Alexandre DumasDrawn in three inksA free page from ARLing Classics
The Count of
Monte Cristodrawn in code
A young sailor is betrayed on the day of his wedding, spends fourteen years in a fortress on a rock, and comes back rich enough to repay every kindness and every wrong. Here is his story in 37 scenes, each printed like a risograph poster and each with the words from the book it was drawn from.
Every picture on this page is made by code in your browser as you scroll: shapes laid down in three inks, screened into dots and printed slightly out of register, the way a risograph drum prints on paper. No photograph, no image file, no picture generator.
- Sunflower yellow
- Bright red
- Medium blue
Marseilles, 1815
February 1815. A young sailor comes home to be made captain and to marry, and three men decide otherwise.
Chapter 1, volume oneMarseilles, The Arrival
“On the 24th of February, 1815, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.”
Drawn from the text: the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean “covered with spectators”, the ship coming in “under topsails, jib, and spanker”, and her owner’s skiff pulling alongside, while the young mate stands hat in hand at the rail.
Chapter 3, volume oneThe Catalans
“A young and beautiful girl, with hair as black as jet, her eyes as velvety as the gazelle’s, was leaning with her back against the wainscot, rubbing in her slender delicately moulded fingers a bunch of heath blossoms…”
The book gives the bare brown arms, the red cotton stockings with grey and blue clocks, the chair balanced on two legs and the worm-eaten table. It does not say what colour her dress was or how Fernand was dressed; those we chose.
Chapter 4, volume oneConspiracy
“…it would be much better to take, as I now do, this pen, dip it into this ink, and write with the left hand (that the writing may not be recognized) the denunciation we propose.”
Danglars, the ship’s supercargo, writes the letter with his left hand. Fernand reads it in an undertone; Caderousse, drunk, hardly follows.
The Château d’If
Fourteen years in a fortress on a rock off Marseilles, and the old prisoner in the next cell who teaches him everything he knows.
Chapter 8, volume oneThe Château d’If
“Dantès rose and looked forward, when he saw rise within a hundred yards of him the black and frowning rock on which stands the Château d’If.”
Edmond still wears the clothes of his betrothal feast. The book gives the rock, the fortress, the gendarmes and the dark; the lantern is ours, so that you can see the boat.
Chapter 15, volume oneNumber 34 and Number 27
“…he saw appear, first the head, then the shoulders, and lastly the body of a man, who sprang lightly into his cell.”
The abbé Faria as the book describes him: small, his hair whitened by suffering, piercing eyes under thick grey brows, and a beard still black reaching down to his breast.
Chapter 17, volume oneThe Abbé’s Chamber
“I have torn up two of my shirts, and as many handkerchiefs as I was master of, to complete the precious pages.”
Faria wrote on slips of cloth “about four inches wide and eighteen long”, with pens made from fish cartilage, by a lamp of melted fat, and wrote finis at the end of the sixty-eighth strip.
Chapter 20, volume oneThe Cemetery of the Château d’If
“The sea is the cemetery of the Château d’If.”
Edmond has taken the dead abbé’s place in the burial sack, and the two grave-diggers throw it from the top of the rock. We show only what the sea shows afterwards.
The sea, the island, the debt
Out of the sea, on to a smugglers’ ship, into the cave of a cardinal’s treasure, and back to Marseilles to repay a kindness.
Chapter 21, volume oneThe Island of Tiboulen
“…he saw off the farther point of the Island of Pomègue a small vessel with lateen sail skimming the sea like a gull in search of prey…”
The red cap is a sailor’s, from the wreck of a fishing boat on the rocks. With it on his head Edmond swims out to the Genoese tartan of the smugglers, La Jeune Amélie.
Chapter 24, volume oneThe Secret Cave
“Three compartments divided the coffer. In the first, blazed piles of golden coin; in the second, were ranged bars of unpolished gold, which possessed nothing attractive save their value; in the third, Edmond grasped handfuls of diamonds, pearls, and rubies, which, as they fell on one another, sounded like hail against glass.”
Cardinal Spada’s treasure, hidden on the island of Monte Cristo in 1498 and found by the directions the abbé Faria gave Edmond in prison.
