Revenge and Mercy

"'Yes,' he said, 'there have been men who have suffered more than I have, but then they must have been martyrs, at least.'
'Do you repent?' asked a deep, solemn voice, which caused Danglars' hair to stand on end. His feeble eyes endeavored to distinguish objects, and behind the bandit he saw a man enveloped in a cloak, half lost in the shadow of a stone column.
'Of what must I repent?' stammered Danglars.
'Of the evil you have done,' said the voice.
'Oh, yes! oh, yes! I do indeed repent.' And he struck his breast with his emaciated fist.
'Then I forgive you,' said the man, dropping his cloak, and advancing to the light.
'The Count of Monte Cristo!' said Danglars, more pale from terror than he had been just before from hunger and misery.
'You are mistaken, - I am not the Count of Monte Cristo!'
'Then who are you?'
'I am he whom you sold and dishonoured, - I am he whose betrothed you prostituted, - I am he upon whom you trampled that you might raise yourself to fortune, - I am he whose father you condemned to die of hunger, - I am he whom you also condemned to starvation, and who yet forgives you, because he hopes to be forgiven, - I am Edmond Dantes!'
Danglars uttered a cry and fell prostrate.
'Rise,' said the count, 'your life is safe; the same good fortune has not happened to your accomplices: one is mad, the other dead. Keep the 50,000 francs you have left, I give them to you. The 5,000,000 you robbed from the hospitals has been restored to them by an unknown hand. And now eat and drink; I will entertain you to-night. Vampa, when this man is satisfied, let him be free.'"
- from Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo (New York: The Modern Library, copyright 2005)

I now apologize for this quite long conversation. For anyone who has read The Count of Monte Cristo, you remember that, more than the others, Danglars was the bad guy. He orchestrated the crime. That does not mean that his two accomplices were any less guilty, but, to me, I am enraged at this resolution. At least with the others, I had some feelings like "this guy is better than he used to be and I sort of like him." With this guy, I thought that he stayed a jerk and should suffer for it. But, lo and behold! he is pardoned! What is going on here?! Not only are his life and sanity preserved, but he comes out with 50,000 francs! Why is he spared?! I believe the answer is that he repented.

To remember in the book, the others did not repent. In his last moments of sanity, Villefort tried to shift the blame to Edmond, and, in his last moments of life, Morcerf (Fernand) fled from the implications of the revelation of Edmond's identity. They did not repent, and lost life and sanity, while Danglars repented, and kept both. He was still punished, so revenge was mixed with suffering.

This is a picture of God's treatment of us, only more self-sacrificing, for He died; and more merciful, for He did not seek revenge on us. He merely died and gave us life.

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Two-fold Teasers and an Obscure Country

"What's my name? I'm prettier than you."
- 'ding 4 to 'ding 3, on taking the Austen Heroine quiz

The Austen Heroine quiz is something that Mom and 'ding 1 showed to the rest of our family this morning. The quote above is something that 'ding 4 said when she turned out to be Marianne Dashwood, and 'ding 3 turned out to be Elinor Dashwood.

On another note, I think you should check out The 4th Day Alliance. That introduction literally gave me chills when I first saw it. I have yet to delve deeper, but you might.

On yet another note, Dad was just now folding clothes, and saw on the tag of one of the shirts "Made in Lesotho." I was working on the rest of this post, and I whipped up Wikipedia. Lesotho "is a land-locked country and enclave - entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa."
Christians are welcome there, for "Roman Catholics, the largest religious group, make up more than two-fifths of the population; smaller groups include the Lesotho Evangelical Church which comprises more than one-fourth of the population; Anglican, one-ninth; and other Christian and tribal religions." Unfortunately, "Lesotho is severely afflicted by HIV/AIDS. According to recent estimates, the prevalence is about 29%, one of the highest in the world." Luckily, "English languages are official." "The population distribution of Lesotho is 23.8 percent urban and 76.2 percent rural," and that suits me just fine.

I've always wanted to be a farm kid, and this country sounds great to me.

There's no other stuff that I have to say, so, good-bye.

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Of Books and Fish

We (that is, Mom and the four 'dings) have just returned from shopping, and what started out as simple shoe shopping has ended up multiplying to enormous proportions.

We went to the Dick's Sporting Goods, which is next to a Barnes and Nobles. Obviously, I, the literature fanatic, went to the bookstore as opposed to the sports store, found directly the "buy 2 classics and get the third - of equal or lesser value - free" section, and grabbed a stack. Mom walked in and the pile just kept getting bigger. We ended up with a stack of books that includes The Time Machine & The Invisible Man, The Man in the Iron Mask, A Tale of Two Cities, Les Miserables, Vanity Fair, and Uncle Tom's Cabin, to name some of them. Also, we were in the checkout line and Mom picked up a book from the clearance rack. We ended up buying The Marshall Plan for Getting Your Novel Published as well.

We went home, but 'dings 3 and 4 persuaded Mom to go out one more time. Ding 4 had owned a fish tank for a long time, and so, we picked that out and went to the pet store. We got instructions on how to put it together, and ended up buying tank plants and tank rocks for the tank, as well as a fish bowl and two fish for 'ding 1.

I'm not complaining that I'm not going to get fish, because I came out with about fifteen books! Needless to say, I won't be looking for more books, because once I finish The Count of Monte Cristo, I have an entire stack of novels beckoning me...

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