The Night — The Count of Monte Cristo

After the Opera Monte Cristo rides home smiling and tells Ali to bring pistols with the ivory cross. He tests them on a small iron plate in his study. A veiled woman follows Baptistin inside. Monte Cristo lifts his pistol, then drops it when she cries, "Edmond, you will not kill my son." She throws back her veil. It is Mercédès.

Mercédès says she recognized his voice and watched from a box as Albert nearly threw a glove in his face. Monte Cristo answers that Providence, not he, is punishing Fernand. When she asks why he hunts her husband over old Yanina quarrels, he names the fisherman who married her while he rotted nearby. He pulls Danglars's denunciation letter from a drawer and says he bought it for two hundred thousand francs. He reminds her of fourteen years in the Château d'If while she married Fernand and his father starved.

Mercédès kneels and begs forgiveness. She says a mother sees double and pictures him on the point of murdering her son. Monte Cristo nearly breaks, then promises Albert shall live. Honor still demands a meeting at dawn, but his blood, not the boy's, will stain the ground. She accepts the trade and leaves as the Invalides clock strikes one. Alone, Monte Cristo calls himself a fool for not tearing out his heart when he chose revenge.