"I know nothing.

Some of your words are to me quite empty of meaning.

You must be blessed indeed to possess the knowledge you have." The abbe smiled.

"Well," said he, "but you had another subject for your thoughts; did you not say so just now ?" "I did!" "You have told me as yet but one of them--let me hear the other." "It was this,--that while you had related to me all the particulars of your past life, you were perfectly unacquainted with mine." "Your life, my young friend, has not been of sufficient length to admit of your having passed through any very important events." "It has been long enough to inflict on me a great and undeserved misfortune.

I would fain fix the source of it on man that I may no longer vent reproaches upon heaven." "Then you profess ignorance of the crime with which you are charged ?" "I do, indeed; and this I swear by the two beings most dear to me upon earth,--my father and Mercedes." "Come," said the abbe, closing his hiding-place, and pushing the bed back to its original situation, "let me hear your story." Dantes obeyed, and commenced what he called his history, but which consisted only of the account of a voyage to India, and two or three voyages to the Levant until he arrived at the recital of his last cruise, with the death of Captain Leclere, and the receipt of a packet to be delivered by himself to the grand marshal; his interview with that personage, and his receiving, in place of the packet brought, a letter addressed to a Monsieur Noirtier--his arrival at Marseilles, and interview with his father--his affection for Mercedes, and their nuptual feast--his arrest and subsequent examination, his temporary detention at the Palais de Justice, and his final imprisonment in the Chateau d'If.
From this point everything was a blank to Dantes--he knew nothing more, not even the length of time he had been imprisoned.