There was a moment’s silence, during which one could have fancied the hall empty, so profound was the stillness.
“Proceed!” said the president.
“Certainly, I might have lived happily among those good people, who adored me; but my perverse disposition prevailed over the virtues which my adopted mother endeavored to instill 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 your father’s, not yours; your father’s, who devoted you to death, or to a life of misery, in case, by a miracle, you should escape.’ Since then I ceased to blaspheme, but I cursed my father. This is why I have uttered the words for which you blame me; this 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.
“My mother thought me dead; she is not guilty. I did not even wish to know her name, nor do I know it.”
Just then a piercing cry, ending in a sob, burst from the center of the crowd, who encircled the lady who had before fainted, and who now fell into a violent fit of hysterics. She was carried out of the hall, and in doing so, the thick veil which concealed her face dropped off, and Madame Danglars was recognized. Notwithstanding his shattered nerves, the stunning sensation in his ears, and the species of madness which turned his brain, Villefort rose as he perceived her.
“The proofs! the proofs!” said the president;” remember this tissue of horrors must be supported by the clearest proofs.”
“The proofs?” said Benedetto, laughing; “do you want proofs?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, look at M. de Villefort, and then ask me for proofs.”
Every one turned toward the procureur du roi, who, unable to bear the universal gaze now riveted on him alone, advanced, staggering, into the midst of the tribunal, with his hair disheveled, and his face indented with the mark of his nails. The whole assembly uttered a long murmur of astonishment.
“Father!” said Benedetto, “I am asked for proofs, do you wish me to give them?”
“No, no, it is useless!” stammered M. de Villefort, in a hoarse voice; “no, it is useless!”
“How useless?” cried the president, “what do you mean!”
“I mean that I feel it impossible to struggle against this deadly weight which crushes me. Gentlemen, I know I am in the hands of an avenging God! We need no proofs; everything related by this young man is true.”
A dull, gloomy silence, like that which precedes some awful phenomenon of nature, covered with a pall of lead the assembly, who shuddered in dismay.
“What! M. de Villefort,” cried the president, “do you yield to an hallucination? What! are you no longer in possession of your senses? This strange, unexpected, terrible accusation has disordered your reason. Come, recover.”
The procureur du roi shook his head; his teeth chattered like those of a man under a violent attack of fever, and yet he was deadly pale.
“I am in possession of all my senses, sir,” he said; “my body alone suffers, as you may suppose. I acknowledge myself guilty of all the young man has brought against me, and from this hour hold myself at the disposal of the procureur du roi who will succeed me.”
And as he spoke these words with a hoarse, choking voice, he staggered toward the door, which was mechanically opened by a door-keeper. The whole assembly were dumb with astonishment at the revelation and confession which had produced a catastrophe so different to that which had been expected during the last fortnight by the Parisian world.
“Well,” said Beauchamp, “let them now say that drama is unnatural!”
“Ma foi!” said Chateau-Renaud, “I would rather end my career like M. de Morcerf; a pistol-shot seems quite delightful, compared with this catastrophe.”
“And then, it kills,” said Beauchamp.
“And I, too, who thought of marrying his daughter,” said Debray. “She did well to die, poor girl!”
“The sitting is adjourned, gentlemen,” said the president; “fresh inquiries will be made, and the case will be tried next session by another magistrate.”
As for Andrea, who was as calm and more interesting than ever, he left the hall, escorted by gendarmes, who involuntarily paid him some attention.
“Well, what do you think of this, my fine fellow?” asked Debray of the sergent-de-ville, slipping a louis into his hand.
“There will be extenuating circumstances,” he replied.