Chapter 30, volume twoThe Fifth of September
“And, wonderful to see, in front of the tower of Saint-Jean, was a ship bearing on her stern these words, printed in white letters…”
Morrel and his son Maximilian embrace on the pier-head. The man “with his face half-covered by a black beard”, hidden behind the sentry-box, is Edmond; a moment later he calls his yacht and sails away.
Rome and the carnival
Nine years later, two young Parisians in Rome meet a count who seems to know every bandit and every secret of the city.
Chapter 34, volume twoThe Colosseum
“…the dark frowning ruins of the stupendous Colosseum, through the various openings of which the pale moonlight played and flickered…”
Franz d’Épinay, hidden, watches a man in “a large brown mantle, one fold of which, thrown over his left shoulder, served likewise to mask the lower part of his countenance”. Only his boots of polished leather catch the moon.
Chapter 36, volume twoThe Carnival at Rome
“Suppose that all the stars had descended from the sky and mingled in a wild dance on the face of the earth…”
The moccoletti, candles “from the pascal taper to the rushlight”, which everyone tries to keep alight while putting out everyone else’s. When the bell rings for the end of the carnival, they all go out at once.
Paris and Auteuil
1838. The count takes a house in Paris and another at Auteuil, and one by one the people who sent Edmond Dantès to the Château d’If come to his table.
Chapter 51, volume threePyramus and Thisbe
“But the eye of love had already seen, even through the narrow chinks of the wooden palisades, the movement of the white robe, and observed the fluttering of the blue sash.”
The book gives the chestnut trees, the stone vases of geraniums on two square pilasters, the gate of Louis XIII’s time “boarded up to a height of six feet”, the bench with “a book, a parasol, and a work-basket”, and Maximilian dressed as a gardener, in “a common gray blouse and velvet cap”. The colour of the cap and of the evening sky are ours.
Chapter 53, volume threeRobert le Diable
“In a few moments the young girl had attracted the attention of the whole house, and even the occupants of the boxes leaned forward to scrutinize her magnificent diamonds.”
The count, “dressed in deep black”, and Haydée in the box that had been the Russian ambassador’s, while the whole audience in the pit stands up to look. Her white cashmere burnous “embroidered with pearls and coral” is the one she wraps herself in when she leaves. The number of tiers is ours.
Chapter 58, volume threeM. Noirtier de Villefort
“…the look by which he gave expression to his inner life was like the distant gleam of a candle which a traveller sees by night across some desert place, and knows that a living being dwells beyond the silence and obscurity.”
Noirtier sat “before a large glass, which reflected the whole apartment”, so that he could see everyone who came in; we drew the room from where the glass hangs. His long white hair and his eyes “shaded by thick black lashes” are from the book, as are his son and his son’s wife coming in at the door. The rug and the colours of the dresses are ours.
Chapter 61, volume threeHow a Gardener May Get Rid of the Dormice that Eat His Peaches
“No one would have thought in looking at this old, weather-beaten, floral-decked tower (which might be likened to an elderly dame dressed up to receive her grandchildren at a birthday feast) that it would have been capable of telling strange things…”
Nearly all of it is in the text: the ivy and wall-flowers, the path of red gravel “in the shape of the figure of 8” edged with box, twenty rose-trees, the tank with “a frog and a toad”, the wheelbarrow, the strawberries laid on grape leaves and the telegraph’s “great bony arms”. The gardener’s clothes are ours. For a house and two acres of land, this man will soon pass a false signal to Paris.
Chapter 63, volume threeThe Dinner
“Every delicious fruit that the four quarters of the globe could provide was heaped in vases from China and jars from Japan.”
At Auteuil the count serves a sterlet from the Volga and a lamprey from Lake Fusaro, then has two more carried in alive, each in a cask of river or lake plants, to prove it can be done. The feast is only the show; the business of the evening is a room hung with red damask upstairs, and the faces of Villefort and Madame Danglars when they see it.
Chapter 69, volume threeThe Inquiry
“At this moment the abbé pressed down his side of the shade and so raised it on the other, throwing a bright light on the stranger’s face, while his own remained obscured.”
The visitor says he comes from the prefect of police; he is Villefort, in disguise, trying to learn who the Count of Monte Cristo really is. The abbé is the count himself, “in a monk’s dress, with a cowl on his head such as was used by learned men of the Middle Ages”, in a library of theological books and parchments.
