"Wait a mont, my friend," the priest replied. "You clearly don’t understand the kind of courage I possess, or how I intend to use my strength. As for patience, I think I’ve shown plenty by starting each morning where I left off the night before, and each night continuing the work of the day. But then, young man, and please pay close attention, back then I thought I wasn’t doing anything wrong in trying to free an innocent person, soone who had committed no cri and didn’t deserve punishnt."
"Have your feelings changed?" Dantès asked in surprise. "Do you think you’re more guilty now that you’ve t ?"
"No, and I don’t want to beco guilty. Until now I thought I was just fighting circumstances, not people. I saw no sin in breaking through a wall or destroying a staircase, but I can’t easily convince myself to pierce a heart or take a life." Dantès looked slightly surprised.
"Is it possible," he said, "that when your freedom is at stake, you’d let such concerns stop you from getting it?"
"Tell ," Faria replied, "what’s stopped you from knocking out your guard with a piece of wood from your bed, putting on his clothes, and trying to escape?"
"Simply that the idea never occurred to ," Dantès answered.
"Exactly," said the old man, "because your natural aversion to committing such a cri prevented you from thinking of it. And that’s how it always is, in simple and acceptable things, our natural instincts keep us from straying from the right path. A tiger, whose nature teaches him to enjoy shedding blood, only needs his sense of sll to know when prey is near, and by following this instinct he can asure the leap needed to spring on his victim. But humans, on the contrary, hate the idea of bloodshed. It’s not just that the laws of society make us shrink from taking life, our natural construction and physical makeup-"
Dantès was confused and silent at this explanation of thoughts that had been unconsciously working in his mind, or rather his soul, for there are two distinct types of ideas. Those that co from the head and those that co from the heart.
"Since my imprisonnt," Faria said, "I’ve studied all the most famous escape cases in history. They’ve rarely succeeded. Those that did succeed were long planned and carefully arranged, like the Duke of Beaufort’s escape from Vincennes Castle, or Father Dubuquoi’s from For l’Evêque, or Latude’s from the Bastille. Then there are escapes that chance sotis makes possible, and those are the best kind. So let’s wait patiently for so favorable mont, and when it cos, we’ll take advantage of it."
"Ah," said Dantès, "you could easily endure the tedious waiting because you were constantly busy with your project, and when you got tired from work, you had your hopes to refresh and encourage you."
"I assure you," the old man replied, "that wasn’t what I turned to for entertainnt or support."
"What did you do then?"
"I wrote and studied."
"Were you allowed pens, ink, and paper?"
"Oh no," answered the priest, "I only had what I made myself."
"You made paper, pens, and ink?"
"Yes."
Dantès looked at him with admiration, though he had trouble believing it. Faria saw his doubt.
"When you visit my cell, young friend," he said, "I’ll show you a complete work, the result of all my life’s thoughts and reflections. Many of these ideas were first conceived in the shadows of the Colosseum in Ro, at the foot of St. Mark’s column in Venice, and on the banks of the Arno River in Florence, little imagining then that they’d be organized within the walls of the Château d’If. The work is called ’A Treatise on the Possibility of a General Monarchy in Italy,’ and it fills one large volu."
"What did you write all this on?"
"On two of my shirts. I invented a preparation that makes linen as smooth and easy to write on as parchnt."
"So you’re a chemist too?"
"Sowhat. I know Lavoisier and was close friends with Cabanis."
"But for such a work you must have needed books, did you have any?"
"I had nearly five thousand volus in my library in Ro. But after reading them many tis over, I realized that with one hundred and fifty well-chosen books, a man has, if not all human knowledge, at least everything he really needs to know. I spent three years reading and studying those one hundred and fifty volus until I knew them almost by heart.
Since I’ve been in prison, just a small effort of mory lets recall their contents as easily as if the pages were open in front of . I could recite all of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Titus Livius, Tacitus, Strada, Jornandes, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Machiavelli, and Bossuet. I’m only naming the most important ones."
"You must know several languages to have read all those?"
"Yes, I speak five modern languages, German, French, Italian, English, and Spanish. Using ancient Greek, I learned modern Greek too, though I don’t speak it as well as I’d like, but I’m still trying to improve."
"Improve?" Dantès repeated. "How can you manage that?"
"Well, I made a vocabulary of the words I knew, arranged and rearranged them so I could express my thoughts through them. I know nearly a thousand words, which is really all that’s absolutely necessary, though I believe dictionaries contain nearly a hundred thousand. I can’t hope to be very fluent, but I certainly wouldn’t have trouble explaining my needs and wishes, which would be quite enough."
Dantès’s amazent grew stronger. He almost thought he was dealing with soone who had supernatural powers. Still hoping to find so flaw that might bring him down to human level, he added, "But if you didn’t have pens, how did you manage to write this work you’re talking about?"
"I made so excellent ones that would be universally preferred if people knew about them. You know what huge fish they serve us on the days we can’t eat at? Well, I selected the cartilage from the heads of these fish, and you can’t imagine how delighted I was when Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday ca around, giving the chance to increase my supply of pens. I’ll freely admit that my historical work has been my greatest comfort and relief. While retracing the past, I forget the present, and traveling at will through the paths of history, I stop rembering that I’m a prisoner myself."
"But the ink," said Dantès, "what did you make that from?"
"There used to be a fireplace in my cell," Faria replied, "but it was sealed up long before I arrived. Still, it must have been used for many years because it was thickly covered with soot. I dissolved this soot in so of the wine they bring every Sunday, and I assure you that you couldn’t ask for better ink. For very important notes that needed special attention, I pricked one of my fingers and wrote with my own blood."
"When," asked Dantès, "can I see all this?"
"Whenever you want," replied the priest.
"Then let’s go right now!" exclaid the young man.
"Follow , then," said the priest, as he went back into the underground passage and soon disappeared, with Dantès following behind him.
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