"Wherever you wish," Monte Cristo replied, "because I know nothing."

"Where would Monsieur le Comte like me to begin?" Bertuccio asked.

"Yes, a few facts, perhaps, but that was seven or eight years ago and I have forgotten."

"So, not wishing to bore Your Excellency, I can safely…"

"But I thought that Abbé Busoni had told Your Excellency…"

"It all goes back to 1815."

"Come on, Monsieur Bertuccio, come: you will be my evening newspaper."

"Indeed, Monsieur. However, the smallest detail has remained in my memory as clearly as if it happened yesterday. I had a brother, an elder brother, who served the emperor. He had risen to the rank of lieutenant in a regiment entirely composed of Corsicans. My brother was my only friend; we had been left orphans when I was five and he was eighteen, and he brought me up as though I were his son. In 1814, under the Bourbons, he got married. Then the emperor came back from Elba, my brother immediately returned to the army and, after sustaining a slight wound at Waterloo, he retreated with the army beyond the Loire."

"Ah!" Monte Cristo exclaimed. "A long time ago, 1815!"

"Very well. I did agree."

"You are telling me the whole history of the Hundred Days, Monsieur Bertuccio," the count said. "It's all over and done with, if I'm not mistaken."

"For heaven's sake, Monsieur le Comte, one must live."

"Excellency, pray forgive me, but these preliminary details are essential. You promised to be patient."

"One day we received a letter. I have to tell you that we lived in the little village of Rogliano, at the far end of Cap Corse. The letter was from my brother and informed us that the army had been disbanded and he was returning home, via Châteauroux, Clermont-Ferrand, Le Puy and Nîmes. If I had any money, he begged me to leave it for him in Nîmes, with an innkeeper who was an acquaintance of ours and with whom I had had some dealings…"

"Undoubtedly. Carry on."

"By way of contraband…"

"As I told you, Excellency, I loved my brother dearly, so I decided not to send him the money but to take it myself. I had a thousand francs, so I left five hundred for Assunta -- that is, my sister-in-law -- and, with the other five hundred, I set off for Nîmes. It was easy. I had a boat and a cargo to pick up on the way, so everything favoured my design. But once I had taken on the cargo, the wind changed and we had to wait for four or five days before we could pass the mouth of the Rhône. Finally, we succeeded in entering the river, and sailed up as far as Arles. I left the boat between Bellegarde and Beaucaire, and set off on the road for Nîmes."

"We shall get there eventually, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir. Forgive me, but as Your Excellency will appreciate, I am only telling him what is absolutely essential. This was the moment when the celebrated massacres took place in the south. There were two or three brigands called Trestaillon, Truphemy and Graffan who went around cutting the throats of anyone suspected of Bonapartism. Monsieur le Comte has doubtless heard about these killings?"

"Vaguely. I was a long way from France at the time. Go on."

"I hastened to the inn. My foreboding was correct: my brother had arrived in Nîmes the day before and, at the very door of the man from whom he had come to beg hospitality, he had been murdered.

"When you entered Nîmes, you literally walked in blood; there were bodies lying everywhere. The murderers were organized in gangs to kill, loot and burn.

"When I saw the carnage, I was filled with fear, not for myself: being a simple Corsican fisherman, I had little to fear. On the contrary, that was a fine time for us smugglers; but I was concerned for my brother, a soldier of the empire, returning from the Army of the Loire with his uniform and his epaulettes. He had every reason to feel afraid.

"Whose name was Villefort?" Monte Cristo asked casually.

"I made every effort to identify his assassins, but they inspired such fear that no one dared tell me their names. Then I remembered French justice, which I had heard so much about and which was reputed to fear nothing, so I went to the king's prosecutor."

"Yes, Excellency. He came from Marseille, where he had been a deputy prosecutor and was promoted as a reward for his dedication. It was said that he had been among the first to warn the government of Napoleon's landing on his return from Elba."

"So you went to see him," said Monte Cristo.

"'Monsieur,' I told him, 'my brother was murdered yesterday in the streets of Nîmes, I don't know by whom, but it is your responsibility to find out. You administer a law that should avenge those it has been unable to protect.'

"'A lieutenant in the Corsican battalion.'

"'Who was your brother?' the prosecutor asked me.

"'So he was a soldier in the usurper's army, was he?'

"'He was a soldier in the French army.'

"'On his murderers.'

"'Monsieur,' I said, 'I am not asking this for myself. If it were just up to me, I should weep or I should take my revenge, nothing more. But my poor brother had a wife. If anything were to happen to me, the poor woman would die of starvation, because it was only my brother's work that kept her. Let her have a small government pension.'

"'I have told you: I want his revenge.'

"'How do I know who they are?'

"'And what do you expect me to do about it?' the magistrate asked.

"'There are disasters in every revolution,' Monsieur de Villefort replied. 'Your brother was a victim of this one. It's unfortunate, but it doesn't mean that the government owes your family anything. If we were to try all the cases of reprisals that the supporters of the usurper carried out on those of the king when they were in power, then it could well be that your brother would be condemned to death. What happened was entirely natural, it's the law of retaliation.'

"'Have them found.'

"'You are wrong, Monsieur. He lived by the sword, but he died by the dagger.'