Chapter 71, volume threeBread and Salt
“A long silence followed; the peach, like the grapes, fell to the ground.”
During the ball at her house, Mercédès leads the count through a grove of lindens to the hothouse. “A beautiful Arabian custom” makes eternal friends of those who eat bread and salt under the same roof, and the count, who means to ruin her husband, will take nothing in this house. Her light dress and gauze scarf are in the book; their colours are ours.
Janina and the challenge
A girl’s memory of a lake in Greece brings down a peer of France, his son calls out the count, and in the night Mercédès comes to the count’s house.
Chapter 77, volume fourHaydée
“The heights of Pindus towered above us; the castle of Yanina rose white and angular from the blue waters of the lake, and the immense masses of black vegetation which, viewed in the distance, gave the idea of lichens clinging to the rocks, were in reality gigantic fir-trees and myrtles.”
Haydée tells Albert her childhood. Her father, Ali Tepelini, pasha of Janina, and her mother Vasiliki waited in this kiosk for a pardon from the Sultan, watching “every black speck which appeared on the lake”. What came in those boats she tells in words; we do not draw it. The colours of the kiosk are ours.
Chapter 85, volume fourThe Journey
“In a creek lay a little sloop, with a narrow keel and high masts, bearing on its flag the Monte Cristo arms which were a mountain or, on a sea azure, with a cross gules in chief…”
To take Albert’s mind off the newspapers, the count drives him to the sea in eight hours, with thirty-two horses at seven stages. In the morning Albert sees from his window the count’s boat and the fishing boats round it, “like humble subjects awaiting orders from their queen”. The arms are drawn as the book gives them; the colour of the cliffs is ours.
Chapter 86, volume fourThe Trial
“The president requested her to throw aside her veil, and it was then seen that she was dressed in the Grecian costume, and was remarkably beautiful.”
Then she tells them: “I am Haydée, the daughter of Ali Tepelini, pasha of Yanina, and of Vasiliki, his beloved wife.” The president set a chair for her and she would not sit; Morcerf “had fallen on his chair”. Beauchamp saw it all from a box, “concealed by a column”. The colour of the uniform is ours; the book says only that it was buttoned up to the chin.
Chapter 89, volume fourThe Night
“…he took a paper which had lost its original color, and the ink of which had become of a rusty hue…”
Mercédès has come veiled, at night, to ask for her son’s life, and has called the count by his real name, Edmond. He answers by taking from a drawer that opens by a spring the letter Danglars wrote under the arbour of La Réserve (the third scene on this page), which he took from the prison file years later. He was trying his pistols when she came in; we leave them out.
Chapter 90, volume fourThe Meeting
“Monte Cristo, with moistened eye, heaving breast, and lips half open, extended to Albert a hand which the latter pressed with a sentiment resembling respectful fear.”
Albert rode to the meeting to fight. Having learned in the night what the fisherman Fernand once did to Edmond Dantès, he apologised instead, before his friends and the count’s seconds, Maximilian and Emmanuel. No shot is fired. The book gives the carriage under the trees and Albert “with a collar above his cravat, an open coat and white waistcoat”; the colours are ours.
The reckoning
Paris settles its accounts: a bride leaves dressed as a young man, a false prince hides on a roof, a sick girl is watched over at night, a funeral, and a trial in which a son names his father.
Chapter 97, volume fiveThe Departure for Belgium
“…she took in her right hand a pair of long scissors, and soon the steel met through the rich and splendid hair, which fell in a cluster at her feet as she leaned back to keep it from her coat.”
On the night her marriage contract ends in scandal, Eugénie Danglars takes a man’s costume from a drawer, “from the boots to the coat”, buttons the waistcoat up to her throat and leaves Paris with her friend Louise d’Armilly, who wears the “wadded violet silk travelling cloak” Eugénie gave her. The portmanteau is from the book; the colours of the coat, the waistcoat and the room are ours.
Chapter 98, volume fiveThe Bell and Bottle Tavern
“…he had climbed out on the roof and was crouching down against the chimney-pots.”
Andrea, unmasked at the contract as the escaped convict Benedetto, rides to Compiègne and is traced there by telegraph. The gendarmes light a fire in his chimney; the smoke rises “like the dull vapor from a volcano”. The Hôtel de Ville, “a massive sixteenth century building”, is on his right, and a gendarme’s head appears at one of its little windows. The tiles, the colour of his coat and the belfry’s shape are ours.
