The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

might enjoy with a calm conscience. Instead of improving these gifts,
rarely granted so abundantly, this has been your course--you have given
yourself up to sloth and drunkenness, and in a fit of intoxication have
ruined your best friend."

"Help!" cried Caderousse; "I require a surgeon, not a priest; perhaps
I am not mortally wounded--I may not die; perhaps they can yet save my
life."

"Your wounds are so far mortal that, without the three drops I gave you,
you would now be dead. Listen, then."

"Ah," murmured Caderousse, "what a strange priest you are; you drive the
dying to despair, instead of consoling them."

"Listen," continued the abbe. "When you had betrayed your friend God
began not to strike, but to warn you. Poverty overtook you. You had