The Count of Monte-Cristo

Fernand Mondego:
[Dantes has confronted Mondego at Mondego's trial after Haydee has testified against him] What is your connection with this woman?

Edmond Dantes:
Ask first what is my connection with one named... Edmond Dantes.

Fernand Mondego:
Edmond! So... the light begins to break! Our sailor boy back from the isle of the dead, eh?Insisting on his revenge and getting it! I begin to see, yes! Caderousse dead. Danglars dead. Villefort confined to an asylum. Is it my turn, Edmond?

Edmond Dantes:
It is.

Bertuccio:
He's half dead.

Jacopo:
No, he's half alive.

Bertuccio:
Wake up, old man.

Jacopo:
How do you know that he is old?

Bertuccio:
Look at him.

[at Danglar's office; Edmond handles a statue of a head]

Edmond Dantes:
I am impressed by this head of Imhotep.

Danglars:
Imhotep? Yeas, sure...

[gives Edmond a smaller statue]

Danglars:
How about this one, mister?

Edmond Dantes:
Very ingenious fake.

Danglars:
This is impossible...

Girard:
It is an official telegram, sir.

Danglars:
"King Don Carlos has taken Spain under control. Civil war is in force." War? What does it have to do with the bonds?

Girard:
If I would suggest...

Danglars:
Well suggest, suggest, SUGGEST!

Girard:
Sell everything as quick as possible.

Danglars:
Yes, indeed! Sell every bond!

Girard:
The moment the exchange opens.

Danglars:
My reputation, the reputation of the bank! I invested my customers' money on a civil war! Are we losing our customers? Do you have any more suggestions?

Girard:
Yes. Make good all your losses.

Danglars:
Yes... From bank reserves?

Girard:
From your own.

Danglars:
Are you insane?

[Edmond has found the treasure]

Edmond Dantes:
Jacobo! Bertuccio! The world is mine!

Edmond Dantes:
[plans for revenge] I shall move like the Sword of the Lord with a terrible swiftness.

Edmond Dantes:
[to Mondego after defeating him in a duel] Don't say your prayers. You won't escape prison by the simple trick of dying. You'll serve your sentence in this world before you go to Hell.

Edmond Dantes:
[to the paralyzed Noirtier] You must excuse me, sir, if I seem to stare. It doesn't often happen that a man may gaze upon the one great nemesis of his life.

Mercedes:
[she has found Monte Cristo practicing shooting] You would not kill my son!

Edmond Dantes:
[turning to face her] He challenged me, madam.

Mercedes:
And what would you expet from a proud son? The general is his father!

Edmond Dantes:
I had a father once.

Mercedes:
Then you know how the boy feels. You can understand how zealous he is after the general's good name!

Edmond Dantes:
What general? My business is with a lieutenant I used to know.

Mercedes:
What business?

Edmond Dantes:
Revenge, madam.

Mercedes:
[pause, then] For what? For marrying the girl you loved? He does not deserve your vengeance. It was I! I was weak, I could bear my loneliness no longer. I married him because they told me you died in the Chateau d'If shortly after your arrest.

Edmond Dantes:
But what was I in the Chateau d'If? Why was I arrested?

Mercedes:
I do not know!

Edmond Dantes:
Ask me to forgive a man for stealing my love... a lover's deception; very well, since you ask it I forgive him that. Ask me to forgive him for stealing fourteen years of my life; very well, forgiven. But forgive him for destroying my father? Never, madam! Never!

Mercedes:
[pause, then] In my dreams, I have seen you dead... thrown to the bottom of one of those pits where jailers throw their dead prisoners... and I wake from this incessant dream with a cry, shuddering and cold.

Edmond Dantes:
Have you ever dreamed your father dead of hunger? Have you ever dreamed of the one you loved giving her hand to a rival while you perish at the bottom of a pit?

Mercedes:
Worse! I have seen him I loved on the point of murdering my son!

Edmond Dantes:
[after the duel with Albert Mondego] Providence again! I AM the emissary of God! I have been spared to carry out his will!

Edmond Dantes:
[Last Lines] Mercedes! Where are you traveling?

Mercedes:
To Africa... to find my son and be near him. He's joined the Army.

Edmond Dantes:
Albert a soldier?

Mercedes:
He wants to expiate his father's sins.

Edmond Dantes:
Let me join you on your voyage. I can be of help to you both.

Mercedes:
My son would never permit that.

Edmond Dantes:
Once you said he should have been our son.

Mercedes:
SHould have been, yes. But he has a father and he has his father's name... a name you so thoroughly destroyed.

Edmond Dantes:
That was simple justice, madam, and believe me it brought me no joy. But now my task's accomplished. I've no particular place in the world, no strong desire in life... but to make amends where I've hurt the innocent.

Mercedes:
Avenging angels may not ask forgiveness of their victims.

Edmond Dantes:
I am no longer the instrument of God! I've been plunged back into nothingness! I'm searching something lost... my soul, my self... for Edmond Dantes.

Mercedes:
You will never find him. He died a long time ago in the Chateau d'If... and much of me is buried with him. But I celebrate the Count of Monte Cristo's return to the world of men, and I wish for him from the depths of my heart that will find the peace for which he yearns.

Edmond Dantes:
But never... never will he find that perfect love which two young people lost... irretrieveably lost so many, many years ago. Bon voyage... Countess Mondego.

Mercedes:
Goodbye, Count.

Fernand Mondego:
You've done it exceedingly well, the way you expose us one by one and then you [draws his aide's sword] strike! You ruin a man with exquisite finesse, but before you kick THIS dog to death beware! [he throws the sword to Monte Cristo]

Edmond Dantes:
[catches the sword] He barks.

Fernand Mondego:
[drawing his own sword] Bites! For having ruined me, you now give me cause for revenge! I claim the right to send the dead back to the dead! Can you defend yourself, Edmond, or do you stab only in the dark?

Valentine De Villefort:
[she has just been introduced to Monte Cristo] Monte Cristo! Oh, sir! I shall be the envy of every girl in Paris! What they're saying is true; you ARE handsome! Are you as rich as they're saying, monsieur?

Edmond Dantes:
[smiling] Rich in experience, mademoiselle, rich in years and growing richer by the moment in my appreciation of the loveliness of Paris.

Valentine De Villefort:
[speaking of her paralyzed grandfather Noirtier] My grandfather is a prisoner of his body, monsieur, but his will is like his mind... unconquerable.

Edmond Dantes:
He possesses what few men can boast of... the devotion of one loving heart.

Valentine De Villefort:
[staring at Monte Cristo] That's a lonely statement, monsieur.

De Villefort:
[to Monte Cristo] I'm afraid my daughter is outspoken to a fault... and slightly ill-mannered.

Edmond Dantes:
If a man tortures or murders your brother or your son - or your father - kills one of those beings who leave an eternal emptiness and a bleeding wound when they're torn from your heart, do you really think society has given you sufficient reparation because the blade of the guillotine has passed between the murderer's trapezius and his occipital bone? Because the man who cause you *immeasurable* suffering has endured a few seconds of physical pain?

De Villefort:
My dear count, are you suggesting the suggesting the medieval way - torture?

Edmond Dantes:
I am suggesting the holy remedy: an eye for an eye.