But now it is different; I have lost all that bound me to life, death smiles and invites me to repose; I die after my own manner, I die exhausted and broken-spirited, as I fall asleep when I have paced three thousand times round my cell—that is thirty thousand steps, or about ten leagues.”
No sooner had this idea taken possession of him than he became more composed, arranged his couch to the best of his power, ate little and slept less, and found existence almost supportable, because he felt that he could throw it off at pleasure, like a worn-out garment.
Two methods of self-destruction were at his disposal. He could hang himself with his handkerchief to the window bars, or refuse food and die of starvation. But the first was repugnant to him. Dantès had always entertained the greatest horror of pirates, who are hung up to the yardarm; he would not die by what seemed an infamous death. He resolved to adopt the second, and began that day to carry out his resolve.
Nearly four years had passed away; at the end of the second he had ceased to mark the lapse of time.
Dantès said, “I wish to die,” and had chosen the manner of his death, and fearful of changing his mind, he had taken an oath to die.
“When my morning and evening meals are brought,” thought he, “I will cast them out of the window, and they will think that I have eaten them.”
He kept his word; twice a day he cast out, through the barred aperture, the provisions his jailer brought him—at first gayly, then with deliberation, and at last with regret. Nothing but the recollection of his oath gave him strength to proceed. Hunger made viands once repugnant, now acceptable; he held the plate in his hand for an hour at a time, and gazed thoughtfully at the morsel of bad meat, of tainted fish, of black and mouldy bread. It was the last yearning for life contending with the