"'For what purpose? Your brother must have fallen out with someone and got into a fight. All those old soldiers are inclined to intemperance: it worked well enough for them in the days of the empire, but that kind of thing is not appropriate now. Our southerners don't like soldiers and they don't like unruly behaviour.'

"'On whom?'

"'Very well,' he replied. 'He lived by the sword and he died by the sword.'

"I looked at him for a moment to see if there was anything to be gained by begging him further. The man was like granite. I went over to him, and said under my breath: 'Well, then, since you know Corsicans, you must know that they keep their word. Because you are a Royalist, you think that it was a good thing to kill my brother, a Bonapartist. Well, I too am a Bonapartist, and let me tell you something: I shall kill you. From this moment on, I declare a vendetta against you, so look after and protect yourself as best you may, because the next time we are face to face, your last hour will have come.' And, with that, before he could recover from his surprise, I opened the door and fled."

"'On my word, all these Corsicans are mad!' Monsieur de Villefort replied. 'And they still think that their fellow-countryman is emperor. You have missed the boat, my dear fellow. You should have come to me about this two months ago. Now is too late, so be off with you. If you don't leave, I'll have you thrown out.'

"'What, Monsieur!' I exclaimed. 'I cannot believe that you, a magistrate, are saying this!'

"Well, I'll be darned!" said Monte Cristo. "You, Monsieur Bertuccio, with that honest face of yours! You, do something like that! And to the crown prosecutor, what's more! Shame on you! I hope he at least understood the meaning of the word 'vendetta'?"

"The main thing was not to kill him; I had a hundred opportunities to do that: I had to kill him without being identified and, above all, without being caught. From then on I was no longer my own man: I had to protect and support my sister-in-law. I stalked Monsieur de Villefort for three months, and for three months he did not take a step, go for a walk or take a stroll without my watching where he went. Finally I discovered that he was paying mysterious visits to Auteuil. I followed him and saw him enter the house where we are now; but instead of going in like everyone else through the main door on the street, he arrived, either on horseback or by carriage, left his horse or his carriage at the inn and entered the house by the little door that you see there."

"He understood it well enough to avoid going out alone from that time onwards, and to hole up in his house, while getting his people to look everywhere for me. Luckily I was too well hidden for them to find me. So then he took fright. He was afraid to stay any longer in Nîmes and asked to be moved. Since he was a person with influence, he was appointed to Versailles. However, as you know, no distance is too great for a Corsican when he has sworn revenge on his enemy, and his carriage, swift as it was, could never keep more than half a day's journey ahead of me, even though I was following on foot.

Monte Cristo nodded to show that, despite the darkness, he could indeed see the entrance towards which Bertuccio was pointing.

"As the concierge told Your Excellency, the house belonged to Villefort's father-in-law, Monsieur de Saint-Méran. He resided in Marseille, so this property was of no use to him. It was said, moreover, that he had just let it to a young widow known only as 'the baroness'.

"I had nothing further to do in Versailles, so I settled in Auteuil and made enquiries. If I was to take him, this was clearly the place to set my trap.

"One evening, looking over the wall, I did indeed see a beautiful young woman walking alone in this garden, which was overlooked by no window in any other house. She kept looking towards the little door and I understood that she was waiting for Monsieur de Villefort. When she was close enough for me to make out her features, despite the darkness, I saw a lovely young woman of eighteen or nineteen, tall and fair-haired. As she was dressed in a simple gown, with no belt around her waist, I could see that she was with child, and even quite far advanced in her pregnancy.

"A few moments later the little door opened and a man came in. The young woman ran to him as fast as she could. They threw themselves into each other's arms, kissed tenderly and both turned to look at the house.

"Since then," asked the count, "have you learned the name of the woman?"

"Carry on."

"No, Excellency," Bertuccio replied. "As you will discover, I did not have time to find out."

"The man was Monsieur de Villefort. I guessed that, when he came out, especially if he came out at night, he would probably walk the whole length of the garden alone."

"Three days later, at around seven o'clock in the evening, I saw a servant riding out of the house and galloping along the pathway leading to the Sèvres road. I assumed he was going to Versailles, and correctly so. Three hours later, the man returned, covered in dust. His message had been delivered.

"That evening," Bertuccio resumed, "I might perhaps have been able to kill the crown prosecutor, but I still did not know every nook and cranny in the garden. I was afraid that if I did not kill him stone dead, and if someone ran up in answer to his cries, I might not be able to escape. I put the deed off until the next meeting and, so that no detail would escape me, took a little room overlooking the street that ran beside the wall of the garden.

"Ten minutes later, another man, this time on foot and wrapped in a cloak, opened the little door to the garden, which shut behind him.

"I quickly went down. Though I had not seen Villefort's face, I recognized him by the beating of my heart. I crossed the street and went up to a milestone at one corner of the wall, on which I had stood in order to look into the garden for the first time.

"This time I was not satisfied merely to look. I drew my knife out of my pocket, made sure that the point was sharp, and leapt over the wall. My first thought was to run across to the gate. He had left the key, taking the simple precaution of turning it twice in the lock. So, nothing impeded my flight in that direction. I began to study the place. The garden formed a long rectangle with a lawn of fine English grass running down the middle, at the corners of which were clumps of trees, bushy and mingled with autumn flowers.

