World Literature Classics Library: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 187 The Prosecutor's Daughter

The little lamp on the mantelpiece in Valentine's room was still burning, but the last drops of oil floating on the water were about to be exhausted, and the reddish halo appeared brighter, dyeing the spherical lampshade bright red. , the lanterns became more prosperous, and finally crackled a few times.The poor man on his deathbed is often likened to this kind of dying flame, and although it is only an inanimate thing, the flickering flame seems to struggle before it dies out.The light was dim and miserable, casting a faint silvery white on the girl's white bed curtains and sheets.The street is completely silent, and the house is also eerily quiet.

At this moment, the door leading to Edward's room opened, and a face appeared in the mirror facing the door. We have seen this face before. It was Madame de Villefort, who came to see if the potion had worked .She stopped at the door and listened attentively to the beeping sound of the small lamp. The room seemed to be desolate and desolate, with no one in it, except for the beeping of the oil lamp, there was no other sound to be heard.Then she went softly to the bedside table to see if Valentine's glass was empty.As I said before, there is still a small half cup of potion in the cup.Madame de Villefort took the glass, went up to the fireplace, poured the remaining potion in the glass into the ashes, stirred the ashes to make the water seep faster, rinsed the glass carefully, He took out a handkerchief and wiped the glass dry, and finally put the glass back on the bedside table.

At this time, if anyone could see the inside of the room at a glance, he would see Madame de Villefort doubtfully, staring fixedly at Valentine, and walking slowly to the bed.The lights in the room were dim, and there was a dead silence, and the spooky night was soul-stirring.The insane woman was involuntarily flustered, and the poisoned woman couldn't help but be afraid of her own work.But at last she plucked up her courage, drew aside the curtains of the bed, and leaned close to the head of the bed to examine Valentine carefully.

The girl's breathing has stopped, her teeth are slightly open, there is no sign of life, there is no blood on her lips, and there is no sign of trembling.The purple blood energy that the ancient doctors said existed in the body seemed to have penetrated the skin and condensed into a mist that floated over the eyes.The eyeballs bulged out against the eyelids, and the closed eyes looked extremely pale. There was no luster on the waxy face, only two black lines were drawn by the long eyelashes.

Madame de Villefort, contemplating the immobile, but still so charming face, summoned courage to throw back the blanket, and laid her hand on the girl's breast.The cold chest has quietly died.She felt that the place where her hand was pressing was beating slightly. It was the pulse of the artery in her own finger. She could not help but shudder, and immediately retracted her hand.

Valentine's arm hangs over the side of the bed, and this arm, from shoulder to elbow, seems to have been modeled after Germain Pilon, the French sculptor (1528-1590).Carved from a goddess in the carved "Three Graces", but the forearm is slightly deformed due to convulsions, and the graceful wrist is slightly stiff, resting straight on the edge of the mahogany bed, with fingers stretched out, nails The roots have turned purple.

There was no longer any doubt for Madame de Villefort, it was all over, this dreadful business, which she had to accomplish at last, was at last done.The poisoned woman had nothing else to do in this room, so she tiptoed back, for fear of making any noise on the carpet.But she was stepping back, her hands still holding the bed curtains, her eyes still fixed on the scene of death.As long as the dead are merely immobile and not yet decaying, as long as they are a mystery and not yet disgusting, there is an attraction that the living cannot help looking at.

Time passed minute by minute, and Madame de Villefort couldn't let go of the bed curtain she was holding, so the bed curtain hung over Valentine's head like a shroud.Madame de Villefort was lost in thought.This kind of contemplation after committing a crime should be a kind of conscience reproach, right?At that moment the little lamp on the mantel-piece flickered again, and at this sound Madame de Villefort shuddered, and let go the curtains of the bed.At this moment, the small light went out, and the room was suddenly plunged into terrible darkness.In this darkness, the wall clock rang at the same time, and it struck 1:1 in the morning. In just a short moment, the poisoned woman was frightened by these sudden situations one after another, so she groped back to the door. It was cold sweat, and immediately slipped into his room.

