The Count of Monte Cristo

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"What was the subject of my thoughts from the time consciousness
returned to me? Always the same--always the child's corpse, coming every
night in my dreams, rising from the earth, and hovering over the grave
with menacing look and gesture. I inquired immediately on my return to
Paris; the house had not been inhabited since we left it, but it had
just been let for nine years. I found the tenant. I pretended that I
disliked the idea that a house belonging to my wife's father and mother
should pass into the hands of strangers. I offered to pay them for
cancelling the lease; they demanded 6,000 francs. I would have given
10,000--I would have given 20,000. I had the money with me; I made the
tenant sign the deed of resilition, and when I had obtained what I so
much wanted, I galloped to Auteuil.

"No one had entered the house since I had left it. It was five o'clock
in the afternoon; I ascended into the red room, and waited for night.
There all the thoughts which had disturbed me during my year of constant
agony came back with double force. The Corsican, who had declared the