The Count of Monte Cristo

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he should not be disturbed excepting for important business, he sat down
in his arm-chair and began to ponder over the events, the remembrance of
which had during the last eight days filled his mind with so many gloomy
thoughts and bitter recollections. Then, instead of plunging into the
mass of documents piled before him, he opened the drawer of his desk,
touched a spring, and drew out a parcel of cherished memoranda, amongst
which he had carefully arranged, in characters only known to himself,
the names of all those who, either in his political career, in money
matters, at the bar, or in his mysterious love affairs, had become his
enemies.

Their number was formidable, now that he had begun to fear, and yet
these names, powerful though they were, had often caused him to smile
with the same kind of satisfaction experienced by a traveller who from
the summit of a mountain beholds at his feet the craggy eminences, the
almost impassable paths, and the fearful chasms, through which he has so
perilously climbed. When he had run over all these names in his memory,