Chapter 89.

After leaving the opera, Monte Cristo returns home, inspects his custom pistols for the morning duel, and is interrupted by a veiled visitor. Mercedes enters, calls him Edmond, and begs that he not kill her son, Albert. Monte Cristo responds coldly, insisting that Providence—not he—punishes Fernand.

Pressed by Mercedes, Monte Cristo reveals the original anonymous denunciation. He produces Danglars’ letter denouncing Edmond Dantès and explains that Fernand posted it. He recounts his fourteen-year imprisonment in the Château d’If, his father’s death from hunger, and Mercedes’ marriage to Fernand, declaring these the grounds of his vengeance.

Mercedes confesses her suffering and pleads that the punishment fall on her and Fernand, not on Albert. When she describes the horror of seeing the man she loved poised to kill her son, Monte Cristo is shaken. He yields, promising that Albert shall live, yet declares he will preserve honor by allowing his own blood to be shed in the duel.

Mercedes, moved and grateful, extols the nobility of his sacrifice. Monte Cristo hints at the immense personal cost of abandoning his vengeance and contemplates his identity dissolving with Edmond’s “death.” She departs near one o’clock, and Monte Cristo, left in anguished reflection, laments not having torn out his heart when he first chose revenge.