Chapter 100, volume fiveThe Apparition
“…took the glass, and walking towards the night-light held it up, as if to test its transparency.”
Valentine, ill with fever, sees the door of her library, “in the recess by the chimney-piece”, open without a sound. The figure who comes out seems “more protecting than menacing”: it is the count, who has watched over her for four nights and changes what is poured into her glass. The book places the night-lamp on the chimney-piece; the colours of the room are ours.
Chapter 105, volume fiveThe Cemetery of Père-Lachaise
“Black figures are seen scattered over the long white avenues; the silence of earth and heaven is alone broken by the noise made by the crackling branches of hedges planted around the monuments…”
“The weather was dull and stormy, a cold wind shook the few remaining yellow leaves.” The vault bears the words “The families of Saint-Méran and Villefort”. Maximilian passes behind the tomb of Abélard and Héloïse and leans against a tree above the vault, “convulsively crushing his hat”; the count watches no one else. What Maximilian does not know, and the count does, is told in chapter 117. The monuments other than these two are ours.
Chapter 110, volume fiveThe Indictment
“His hands, gracefully placed, one upon his hat, the other in the opening of his white waistcoat, were not at all tremulous; his eye was calm and even brilliant.”
It was “one of the softest and most brilliant days of September”, and all Paris came. Asked his name, the accused says he cannot give his own, but he can give his father’s: the king’s attorney, Villefort, who sinks in his chair. The judges’ robes and the colour of Andrea’s coat are ours; his light hair and reddish beard are from chapter 56.
Wait and hope
The count leaves Paris, goes back to Marseilles and to his own cell in the Château d’If, forgives the last of the three men, and on the island where his fortune began leaves two words behind him.
Chapter 112, volume fiveThe Departure
“It was a lovely starlight night… they had just reached the top of the hill Villejuif, from whence Paris appears like a sombre sea tossing its millions of phosphoric waves into light…”
The count stops the carriage, sends it on a short distance and stands alone “with folded arms”. His farewell is almost a prayer: “God only knows that I retire from thee without pride or hatred, but not without many regrets.” Ali, the Nubian, is by the carriage. Which domes rise over the city is our choice; the book names none.
Chapter 112, volume fiveThe Departure
“At the end of a passage paved with bricks, was a little garden, bathed in sunshine, and rich in warmth and light.”
This is the small house in the Allées de Meilhan where old Dantès lived, now Mercédès’s. She has just watched Albert sail for Algiers as a soldier. The count finds her “under an arbor of Virginia jessamine, with its thick foliage and beautiful long purple flowers”, her veil raised, her face in her hands. The colour of her dress is ours.
Chapter 113, volume fiveThe Past
“The sun, red and flaming, was sinking into the embrace of the welcoming ocean.”
The same crossing as the fourth scene on this page, from the same quay, in daylight: “a pleasure-boat with striped awning”, a sea “smooth as crystal”, fishermen’s boats “white and graceful as the sea-gull”, and the count “wrapped in his cloak”, thinking only of the first voyage. The colours of the awning are ours.
Chapter 113, volume fiveThe Past
“He again beheld the dull light vainly endeavoring to penetrate the narrow opening.”
There have been no prisoners at If since 1830; a concierge shows visitors round. Where the bed stood, “the new stones indicated where the breach made by the Abbé Faria had been”. The count sits on a log of wood and hears his own story told back to him as a legend, “pressing his hand to his heart”. The concierge’s clothes are ours.
Chapter 115, volume fiveLuigi Vampa’s Bill of Fare
“…a handsome, graceful, and half-naked young man appeared, bearing a fowl in a silver dish on his head, without the assistance of his hands.”
Danglars has fled to Rome with the hospitals’ five millions and is taken by Vampa’s men to the catacombs. Peppino mounts guard with “an earthen pan, containing chick-peas stewed with bacon”, a basket of grapes and a flask of Orvieto. The fowl costs a hundred thousand francs, and Danglars pays with a draft. His blue coat, white waistcoat and red ribbon are from chapters 46 and 114; Peppino’s clothes are ours.
