The Countdown of Monte Cristo

The Weight of Remorse (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 27 – Part 5)

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 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.

The Betrayal at La Réserve (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 27 – Part 4)

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.

A Father’s Last Fast (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 27 – Part 3)

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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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.

The Old Man’s Vigil (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 27 – Part 2)

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.

The Story (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 27 – Part 1)

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.

Caderousse Begins His Tale (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 26 – Part 18)

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 Diamond and the Temptation (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 26 – Part 17)

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 Temptation of the Diamond (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 26 – Part 16)

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.

Faithful Friends and False Hearts (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 26 – Part 15)

The abbé presses further: could Fernand, once called a “faithful friend,” truly have betrayed Edmond? From the stairs, La Carconte interrupts again, warning her husband to keep silent. But Caderousse, irritated and restless, cannot resist his own bitter knowledge. How could Fernand be faithful to a man whose fiancée he coveted? Edmond’s very honesty, Caderousse says, had left him blind to the treachery of those around him. Better, perhaps, that he died never knowing the full extent of his betrayal.
Yet even here, fear lingers—fear not of the hatred of the living, but of the curse of the dead. To speak ill of the past is dangerous, Caderousse insists. What good, after all, in exposing the guilty, when Edmond himself is gone?
 
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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.

La Carconte’s Warning (The Count of Monte Cristo, Chapter 26 – Part 14)

La Carconte cuts in sharply, mocking her husband’s “politeness” and warning him of the danger in revealing too much. Her words drip with suspicion—promises of safety, she says, always dissolve into misery and persecution for the poor and helpless. The abbé counters with calm assurance, but her muttering presence lingers like a shadow on the room. When she sinks back into weakness, the conversation resumes, but the tone has shifted.
The abbé presses on, his voice steadied only by repeated draughts of water. Was old Dantès truly left to starve with no one to help him? Caderousse, shifting uneasily, admits there were some who tried—Mercédès, ever loyal, and Monsieur Morrel, generous and steadfast. Yet Edmond’s father despised Fernand, the man once counted among his “faithful friends.” With a bitter smile, Caderousse makes clear: even in kindness, betrayal haunted the house of 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.