The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

When the operation was concluded, and Edmond felt that his chin was
completely smooth, and his hair reduced to its usual length, he asked
for a hand-glass. He was now, as we have said, three-and-thirty years
of age, and his fourteen years' imprisonment had produced a great
transformation in his appearance. Dantes had entered the Chateau d'If
with the round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with whom
the early paths of life have been smooth, and who anticipates a future
corresponding with his past. This was now all changed. The oval face
was lengthened, his smiling mouth had assumed the firm and marked
lines which betoken resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow
furrowed with thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their
depths occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred;
his complexion, so long kept from the sun, had now that pale color
which produces, when the features are encircled with black hair, the
aristocratic beauty of the man of the north; the profound learning
he had acquired had besides diffused over his features a refined
intellectual expression; and he had also acquired, being naturally of