World Literature Classics Library: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 12 Chateau d'If (1)
The police officer motioned to the two gendarmes as they passed through the hall, and they sandwiched Dantès on the left and on the right.The prosecutor's door to the courthouse opened, and they walked for some time down a corridor.This kind of corridor is long and wide, gloomy and dim, and people who walk in it will be frightened even if they have no guilt at all.On one side of the courthouse was the house of Villefort, on the other the prison.The gloomy building of the prison is close to the edge of the court, and the towering bell tower of the Agule Church in front of it is always meddling, staring at the gaping bloody mouth on the building.

Dantès turned countless turns in the corridor, and finally saw a door with a small iron window on it.The policeman struck the door three times with a hammer, and Dantès felt that every blow hit his heart.The door opened, and two gendarmes pushed the hesitant Dantès forward lightly. Dantès stepped across the terrible threshold, and the door closed behind him with a clang.He breathed another kind of air, stale and foul-smelling.He has been thrown into prison.

He was taken into a cell, the door was locked, and there were iron bars on it. The cell was relatively clean, so Dantès was not very frightened when he saw this appearance.Moreover, Dantès felt that the acting prosecutor was very concerned about him, and those words still echoed in his ears, as if kindly giving him hope.It was four o'clock in the afternoon when Dantès was brought into the cell.As we have said, it is March 4st, so it gets dark quickly.It was pitch black and he couldn't see anything, but Dantès' hearing became more sensitive.As soon as he heard any noise, he thought that someone was coming to release him, so he stood up quickly and walked towards the prison door.However, it didn't take long for the sound to spread to other places and gradually disappeared, and Dantès fell down on the wooden bench again.Finally, at about ten o'clock in the evening, just as Dantès was beginning to despair, there was another sound, this time towards his cell.Sure enough, footsteps sounded in the corridor, and finally stopped in front of the door of his cell. The key turned in the keyhole, the lock squeaked, the heavy oak door opened, and the bright light of the two torches immediately illuminated the cell.By the light of the torch Dantès saw sabers and muskets and four gendarmes.He took two steps forward, but as soon as he saw the number of gendarmes increase, he stopped and stood still.

"Are you here to pick me up?" he asked.

"Yes," replied a gendarme.

"Did Mr. Deputy Prosecutor send you here?"

"I suppose so."

"Very well," said Dantès, "I will go with you."

The unfortunate young man really thought that M. de Villefort had sent for him, and that all his apprehensions would have vanished.He walked forward calmly, with easy steps, and of his own accord came between the gendarmes escorting him.A carriage was waiting at the street gate, and the driver was already in his seat, with a junior constable beside him.

"Is this car for me?" asked Dantès.

"It's for you," replied one of the gendarmes, "get into the car."

Dantès wanted to say something more, but he felt pushed from behind.He couldn't stand it, and he didn't want to. After a while, he was pushed to the innermost part of the carriage, with two gendarmes sandwiched between the two sides, and the other two were sitting on the bench in front. The carriage made a gloomy noise and moved forward.

The prisoner looked at the window of the car, and iron bars were installed on the windows. He just changed to another prison. The difference was that the cell was now rolling forward, taking him to an unknown place.The iron bars on the windows were so densely packed that one could barely stretch one's hand through them, but Dantès could still see through the window that the carriage was going through Catherine Street, and then from St. Laurent Street and Tarami Street to the pier.After a while, he saw the shining lights in the barracks through the iron window grille on the carriage and the iron grille of the building beside the cart.

The carriage stopped, and the low-ranking police officer got out of the car and walked towards the post, and then more than 10 soldiers came out and lined up. Dantès saw the reflection on their muskets through the street lights on the pier. "So many troops are deployed, is it for me?" he thought.The junior police officer opened the locked car door. Although he didn't say a word, he answered the question Dantès was thinking.Sure enough, Dantès saw soldiers lined up in two rows from the carriage to the pier, with a corridor reserved for him in the middle.

The two gendarmes sitting on the bench in front got out of the car first, and then ordered Dantès to get down, and the gendarmes on both sides also got out of the car.They made their way to a small boat, which was held by a chain by a sailor at customs to keep it from leaving the dock.The soldiers looked at Dantès with curiosity and surprise.He was quickly taken to the stern of the boat, surrounded by four gendarmes all the time, while the junior police officer sat in the bow.The boat jerked away from the shore, and the four oarsmen rowed hard in the direction of Pilon.With a cry from the ship, the chains used to block the harbor were let down, and Dantès had reached the surface of the water called Ferriou, and he was outside the harbor.

Upon reaching the open sea, the prisoner felt very happy first.Air, it's almost freedom.He inhaled deeply the vibrant breeze, smelling the nameless fragrance of the night and the sea brought by the breeze, but then he sighed again.He was now passing the Reserve Hotel, where he was so happy this morning before his arrest, and from there, from the two brightly open windows, came the sound of dancing. .Dantès clasped his hands together and prayed with his face up to the sky.