Chapter 116, volume fiveThe Pardon
“As he stooped down to drink, he saw that his hair had become entirely white.”
When Danglars says he repents, a man in a cloak steps out from the shadow of a column: “I am Edmond Dantès”, and forgives him. Vampa sets him on the road, points to the post-chaise and leaves him leaning against a tree, where he stays all night. The hunger before the pardon is not drawn. The aqueduct is ours; the book gives only the road, the tree and the stream.
Chapter 117, volume fiveThe Fifth of October
“…all human wisdom is summed up in these two words… ‘Wait and hope.’”
On the island of Monte Cristo, Maximilian has found Valentine alive. At daybreak they walk out of the grotto, “a few remaining stars” still in the sky, and Jacopo, the captain of the yacht, gives them the count’s letter. The words on the sheet are the letter’s own last lines; the line breaks are ours, and so is the red of the two words.
Chapter 117, volume fiveThe Fifth of October
“…on the blue line separating the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, they perceived a large white sail.”
“Where is the count?” Jacopo points to the horizon. The count and Haydée are gone. Valentine answers Maximilian with the letter: all human wisdom is in two words. What the count wore on the island and the colour of Valentine’s dress the book does not say; ours are quiet on purpose.
Wait and hope.
The last words of the novel, in the count’s letter and then on Valentine’s lips: Fac et spera.
All 117 chapters
The whole novel in one line per chapter, in our own words, with a link wherever a chapter has a scene above. The bars show how long each chapter is in the source text, coloured by where it takes place: watch the story leave Marseilles, live in Paris for most of the book, and come back to the sea at the end.
- Marseilles and Provence
- The Château d’If
- The sea and the island
- Rome
- Paris
- Auteuil
- Janina
- drawn on this page
Volume onechapters 1 to 27
- 1Marseilles, The Arrival The Pharaon sails into Marseilles with young Edmond Dantès in command after her captain died at sea, and the owner Morrel promises him the captaincy. See the scene
- 2Father and Son Edmond hurries home to his old father, who has gone short of food after paying a debt to the neighbour, Caderousse.
- 3The Catalans In the fishing village of the Catalans, Mercédès tells her cousin Fernand that she loves Edmond, and Edmond walks in on them. See the scene
- 4Conspiracy Under the arbour of La Réserve, Danglars writes an anonymous denunciation with his left hand while Fernand watches and Caderousse drinks. See the scene
- 5The Marriage Feast Edmond’s betrothal feast is cut short when a commissary comes in and arrests him.
- 6The Deputy Procureur du Roi At his own betrothal party, the royalist deputy prosecutor Villefort is called away to examine the arrested sailor.
- 7The Examination Villefort sees that the letter Edmond carried is addressed to his own father, Noirtier, burns it, and keeps the young man locked up to protect himself.
- 8The Château d’If Edmond is rowed out at night to the fortress on its rock and shut in a cell without a trial. See the scene
- 9The Evening of the Betrothal Villefort leaves for Paris, while Mercédès and old Dantès wait for news that does not come.
- 10The King’s Closet at the Tuileries Villefort warns Louis XVIII that Napoleon is about to leave Elba.
- 11The Corsican Ogre News comes that Napoleon has landed in France, and Villefort’s warning wins him the king’s favour.
- 12Father and Son Noirtier, a Bonapartist, visits his royalist son in Paris, and each protects the other.
- 13The Hundred Days Morrel pleads for Edmond while Napoleon is back, Villefort turns the plea against him, and old Dantès dies alone.
- 14The Two Prisoners An inspector visits the Château d’If and hears both Edmond and the “mad” Abbé Faria, who offers millions for his freedom.
- 15Number 34 and Number 27 Close to despair, Edmond hears scraping in the wall, and the abbé tunnels up into his cell. See the scene
- 16A Learned Italian Faria explains his escape plans and begins to teach Edmond.
- 17The Abbé’s Chamber Faria shows his book written on linen, his pens, lamp and tools made from almost nothing, and works out who betrayed Edmond. See the scene
- 18The Treasure Faria tells Edmond the secret of Cardinal Spada’s treasure, hidden on the island of Monte Cristo.
- 19The Third Attack A last seizure takes the abbé, who leaves Edmond his secret.
