Work Text:
Monsieur Andrea Cavalcanti,
I was asked by my late client Gerard de Villefort to deliver you a letter, which should be in the same envelope.
Should you have any questions, I am at your disposal.
Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie
Lawyer
Paris, France
October 1838
My son,
By the time you read this letter, I will be gone. Indeed, what you told the court on the day of your trial was proof enough to open an investigation into what happened on the night you were born, and as expected, I am sentenced to death in a few weeks. But there are some things I have wanted to tell you for quite some time, and I do not want to face the gallows without you knowing the truth. So here it is in full.
The tragic events regarding your birth transpired exactly the way you had been told by I can only assume Mr. Bertuccio himself. However, given the fact he and I have never seen eye to eye, I am sure he only told you his side of the story, conveniently omitting some details perhaps out of spite.
For instance, did he tell you your mother and I have loved you from the moment we laid eyes on you? Did he tell you how distraught we were when the midwife told us you had stopped breathing, and for no good reason? Did he tell you that the moon, although not full yet, was so beautiful it reminded me of you? And did he tell you that while I was digging up your grave, I was crying like I had never cried before, wanting nothing more but our places to be exchanged?
No, I bet he didn’t.
My next words will be harsh, but please, hear me out. I cannot deny it would have been convenient for us if you had died that night. As you know, having a child out of wedlock is still something very much frowned upon. Such a scandal would have most certainly ruined both of our reputations, especially your mother's. But do not think for one second we were delighted or relieved when we thought we had lost you for good, on the contrary. As the saying goes, no parent should have to bury their child.
However, the events that followed would reveal I had unknowingly buried you alive. I say unknowingly because my emotional turmoil made it so I failed to notice you were very much alive. But perhaps this is just me trying to ease my guilty conscience. Either way, as soon as I realized Mr. Bertuccio had saved you from a most dreadful death, I did everything in my power to find you. I sent letters. I questioned people. I was desperate to find something — anything! — that would tell me where you had been all this time. I would have gladly given up all of my worldly possessions if it came to that! But this was something that could not be bought with money, as I soon came to realize.
And of course, there is only so much a man can do all by himself. Indeed, I had not told a soul about you, and I know your mother had not either. So I was left alone to figure out what had happened to you. I could not bring myself to give up, although it might have been wise of me to try to move on. But I could not. Would not. When I set myself to do something, I do it until the bitter end. Curse my stubborn nature!
Unfortunately, all of my efforts were in vain. Words truly cannot express how frustrated I have grown in the last decade when I kept being met by failure upon failure. To make matters worse, with every passing year, I knew you were growing up, probably wondering who and where were your biological parents. I can only imagine how lonely and confused you must have felt at times. Perhaps you thought you had done something to deserve such a fate? Or that you meant so little to me and your mother we had no qualms about abandoning you? That could not be farther from the truth.
I could not give you my name for legal reasons, but it matters not because to me, you are and have always been my son. There has not been a single day I have not thought of you one way or another, hoping, or rather praying you were happy and well taken care of. I will be thoroughly honest with you. I have done many horrible things in my life, there is no denying it, but what I did to you is by far the worst. I assume this is the reason why you decided to make my crime known to the court on the 17th of September. In your anger, you wanted to hurt me just as much as I had hurt you all these years ago. Now that the dust has settled, I want you to know I understand and do not resent you for it. And I cannot in good conscience ask for your forgiveness since I do not deserve it. At this point, I doubt God could even forgive me. But I only have myself to blame and I made my peace with it a long time ago.
I will say though I am glad Mr. Bertuccio took you in, despite the nasty wound he left me with. Thanks to him and his sister, you have grown into a handsome young man, and while as a former crown prosecutor, I cannot condone your obvious disregard for the law, I was pleased to see you were well-articulated and full of wit.
I still have one more thing to tell you. It would seem my enemies have dug up all of my secrets, but in case they have not told you yet, your mother's name is Hermine Danglars. I am told she still lives in Paris, trying her best to move on with her life since her husband's disappearance. After everything I’ve just told you, would you consider paying her a visit? One of the things I regret the most is not being given the chance to properly speak with you, but I take comfort in knowing it is not too late for you and your mother.
Sincerely yours,
Gerard de Villefort