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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