- 20The Cemetery of the Château d’If Edmond takes the abbé’s place in the burial sack and is thrown into the sea. See the scene
- 21The Island of Tiboulen He frees himself, swims through the storm to the rock of Tiboulen and is taken aboard a smugglers’ tartan. See the scene
- 22The Smugglers Calling himself a Maltese sailor, Edmond joins the crew of La Jeune Amélie and learns he has been a prisoner for fourteen years.
- 23The Island of Monte Cristo He pretends to be hurt so that the smugglers leave him alone on Monte Cristo.
- 24The Secret Cave Following Spada’s clues, he opens the cave and finds the coffer of gold and jewels. See the scene
- 25The Unknown Now rich, Edmond sells stones, buys a yacht and learns that his father is dead and Mercédès gone.
- 26The Pont du Gard Inn Dressed as an abbé, he visits Caderousse, now a poor innkeeper, with a diamond to give away.
- 27The Story Caderousse tells the whole story of the betrayal and what became of everyone in it.
Volume twochapters 28 to 47
- 28The Prison Register As an Englishman from Thomson & French, he buys up Morrel’s debts and reads the prison records of Edmond and Faria.
- 29The House of Morrel & Son The firm is close to ruin, and the Englishman gives Morrel three more months.
- 30The Fifth of September On the last day, a stranger’s red silk purse pays the debt, and a new Pharaon sails into the harbour. See the scene
- 31Italy: Sinbad the Sailor Years later, Franz d’Épinay lands on Monte Cristo and dines in a hidden palace with a host who calls himself Sinbad.
- 32The Waking Franz wakes on the shore, and his host has sailed away.
- 33Roman Bandits In Rome, the innkeeper Pastrini tells Franz and Albert de Morcerf the story of the bandit Luigi Vampa.
- 34The Colosseum In the Colosseum by moonlight, Franz overhears a cloaked stranger arrange to save a condemned man. See the scene
- 35La Mazzolata The Count of Monte Cristo gives the young men a window on the Piazza del Popolo, where the bandit Peppino is pardoned at the last moment.
- 36The Carnival at Rome The carnival fills the Corso with confetti and flowers and ends in the battle of the little candles, the moccoletti. See the scene
- 37The Catacombs of Saint Sebastian Albert is taken by Vampa’s men, and the count frees him from the catacombs with a word.
- 38The Rendezvous Albert invites the count to Paris, and they set a day three months ahead.
- 39The Guests In his pavilion in Paris, Albert gathers his friends to wait for the count.
- 40The Breakfast The count arrives to the minute, and Albert introduces him to Maximilian Morrel and the others.
- 41The Presentation Albert presents the count to his parents, and the Countess de Morcerf, once Mercédès, turns pale.
- 42Monsieur Bertuccio The count tells his steward Bertuccio about the house he has bought at Auteuil, and Bertuccio is afraid.
- 43The House at Auteuil At the house, the steward recognises the garden and cannot go on.
- 44The Vendetta Bertuccio tells how he followed Villefort for revenge and what he found buried in the Auteuil garden one night.
- 45The Rain of Blood He tells how a jeweller who came for the diamond was killed at Caderousse’s inn, and how Caderousse went to the galleys.
- 46Unlimited Credit The count asks the banker, Baron Danglars, for unlimited credit and gets it.
- 47The Dappled Grays Madame Danglars’s horses bolt with Madame de Villefort and her son, and the count’s servant Ali stops them with a lasso.
Volume threechapters 48 to 73
- 48Ideology Villefort calls on the count, and they argue about justice, pride and Providence.
- 49Haydée The count visits Haydée, the young Greek woman in his care, and they speak in her language.
- 50The Morrel Family The count visits Julie, Emmanuel and Maximilian, who keep the red silk purse under glass and still do not know who saved them.
- 51Pyramus and Thisbe Maximilian and Valentine de Villefort meet in secret, talking through the gate of her garden. See the scene
- 52Toxicology Madame de Villefort draws the count into a long talk about poisons and their remedies.
- 53Robert le Diable At the Opera, all Paris turns its glasses on the count and the Greek woman in his box. See the scene
- 54A Flurry in Stocks Albert admits he does not want to marry Eugénie Danglars, and the talk turns to her father’s losses on the exchange.