The room was still pitch black, and it was only after two hours that the faint morning light gradually shone through the shutters into the room, and then the sky gradually brightened, and the colors and shapes of the various objects and objects in the room could finally be seen clearly.At that moment the nurse coughed on the stairs, and she entered Valentine's room with a glass in her hand.If it had been the father, or the lover, it would have been obvious at first sight that Valentine was dead, but to a hired nurse Valentine was merely asleep. "Very well," she said, going to the bedside table, "she's already had her medicine, and the glass is more than half empty." Then the nurse went to the fireplace, lit it, and sat Up and down.Although she had just woken up, she still wanted to take advantage of Valentine's still fast asleep, and take a nap herself, to snooze for a while.

The clock struck eight o'clock, and the nurse awoke.Only then did she feel surprised, how could the girl still not wake up at this time of sleep, and seeing that the girl's arms had been resting on the side of the bed and never retracted, the female nurse suddenly panicked.She hurried to the bed, only then did she see that her lips had grown cold, and her chest was also icy cold.She tried to lean her arms against her body, but they were too stiff to move.The arm was so terribly immobilized that a nursemaid would never be so careless as to not know what it meant.She screamed loudly, and rushed to the door, shouting, "Help me! Save me!"

"What? Help?" Affini's voice came from under the stairs, and he came here at this time every day.

"What? Help?" cried Villefort, rushing out of his study. "Didn't you hear the cry for help, doctor?"

"I hear, I hear, let's go up," replied Avrini, "go upstairs and see Valentine's room."

However, before the doctor and Villefort could arrive, all the servants from the other rooms on the second floor and from the corridor crowded into Valentine's room, and they saw Valentine lying on the bed completely pale, motionless, They raised their arms to the sky one by one, and they all stood up as if they were dizzy and couldn't stand still.

"Go and call Madame de Villefort! Go and wake up Madame de Villefort!" shouted the prosecutor, who just stood at the door of the room, as if he had lost the courage to go in.

But none of the servants answered, and they all looked at M. Affini, while the doctor had entered the room, hurried to the bed, and took Valentine in his arms. "Even she..." he murmured, putting Valentine back on the bed. "Oh! my God, my God! When will you be done?"

Villefort burst into the room. "What did you say? My God!" he cried, throwing up his arms. "Doctor! Doctor..."

"I say Valentina is dead!" answered Avrini, with the utmost seriousness, and forbidding seriousness.

M. de Villefort fell on his knees as if his legs had been broken, and laid his head on Valentine's bed.Hearing the doctor's words and the father's loud exclamation, the servants were terrified, cursed in low voices, and fled in all directions.They could only hear their hurried footsteps on the stairs and in the corridor, and then there was chaos in the courtyard, and then there was only this empty haunted house left, there was no sound, and all the servants up and down fled away.

At this moment, before she had fully put on her dressing-gown, Madame de Villefort, drawing back the curtain, stood at the door for a moment, pretending to ask what was the matter, and trying to cry a few false tears.Suddenly, she took a step forward, or rather, she slammed and flung herself at the bedside table with her arms outstretched.It turned out that she had seen Avrini leaning curiously over the bedside table to pick up the glass she well remembered having emptied during the night.There was still half a cup of potion in the cup, no more and no less, just as much as the potion in the ashes she poured out.If Valentine had turned into a ghost and stood in front of her at this moment, the poisoned woman would not have been so flustered.It is true that the potion she poured into Valentine's glass, which Valentine also drank, was the same poison that M. Impossible.This is a miracle arranged by God. No matter how careful the perpetrators are, the traces and evidence of the crime will still remain, and the sin will eventually be revealed to the world.

Madame de Villefort stood motionless like a statue of a goddess of terror.Villefort still buried his head in the sheets, not knowing what was happening around him.Avrini went to the window, carefully inspected the liquid in the glass with his eyes, and dipped his fingertips to taste it. "Ah!" he said in a low voice, "we don't need strychnine this time, and I want to see what it is!" And he ran to a large makeshift medicine cabinet in Valentine's room. In front of the cupboard, he took out a small bottle of nitric acid from a small silver-encrusted grid, and dropped a few drops into the milky white liquid medicine in the glass, and the small half of the liquid medicine in the glass immediately turned scarlet like blood. "Ah! ah!" exclaimed Avrini, with the horror of an inquisitor at the discovery of a crime, and the joy of a scholar solving a difficult problem.

