The abbé listens as Caderousse unspools the incredible rise of Fernand — once a poor fisherman, now a decorated noble. His fortune, it seems, was built not on honor but on opportunity seized in shadow. Drafted under Napoleon and stationed at the frontier, Fernand betrayed his general to the Bourbons and returned a hero instead of a traitor. The winds of empire had changed, and Fernand changed with them.

As wars came and went, his ambition only grew. In Spain, he joined forces with Danglars, guiding troops through secret routes and earning favor among royalists until he was made a colonel, then a count. When Europe quieted, he sought new glory in the Greek war for independence, aligning himself with Ali Pasha and returning to France rich, titled, and lauded as the Comte de Morcerf.

“Destiny! Destiny!” murmurs the abbé — though the word carries more bitterness than awe.

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The abbé listens as Caderousse paints a grim contrast between the ruined and the rewarded. M. Morrel — faithful, honorable, undone by loss — now stands at the edge of despair, burdened not only by ruin but by a family he cannot save. A wife steadfast in suffering. A daughter denied her love. A son serving far away. Even death would be a mercy if not for those who depend on him.

And yet the men who destroyed Edmond Dantès prosper. Danglars, the scheming clerk, has climbed from fraud to fortune, now a baron with mansions, horses, and servants — a banker whose wealth multiplies faster than his scruples. Fernand, too, has risen, though no one knows how. The poor Catalan fisherman has somehow become a man of power and rank, his past buried beneath a mystery darker than his ambition.

The abbé’s voice trembles between irony and fury. “Ah, he is happy,” he murmurs — and the words sound less like belief than judgment deferred.

⸻

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Caderousse bows his head beneath the burden of guilt, confessing that he let fate destroy Edmond Dantès. “Remorse preys on me night and day,” he admits, believing his misfortune to be divine punishment for cowardice. The abbé listens with grave compassion, telling him that such honesty is a step toward forgiveness — though Caderousse fears Edmond’s spirit already knows his guilt.

When the conversation turns to M. Morrel, Dantès’ former patron, the tone shifts from confession to tragedy. Once an honorable and generous shipowner, Morrel spent years defending Edmond and caring for his father. But time has turned fortune against him. Now, after decades of honest labor, he stands on the edge of ruin — his last hope resting on a single vessel: The Pharaon, the very ship that once carried Edmond Dantès to his doom.

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The abbé’s voice hardens as he demands names — the men who destroyed Edmond Dantès and his father. Caderousse, cornered by conscience and the priest’s quiet authority, speaks the truth at last: Fernand and Danglars. One driven by love, the other by ambition. Together they forged a lie.

In the warm glow of Dantès’ betrothal eve at La Réserve, Danglars wrote the letter — disguised in left-handed script — while Fernand slipped it into the post. It was a jest, they told him, a harmless prank. But when the soldiers came the next day, Caderousse saw the truth he’d helped conceal. Fear kept him silent as his friend was taken away, his silence sealing Edmond’s fate.

And across the table, the abbé trembles — for every detail confirms what Faria once foretold: how envy and weakness weave the threads of ruin.

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The Countdown of Monte Cristo is a daily podcast reading one page at a time from Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel — every day, for four years. Whether you’re starting from the beginning or joining mid-journey, each episode brings you deeper into the story of The Count of Monte Cristo.

Grief turns to solitude, and solitude to ruin. Caderousse recounts how even the kindest neighbors withdrew from old Dantès — sorrow being a burden most hearts can bear only at a distance. Left alone, the father sold his few possessions piece by piece, until the house itself threatened to turn him out.

When the silence above grew too deep, Caderousse peered through the keyhole and found him pale, starved, and near death. Morrel brought a doctor, Mercédès came in tears, yet the old man’s smile at being ordered “a limited diet” was his last quiet irony. For nine days he refused sustenance, his grief consuming what hunger had not, and when at last he died, it was with a curse for the men who had destroyed his son — and a blessing for Edmond, whom he would never see again.