- 55Major Cavalcanti An Italian who calls himself Major Cavalcanti arrives and is taught the part of a rich father.
- 56Andrea Cavalcanti The major meets the young man he is to call his son, Andrea.
- 57In the Lucern Patch In the field by the Villefort garden, Maximilian waits at the gate, and Valentine tells him about Eugénie and her own engagement to Franz.
- 58M. Noirtier de Villefort Old Noirtier cannot move or speak, but he talks with his eyes, and Valentine understands him. See the scene
- 59The Will Noirtier makes a new will before notaries to stop Valentine’s marriage to Franz.
- 60The Telegraph The count calls on the Villeforts, hears about the will and speaks of his wish to see a telegraph.
- 61How a Gardener May Get Rid of the Dormice that Eat His Peaches The count pays the telegraph man at Montlhéry to send a false message, and Danglars loses a fortune on it. See the scene
- 62Ghosts As the guests arrive for dinner at Auteuil, Bertuccio recognises faces from that night in the garden.
- 63The Dinner At Auteuil, the count shows his guests the room and the garden where a secret was once buried, and watches Villefort and Madame Danglars. See the scene
- 64The Beggar On the way home, Andrea is stopped by a beggar who knows him from the galleys: Caderousse.
- 65A Conjugal Scene Danglars quarrels with his wife over the money her speculations have lost.
- 66Matrimonial Projects Danglars asks the count about the Cavalcanti fortune, and the count suggests he write to Janina about Morcerf.
- 67The Office of the King’s Attorney Madame Danglars visits Villefort in secret, and they fear what the count knows about the Auteuil garden.
- 68A Summer Ball Albert brings the count an invitation to his mother’s ball.
- 69The Inquiry Villefort, in disguise, asks the Abbé Busoni and Lord Wilmore who the count is, not knowing both are the count. See the scene
- 70The Ball On a hot night at the Morcerf ball, Mercédès notices that the count takes nothing in her house.
- 71Bread and Salt In the hothouse she offers him fruit, and he will not take it. See the scene
- 72Madame de Saint-Méran Valentine’s grandmother arrives with the news that her husband has died on the road, and falls ill herself.
- 73The Promise Valentine promises to leave with Maximilian, then cannot, and old Noirtier takes the lovers’ side.
Volume fourchapters 74 to 95
- 74The Villefort Family Vault After the funeral at Père-Lachaise, Valentine’s marriage contract is to be signed.
- 75A Signed Statement Noirtier has Franz read an old statement: Franz’s father died in a duel with Noirtier, and the marriage is broken off.
- 76Progress of Cavalcanti the Younger Andrea charms the Danglars house and sets his heart on Eugénie’s fortune.
- 77Haydée Haydée tells Albert how her father, Ali Pasha of Janina, was betrayed by a French officer. See the scene
- 78We Hear From Yanina A newspaper says a Frenchman named Fernand betrayed Ali Pasha, and Albert demands that Beauchamp’s paper take it back.
- 79The Lemonade Noirtier’s old servant Barrois drinks from the carafe meant for his master, and the doctor suspects poison.
- 80The Accusation Doctor d’Avrigny tells Villefort that someone in his house is using poison.
- 81The Room of the Retired Baker Andrea secures the marriage and a loan from Danglars, while Caderousse, living as a retired baker, squeezes him for money.
- 82The Burglary Caderousse breaks into the count’s house at Auteuil, where the count, dressed as Busoni, is waiting for him.
- 83The Hand of God Struck down by Andrea as he leaves, Caderousse learns who the count is before he dies.
- 84Beauchamp Beauchamp returns from Janina with proof that the story is true, and burns it for Albert’s sake.
- 85The Journey The count takes Albert to the Normandy coast behind thirty-two horses in relays. See the scene
- 86The Trial The story appears in another paper, and before the Chamber of Peers, Haydée gives her evidence against Morcerf. See the scene
- 87The Challenge Albert learns the count is behind the story and resolves to challenge him.
- 88The Insult At the Opera, Albert insults the count in public, and a duel is set for the morning.
- 89The Night Mercédès comes to the count at night, calls him Edmond and begs for her son’s life. See the scene
- 90The Meeting At the duelling ground Albert apologises in front of everyone, because his mother has told him the truth. See the scene
- 91Mother and Son Albert and Mercédès give up the name, the house and the money of Morcerf.