"To go from the house to the little gate or from the little gate to the house, according to whether he was coming in or going out, Monsieur de Villefort was obliged to pass beside one of these clumps of trees.

"It was towards the end of September. There was a strong wind blowing and a few pale shafts of moonlight, repeatedly hidden by large clouds racing across the sky, lit the sandy pathways leading to the house, but were too feeble to penetrate the tufts of foliage among the trees, where a man could hide with no fear of discovery.

"I concealed myself in the nearest of those that Villefort had to pass. No sooner had I taken up my position than I thought I heard, between the gusts of wind that bent the trees across my face, some kind of groaning. But as you know, Monsieur le Comte -- or, rather, you surely don't know -- the person who is poised to commit a murder always thinks he can hear muffled cries in the air. Two hours passed, and several times during them I thought I heard these same groans.

"Midnight struck. The last lugubrious, echoing note was still sounding when I saw a light in the windows looking out from the back stairway which we have just come down.

"The door opened and the man with the cloak reappeared. This was the fatal moment, but I had so long prepared myself for it that I shrank at nothing. I took out my dagger, opened it and waited.

"I had still not managed to guess why Monsieur de Villefort should be carrying a spade, when he stopped at the edge of the clump of trees and started to dig a hole in the ground. At this point I noticed that he had something wrapped in his cloak which he had put down on the lawn, so as to leave his hands free.

"The man in the cloak came directly towards me, but as he approached across the opened ground I thought that I could discern a weapon in his right hand. I was afraid, not of a struggle, but of failure. When he was just a few yards away from me, I realized that what I had thought was a weapon was nothing more than a spade.

"Now, I must confess, my hatred was tempered by a dash of curiosity. I wanted to see what Villefort was doing there, so I stayed motionless, holding my breath, and waited.

"I let him place the box in the hole and cover it with earth; then he stamped on this freshly dug soil to cover the traces of his night's work. At that, I leapt out at him and plunged my dagger into his breast, saying: 'I am Giovanni Bertuccio! Your death is for my brother, your treasure for his widow: you can see that my revenge is more perfect than I could have hoped.'

"Then something occurred to me which was confirmed by the crown prosecutor taking a little box out of his cloak, about two feet long and six or eight inches wide.

"No, Excellency," Bertuccio replied. "It was a vendetta, combined with reparation."

"It was a decent sum, at least?"

"I do not know if he heard me. I think not, because he fell without a sound. I felt his hot blood flowing out over my hands and spattering my face; but I was drunk, I was delirious: the blood refreshed me instead of burning. It took me a second to dig up the box with the spade. Then, to disguise the fact that it had gone, I filled the hole in again and threw the spade over the wall. I ran out of the gate, turning the key twice in the door from outside and taking it with me."

"Fine!" said Monte Cristo. "It seems you committed a modest little murder, combined with robbery."

"There was no money."

"Ah, yes. I remember. You said something about a child?"

"Precisely, Excellency. I hurried down to the river, sat on the bank and, eager to know what was in the box, broke the lock with my knife.

"A newborn baby was wrapped in a child's fine cambric robe. The purple colour of its face and hands showed that it must have succumbed to asphyxiation caused by the umbilical cord wrapped around the neck. However, as it was not yet cold, I felt uneasy about throwing it into the stream by my feet. Then, a moment later, I thought I could feel a faint fluttering near the heart. I unwrapped the cord and, as I used to be an orderly at a hospital in Bastia, I did what a doctor might have done in the circumstances: in other words, I energetically breathed air into its lungs and, after a quarter of an hour of considerable effort, I saw it start to breathe and heard it give a cry.

"So what did you do with this child?" Monte Cristo asked. "It was quite a tiresome burden for a man who had to escape."

"I also cried out, but with joy. God had not cursed me, I thought, since he has allowed me to give life back to one human being in exchange for the life that I had taken away from another."

"That is why I never once considered keeping it. But I knew that there was an orphanage in Paris where they took in such poor creatures. On arriving at the city gates, I claimed to have found the child on the road and asked directions. I had the box, which supported my story, and the cambric linen showed that the child belonged to rich parents. The blood which covered me could as well have come from it as from anyone else. No one protested. I was shown the way to the orphanage, which was at the far end of the Rue d'Enfer and, after taking the precaution of cutting the sheet in half, so that a piece with one of the two letters embroidered on it was still wrapped around the child, I put my bundle down at the gatehouse, rang the bell and fled as fast as I could. A fortnight later I was back in Rogliano and I told Assunta: 'Sister, dry your tears. Israel is dead, but I have avenged him.' She asked me to explain this, and I told her everything that had happened.

"What letters were on the cloth?" Monte Cristo asked.

"H and N, surmounted by the ordinary of a baron, tortilly."

"Ah, I thought you did. I must have been mistaken."

"Well, you are not mistaken, because it was indeed a little boy. But Your Excellency said that he wished to know two things: what is the other one?"

"What are they, Monseigneur?"

"In reply, I simply gave her the half of the sheet that I had kept, so that I could reclaim the child if we could ever afford it."

