Chapter 12 another coincidence

If we ask Alexandre Dumas' readers, which character in his novels do they most want to become, the one with the highest votes is probably the protagonist D'Artagnan in "The Three Musketeers", or the protagonist in "The Encounter of Monte Cristo". Later, he took the pseudonym Edmond Dantès, Count of Monte Cristo, and no one would want to be Noirtier de Villefort, the most miserable character in "The Encounter of Monte Cristo".In Alexandre Dumas's works, he is like a corpse, with one foot already in the coffin, but with a pair of piercing eyes.People have nothing but fear and no illusions about such a severely paralyzed patient.He harbored terrible secrets, but he was immobile and mute, spent his whole life in a weak chair on wheels, and he could only communicate with others by blinking: a blink of an eye means "yes" , blink twice, means "no".In fact, the good Grandpa Noirtier (as his little granddaughters so affectionately called him) was the first person to suffer from locked-in syndrome and, so far, the only one to appear in literature.

When my consciousness gradually cleared up and I got rid of the drowsiness I had been sinking in since the onset, I often thought of my good grandpa Noirtier.I just re-read this novel, and I didn't expect to be the most miserable character in the story.It is not by chance that I reread this book.I once planned to write a modern version of "The Encounter of Monte Cristo" (of course it must be an imitation of Dong Shi): the main motive of the protagonist in the story to perform a series of tricks is revenge, but I want to change the background of the story to the present era , and I want to change the Count of Monte Cristo to a woman.

However, I have never had time to desecrate the works of masters.If I were to be punished for my disrespect, I would be willing to incarnate myself as Baron Danglars, or Franz Ebner, or the Elder Faria, or simply, to be punished by copying the novel ten thousand times.We should not tamper with the works of masters.But both the gods of literature and neuropathology seemed determined to punish me in other ways. Some nights I thought of good old Noirtier, with his long white hair, walking up and down the corridors of our hospital in that old wheelchair that needed oiling from a century ago.In order to reverse my condemned fate, I now plan in my mind to rewrite another long romance, in which the main witness is a runner, not a paralyzed person.Who knows, it might actually work out and turn my life around.