The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

"Well," said Monte Cristo in an indifferent tone, "you will do as you
please, count, for you are the master of your own actions, and are the
person most concerned in the matter, but if I were you, I would not
divulge a word of these adventures. Your history is quite a romance,
and the world, which delights in romances in yellow covers, strangely
mistrusts those which are bound in living parchment, even though they be
gilded like yourself. This is the kind of difficulty which I wished
to represent to you, my dear count. You would hardly have recited your
touching history before it would go forth to the world, and be deemed
unlikely and unnatural. You would be no longer a lost child found,
but you would be looked upon as an upstart, who had sprung up like a
mushroom in the night. You might excite a little curiosity, but it is
not every one who likes to be made the centre of observation and the
subject of unpleasant remark."

"I agree with you, monsieur," said the young man, turning pale, and,
in spite of himself, trembling beneath the scrutinizing look of his