"'Giovanni,' she said, 'you should have brought the child back. We could have taken the place of its lost parents and we should have called it Benedetto. God would surely have blessed us as a reward for our good deed.'

"What happened to the little boy… You did say that it was a little boy, Monsieur Bertuccio?"

"In your service, Monsieur le Comte, where one may learn everything."

"No, Excellency, I do not remember saying that."

"I do believe, heaven help us, that you are using terms from heraldry, Monsieur Bertuccio! Where the devil did you study that science?"

"Carry on. I am curious to know two things."

"What matter? It is barely ten o'clock. You know that I am an insomniac, and I suppose you too must have little desire for sleep."

"The tale might be quite long, Excellency."

"The other one is what crime you were accused of when you asked for a confessor, and Abbé Busoni came to you in the prison at Nîmes in response to this request."

Bertuccio bowed and carried on with his story.

"Partly to drive away the memories that plagued me and partly to provide for the poor widow, I returned eagerly to the profession of smuggling which had been made easier by the relaxation of laws that always follows a revolution. The southern coasts of France, in particular, were badly guarded because of the unending riots that took place, sometimes in Avignon, sometimes in Nîmes, sometimes in Uzès. We took advantage of the sort of truce accorded us by the government to establish relations on all parts of the coastline. Since my brother's murder in the streets of Nîmes, I had been loath to return there; the outcome was that the innkeeper with whom we used to deal, seeing that we no longer came to him, had decided to come to us and set up a companion to his inn on the road from Bellegarde to Beaucaire, at the sign of the Pont du Gard. Near Aigues-Mortes, in Martigues or in Bouc we also had a dozen warehouses where we could deposit our goods and where, if the need arose, we could hide out from the Customs and the gendarmes. Smuggling is a trade that pays well when carried on with a measure of intelligence and some zeal. As for myself, I lived in the mountains, because I now had a double reason to fear the gendarmes and the Customs men, in view of the fact that my arraignment in front of a judge could lead to an enquiry, and every enquiry is an excursion into the past: in my past, now, they might come across something more serious than smuggled cigars or a few barrels of brandy being dispatched without the proper papers. So, preferring death a thousand times to arrest, I accomplished astonishing feats which, more than once, proved to me that our excessive concern with the welfare of our bodies is almost the only obstacle to the success of any of our plans, when these demand rapid decisions and vigorous and determined execution. In reality, once you have made the sacrifice of your life, you are no longer the equal of other men; or, rather, they are no longer your equal, because whoever has taken such a resolution instantly feels his strength increase ten times and his outlook vastly extended."

"My trips became more and more prolonged, more and more profitable. Assunta was a good housewife and our little fortune grew. One day, when I was setting off on business, she said: 'Go, and you will have a surprise when you return.' There was nothing to be gained by questioning her; she refused to tell me anything, so I left.

"I beg Your Excellency's pardon."

"Philosophy, too, Monsieur Bertuccio!" the count interrupted. "Have you then done a little bit of everything in your life?"

"When I entered the house, the first thing I saw, in the place where it was least likely to be missed in Assunta's room, was a child of seven or eight months, in a cot far more luxurious than the furnishings around it. I gave a cry of joy. The only moments of sadness that I had felt since the murder of the crown prosecutor were due to my abandonment of the child. It goes without saying that I suffered no remorse for the murder itself.

"No, no! It's just that ten thirty at night is a little late for philosophy. But I have no other objection, particularly since I agree with your views, which cannot be said of all philosophy."

"The trip lasted nearly six weeks. We went to Lucca to take on oil and to Leghorn to load some English cotton cloth. We unloaded it all without any unpleasant incidents, took our profits and came back home, very pleased with ourselves.

"Poor Assunta had guessed everything. She had taken advantage of my absence and, taking the half of the sheet with her, had written down the exact day and time when the child was left in the orphanage, so that she would not forget them. Then she set off for Paris and went herself to reclaim him. No obstacle was put in her way, and the child was entrusted to her.

"Oh, Monsieur le Comte, I have to admit that when I saw the poor little creature in his cot, my heart filled and tears poured from my eyes.

"'Assunta,' I cried, 'you are without doubt a worthy woman and Providence will bless you.'"

"Now that," said the count, "is less true than your philosophy. But, then, it's only faith, after all."

"Alas! Excellency, how right you are!" Bertuccio continued. "It was the child himself that God appointed to punish me. Never did a more perverse character become evident earlier in life, yet no one can say that he was badly brought up, because my sister-in-law treated him like the son of a prince. He was a handsome boy, with light-blue eyes, like the colour in Chinese porcelain that harmonizes so well with the milky whiteness of the background; but his strawberry-blond hair, which was excessively bright, gave a strange appearance to his face, heightening his vivacious look and roguish smile. Unfortunately a proverb says that redheads are either all good or all bad; it was right in Benedetto's case: he was all bad from childhood on. Admittedly, his mother's sweet nature also encouraged his natural bent. My poor sister-in-law would travel four or five leagues to the town market to buy the earliest fruit and the finest sweetmeats, while the child disdained Palma oranges or Genoese preserves, preferring the chestnuts that he could steal from the neighbours by climbing over the hedge or the apples that were drying out in their loft -- when he had all the chestnuts and apples he wanted in our own orchard.

