The Count of Monte Cristo

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president.

"Certainly, I might have lived happily amongst those good people, who
adored me, but my perverse disposition prevailed over the virtues which
my adopted mother endeavored to instil into my heart. I increased in
wickedness till I committed crime. One day when I cursed Providence for
making me so wicked, and ordaining me to such a fate, my adopted father
said to me, 'Do not blaspheme, unhappy child, the crime is that of your
father, not yours,--of your father, who consigned you to hell if you
died, and to misery if a miracle preserved you alive.' After that I
ceased to blaspheme, but I cursed my father. That is why I have uttered
the words for which you blame me; that is why I have filled this whole
assembly with horror. If I have committed an additional crime, punish
me, but if you will allow that ever since the day of my birth my fate
has been sad, bitter, and lamentable, then pity me."

"But your mother?" asked the president.