creating the entire universe and bringing order to chaos, had paused before the final moment. Imagine if, to spare an angel future tears over humanity’s sins, He had extinguished the sun and plunged everything back into eternal darkness. Even then, Mercédès, you couldn’t comprehend what I’m losing by giving up my life at this moment."

Mercédès looked at him with astonishment, admiration, and gratitude all mixed together. Monte Cristo pressed his burning hands against his forehead, as if his mind could barely contain the weight of these thoughts.

"Edmond," she said softly, "I have just one more thing to say."

The count smiled bitterly.

"You’ll see that my face is pale now, that my eyes have lost their brightness, that my beauty is gone. Mercédès no longer looks like the girl you once knew. But you’ll also see that my heart hasn’t changed. Goodbye, Edmond. I’ve seen you again and found you as noble as you always were. Goodbye... and thank you."

She turned and left before he could respond.

Monte Cristo remained frozen, trapped in the dark reverie of his abandoned revenge. The clock tower struck one in the morning as her carriage rolled away.

"What a fool I was," he whispered to himself, "not to rip out my heart the day I decided to seek revenge."

After Mercédès left, Monte Cristo sank into a profound darkness. His thoughts, usually so sharp and purposeful, seemed to stop entirely. His brilliant mind fell dormant, like a body after extreme exhaustion.

The lamps and candles had nearly burned out. His servants waited impatiently in the outer rooms, wondering when their master would finally retire.

"What now?" he muttered to himself. "This grand plan I’ve built over so many years, this structure I’ve constructed with such care and effort... destroyed by a single word, one breath? This self I was so proud of, that seemed so worthless in my prison cell but that I worked so hard to rebuild, tomorrow it will be nothing but a lump of clay."

"But no, it’s not physical death I mourn. Death is just the natural end all living things move toward, the rest that every suffering person desires. Isn’t that the peace I tried to achieve through starvation before Abbé Faria appeared in my cell? What is death to me? One step closer to rest. Maybe two steps into silence."

"No, what I regret isn’t my existence, it’s the destruction of plans so carefully laid, so painstakingly crafted. I thought Providence was on my side. But now I see it stands against me. God doesn’t want my revenge to succeed. This burden I’ve carried, nearly as heavy as the world itself, was too great. I had to set it down halfway through my journey."

"Will I become a fatalist again? Fourteen years of despair and ten years of hope had turned me into a believer. But all of that crumbles... because my heart, which I thought was dead, was only sleeping. Because it woke up and started beating again when I heard a woman’s voice."

His thoughts grew darker as he contemplated tomorrow’s sacrifice.

"Yet it seems impossible that such a noble woman would selfishly accept my death when I’m still in my prime. She can’t truly mean for me to die. Perhaps she’s planning some dramatic scene, she’ll throw herself between us at the last moment. What should be sublime will become ridiculous."

Pride flushed his face. "Ridiculous? The shame would fall on me. Never. I’d rather die."

By dwelling on these fears, exaggerating the horror of tomorrow’s duel where he’d promised to spare her son, the count reached a new conclusion.

"It’s madness to offer myself as a target for that boy! He’ll never believe my death was intentional. Yet it’s crucial that the world knows the truth. Not out of vanity, but justified pride, the world must understand that I willingly stopped my hand when it was raised to strike. That with the same arm I used to destroy others, I struck myself instead. It must be done. It will be done."

He grabbed a pen and pulled out a secret drawer in his desk. Inside was his will, written since his arrival in Paris. At the bottom, he added a codicil explaining the true nature of his death.

"I do this, O God," he said, eyes lifted toward heaven, "as much for Your honor as for mine. For ten years I’ve served as Your instrument of vengeance. Those wretches, Morcerf, Danglars, Villefort, they must not think random chance saved them from their enemy. Let them know their punishment was decreed by Providence itself. Let them know it’s merely delayed, not canceled. If they escape justice in this world, it awaits them in the next. They’re not escaping, they’re just trading time for eternity."

While he wrestled with these dark thoughts, these waking nightmares of grief, the first rays of dawn pierced through his windows. Golden light fell across the pale blue paper where he’d just written his final justification.

It was five o’clock in the morning when a soft sound, like a muffled sigh, reached his ears. He turned his head and looked around. No one was there. But the sound came again, distinct enough to convince him it was real.