It was a tempestuous night. The wind howled dismally through the streets of Paris, and the rain and sleet dashed fiercely against the casements. At intervals a wild shout might be caught as the blast paused in its furious career, and then a distant shot might be heard. But they passed away, and nothing save the wail of the storm-wind or the rushing sleet of the winter tempest was distinguished.
But, while all was thus wild, dark and tempestuous without, light, warmth, comfort and elegance, rendered yet more delightful by the elemental war, reigned triumphant within a large and splendidly furnished apartment in the noble mansion of M. Dantès, the Deputy from Marseilles, in the Rue du Helder. Every embellishment which art could invent, luxury court, wealth invoke, or even imagination conceive, seemed there lavished with a most prodigal hand. The soft atmosphere of summer, perfumed by the exotics of a neighboring conservatory, delighted the senses, the mild effulgence of gaslight transmitted through opaque globes of glass melted upon the sight, while sofas, divans and ottomans in luxurious profusion invited repose. To describe the rare paintings, the rich gems of statuary and the other miracles of art which were there to be seen would be as impossible as it would be to portray the exquisite taste which enhanced the value of each and constituted more than half its charm.
Upon one of the elegant sofas reclined Edmond Dantès, his tall and graceful figure draped in a dressing robe, while beside him on a low ottoman sat his beautiful wife, her arm resting on his knee, and her dark, glorious eyes gazing with confiding fondness into his face.
Mercédès was no longer the young, light-hearted and thoughtless being who graced the village of the Catalans. Many years had flown since then and many sorrows passed over her. Each of these years and each of these sorrows, like retiring waves of the sea, upon the smooth and sandy beach, had left behind its trace. No, Mercédès was not now the young, light-hearted and thoughtless girl she once was; but she was a being far more perfect, far more winning, far more to be loved--she was a matured, impassioned, accomplished, and still, despite the flight of years, most lovely woman. She was one who could feel passion as well as inspire it, and having once felt or inspired it, that passion, it was plain, could never pass lightly away. Her face could not now boast, perhaps, that full and perfect oval which it formerly had, but the lines of care and of reflection, which here and there almost imperceptibly appeared, rendered it all the more charming. In the bold yet beautiful contour of those features, in the full red lips, in the high pale forehead and, above all, in those dark and haunting eyes lay a depth of feeling and profundity and nobleness of thought, which to a reflective mind have a charm infinitely more irresistible than that which belongs to mere youthful perfection. There was a bland beauty in the smile which slept upon her lips, a delicacy of sentiment in the faint flush that tinged her soft cheek, and a deep meaning in her dark and eloquent eye which told a whole history of experience even to a stranger; while the full and rounded outline of the figure, garbed in a loose robe of crimson, which contrasted beautifully with her luxuriant dark tresses, had that voluptuous development and grace which only maturity and maternity can impart to the female form. In short, never had Mercédès, in the days of her primal bloom, presented a person so fascinating as now. She was a woman to sigh for, perchance to die for, and one whom a man would willingly wish to live for, if he might but hope she would live for him, or, peradventure, he might even be willing not only to risk, but ultimately to resign his life, would that fair being not only live for him, but love him with that entire and passionate devotedness which beamed from her dark eyes up into his who now gazed upon her as she sat at his feet. As for him, as for Edmond Dantès, his figure had now the same elegance, his hand the same delicate whiteness, his features the same spiritual beauty, his brow the same marble pallor, and his eye which beamed beneath its calm expanse the same deep brilliancy which, years before, had distinguished him from all other men and made the Count of Monte-Cristo the idol of every salon in Paris and the hero of every maiden's dream. Yet that face was not without its changes. Tears, care, thought and sorrow had done their work; in the deep lines upon his brow and cheek, in the silvery threads which thickly sprinkled his night-black hair, and, more than all, in the mild light of those eyes which once glowed only with vindictive hate or gratified revenge and in the softened expression of those lips which once, in their stern beauty, had but curled with scorn or quivered with rage could be read that the lapse of time, though it might, indeed, have made him a sadder man, had made him also a better one.