"Benedetto persisted in his lie, supporting it with details that said more for his imagination than for his love of the truth. I became annoyed, and he started to laugh; I threatened him and he stepped back. 'You can't hit me,' he said. 'You have no right: you are not my father.'

"One day, when Benedetto was about five or six years old, our neighbour Wasilio, who, like all Corsicans, never locked up his purse or his jewellery, because (as Monsieur le Comte knows better than anyone) there are no thieves in Corsica -- our neighbour Wasilio complained to us that a gold louis had vanished from his purse. We thought he had miscalculated, but he insisted that he was sure of what he said. That day, Benedetto had left the house early in the morning and we were very worried by the time he returned that evening, leading a monkey, which he said he had found chained to the trunk of a tree.

"'There are no monkeys to be found in these woods,' I said, 'especially not chained ones. Tell me truly how you came by it.'

"For the past month, the wicked child, who could not think what to do with himself, had longed for a monkey. No doubt this unfortunate whim was inspired in him by a travelling showman who had passed through Rogliano with several of these animals, whose antics had delighted the boy.

"I was terrified. Any further unfavourable report might have serious consequences: I had shortly to go away from Corsica on an important expedition. I thought carefully and, hoping to ward off disaster, I decided to take Benedetto with me. I hoped that the rough and active life of a smuggler, and the harsh discipline on board ship, would rescue a character on the point of being corrupted, provided it had not already gone too far. So I took Benedetto aside and suggested that he accompany me, dressing the proposal up with every sort of promise that might attract a twelve-year-old boy.

"We had no idea who had revealed the secret to him, despite our efforts to conceal it. However it may be, this reply, which was entirely characteristic of the child, filled me with something close to fear, and my raised hand fell without touching the guilty boy. He had triumphed and the victory made him so bold that, from then on, Assunta, whose love for him seemed to increase in proportion to his unworthiness, spent all her money on whims that she was unable to combat and follies that she did not have the strength to prevent. When I was in Rogliano, then the situation was still more or less bearable. But as soon as I left, Benedetto became master of the house and everything went wrong. When he had barely reached the age of eleven, all his friends were young men of eighteen or twenty, the worst young hooligans of Bastia and Corte; and already, because of some tricks (which deserved a worse name), the law had warned us about him.

"I was dumbstruck at this shameless argument. Benedetto went back to play with his friends and I could see him, from a distance, pointing me out to them as an idiot."

"What a delightful child!" Monte Cristo muttered.

"Oh, if he had been mine," Bertuccio replied, "if he had been my own son, or at least my nephew, I should soon have brought him back to the straight and narrow, because a clean conscience gives a man strength. But the idea that I would beat a child whose father I had killed made it impossible for me to punish him. I gave good advice to my sister, who always took the miserable child's side whenever we talked about him and, since she confessed to me that she had several times lost quite large sums of money, I showed her a place where she could hide our little fortune. For my part, I had made up my mind what to do. Benedetto knew very well how to read, write and do sums, because when he happened to want to work he could learn in one day what took another child a week. As I said, my mind was made up. I would sign him on as secretary on some ocean-going ship and, without giving him any advance warning, have him picked up one fine morning and carried on board. In this way, if I recommended him to the captain, he would be entirely responsible for his own future. Having taken this decision, I set off for France.

"He let me continue right to the end and, when I had finished, burst out laughing. 'Are you mad, uncle?' he said (that was his name for me when he was in a good mood). 'Am I to exchange the life I lead for yours: my idleness for the awful toil that you have imposed on yourself! To be cold by night, hot by day and constantly in hiding -- or, if you show yourself, to be shot at; and all to earn a little money! I have all the money that I want! Ma Assunta gives me some whenever I ask for it. So you can easily see that I'd be a fool to accept your proposal.'

"The start of our expedition went off without a hitch. Our boat had a concealed hold to hide our contraband; we tied up alongside a large number of other boats lining both banks of the Rhône from Beaucaire to Arles. When we arrived there, we began to unload the forbidden goods at night and had them carried into town by associates of ours, or by the innkeepers whom we used to supply. It may be that success had made us careless, or else we had been betrayed, because one evening, around five o'clock, just as we were about to sit down to a light meal, our boy ran up in a state of great excitement to tell us that he had seen a squad of revenue men approaching. What worried us was not the patrol itself -- because whole companies of Customs officials would scour the banks of the Rhône, and especially at that time -- but the precautions that the boy told us they were taking not to be seen. We instantly leapt up, but it was already too late: our boat, which had clearly been the object of their investigation, was surrounded. Among the Customs men I noticed some gendarmes. Now the sight of these frightened me as much as that of any other militiamen would make me bold, so I went down into the hold and, slipping out through one of the hatches, I let myself slide into the river, then swam underwater, holding my breath for long periods, and escaped detection until I reached a small ditch that had just been dug, joining the Rhône to the canal that runs from Beaucaire to Aigues-Mortes. Once there, I was safe, because I could go down the ditch without being seen. In this way, I reached the canal without incident. I had chosen this route of escape deliberately: I think I told Your Excellency about an innkeeper in Nîmes who had set up a little hostelry on the Beaucaire to Bellgarde road."

