100-ish Days of Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo
June 1 – August 31, 2022

August 4, 2022, Chapters 82-85 (to be read August 3-5)

Next post: August 8, 2022, Chapters 86-90 (to be read August 6-9)

I dread dread dread this new Facebook format!!! I shall be brief today – and will figure out all the new quirks this weekend!!! Plus I need to post a few REMARKABLE extra posts – but this new FB format takes all exuberance out of me!!! My latest post contained a huge factual mistake which I will correct this weekend – Beauchamp is Albert’s friend and a journalist – Debray is Madame Danglars’ lover!!! A thousand apologies for the confusion!!! I wrote that entire post while cursing technology – but considering that all my posts are written on a cellphone with the assistance of the texting app, Project Guttenberg, Audible, AND Facebook – we can’t really compliant!!! If that’s what it takes to share my love for voluminous classics with readers in the 21st century – so be it!!!

Here is a bit of a teaser for my upcoming extra posts – they will address the history comment on the relationship between Europe and Asia, the fate of the last Bourbon king of France Charles X (so deeply loved by poor departed Marquis de Saint-Méran) and I found out something ASTOUNDING about the character referred to as Countess G!!! Patience – all shall be revealed – once I figure out this new Facebook format!!!

And so it begins – the heavy hand of retribution is about to crush everyone whose actions destroyed the life of a young and rapturously happy young sailor Edmond Dantes…

The Abbé Busoni’s words to the departing Caderousse seem mysterious:

For “if you return home safely, then – then I shall believe God has forgiven you, and I will forgive you too.”

And the hand of Benedetto becomes the instrument of god that strikes Caderousse… Monte Cristo sees him hiding in the shadows – Benedetto sent Caderousse into a trap to be killed by Monte Cristo or his servants – but since Caderousse descended from the house unharmed – fate caught up with him in the courtyard… 

“Caderousse sighed deeply, and fell back with a groan. The blood no longer flowed from his wounds. He was dead.

“One!” said the count mysteriously, his eyes fixed on the corpse, disfigured by so awful a death.”

The sound of that “one” is as heavy as the sound of a death toll… 

And the sin of the father is about to crush the innocent and charming Albert – his young life about to be burdened with an unimaginable guilt – the guilt of a son for his father… 

“I am broken-hearted,” said Albert. “Listen, Beauchamp! I cannot thus, in a moment relinquish the respect, the confidence, and pride with which a father’s untarnished name inspires a son. Oh, Beauchamp, Beauchamp, how shall I now approach mine? Shall I draw back my forehead from his embrace, or withhold my hand from his? I am the most wretched of men. Ah, my mother, my poor mother!” said Albert, gazing through his tears at his mother’s portrait; “if you know this, how much must you suffer!”

“Come,” said Beauchamp, taking both his hands, “take courage, my friend.”

This is devastating… 

The brief interlude with Monte Cristo is but a delay of the inevitable – a second paper printed the devastating truth: 

“The French officer in the service of Ali Pasha of Yanina alluded to three weeks since in l’Impartial, who not only surrendered the castle of Yanina, but sold his benefactor to the Turks, styled himself truly at that time Fernand, as our esteemed contemporary states; but he has since added to his Christian name a title of nobility and a family name. He now calls himself the Count of Morcerf, and ranks among the peers.”

What is to become of Albert?…

AND Mercedes?…

Photos for August 4

Click any image for a larger gallery view.