The Count of Monte Cristo

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have employed in entering a court of justice. He was the same man, or
rather the development of the same man, whom we have heretofore seen as
assistant attorney at Marseilles. Nature, according to her way, had
made no deviation in the path he had marked out for himself. From being
slender he had now become meagre; once pale, he was now yellow; his
deep-set eyes were hollow, and the gold spectacles shielding his eyes
seemed to be an integral portion of his face. He dressed entirely in
black, with the exception of his white tie, and his funeral appearance
was only mitigated by the slight line of red ribbon which passed almost
imperceptibly through his button-hole, and appeared like a streak of
blood traced with a delicate brush. Although master of himself, Monte
Cristo, scrutinized with irrepressible curiosity the magistrate whose
salute he returned, and who, distrustful by habit, and especially
incredulous as to social prodigies, was much more despised to look
upon "the noble stranger," as Monte Cristo was already called, as an
adventurer in search of new fields, or an escaped criminal, rather than
as a prince of the Holy See, or a sultan of the Thousand and One Nights.