"On this occasion all our business was to take place in the Gulf of Lyon. Smuggling was becoming more and more difficult, because it was now 1829, peace had been entirely restored and consequently the coastguard was operating more regularly and more efficiently than ever. Moreover its vigilance was temporarily intensified by the fair at Beaucaire, which had just opened.

"Yes," Bertuccio replied, "but seven or eight years before, he had relinquished his business to a tailor from Marseille who had gone bankrupt in his own trade and wished to try his luck at another. It goes without saying that the little arrangement we had with the first owner was continued with the second, so this was the man from whom I intended to ask for shelter."

"And you were saying that all this took place in the year…"

"Yes, you did," said Monte Cristo. "I remember it perfectly. If I am not mistaken, this worthy man was your associate."

"What was his name?" the count asked, apparently taking a renewed interest in Bertuccio's tale.

"He was called Gaspard Caderousse, and he was married to a woman from the village of Carconte whom we never knew except by the name of her village; she was a poor creature, stricken with malaria and languishing. As for the man, he was a sturdy fellow of forty or forty-five; more than once he had given us proof of his presence of mind and his courage in difficult circumstances."

"Ah," Monte Cristo said. "June the third, 1829. Very well, go on."

"In June."

"What month?"

"1829, Monsieur le Comte."

"At the beginning or the end of the month?"

"So I was hoping to ask for shelter from Caderousse. Usually, even in normal circumstances, we did not enter his house by the front door and I decided to follow our established procedure, so I climbed over the garden hedge, crawled past the stunted olive-trees and wild figs and, fearing that Caderousse had some traveller in his inn, I made my way to a kind of hutch in which I had more than once spent the night as comfortably as in the best bed. This hutch or cupboard was only separated from the main parlour on the ground floor of the inn by a wooden wall, in which holes had been drilled for us, so that we could wait there until the time was ripe for us to reveal our presence. If Caderousse was alone, I intended to announce my arrival to him, finish at this table the meal that had been interrupted by the arrival of the Customs men and take advantage of the coming storm to return to the banks of the Rhône and find out what had become of the ship and those on board. So I slipped into the hutch -- and it was as well that I did so, because at that very moment Caderousse was returning home with a stranger.

"On the evening of the third."

"Caderousse hurried in, leading the way. Then, when he saw the downstairs room empty as usual and watched over only by his dog, he called his wife: 'Hey, La Carconte!' he said. 'The good priest didn't deceive us. The diamond was real.'

"The man with Caderousse was obviously not a native of the south of France: he was one of those fairground tradesmen who come to sell jewellery at the fair in Beaucaire and who, for the month that it lasts, attracting merchants and buyers from all over Europe, sometimes do a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand francs' worth of business.

"I kept quiet and waited, not because I wanted to discover my host's secrets, but because I had no alternative. In any case, the situation had already arisen a dozen times before.

"There was a shout of joy and almost at once the staircase began to creak under footsteps made heavier by weakness and ill-health. 'What did you say?' the woman asked, paler than death.

"'I said that the diamond was real and that this gentleman, one of the leading jewellers in Paris, is prepared to give us fifty thousand francs for it. However, to ensure that the diamond is truly ours, he wants you to tell him, as I did, the miraculous way in which the diamond came into our hands. Meanwhile, Monsieur, please be seated and, as the weather is close, I shall go and find you something to refresh yourself.'

"'Tell me about it, Madame,' he said, no doubt wanting to take advantage of the husband's absence to ensure that the two accounts coincided and avoid Caderousse prompting her in any way.

"'Well, you wouldn't believe it,' the woman gushed. 'It was a blessing from on high, when we least expected one. To start with, I must tell you, my dear sir, that in 1814 or 1815 my husband was friendly with a sailor called Edmond Dantès. This poor lad, whom Caderousse had entirely forgotten, did not forget him and on his deathbed left him the diamond that you have just seen.'

"The jeweller looked carefully round the interior of the inn, examining the obvious poverty of this couple who were about to sell him a diamond that might have belonged to a prince.

"'But how did he come into possession of the diamond?' the jeweller asked. 'Did he have it before going to prison?'

"'No, Monsieur,' the woman replied. 'But it appears that while in prison he became acquainted with a very rich Englishman; and when his cellmate fell ill, Dantès took the same care of him as if he had been his brother, so the Englishman, on his release, left this diamond to poor Dantès, who was less fortunate than he was and who died in prison, bequeathing it in turn to us as he died and entrusting it to the good priest who came to give it to us this morning.'

"'A foreigner then?'

"'The accounts agree,' the jeweller muttered. 'And, when all's said and done, the story may be true, however implausible it may seem. Now all that remains is to agree about the price.'

"'What do you mean, agree?' said Caderousse. 'I thought you had accepted the price I asked.'

"'Forty thousand!' exclaimed La Carconte. 'We certainly can't let it go at that price. The abbé told us it was worth fifty thousand, even without the setting.'

"'You mean, I offered you forty thousand francs,' said the jeweller.

"'What was this abbé's name?' the tireless questioner asked.

"'Abbé Busoni,' she replied.

"'Show me the diamond,' the jeweller said. 'I'd like to examine it again. One often estimates a jewel wrongly at first sight.'

