The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

"You, my poor child, suffer poverty and hunger? Oh, do not say so; it
will break my resolutions."

"But not mine, mother," replied Albert. "I am young and strong; I
believe I am courageous, and since yesterday I have learned the power
of will. Alas, my dear mother, some have suffered so much, and yet
live, and have raised a new fortune on the ruin of all the promises of
happiness which heaven had made them--on the fragments of all the hope
which God had given them! I have seen that, mother; I know that from the
gulf in which their enemies have plunged them they have risen with so
much vigor and glory that in their turn they have ruled their former
conquerors, and have punished them. No, mother; from this moment I have
done with the past, and accept nothing from it--not even a name, because
you can understand that your son cannot bear the name of a man who ought
to blush for it before another."

"Albert, my child," said Mercedes, "if I had a stronger heart, that is