“This one is built against the solid rock, and it would take ten
experienced miners, duly furnished with the requisite tools, as many
years to perforate it. This adjoins the lower part of the governor’s
apartments, and were we to work our way through, we should only get
into some lock–up cellars, where we must necessarily be recaptured. The
fourth and last side of your cell faces on—faces on—stop a minute, now
where does it face?”

The wall of which he spoke was the one in which was fixed the loophole
by which light was admitted to the chamber. This loophole, which
gradually diminished in size as it approached the outside, to an opening
through which a child could not have passed, was, for better security,
furnished with three iron bars, so as to quiet all apprehensions even in
the mind of the most suspicious jailer as to the possibility of a prisoner’s
escape. As the stranger asked the question, he dragged the table beneath
the window.

“Climb up,” said he to Dantes. The young man obeyed, mounted on the
table, and, divining the wishes of his companion, placed his back
securely against the wall and held out both hands. The stranger, whom as
yet Dantes knew only by the number of his cell, sprang up with an
agility by no means to be expected in a person of his years, and, light
and steady on his feet as a cat or a lizard, climbed from the table to the
outstretched hands of Dantes, and from them to his shoulders; then,
bending double, for the ceiling of the dungeon prevented him from
holding himself erect, he managed to slip his head between the upper
bars of the window, so as to be able to command a perfect view from top
to bottom.

An instant afterwards he hastily drew back his head, saying, “I thought
so!” and sliding from the shoulders of Dantes as dextrously as he had
ascended, he nimbly leaped from the table to the ground.

“What was it that you thought?” asked the young man anxiously, in his
turn descending from the table.

The elder prisoner pondered the matter. “Yes,” said he at length, “it is so.
This side of your chamber looks out upon a kind of open gallery, where
patrols are continually passing, and sentries keep watch day and night.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“Certain. I saw the soldier’s shape and the top of his musket; that made
me draw in my head so quickly, for I was fearful he might also see me.”

“Well?” inquired Dantes.

“You perceive then the utter impossibility of escaping through your
dungeon?”

“Then,” pursued the young man eagerly—

“Then,” answered the elder prisoner, “the will of God be done!” and as
the old man slowly pronounced those words, an air of profound
resignation spread itself over his careworn countenance. Dantes gazed
on the man who could thus philosophically resign hopes so long and
ardently nourished with an astonishment mingled with admiration.

“Tell me, I entreat of you, who and what you are?” said he at length;
“never have I met with so remarkable a person as yourself.”

“Willingly,” answered the stranger; “if, indeed, you feel any curiosity
respecting one, now, alas, powerless to aid you in any way.”

“Say not so; you can console and support me by the strength of your
own powerful mind. Pray let me know who you really are?”

The stranger smiled a melancholy smile. “Then listen,” said he. “I am
the Abbe Faria, and have been imprisoned as you know in this Chateau
d’If since the year 1811; previously to which I had been confined for
three years in the fortress of Fenestrelle. In the year 1811 I was
transferred to Piedmont in France. It was at this period I learned that the
destiny which seemed subservient to every wish formed by Napoleon,
had bestowed on him a son, named king of Rome even in his cradle. I
was very far then from expecting the change you have just informed me
of; namely, that four years afterwards, this colossus of power would be
overthrown. Then who reigns in France at this moment—Napoleon II.?”

“No, Louis XVIII.”

“The brother of Louis XVII.! How inscrutable are the ways of
providence—for what great and mysterious purpose has it pleased
heaven to abase the man once so elevated, and raise up him who was so
abased?”

Dantes’ whole attention was riveted on a man who could thus forget his
own misfortunes while occupying himself with the destinies of others.

“Yes, yes,” continued he, ”’Twill be the same as it was in England. After
Charles I., Cromwell; after Cromwell, Charles II., and then James II.,
and then some son–in–law or relation, some Prince of Orange, a
stadtholder who becomes a king. Then new concessions to the people,
then a constitution, then liberty. Ah, my friend!” said the abbe, turning
towards Dantes, and surveying him with the kindling gaze of a prophet,
“you are young, you will see all this come to pass.”

“Probably, if ever I get out of prison!”

“True,” replied Faria, “we are prisoners; but I forget this sometimes, and
there are even moments when my mental vision transports me beyond
these walls, and I fancy myself at liberty.”

“But wherefore are you here?”

“Because in 1807 I dreamed of the very plan Napoleon tried to realize in
1811; because, like Machiavelli, I desired to alter the political face of
Italy, and instead of allowing it to be split up into a quantity of petty
principalities, each held by some weak or tyrannical ruler, I sought to
form one large, compact, and powerful empire; and, lastly, because I
fancied I had found my Caesar Borgia in a crowned simpleton, who
feigned to enter into my views only to betray me. It was the plan of
Alexander VI. and Clement VII., but it will never succeed now, for they
attempted it fruitlessly, and Napoleon was unable to complete his work.
Italy seems fated to misfortune.” And the old man bowed his head.

Dantes could not understand a man risking his life for such matters.
Napoleon certainly he knew something of, inasmuch as he had seen and
spoken with him; but of Clement VII. and Alexander VI. he knew
nothing.

“Are you not,” he asked, “the priest who here in the Chateau d’If is
generally thought to be—ill?”

“Mad, you mean, don’t you?”

“I did not like to say so,” answered Dantes, smiling.

“Well, then,” resumed Faria with a bitter smile, “let me answer your
question in full, by acknowledging that I am the poor mad prisoner of
the Chateau d’If, for many years permitted to amuse the different
visitors with what is said to be my insanity; and, in all probability, I
should be promoted to the honor of making sport for the children, if such
innocent beings could be found in an abode devoted like this to suffering
and despair.”

Dantes remained for a short time mute and motionless; at length he said,
—”Then you abandon all hope of escape?”

“I perceive its utter impossibility; and I consider it impious to attempt
that which the Almighty evidently does not approve.”