Chapter 120: Bertuccio’s Vendetta: III
Bertuccio bowed and continued his story.
"Partly to drown the memories of the past that haunted me, and partly to support the poor widow, I eagerly returned to my smuggling trade. It had become easier since laws always relax after a revolution. The southern regions were particularly poorly monitored because of the constant disturbances in various cities. We took advantage of this government neglect to make connections everywhere.
Since my brother’s murder in Nîmes, I’d never entered that city again. As a result, the innkeeper we’d worked with, seeing we’d no longer come to him, was forced to come to us. He established a branch of his inn on the road between two towns, at a place called the Pont du Gard. We now had about a dozen locations where we left our goods and where we could hide from police and customs officers if necessary.
Smuggling is profitable when conducted with vigor and intelligence. As for me, raised in the mountains, I had double motivation to avoid police and customs officers. Any appearance before judges would cause an investigation, and investigations always look into the past. In my past, they might find something far more serious than selling smuggled cigars or barrels of brandy without permits. So, preferring death to capture, I accomplished amazing feats that proved to me more than once that excessive concern for our bodies is the only obstacle to projects requiring rapid decisions and vigorous, determined execution.
In reality, once you’ve devoted your life to your enterprises, you’re no longer equal to other men, or rather, other men are no longer your equals. Whoever makes this resolution finds their strength and resources doubled."
"Philosophy, Bertuccio," the Count interrupted. "You’ve done a little of everything in your life."
"Oh, excellency!"
"No, no, but philosophy at half-past ten at night is rather late. Still, I have no other criticism, because what you say is correct, which is more than can be said for most philosophy."
"My journeys became increasingly extensive and profitable. Assunta managed everything, and our small fortune grew. One day as I was setting off on an expedition, she said, ’Go, and when you return, I’ll give you a surprise.’ I questioned her, but she would tell me nothing, and I left.
Our expedition lasted nearly six weeks. We’d gone to one city for oil, to another for English cotton, and we delivered our cargo without trouble, returning home full of joy. When I entered the house, the first thing I saw in the middle of Assunta’s room was a cradle, luxurious compared to our other furniture, and in it, a baby seven or eight months old.
I cried out with joy. The only moments of sadness I’d known since killing the prosecutor were caused by remembering I’d abandoned this child. As for the murder itself, I’d never felt any remorse. Poor Assunta had guessed everything. She’d taken advantage of my absence and, armed with the half of the linen and having written down the day and time I’d left the child at the asylum, had traveled to Paris and reclaimed him. No objections were raised, and the infant was given to her.
Ah, I confess, your excellency, when I saw this poor creature sleeping peacefully in his cradle, my eyes filled with tears. ’Ah, Assunta,’ I cried, ’you’re an excellent woman, and heaven will bless you.’"
"This," Monte Cristo said, "is less logical than your philosophy, it’s only faith."
"Alas, your excellency is right," Bertuccio replied, "and God made this infant the instrument of our punishment. Never did a wicked nature reveal itself earlier, and yet it wasn’t due to any fault in his upbringing. He was a lovely child with large blue eyes, that deep color that harmonizes so well with fair skin. Only his hair, which was too light, gave his face a strange expression and added to the sharpness of his look and the malice of his smile.
Unfortunately, there’s a proverb that says, ’Red hair is either altogether good or altogether bad.’ The proverb proved too correct regarding Benedetto. Even in infancy, he showed the worst disposition. It’s true that his foster-mother’s indulgence encouraged him.
This child, for whom my poor sister would travel five or six leagues to town to buy the finest fruits and the most tempting sweets, preferred stolen chestnuts from a neighbor’s orchard or dried apples from someone’s loft over the grapes and preserves she bought for him, even though he could eat just as well from the nuts and apples that grew in my own garden.
One day, when Benedetto was about five or six, our neighbor Wasilio, who, following local custom, never locked up his purse or valuables since there were no thieves in Corsica. Complained that he’d lost a gold coin from his purse. We thought he must have miscounted his money, but he insisted his accounting was accurate.
One day, Benedetto, who’d been gone from the house since morning, causing us great anxiety, didn’t return until late evening, dragging a monkey behind him. He claimed he’d found it chained to the foot of a tree. For more than a month, the mischievous child had been obsessed with getting a monkey. A boatman who’d passed through our village with several of these animals, whose tricks had greatly entertained Benedetto, had probably given him the idea.
’Monkeys aren’t found in our woods chained to trees,’ I said. ’Confess how you got this animal.’
Benedetto insisted his story was true, adding details that showed more imagination than honesty. I became angry. He began to laugh. I threatened to strike him, and he took two steps backward.
’You can’t beat me,’ he said. ’You have no right, you’re not my father.’
We never discovered who’d revealed this fatal secret we’d so carefully hidden from him. But it was this answer, which revealed the child’s entire character, that almost terrified me. My arm fell without touching him. The boy had won, and this victory made him so bold that all of Assunta’s money, and her affection for him seemed to grow as he became less deserving of it, was spent on whims she didn’t know how to refuse and follies she lacked the courage to prevent.
When I was home in Rogliano, everything went smoothly. But the moment my back was turned, Benedetto became the master, and everything went wrong. When he was only eleven, he chose his companions from among young men of eighteen or twenty, the worst characters in Bastia, or indeed in all of Corsica. They’d already been threatened several times with prosecution for mischievous pranks. I became alarmed, since any prosecution might have serious consequences.
During this period, I was forced to leave Corsica on an important expedition. I thought for a long time, and hoping to prevent some approaching disaster, I decided that Benedetto should come with me. I hoped that the active, hard-working life of a smuggler, with the strict discipline aboard ship, would have a beneficial effect on his character, which was now almost completely corrupt.
I spoke to Benedetto alone and proposed that he accompany me, trying to tempt him with all the promises most likely to dazzle a twelve-year-old’s imagination. He listened patiently, and when I finished, he burst out laughing.
’Are you insane, uncle?’, he called me this when he was in a good mood. ’Do you think I’m going to trade the life I have for your way of living? Exchange my pleasant leisure for the hard, uncertain work you impose on yourself? Exposed to bitter frost at night and scorching heat by day, forced to hide, and when discovered, receive a hail of bullets, all to earn a pittance? I have as much money as I want. Mother Assunta always gives me what I ask for! You see, I’d be a fool to accept your offer.’
His arguments and his audacity left me speechless. Benedetto rejoined his friends, and I saw him from a distance pointing me out to them as a fool."
"Sweet child," Monte Cristo murmured.
"Oh, if he’d been my own son," Bertuccio replied, "or even my nephew, I would have brought him back to the right path. Knowing you’re doing your duty gives you strength. But the thought that I’d be striking a child whose father I had killed made it impossible for me to punish him. I gave my sister, who constantly defended the unfortunate boy, good advice. When she confessed she’d noticed money missing several times, considerable amounts, I showed her a safe place to hide our small savings in the future.
My mind was made up. Benedetto could read, write, and do mathematics perfectly. When the mood struck him, he learned more in a day than others did in a week. My plan was to sign him up as a clerk on some ship. Without telling him anything about my plan, I’d bring him aboard one morning. That way, his future treatment would depend on his own behavior."