"'An Italian from near Mantua, I think.'

"Caderousse got a little bag of black shagreen out of his pocket, opened it and passed it to the jeweller. At the sight of the diamond, which was as fat as a small walnut -- I remember it as well as if I could still see it -- La Carconte's eyes shone with greed."

"That does more honour to your heart than to your experience, Monsieur Bertuccio. Did you know the Edmond Dantès they mentioned?"

"Yes, Excellency. I did not consider Caderousse a wicked man. I felt he was incapable of committing a crime, or even pilfering."

"And what did you think of all that, eavesdropper?" Monte Cristo asked. "Did you believe the fine tale?"

"The jeweller took the ring from Caderousse and brought a little pair of steel pliers and a little copper balance out of his pocket. Then, removing the stone from the gold clamps that held it in the ring, he lifted the diamond from the bezel and weighed it with the utmost care in the scale.

"'I can go to forty-five thousand francs,' he said, 'but not a sou more. In any case, since that was the value of the diamond, that is all the money I have brought with me.'

"Very well. Continue."

"No, Excellency. I had never before heard his name and I have never heard it mentioned since, except once by Abbé Busoni himself when I saw him in prison in Nîmes."

"'No,' the jeweller said, returning the ring and the diamond to Caderousse. 'No, it's not worth more; and I'm sorry to have offered that much, since there is a defect in the stone which I did not notice at first. However, it's too bad. I've given my word. I said forty-five thousand and I won't unsay it.'

"'Oh, don't worry about that,' said Caderousse. 'I'll come back to Beaucaire with you to fetch the other five thousand francs.'

"'That's fair,' said the jeweller, replacing the stone in its setting.

"'Very well, very well,' Caderousse said, putting the bag back in his pocket. 'We'll sell it to someone else.'

"'Well, do at least put the diamond back in the ring,' said La Carconte sourly.

"'Do,' the jeweller said, 'though he may not be as easy as I am. Someone else might not be satisfied with the explanation you gave me. It is not normal for a man like you to have a diamond of fifty thousand francs. This other person will probably inform the magistrate, Abbé Busoni will have to be found -- and it's not easy to find an abbé who gives away diamonds worth two thousand louis! Then they would start by arresting him, they would send you to prison and, even if you were found innocent and released after three or four months inside, the ring would have been mislaid in the clerk of the court's office, or else they would give you a piece of glass worth three francs instead of a diamond worth fifty thousand, or at best fifty-five -- but which, as you must admit, my good fellow, represents a risk to the buyer.'

"'As you wish, friend,' said the jeweller. 'But, as you can see, I have brought the sum in cash.' And he took a handful of gold from one pocket and held it, shining, before the dazzled eyes of the innkeeper, and a bundle of banknotes from the other.

"Caderousse and his wife exchanged looks. 'No,' he said. 'We are not rich enough to lose five thousand francs.'

"It was clear that there was a battle going on inside Caderousse: obviously the little shagreen bag which he was turning over and over in his hands did not appear to him to correspond in value to the huge sum of money which mesmerized him. He turned back to his wife.

"'What do you think?' he whispered.

"'Go on, give it to him,' she said. 'If he returns to Beaucaire without the diamond, he will report us! And, as he says, no one knows whether we shall ever be able to put our hands on Abbé Busoni again.'

"The jeweller took a long flat box out of his pocket containing several examples of the required objects. 'Go on,' he said. 'I do business fairly. Choose what you want.'

"'Very well, agreed,' said Caderousse. 'Take the diamond for forty-five thousand. But my wife wants a gold chain and I a pair of silver buckles.'

"'I hope you're satisfied,' said the jeweller.

"'The abbé said it was worth fifty thousand,' Caderousse muttered.

"'Here,' said the jeweller, and he counted out fifteen thousand francs on the table in gold and thirty thousand in banknotes.

"'Come, come, now. Give over! What a terrible creature!' the jeweller said, taking the diamond from his hands. 'I am giving him forty-five thousand francs and two thousand five hundred in kind, all of which adds up to a fortune that I wouldn't mind having myself, and he still isn't satisfied.'

"'And what about the forty-five thousand francs?' Caderousse demanded hoarsely. 'Where are they?'

"The woman chose a gold chain that was possibly worth five louis and her husband a pair of buckles worth around five francs.

"Night had indeed fallen while they were discussing this and, with it, the storm that had been threatening for the past half-hour. In the distance you could hear the dull rolls of thunder, but neither the jeweller, nor Caderousse, nor La Carconte seemed to be bothered by it, all three being possessed by the demon of greed. Even I felt a strange fascination at the sight of all that gold and all those banknotes. It seemed to me that I was dreaming; and, as happens in dreams, I felt rooted to the spot.

"'Just wait while I light the lamp,' said La Carconte. 'It's getting dark and we might make a mistake.'

"Meanwhile the jeweller was turning the diamond in the rays of the lamp, and the diamond gleamed with flashes that outshone those, heralding the storm, that were starting to light up the window.

"'Yes,' said Caderousse. 'Give me the portfolio and look for a bag, Carconte.'

"Caderousse counted and re-counted the gold and the notes, then passed them to his wife, who counted and re-counted them in her turn.

"'Is it all there?' the jeweller asked.

