Respawned as The Count of Glow-Up-Chapter 248: The Burial: III

"My child," Monte Cristo said, coloring slightly, "let me take back that purse. Since you now know my face, I’d prefer to be remembered only through the affection I hope you’ll grant me."

"Oh no!" Julie pressed the purse to her heart. "Please don’t take it! Some unhappy day you’ll leave us, won’t you?"

"You’ve guessed correctly, madame," Monte Cristo replied with a smile. "In a week, I’ll have left this country where so many people who deserve heaven’s vengeance live happily, while my father died of hunger and grief."

While announcing his departure, the count fixed his eyes on Morrel and noticed that the words "I’ll have left this country" had failed to rouse him from his daze. He realized he’d have to make another effort to fight his friend’s despair.

Taking Emmanuel and Julie’s hands and pressing them within his own, he said with the gentle authority of a father, "My kind friends, leave me alone with Maximilian."

Julie saw her chance to carry away her precious relic, which Monte Cristo had forgotten about. She pulled her husband toward the door.

"Let’s leave them," she whispered.

The count was alone with Morrel, who remained motionless as a statue.

"Come now," Monte Cristo said, touching his shoulder, "are you yourself again, Maximilian?"

"Yes. Because I’m beginning to suffer again."

The count’s face darkened in apparent hesitation.

"Maximilian," he said seriously, "the thoughts you’re entertaining are unworthy of a Christian."

"Don’t worry, my friend," Morrel said, raising his head and smiling sweetly at the count. "I won’t attempt to take my life anymore."

"So no more pistols? No more despair?"

"No. I’ve found a better remedy for my grief than a bullet or knife."

"Poor boy. What is it?"

"My grief will kill me on its own."

"My friend," Monte Cristo said with an expression of melancholy equal to Morrel’s own, "listen to me. Once, in a moment of despair like yours, one that led to a similar resolution, I also wanted to kill myself. Once, your father, equally desperate, wanted to end his life too. If someone had told your father, at the moment he raised the pistol to his head, if someone had told me, when I pushed away food in my prison cell after not eating for three days, if anyone had said to either of us, ’Live! The day will come when you’ll be happy and bless life!’ No matter who spoke those words, we would have greeted them with doubtful smiles or anguished disbelief. And yet, how many times did your father bless life while embracing you? How often have I myself-"

"Ah!" Morrel interrupted. "You had only lost your freedom. My father had only lost his fortune. But I have lost Valentine."

"Look at me," Monte Cristo said with that expression that sometimes made him so eloquent and persuasive. "Look at me. There are no tears in my eyes, no fever in my veins, yet I see you suffering, you, Maximilian, whom I love as my own son. Doesn’t this tell you that in grief, as in life, there’s always something to look forward to? Now, if I beg you, if I order you to live, Morrel, it’s with the conviction that one day you’ll thank me for preserving your life."

"Oh God," the young man said. "What are you saying, Count? Be careful! Perhaps you’ve never been in love?"

"Child!" the count replied.

"I mean the way I love. You see, I’ve been a soldier since I became a man. I reached the age of twenty-nine without loving, because none of the feelings I experienced before deserved that name. Well, at twenty-nine I met Valentine. For two years I’ve loved her. For two years I’ve read in her heart, as clearly as in a book, all the virtues of a daughter and wife. Count, to possess Valentine would have been infinite happiness, too ecstatic, too complete, too divine for this world, which is why it was denied to me. But without Valentine, the earth is desolate."

"I told you to hope," the count said.

"Then be careful, I’m warning you, because you’re trying to persuade me, and if you succeed, I’ll lose my mind. I’d start hoping that I could see Valentine again."

The count smiled slightly.

"My friend, my father," Morrel said with growing excitement, "be careful, I repeat, because the power you have over me frightens me. Weigh your words before speaking, because my eyes are already growing brighter and my heart is beating harder. Be cautious, or you’ll make me believe in supernatural forces. I must obey you, even if you told me to raise the dead or walk on water."

"Hope, my friend," the count repeated.

"Ah!" Morrel fell from his peak of excitement into the abyss of despair. "You’re just playing with me, like those mothers, good or selfish, who soothe crying children with sweet words because their screams annoy them. No, my friend, I was wrong to warn you. Don’t worry. I’ll bury my grief so deep in my heart, I’ll disguise it so well, that you won’t even need to sympathize with me. Goodbye, my friend. Goodbye!"

"On the contrary," the count said, "from now on, you must live with me. You mustn’t leave me. In a week, we’ll have left France behind."

"And you still tell me to hope?"

"I tell you to hope because I have a method of curing you." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"Count, you’re making me sadder than before, if that’s even possible. You think this blow has caused ordinary grief, and you’d cure it with an ordinary remedy, a change of scenery."

Morrel dropped his head with disdainful disbelief.

"What more can I say?" Monte Cristo asked. "I have confidence in the remedy I’m proposing. I only ask that you let me prove its effectiveness."

"Count, you’re prolonging my agony."

"So your weak spirit won’t even grant me the trial I’m requesting? Come now, do you know what the Count of Monte Cristo is capable of? Do you know he has power over earthly beings? That he can almost work miracles? Wait for the miracle I hope to accomplish, or-"

"Or?" Morrel repeated.

"Or I’ll call you ungrateful, Morrel."

"Have mercy on me, Count!"

"I feel such pity for you, Maximilian, that, listen carefully, if I don’t cure you within a month, to the very day and hour, mark my words, I will place loaded pistols before you and a cup of the deadliest Italian poison, more certain and swift than what killed Valentine."

"You promise me this?"

"Yes. I’m a man who has suffered like you and also contemplated suicide. Indeed, since misfortune struck me, I’ve often longed for the peace of eternal sleep."

"But you’re certain you’ll promise this?" Morrel said, intoxicated by the possibility.

"I don’t just promise, I swear it!" Monte Cristo extended his hand.

"In a month, then, on your honor, if I’m not consoled, you’ll let me take my life into my own hands? And whatever happens, you won’t call me ungrateful?"

"In a month, to the day and the very hour. The date is sacred, Maximilian. Do you realize what today is? It’s the fifth of September, ten years to the day since I saved your father’s life, when he wished to die."

Morrel seized the count’s hand and kissed it. The count allowed him to pay this homage.

"In a month, you’ll find on the table where we’re sitting good pistols and a delicious drink. But in return, you must promise not to attempt your life before that time."

"I swear it too!"

Monte Cristo drew the young man close and held him to his heart for several moments.

"And now," he said, "starting today, you’ll come live with me. You can occupy Haydée’s apartment. My daughter will be replaced by my son."

"Haydée?" Morrel said. "What’s become of her?"

"She left last night."

"To leave you?"

"To wait for me. Be ready to join me at the Champs-Élysées, and help me leave this house without anyone seeing my departure."

Maximilian hung his head and obeyed with childlike reverence.