Alexandre Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 44: The Vendetta. (continued)

"Ah," said Monte Cristo "it seems to me this was nothing but murder and robbery."

"No, your excellency," returned Bertuccio; "it was a vendetta followed by restitution."

"And was the sum a large one?"

"It was not money."

"Ah, I recollect," replied the count; "did you not say something of an infant?"

"Yes, excellency; I hastened to the river, sat down on the bank, and with my knife forced open the lock of the box. In a fine linen cloth was wrapped a new-born child. Its purple visage, and its violet-colored hands showed that it had perished from suffocation, but as it was not yet cold, I hesitated to throw it into the water that ran at my feet. After a moment I fancied that I felt a slight pulsation of the heart, and as I had been assistant at the hospital at Bastia, I did what a doctor would have done -- I inflated the lungs by blowing air into them, and at the expiration of a quarter of an hour, it began to breathe, and cried feebly. In my turn I uttered a cry, but a cry of joy. `God has not cursed me then,' I cried, `since he permits me to save the life of a human creature, in exchange for the life I have taken away.'"

"And what did you do with the child?" asked Monte Cristo. "It was an embarrassing load for a man seeking to escape."