"La Carconte went to a wardrobe and came back carrying an old leather portfolio, out of which they took a few greasy letters which they replaced with the notes, and a bag in which there were two or three écus of six livres, which probably represented the unfortunate couple's entire fortune.

"'Thank you,' said the jeweller, 'but it must be getting late and I have to return to Beaucaire. My wife will be worried.' He took out his watch. 'Heavens above!' he exclaimed. 'It's nearly nine. I won't be in Beaucaire before midnight. Goodbye, my children. If any more Abbé Busonis happen to drop by, think of me.'

"'There,' said Caderousse. 'Even though you may have underpaid us by about ten thousand francs, would you like to take supper with us? You're welcome.'

"'Or thieves?' asked La Carconte. 'The road is never quite safe when the fair's in town.'

"'Oh, ho,' said Caderousse. 'Are you going out in this weather?'

"A peal of thunder sounded, with a bolt of lightning so bright that it almost dimmed the light from the lamp.

"'Huh! As far as thieves are concerned, here's my answer to them.' And he took a pair of little pistols, fully loaded, out of his pocket. 'These are dogs that bark and bite at the same time, and I'm keeping them for the first two men who want to get their hands on your diamond, Caderousse.'

"Caderousse and his wife exchanged a dark look: they both appeared to have the same frightful idea.

"'No, but that doesn't matter. Write to me in Paris: Monsieur Joannès, at the Palais-Royal, number forty-five, Galerie de Pierre. I'll come down here specially if it's worth my while.'

"'I'm not afraid of thunder,' said the jeweller.

"'In a week, you will no longer be in Beaucaire,' said Caderousse. 'The fair ends next week.'

"'Very well, bon voyage!' said Caderousse.

"'Or when there's money in the house, you mean,' said Caderousse, turning the key twice in the lock.

"Caderousse walked slowly over to the doorway.

"'Yes, stay,' said La Carconte in a quivering voice. 'We'll take good care of you.'

"'Right,' said Caderousse. 'You can't miss your way. The road is lined with trees on each side.'

"'No, I can't. I must sleep in Beaucaire. Farewell.'

"'Very well, I'm there,' said the voice, hardly audible in the distance.

"'You can't see an inch ahead,' said the jeweller, already outside. 'Should I go to the right or the left?'

"'Thank you,' the jeweller replied.

"'Shut the door,' said La Carconte. 'I don't like leaving the door open when there's thunder.'

"'Don't go,' said Caderousse. 'You can sleep here.'

"'Ho, ho!' he said. 'Lovely weather… And I have two leagues to travel in it.'

"He took his cane, which he had set down, leaning against an old sideboard, and went out. As soon as he opened the door, there was such a gust of wind that it almost put out the lamp.

"He came back, went over to the cupboard, took out the bag and the portfolio, and both of them started to count over their gold and their banknotes for the third time. I have never seen an expression like the one on those two faces, with the dim light of the lamp shining on their cupidity. The woman, above all, was frightful to see. Her limbs trembled feverishly, twice as much as usual, her pale face was livid and her hollow eyes blazed.

"Caderousse started. 'Well, of course, so that he would not need to go back to Beaucaire…'

"'Jesu!' said La Carconte, making the sign of the cross.

"'Ah,' the woman said, with an indescribable expression. 'I thought it might be for some other reason.'

"'Wife!'

"'And why did you offer to let him sleep here?' she muttered.

"'If you had been a man, he would not have left here.'

"'What do you mean?' asked Caderousse.

"'No matter,' La Carconte said, after a moment's silence. 'You are not a man.'

"'Woman, you are offending the Good Lord. Listen…'

"'Or else he would never reach Beaucaire.'

"'He must follow the road, which has a bend in it, but there is a short-cut along the canal.'

"'Wife!'

"Indeed, as he spoke there was a fearful crash of thunder, while at the same time a bluish shaft of lightning lit up the whole room, and the thunder, fading in the distance, seemed unwilling to go away from the accursed house.

"'Wife, wife!' Caderousse cried. 'Where do you get such ideas? And, if you have them, why not keep them to yourself?'

"'I'll be darned,' the jeweller said, dripping with rain. 'It seems that the devil does not want me to go back to Beaucaire this evening. The best follies are the shortest-lived, my dear Caderousse. You offered me your hospitality; I accept and I have come back to stay the night with you.'

"At the same moment, in the awed silence that habitually follows a loud burst of thunder, they heard a knocking on the door. Both Caderousse and his wife shuddered and looked at one another.

"'It's me!' said a voice.

"'Who goes there?' Caderousse shouted, getting up and pushing the gold and the notes, which had been spread out over the table, into a single pile and covering it with both hands.

"'What were you saying?' La Carconte said, with an awful smile. 'That the Good Lord was offended? Well, look: the Good Lord has sent him back to us.'

"'Who are you?'

"Caderousse slipped back, white and breathless, on his chair. But La Carconte, on the other hand, got up and walked with a determined step over to the door, then opened it. 'Come in, dear Monsieur Joannès,' she said.

"Caderousse muttered a few words, wiping the sweat from his brow. La Carconte double-locked the door behind the jeweller."

"'Who do you think? Joannès, the jeweller.'