The boat kept moving forward, the place called Death's Head had passed, and the ship was in front of the Bay of Faro, and was about to round the fort. Dantès didn't understand what it meant.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked a gendarme.

"You'll find out in a while."

"But……"

"We are not allowed to give you any explanation from above."

Dantès could be regarded as a half-soldier, and he knew that it was absurd to ask the people below to answer questions that should not be answered, so he stopped talking.

At this moment, a very strange thought flashed through his mind.It was impossible to sail long distances in such a small boat as they were going, and there were no large ships moored in the direction they were going.He thought they were going to take him somewhere far from shore and tell him he was free.He wasn't tied up, and they didn't make any sign of handcuffing him, which seemed like a good sign.Besides, the deputy prosecutor was so kind to him, didn't he say that as long as he didn't say the unfortunate name of Noirquier, he didn't have to worry about anything? That letter was the only evidence against him, But had not Villefort destroyed the letter in his presence?
He waited silently while thinking.His eyes were those of a sailor trained in the dark, used to seeing the vast darkness, and he was looking ahead through the night.The boat passed Radono Island on the right, and he saw the lights of the lighthouse on the island, and the boat was driving almost along the coast, and had reached the small bay of the village of Catalunya.Once here, the prisoner redoubled his efforts to look, and at that moment he thought he caught sight of a woman looming on the dark beach, for Mercedes lived here.How could Mercedes not have a premonition that her lover is passing by at a distance of 300 paces?
Only one solitary lamp was still on in the village of Catalunya. From the position of the light, Dantès recognized that it was the lamp in his fiancée's room.In this small village of immigrants, only Mercedes was still awake.As long as she shouted loudly, she could hear it, but out of face, Dantès didn't shout.How would the gendarme who had taken him feel when he really heard him yelling like a madman? He remained silent all the time, his eyes fixed on the lonely lamp.

The boat moved on, but the prisoner's attention was no longer on the boat, he was thinking only of Mercedes.A raised highland blocked the light, Dantès turned his face and realized that the boat had sailed into the open sea.Just when he was completely immersed in his own thoughts and looked at the shore, the oars on the boat had been drawn up and the sail was raised, and now the boat was constantly moving forward with the help of the wind.Although Dantès was extremely reluctant to ask the gendarme what was going on, he still moved towards the gendarme, took his hand again and said:
"Brother, please agree to my request according to your conscience and your status as a soldier. Please sympathize with me and answer my question. I am the captain, Dantès, a loyal and excellent Frenchman, I myself do not know what treason charge I am charged with. Where are you taking me? Please tell me. I assure you as a sailor, I will do as I please, and I will submit to my fate."

The gendarme scratched his ears, then glanced at his companion again.The companion just shook his body, as if to say, at this moment, it seems that there is nothing wrong.The gendarme then turned to Dantès and said, "You are a Marseille and a sailor, and you ask where we are going?"

"Yeah, on my honor, I really don't know."

"You don't know how to estimate yourself?"

"I can't estimate it."

"not necessarily."

"I swear by the most precious thing I have in the world, I will tell you nothing. Please do me the favor of telling me."

"But what about the orders from above?"

"I will know in 10 minutes, half an hour, maybe an hour later. The order didn't say that you shouldn't tell me now. I'm going through a lot of gut-wrenching every minute and every second, so you can spare me .I beg you to consider you a friend. You see, I don't want to resist, I don't want to run away, and besides, I can't. Where are we going?"

"Are you blindfolded, or have you never been out of the port of Marseilles? Why can't you guess where?"

"Can not guess."

"Then look around."

Dantès stood up and looked straight ahead of the boat. He saw 100 French units of old length, about 2 meters away from him.On the far dark and steep rocks stands the fortified, eerie Chateau d'If.This strangely shaped prison, people are already terrified before entering, and it has left a sad and sad legend for Marseille for 300 years.Dantès didn't think of this prison at all, and now he glanced at it suddenly, and he was as frightened as if he saw a condemned prisoner with a guillotine. "Oh, my God!" he cried, "Chateau d'If! What are you doing there?"

The military police smiled slightly.

"Should I be locked up there?" Dantès continued. "The Château d'If is a state prison, and only major political prisoners are held there. I have not committed any crimes. The Château d'If has a pre-trial officer or other what judge?"

"There is, I think," said the gendarme, "probably a commander, a few guards, a squadron of guards, and thick walls. Come on, come on, don't make such a fuss. Seriously, look at your face." Look, I really thought that instead of thanking me for my kindness, you were going to tease me." Dantès held the gendarme's hand tightly, as if to crush it.

"Then you think," said Dantès, "that I am imprisoned at the Château d'If?"

"Probably," said the gendarme, "but anyway, brother, you can't afford to hold me so tightly."

"I'm locked up without pre-trial and formalities?" the young man asked.

"All the formalities have been completed, and the pre-trial has passed."

"So M. de Villefort's promises don't count?"

(End of this chapter)