Madame de Villefort first turned her face sideways, two fierce fires shot out of her eyes, and then the fires in her eyes went out, she staggered to the door, supported her with her hands, and then disappeared.After a while, there was a sound of someone falling down on the floor in the distance.But no one noticed that the nurse was busy observing the results of the chemical analysis, and Villefort, who had lost all hope, was still buried in Valentine's bedside.Only M. Avrini kept his eyes on Madame de Villefort, and saw her slip away in a panic.M. Avrini raised the curtain of the door of Valentine's room, and, though separated from Édouard's room, he could still see Madame de Villefort's apartment, where the woman was lying motionless on the floor.

"Go and attend to Madame de Villefort," he said to the nurse, "she is not well."

"But what about Mademoiselle Valentine?" murmured the nurse.

"Miss Valentine is not to be looked after," said Avrini, "because Mademoiselle Valentine is dead."

"Dead! Dead!" Villefort lamented twice in succession. He only felt that his heart was being pierced by a knife. This was the first time that this hard-hearted man really felt pain.He felt bewildered and horrified.

"Dead? What do you say?" cried another voice. "Who says Valentine is dead?"

Avrini and Villefort turned, and saw Morrel standing in the doorway, pale and frowning with terror.

It turned out to be like this.At this moment, as before, Morrel came to the little door leading to Noirquier's room.But today it was unconventional, the small door was open.So he walked in without ringing the rope bell.He waited in the front hall for a while, and wanted to ask a servant to take him to Noirakier.But no one came to greet him, readers already know that all the servants in this mansion have already slipped away.Morrel had nothing to worry about that day, for Monte Cristo had promised him that Valentine would never die, and up to now the situation had been exactly as Monte Cristo had promised.Every evening the count brought him some good news, which could be confirmed at Noirquier the next day.But now that he saw the desolation in this building, he couldn't help but feel strange. He yelled again, and then yelled a third time, but no one answered.At this point he decided to go upstairs first.The door of Noirquier was open like the doors of the other houses, and he caught sight of the old man in his wheelchair, still in his usual place.His eyes were wide open, as if he was saying that there was something terrified in his heart, and his pale face showed that he was indeed terrified.

"How are you, monsieur?" asked Morrel, feeling a little queasy.

"Very good!" The old man blinked and said, "Very good!" But judging from his expression, he seemed to feel more and more uneasy.

"Is there anything that worries you?" continued Morrel. "What do you want? Shall I call a servant for you?"

"Yes." Nouakiye gestured.

Morrel yanked hard on the bell, but even if he broke the cord, it would be in vain, and no one came.Then he turned towards Noirquier, the old man growing paler and more disturbed.

"My God! My God!" said Morrel, "why is there no one here? Is someone sick in the building?"

Nouakier's eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets.

"But what is the matter with you?" went on Morrel, "you frighten me. Valentine! Valentine!"

"Yes, yes." Nouakiye gestured.

Maximilian opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but his tongue couldn't control him, and he couldn't say anything. He didn't even have the strength to stand still, so he hurried to support the wainscot.Then, he reached out and pointed towards the door.

"Yes, yes, yes!" The old man motioned.

Maximilian rushed up the little staircase and went upstairs in two hurried steps. Noirquier's eyes seemed to be calling to him: "Quick! Quick!"

In the space of a minute, the young man passed through several rooms in succession, each of which was as empty as the rest of the building, until at last he rushed to Valentine's room.He didn't have to push the door because it was open.As soon as he stood down, he heard a whimper, and then, as if in a cloud, he vaguely saw a dark figure kneeling on the ground, with his head buried in the messy white bed curtain, standing at the door in a daze, It seems to have been nailed there by fear, a terrible fear.Just then he heard a voice say, "Valentine is dead," followed immediately by a second voice, as if in an echo, "Dead! Dead!"

(End of this chapter)