The abbé listens, shaken to his core, as Caderousse ends the tale with two words heavier than any sermon: “Of hunger.”

⸻

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Mercédès, desperate to help, turns to Villefort for mercy and is denied. She then seeks out Edmond’s father — a man broken by grief and sleeplessness, who refuses to leave his home. “If he gets out of prison,” he insists, “he will come here first; I must be waiting.” His love has become an anchor, binding him to the place where hope still lingers.

Through the thin ceiling above, Caderousse listens helplessly as the old man’s steps give way to sobs, and sobs to prayers. Even those who wish to comfort him cannot reach him. The days grow quieter, his door remains closed, and when he finally speaks again, it is to Mercédès — telling her with calm acceptance that he no longer waits for Edmond’s return, but for the reunion beyond life itself.

⸻

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The Countdown of Monte Cristo is a daily podcast reading one page at a time from Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel — every day, for four years. Whether you’re starting from the beginning or joining mid-journey, each episode brings you deeper into the story of The Count of Monte Cristo.

In the dim light of the Pont du Gard inn, the abbé urges Caderousse to speak the truth about Edmond Dantès’ past — and Caderousse hesitates, gripped by fear of the powerful men his words may expose. The priest’s calm assurance, his vow of secrecy and divine distance, opens the floodgates: Caderousse begins his long, painful confession.

He starts with Dantès’ father — the man Edmond loved most — and the sorrow that followed his son’s arrest. The joyous betrothal feast at La Réserve, once bright with laughter, ended in ruin as soldiers marched in and led the groom away. That night, as the old man folded his son’s wedding clothes and paced above his neighbor’s ceiling in sleepless grief, Caderousse could only listen — heart heavy, helpless, and haunted by the sound of each step.

⸻

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The Countdown of Monte Cristo is a daily podcast reading one page at a time from Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel — every day, for four years. Whether you’re starting from the beginning or joining mid-journey, each episode brings you deeper into the story of The Count of Monte Cristo.

La Carconte withdraws to her room, warning her husband not to act rashly. But Caderousse, flushed with greed and fear, bolts the inn’s door and seats himself across from the abbé, ready to unburden himself. The priest remains in shadow, his eyes fixed and unblinking, while the light falls harshly on the innkeeper’s face.

With his wife’s trembling voice echoing faintly from above, Caderousse insists he will bear the consequences alone. And so, at last, he begins to tell the story—the truth behind the ruin of Edmond Dantès.

⸻

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The Countdown of Monte Cristo is a daily podcast reading one page at a time from Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel — every day, for four years.

The abbé explains that Edmond Dantès’ diamond is to be divided into five shares—one each for Caderousse, Danglars, Fernand, Mercédès, and the late Edmond’s father, whose portion will now be shared among the four survivors. But even as the priest calmly replaces the jewel in his cassock, the atmosphere in the inn grows charged with unspoken desire.

Sweat beads on Caderousse’s brow as he realizes the fortune before him could be his alone. He and La Carconte exchange dark, wordless looks, weighing whether piety or greed will guide them. His wife mutters that she will take no responsibility, “washing her hands” of what might follow. And yet, the thought gnaws at them both: the diamond could be theirs—if they dared.

⸻

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⸻

The Countdown of Monte Cristo is a daily podcast reading one page at a time from Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel — every day, for four years.

The abbé presses no further about Fernand or Danglars, but instead turns to the task he claims was entrusted to him by Edmond Dantès: the selling of a diamond worth fifty thousand francs. When he opens the small box, the brilliant stone flashes in the dim inn light, dazzling Caderousse, who calls urgently for his wife.

La Carconte descends, her feigned frailty giving way to sudden eagerness at the sight of the jewel. As Caderousse explains, the diamond was meant to be divided among Edmond’s loved ones and supposed friends. Yet both husband and wife can barely conceal their amazement—and their greed—before the sparkling temptation set before them.

⸻

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⸻

The Countdown of Monte Cristo is a daily podcast reading one page at a time from Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel — every day, for four years.