The romantic legend of banditry fractures under the weight of its cruelty. What had seemed daring now reveals its merciless laws.

In this passage of The Count of Monte Cristo, Signor Pastrini recounts a horrifying episode involving Cucumetto’s band: the abduction of a young woman whose fate is governed by the bandits’ ruthless customs. Her lover, Carlini—himself one of Cucumetto’s men—recognizes her too late and pleads desperately for mercy. Drawing on past loyalty and service, he implores the chief to spare her and allow a ransom to be arranged, and Cucumetto appears, at least outwardly, to relent.

This moment matters because it strips away any lingering glamour from the brigands’ world. Violence here is not incidental but systemic, and mercy—if it exists at all—depends entirely on the whim of power.

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