- 92The Suicide The count shows Fernand who he really is, and Fernand, seeing his wife and son leave, takes his own life.
- 93Valentine Valentine falls ill in her grandfather’s room, and Maximilian fears for her.
- 94Maximilian’s Avowal Maximilian tells the count he loves Valentine, and the count promises to save her.
- 95Father and Daughter Danglars tells Eugénie the marriage must go ahead to save his credit, and she agrees on her own terms.
Volume fivechapters 96 to 117
- 96The Contract At the signing of the marriage contract, the police come for Andrea, the escaped convict Benedetto.
- 97The Departure for Belgium Eugénie cuts her hair, dresses as a young man and leaves Paris with her friend Louise d’Armilly. See the scene
- 98The Bell and Bottle Tavern Andrea flees north and is caught at an inn in Compiègne. See the scene
- 99The Law Madame Danglars asks Villefort for help, and he is left alone with his suspicion.
- 100The Apparition At night Valentine sees a figure beside her bed change the glass of her drink: the count, watching over her. See the scene
- 101Locusta The count tells Valentine who is poisoning her and gives her a pill that will make her seem dead.
- 102Valentine In the morning Valentine is found without life, and the house goes into mourning.
- 103Maximilian Maximilian bursts into the house of mourning, and the count learns that Valentine was the woman he loved.
- 104Danglars’ Signature Danglars pays the count five million francs, money that belonged to the hospitals, and gets ready to run.
- 105The Cemetery of Père-Lachaise At Valentine’s funeral, the count stops Maximilian from despair and tells him who he is. See the scene
- 106Dividing the Proceeds Danglars has fled; his wife and Debray divide their gains, and Mercédès and Albert leave with nothing.
- 107The Lions’ Den In La Force prison, Andrea learns that he has a powerful protector.
- 108The Judge Villefort, preparing the case against Benedetto, understands who the poisoner in his house is.
- 109The Assizes All Paris crowds into the court for the trial of Benedetto.
- 110The Indictment In court, Benedetto names his father: the king’s attorney, Villefort. See the scene
- 111Expiation Villefort hurries home and is too late; the count tells him he is Edmond Dantès, and Villefort loses his reason.
- 112The Departure The count leaves Paris with Maximilian for Marseilles. See the scene
- 113The Past In Marseilles he finds Mercédès alone, sees Albert leave as a soldier, and visits his old cell in the Château d’If. See the scene
- 114Peppino Danglars flees to Italy with the hospitals’ money and is taken by Vampa’s men.
- 115Luigi Vampa’s Bill of Fare Shut in a cell, Danglars pays a fortune for every meal. See the scene
- 116The Pardon The count shows himself to Danglars and forgives him. See the scene
- 117The Fifth of October On the island of Monte Cristo, the count brings Maximilian and Valentine together and sails away, leaving them two words: wait and hope. See the scene
Read the whole book
Every scene here is a few lines out of a very long novel. If they make you want the rest, we have set the full text for e-ink tablets: The Count of Monte Cristo for e-ink, all five volumes with room for your own notes on every page.
The words themselves are free: the translation is in the public domain and you can read it at Project Gutenberg. What we sell is the typesetting for a tablet. The first three chapters are a free sample, so you can see the pages on your own device first.
- 5 volumes, 117 chapters, 2287 pages
- A notes band at the foot of every page
- e-ink, A4 and US Letter PDF in one purchase
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How this page is made
Each scene is a short program. It lays down shapes in three separate inks, sunflower yellow, bright red and medium blue, as if cutting three stencils. The page then turns each ink into dots at its own angle, gives the ink an uneven texture with a few pinholes where the drum missed, and prints the three over each other on paper, slightly out of register, the way a risograph does. There is no image file, no photograph and no picture generator behind any of them.
The code was written by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, for ARLing, and every scene was checked against the text and on screenshots before it went up.
The quotations are word for word from the English translation of 1846 as published by Project Gutenberg (eBook #1184), which is in the public domain. Places, clothes, disguises and light follow what the book says. Where the book is silent, for instance on the colour of a dress, we chose, and the caption says so.
The book has hard moments: prison, poison and death. We show them only by a sign, a lantern on a rampart or a ring on the water, never the thing itself.
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