The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

"But," remarked Madame de Villefort, "all these circumstances which
you link thus to one another may be broken by the least accident; the
vulture may not see the fowl, or may fall a hundred yards from the
fish-pond."

"Ah, that is where the art comes in. To be a great chemist in the
East, one must direct chance; and this is to be achieved."--Madame de
Villefort was in deep thought, yet listened attentively. "But,"
she exclaimed, suddenly, "arsenic is indelible, indestructible; in
whatsoever way it is absorbed, it will be found again in the body of the
victim from the moment when it has been taken in sufficient quantity to
cause death."

"Precisely so," cried Monte Cristo--"precisely so; and this is what I
said to my worthy Adelmonte. He reflected, smiled, and replied to me by
a Sicilian proverb, which I believe is also a French proverb, 'My son,
the world was not made in a day--but in seven. Return on Sunday.' On