The Count of Monte Cristo

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still waited; he at first expected to be freed in a fortnight. This
fortnight expired, he decided that the inspector would do nothing until
his return to Paris, and that he would not reach there until his circuit
was finished, he therefore fixed three months; three months passed
away, then six more. Finally ten months and a half had gone by and
no favorable change had taken place, and Dantes began to fancy the
inspector's visit but a dream, an illusion of the brain.

At the expiration of a year the governor was transferred; he had
obtained charge of the fortress at Ham. He took with him several of his
subordinates, and amongst them Dantes' jailer. A new governor arrived;
it would have been too tedious to acquire the names of the prisoners;
he learned their numbers instead. This horrible place contained fifty
cells; their inhabitants were designated by the numbers of their cell,
and the unhappy young man was no longer called Edmond Dantes--he was now
number 34.