The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975 TV Movie)

Kate Nelligan: Mercedes

Photos 

Quotes 

• Edmond Dantes : [Last Lines]  Mercedes! Where are you traveling?

  Mercedes : To Africa... to find my son and be near him. He's joined the Army.

  Edmond Dantes : Albert a soldier?

  Mercedes : He wants to expiate his father's sins.

  Edmond Dantes : Let me join you on your voyage. I can be of help to you both.

  Mercedes : My son would never permit that.

  Edmond Dantes : Once you said he should have been our son.

  Mercedes : Should have been, yes. But he has a father and he has his father's name... a name you so thoroughly destroyed.

  Edmond Dantes : That was simple justice, madam, and believe me it brought me no joy. But now my task's accomplished. I've no particular place in the world, no strong desire in life... but to make amends where I've hurt the innocent.

  Mercedes : Avenging angels may not ask forgiveness of their victims.

  Edmond Dantes : I am no longer the instrument of God! I've been plunged back into nothingness! I'm searching something lost... my soul, my self... for Edmond Dantes.

  Mercedes : You will never find him. He died a long time ago in the Chateau d'If... and much of me is buried with him. But I celebrate the Count of Monte Cristo's return to the world of men, and I wish for him from the depths of my heart that will find the peace for which he yearns.

  Edmond Dantes : But never... never will he find that perfect love which two young people lost... irretrieveably lost so many, many years ago. Bon voyage... Countess Mondego.

  Mercedes : Goodbye, Count.

• Mercedes : [she has found Monte Cristo practicing shooting]  You would not kill my son!

  Edmond Dantes : [turning to face her]  He challenged me, madam.

  Mercedes : And what would you expet from a proud son? The general is his father!

  Edmond Dantes : I had a father once.

  Mercedes : Then you know how the boy feels. You can understand how zealous he is after the general's good name!

  Edmond Dantes : What general? My business is with a lieutenant I used to know.

  Mercedes : What business?

  Edmond Dantes : Revenge, madam.

  Mercedes : [pause, then]  For what? For marrying the girl you loved? He does not deserve your vengeance. It was I! I was weak, I could bear my loneliness no longer. I married him because they told me you died in the Chateau d'If shortly after your arrest.

  Edmond Dantes : But what was I in the Chateau d'If? Why was I arrested?

  Mercedes : I do not know!

• Edmond Dantes : Ask me to forgive a man for stealing my love... a lover's deception; very well, since you ask it I forgive him that. Ask me to forgive him for stealing fourteen years of my life; very well, forgiven. But forgive him for destroying my father? Never, madam! Never!

  Mercedes : [pause, then]  In my dreams, I have seen you dead... thrown to the bottom of one of those pits where jailers throw their dead prisoners... and I wake from this incessant dream with a cry, shuddering and cold.

  Edmond Dantes : Have you ever dreamed your father dead of hunger? Have you ever dreamed of the one you loved giving her hand to a rival while you perish at the bottom of a pit?

  Mercedes : Worse! I have seen him I loved on the point of murdering my son!

• Albert Mondego : Monsieur le Count, may I present my mother, the Countess of Mondego.

  Mercedes : Oh, monsieur, my son is still a child who plays childish games. He tells me we have a visitor, and he refuses to give me his name. He says I shall be delightfully surprised.

  [Edmond is taken aback seeing her] 

  Mercedes : We have not met before, have we monsieur? Who have I the honor of addressing, monsieur?

  Edmond Dantes : Your servant, madame, the Count of Monte Cristo.