The Count of Monte Cristo is my favourite work of fiction, the canonical tail of revenge. Its plot winds like strands of twine the reader can barely track, and then like a magicians knot, Dumas untangles everything in a few firm tugs that leave us breathless.
The final message the Count leaves for Maximillian, and the parting philosophy for the reader, is:
…until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words — ‘Wait and hope.’
I’ve not quite reconciled these last words with the rest of the story. Free will, action, luck, coincidence and “Providence” all play their part in the novel, and I’m not quite satisfied that waiting and hoping is the strategy that wins out.
There are plenty of examples where fate takes an awful turn for innocent characters. Ali Pacha’s family are sold as slaves. The Morrel’s, who brought such kind luck to Edmund, are set to go bankrupt. Without the Count’s intervention, neither of these stories end happily. Chance is not kind here.
Edmund is the recipient of good fortune early in the book, when his captain dies and he is promoted to fill that rank. He thrives, somewhat naively, in this good fortune. He has money, the love of his bride and exciting career prospects. Yet his hope to enjoy all of this is short lived, when those envious of his position bring him down.
Imprisoned, he waits in the hope of release, that the “mistake” will be rectified and justice done. Eventually he loses this hope, and contemplates suicide, before meeting the Abbe. After many more years in prison, the mark of which will forever show in his pale complexion, he takes matters into his own hands, to fashion an escape. So much for waiting and hoping there.
Freed, he learns that even his beloved Mercédès, has not waited for him. She has given up hope. Believing him dead, she marries Fernand, the architect of Edmund’s imprisonment. Perhaps the expectation that Mercédès should have waited despite reports of his death was unrealistic. Does the Count expect us to hope of revival even from death?
Of course, if she had waited for him, and stayed in Marseille, Edmund might have thought twice about his vengeful rampage. Equally though, if he had gone to her and told her he was alive, it is quite possible she would have left her new husband for him at once, for she admits she never stopped loving him. Instead he plays a cruel game that brings down the world around her as she watches. Is this all to punish her for not waiting? How much pride is the Count guilty of, that he had to demonstrate his own power over all of aristocratic Paris, rather than reveal himself and hope Mercédès would still choose him? It’s unclear what the Count’s hope for her is, in the rubble of the destruction he brings about.
The Count takes the fate of everyone into his own hands as he exacts his revenge. Each individual is just as he was, a floating buoy in the ocean, while the Count brings the storm. In this part of the book we see him no longer as the young man, naive to the immorality of others, but as the omniscient chess player, using those same qualities to his own ends. He has transformed, from the wide-eyed boy blessed by fate, to the disillusioned prisoner accursed by the jealousy of others, to the Count who assumes God-like powers. The Count leaves no room for hope. Everything is calculated and controlled.
I wish to be Providence myself
Indeed the story takes place during the Bourbon restoration, a political context that plays as far more than a backdrop in the Count’s story. The entire country is waiting with baited breath, at a time of political uncertainty. The monarchists live in fear and paranoia. They wait, but only in desperate hope, as the Hundred Days war begins. The Bonapartists do rise up, but hopes are dashed. Most of France lives with at the risk that their allegiances could cost their lives. There is little they can do but wait and hope, while things play out.
The Count begins to regret his plotting, as the innocent boy Edward is killed by accident. It is at this point that he begins to doubt his plan. Taking others’ lives into his own hands has grave risk, and consequences beyond his intentions. He begins to question whether this path was the right one, whether it will deliver to him all that he hoped. As the dust settles on the mess he has deigned to make, his original love, Mercédès, is left with nothing.
Yet in their final interaction he is still not resigned to his “wait and hope” philosophy. Mercédès says she has “become passive in the hands of the Almighty” and married Fernand out of depressive indifference. The Count believes this a sin. He says that it is only free will that makes us human. Given that he was brought to his knees by the petty jealousy of others, it is not hard to understand why the Count places so much importance on the notion of free will. Their choices ruined his life, and they deserve to pay.
With all of this in mind then, it’s a little difficult to accept the conclusion that the Count finally reaches, that to wait and hope is the wisest choice. The circumstances of the book suggest a far murkier picture, in which free will is abused for selfish and vengeful aims, passive relent is condemned to misery, and the waiting that characterised the nation doesn’t provide much hope at all. Nobody is able to “wait and hope” with much success.
For me, the book is not about strategies for getting all that we want, or for chasing happiness or success at all. If we examine moments of happiness in the book, they usually come when the characters notice things they already had, while those pursuing “more” only grow miserable.
Villefort, the prosecutor who leaves his own wedding for work, lets ambition come before morality, imprisoning Edmund to benefit his own career. Prioritising the pursuit of success over his wife, who dies not much later, Villefort is an obvious example that chasing more, and neglecting what is already there, is not the path to happiness.
Fernand is in love with Mercédès, and is able to marry her after he plays a hand in imprisoning Edmund. Yet even after he has her, he pursues money & power in unscrupulous ways. He cannot enjoy the marriage for which he pined. He must chase more. When his mis-dealings are revealed, he kills himself. Another example of a character that cannot be satisfied with all he has.
Danglars is a similar story. He finds himself envious when Edmund gets the captaincy he coveted. He can’t bear the jealousy and designs the plot that gets Edmund imprisoned. Unlike Fernand, this is not motivated even by a noble goal, like love, but by greed & bitterness. Was his position so untenable? His new captain, Edmund, was worthy of the position and also respectful of Danglars. Many would be very happy with a boss like that. Danglars too finds status and fortune, but his lust for money has no bounds. He tries to sell his own daughter into an undesired marriage and gambles his fortune away in the hope of more. Again, he is unable to appreciate and find joy in all that he has, material and familial.
At the end of the story, Danglars refuses to pay for his own life, preferring to keep his money and starve. When, eventually, the Count lets him live, we learn what is, to me, the vital lesson of the book: to know when enough is enough. The Count stops short of complete revenge, and lets Danglars go. The Count, at least by then, can be satisfied.
Edmund is gloriously happy, with want of nothing, when we meet him on his return to Marseille at the story’s opening. Even thrown into prison, he finds fulfillment in his friendship with the Abbe. Then, freed and with a fortune, he is not satisfied without revenge. Yet in the end, when his wicked plan has run its course, he finds love in the eyes of the girl, Haydée, that has been with him throughout the ordeal.
Rather than hoping, or waiting, or plotting, the clearest strategy for the realisation of happiness that the book presents is not to look ahead at all, but to take stock of all that we have. Each character has everything that they need to be happy, and yet set out to gain more, usually at the expense of others. Rarely do these pursuits provide happiness. Like Morrel’s daughter marrying Emmanuel, having known one another for years, happiness and even love is right there for those that can take their eyes off of the future and embrace all that they already have.
As we’ve seen, none of the strategies for getting what they want work particularly well for any of the characters in The Count of Monte Cristo. Just like the winds and tides of the Mediterranean sea, there are too many forces at play. Rather than “wait and hope”, playing God, or anything in between, the Count should extoll the advice that offered him his final happiness: gratitude and love.