"So," Madame de Villefort added, constantly returning to her goal, "the poisons of the Borgias, the Medicis, the Renées, the Ruggieris, and later probably that of Baron de Trenck, whose story has been so misused by modern drama and novels-" "Were works of art, madame, and nothing more," the Count replied. "Do you think the true scientist stupidly targets mere individuals? Not at all. Science loves eccentricities, leaps and bounds, tests of strength, experiments, if I may call them that. For instance, the excellent Abbé Adelmonte I mentioned made some marvelous experiments this way." "Yes. Let me tell you about one. He had a remarkably fine garden full of vegetables, flowers, and fruit. From these vegetables he selected the simplest, a cabbage, for instance. For three days he watered this cabbage with diluted arsenic. On the third day, the cabbage began to droop and turn yellow. At that moment he cut it. To everyone else it looked ready to eat and maintained its healthy appearance. Only to Abbé Adelmonte was it poisoned. He then took the cabbage to the room where he kept rabbits, the Abbé had a collection of rabbits, cats, and guinea pigs as impressive as his collection of vegetables, flowers, and fruit. Well, the Abbé took a rabbit and made it eat a cabbage leaf. The rabbit died. What judge would find or even dare suggest anything wrong with this? What prosecutor has ever dared bring charges against research scientists for the rabbits, cats, and guinea pigs they’ve killed? None. So the rabbit dies, and justice takes no notice. Once the rabbit was dead, the Abbé had his cook remove its intestines and throw them on the compost heap. A hen on this compost heap pecked at these intestines, became ill in turn, and died the next day. Just as she was struggling in death convulsions, a vulture flew by, there are many vultures in Adelmonte’s region. This bird swooped down on the dead hen, carried it to a cliff, and ate its meal there. Three days later, this poor vulture, which had felt very sick since that dinner, suddenly felt dizzy while flying high in the clouds and fell heavily into a fish pond. The pike, eels, and carp, always greedy eaters, as everyone knows, feasted on the vulture. Now suppose that the next day, one of these eels, pike, or carp, poisoned at four degrees of separation, was served at your table. Well, your dinner guest would be poisoned at five degrees of separation and would die eight or ten days later of intestinal pain, nausea, or an abdominal abscess. The doctors would open the body and say with profound authority, ’The patient died of a liver tumor or typhoid fever!’" "But," Madame de Villefort remarked, "all these circumstances you’re linking together could be broken by the smallest accident. The vulture might not see the hen, or might fall a hundred yards from the fish pond." "Ah, that’s where the art comes in. To be a great chemist in the East, you must control chance, and this can be achieved." Madame de Villefort was deep in thought but listened attentively. "But," she suddenly exclaimed, "arsenic is permanent, indestructible. However it’s absorbed, it will be found again in the victim’s body once a fatal quantity has been consumed." "Precisely!" Monte Cristo cried. "Precisely! And that’s what I told my worthy Adelmonte. He thought about it, smiled, and replied with a Sicilian proverb that I believe is also French: ’My son, the world wasn’t made in a day, it took seven. Come back on Sunday.’ The following Sunday I returned to him. Instead of watering his cabbage with arsenic, this time he’d watered it with a solution containing strychnine, plant-based poison, as scientists call it. The cabbage showed no signs of disease whatsoever, and the rabbit had no suspicions. Yet five minutes later, the rabbit was dead. The hen pecked at the rabbit, and the next day was a dead hen. This time we played the role of vultures, so we opened the bird. This time all specific symptoms had disappeared, there were only general symptoms. No particular organ showed damage, just nervous system excitement. A case of brain congestion, nothing more. The hen hadn’t been poisoned, she’d died of a stroke. Strokes are rare in chickens, I believe, but very common in humans." Madame de Villefort appeared increasingly thoughtful. "It’s very fortunate," she observed, "that such substances can only be prepared by chemists. Otherwise, everyone would be poisoning each other." "By chemists and people with a taste for chemistry," Monte Cristo said casually. "And besides," Madame de Villefort said, struggling with effort to escape her thoughts, "however skillfully it’s prepared, crime is always crime. Even if it escapes human scrutiny, it doesn’t escape God’s eye. Easterners are more practical than us in matters of conscience, and very wisely have no concept of hell, that’s the key point." "Really, madame, this is a moral scruple that would naturally occur to a pure mind like yours, but it would easily yield to sound reasoning. The dark side of human thought will always be defined by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s paradox, you remember, about the mandarin who could be killed from five hundred miles away by lifting a fingertip. Humanity’s entire existence is spent doing such things, and our intellect is exhausted reflecting on them. You’ll find very few people who will brutally thrust a knife into a fellow human’s heart, or administer that quantity of arsenic we just discussed to remove someone from this world. Such acts are truly exceptional, bizarre or stupid. To reach that point, the blood must be heated to extreme temperatures, the pulse at least ninety beats per minute, and emotions excited beyond ordinary limits. But suppose we shift, as is acceptable in language, from the word itself to its softer synonym. Then instead of committing a vile assassination, you perform an ’elimination.’ You merely and simply remove from your path the individual blocking your way, without shock or violence, without the suffering that would make a martyr of the victim and a butcher of the executioner. There will be no blood, no groans, no convulsions, and above all, no consciousness of that horrible and compromising moment of committing the act. Then you escape the grip of human law that says, ’Don’t disturb society!’ This is how they handle these matters and succeed in Eastern countries, where there are serious, calm people who care very little about timing in important situations." "Yet conscience remains," Madame de Villefort remarked in an agitated voice with a stifled sigh. "Yes," Monte Cristo answered, "fortunately, yes, conscience does remain. And if it didn’t, how miserable we’d be! After every action requiring effort, it’s conscience that saves us by supplying a thousand good excuses that we alone judge. These reasons, however excellent at producing sleep, would help us very little in a court of law when we’re on trial for our lives. For instance, Richard III was marvelously served by his conscience after murdering King Edward IV’s two children. He could say, ’These two children of a cruel, persecuting king inherited their father’s vices, which only I could perceive in their youthful tendencies. These two children were obstacles to my goal of promoting English happiness, which they would inevitably have destroyed.’ Lady Macbeth was similarly served by her conscience when she sought to give her son, not her husband, whatever Shakespeare says, a throne. Maternal love is a great virtue, a powerful motive, so powerful it excuses many things. Even if Lady Macbeth had been troubled by conscience after Duncan’s death, maternal love would have justified her actions." Check latest chapters at 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹·𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲·𝗻𝗲𝘁 Madame de Villefort listened avidly to these appalling principles and horrible paradoxes, delivered by the Count with his characteristic ironic simplicity. After a moment’s silence, the lady asked, "Do you know, my dear Count, that you’re a very terrible philosopher, and that you view the world through a rather distorted lens? Have you really measured the world through experiments and laboratory equipment? Because you must indeed be a great chemist. That elixir you gave my son, which revived him almost instantaneously-" "Oh, don’t rely on that too much, madame. One drop of that elixir sufficed to revive a dying child, but three drops would have forced blood into his lungs causing violent heart palpitations. Six drops would have stopped his breathing and caused a more serious collapse than the one he experienced. Ten drops would have destroyed him. You remember, madame, how quickly I snatched him away from those bottles he so recklessly touched?" "Is it such a terrible poison?" "Oh, no. First, let’s agree that the word ’poison’ doesn’t really exist, because medicine uses the most violent poisons, which become beneficial remedies depending on how they’re used." "A skillful preparation by my friend, the worthy Abbé Adelmonte, who taught me how to use it." "Oh," Madame de Villefort observed, "it must be an admirable anti-spasmodic." "Perfect, madame, as you’ve seen," the Count replied. "And I use it frequently, though with all possible caution, of course," he added with a knowing smile. "Most certainly," Madame de Villefort responded in the same tone. "As for me, so nervous and prone to fainting spells, I need a Doctor Adelmonte to invent some way for me to breathe freely and calm my anxious mind. I’m terrified of dying someday from suffocation. Meanwhile, since such things are hard to find in France, and your abbé probably won’t make a special trip to Paris for me, I must continue using commercial anti-spasmodics. Mint and medicinal drops are among my favorite remedies. Here are some lozenges I had specially made with double strength." Monte Cristo opened the tortoise-shell box she presented and inhaled the scent of the lozenges like a connoisseur thoroughly appreciating their composition. "They are indeed exquisite," he said. "But since they must be swallowed, something a fainting person often can’t do, I prefer my own remedy." "Undoubtedly, and I would prefer it too after seeing its effects. But of course it’s a secret, and I’m not so indiscreet as to ask you for it." "But I," Monte Cristo said, rising as he spoke, "am gallant enough to offer it to you." "Just remember one thing, a small dose is a remedy, a large dose is poison. One drop will restore life, as you’ve seen. Five or six drops will inevitably kill, and in a particularly terrible way because, poured into a glass of wine, it wouldn’t affect the flavor at all. But I’ll say no more, madame. It’s really as if I were prescribing medicine for you." The clock struck half past six, and another lady was announced, a friend of Madame de Villefort who’d come to dine with her. "If I’d had the honor of seeing you for the third or fourth time, Count, instead of only the second," Madame de Villefort said, "if I’d had the honor of being your friend instead of merely having the good fortune of being in your debt, I would insist on keeping you for dinner and wouldn’t let a first refusal discourage me." "A thousand thanks, madame," Monte Cristo replied, "but I have an engagement I cannot break. I’ve promised to escort a Greek princess of my acquaintance to the opera. She’s never seen your grand opera house and is counting on me to take her there." "Farewell then, sir, and don’t forget the prescription." "Ah, truly, madame, to forget that I would have to forget this hour of conversation with you, which is impossible." Monte Cristo bowed and left the house. Madame de Villefort sat immersed in thought. He’s a very strange man, she mused. In my opinion, he is himself the Adelmonte he talks about. As for Monte Cristo, the result had exceeded his highest expectations. "Good," he said as he departed. "This is fertile ground, and I’m certain the seeds I’ve planted won’t fall on barren soil." The next morning, faithful to his promise, he sent the prescription she’d requested.