The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

only hope now is in that very Pharaon which poor Dantes commanded, and
which is expected from the Indies with a cargo of cochineal and indigo.
If this ship founders, like the others, he is a ruined man."

"And has the unfortunate man wife or children?" inquired the abbe.

"Yes, he has a wife, who through everything has behaved like an angel;
he has a daughter, who was about to marry the man she loved, but whose
family now will not allow him to wed the daughter of a ruined man; he
has, besides, a son, a lieutenant in the army; and, as you may suppose,
all this, instead of lessening, only augments his sorrows. If he were
alone in the world he would blow out his brains, and there would be an
end."

"Horrible!" ejaculated the priest.

"And it is thus heaven recompenses virtue, sir," added Caderousse. "You