1. The count characterizes Mercédès as having been unfaithful… on the one hand, so does Mercédès, in the previous chapter (“The Departure”); on the other hand, aren’t they both being unfair to her?

2. The count struggles here with whether Édouard’s death essentially invalidates his entire post-incarceration life’s purpose, but how should we view the count when he squelches his doubt with a presumed sign from Abbé Faria—even though Faria strongly opposed harming innocents?

3. Does the chapter title, in its grandiose attempt to so neatly contain the past, reflect the count’s own naïve assumption that the past can be sealed off so hermetically? (At the risk of overusing the relevant sentiment from Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”)

Final sentence of chapter:

“Shortly afterward the boat set out, and an hour later, as Monte Cristo had said, the same trail of smoke was barely visible streaking an eastern horizon darkened by the first shades of night.”

previous chapter discussion