This scene from The Count of Monte Cristo (by Alexandre Dumas) will help you tremendously as you imaginatively immerse yourself in the story of Joseph, son of Jacob (especially as you seek to understand Joseph’s shrewd, sharp, and subversive interactions with his perfidious brothers).

The procureur entered with the same grave and measured step he would
have employed in entering a court of justice. He was the same man, or
rather the development of the same man, whom we have heretofore seen
as assistant attorney at Marseilles. Nature, according to her way, had
made no deviation in the path he had marked out for himself. From
being slender he had now become meagre; once pale, he was now
yellow; his deep–set eyes were hollow, and the gold spectacles shielding
his eyes seemed to be an integral portion of his face. He dressed entirely
in black, with the exception of his white tie, and his funeral appearance
was only mitigated by the slight line of red ribbon which passed almost
imperceptibly through his button–hole, and appeared like a streak of

blood traced with a delicate brush. Although master of himself, Monte
Cristo, scrutinized with irrepressible curiosity the magistrate whose
salute he returned, and who, distrustful by habit, and especially
incredulous as to social prodigies, was much more despised to look upon
“the noble stranger,” as Monte Cristo was already called, as an
adventurer in search of new fields, or an escaped criminal, rather than as
a prince of the Holy See, or a sultan of the Thousand and One Nights.
“Sir,” said Villefort, in the squeaky tone assumed by magistrates in their
oratorical periods, and of which they cannot, or will not, divest
themselves in society, “sir, the signal service which you yesterday
rendered to my wife and son has made it a duty for me to offer you my
thanks. I have come, therefore, to discharge this duty, and to express to
you my overwhelming gratitude.” And as he said this, the “eye severe”
of the magistrate had lost nothing of its habitual arrogance. He spoke in
a voice of the procureur–general, with the rigid inflexibility of neck and
shoulders which caused his flatterers to say (as we have before observed)
that he was the living statue of the law.
“Monsieur,” replied the count, with a chilling air, “I am very happy to
have been the means of preserving a son to his mother, for they say that
the sentiment of maternity is the most holy of all; and the good fortune
which occurred to me, monsieur, might have enabled you to dispense
with a duty which, in its discharge, confers an undoubtedly great honor;
for I am aware that M. de Villefort is not usually lavish of the favor
which he now bestows on me,—a favor which, however estimable, is
unequal to the satisfaction which I have in my own consciousness.”
Villefort, astonished at this reply, which he by no means expected,
started like a soldier who feels the blow levelled at him over the armor
he wears, and a curl of his disdainful lip indicated that from that moment
he noted in the tablets of his brain that the Count of Monte Cristo was by
no means a highly bred gentleman. He glanced around, in order to seize
on something on which the conversation might turn, and seemed to fall
easily on a topic. He saw the map which Monte Cristo had been

examining when he entered, and said, “You seem geographically
engaged, sir? It is a rich study for you, who, as I learn, have seen as
many lands as are delineated on this map.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the count; “I have sought to make of the human race,
taken in the mass, what you practice every day on individuals—a
physiological study. I have believed it was much easier to descend from
the whole to a part than to ascend from a part to the whole. It is an
algebraic axiom, which makes us proceed from a known to an unknown
quantity, and not from an unknown to a known; but sit down, sir, I beg
of you.”
Monte Cristo pointed to a chair, which the procureur was obliged to take
the trouble to move forwards himself, while the count merely fell back
into his own, on which he had been kneeling when M. Villefort entered.
Thus the count was halfway turned towards his visitor, having his back
towards the window, his elbow resting on the geographical chart which
furnished the theme of conversation for the moment,—a conversation
which assumed, as in the case of the interviews with Danglars and
Morcerf, a turn analogous to the persons, if not to the situation. “Ah, you
philosophize,” replied Villefort, after a moment’s silence, during which,
like a wrestler who encounters a powerful opponent, he took breath;
“well, sir, really, if, like you, I had nothing else to do, I should seek a
more amusing occupation.”
“Why, in truth, sir,” was Monte Cristo’s reply, “man is but an ugly
caterpillar for him who studies him through a solar microscope; but you
said, I think, that I had nothing else to do. Now, really, let me ask, sir,
have you?—do you believe you have anything to do? or to speak in plain
terms, do you really think that what you do deserves being called
anything?”
Villefort’s astonishment redoubled at this second thrust so forcibly made
by his strange adversary. It was a long time since the magistrate had

heard a paradox so strong, or rather, to say the truth more exactly, it was
the first time he had ever heard of it. The procureur exerted himself to
reply. “Sir,” he responded, “you are a stranger, and I believe you say
yourself that a portion of your life has been spent in Oriental countries,
so you are not aware how human justice, so expeditions in barbarous
countries, takes with us a prudent and well–studied course.”
“Oh, yes—yes, I do, sir; it is the pede claudo of the ancients. I know all
that, for it is with the justice of all countries especially that I have
occupied myself—it is with the criminal procedure of all nations that I
have compared natural justice, and I must say, sir, that it is the law of
primitive nations, that is, the law of retaliation, that I have most
frequently found to be according to the law of God.”
“If this law were adopted, sir,” said the procureur, “it would greatly
simplify our legal codes, and in that case the magistrates would not (as
you just observed) have much to do.”
“It may, perhaps, come to this in time,” observed Monte Cristo; “you
know that human inventions march from the complex to the simple, and
simplicity is always perfection.”
“In the meanwhile,” continued the magistrate, “our codes are in full
force, with all their contradictory enactments derived from Gallic
customs, Roman laws, and Frank usages; the knowledge of all which,
you will agree, is not to be acquired without extended labor; it needs
tedious study to acquire this knowledge, and, when acquired, a strong
power of brain to retain it.”
“I agree with you entirely, sir; but all that even you know with respect to
the French code, I know, not only in reference to that code, but as
regards the codes of all nations. The English, Turkish, Japanese, Hindu
laws, are as familiar to me as the French laws, and thus I was right,
when I said to you, that relatively (you know that everything is relative,

sir)—that relatively to what I have done, you have very little to do; but
that relatively to all I have learned, you have yet a great deal to learn.”
“But with what motive have you learned all this?” inquired Villefort, in
astonishment. Monte Cristo smiled. “Really, sir,” he observed, “I see that
in spite of the reputation which you have acquired as a superior man,
you look at everything from the material and vulgar view of society,
beginning with man, and ending with man—that is to say, in the most
restricted, most narrow view which it is possible for human
understanding to embrace.”
“Pray, sir, explain yourself,” said Villefort, more and more astonished, “I
really do—not—understand you—perfectly.”
“I say, sir, that with the eyes fixed on the social organization of nations,
you see only the springs of the machine, and lose sight of the sublime
workman who makes them act; I say that you do not recognize before
you and around you any but those office–holders whose commissions
have been signed by a minister or king; and that the men whom God has
put above those office–holders, ministers, and kings, by giving them a
mission to follow out, instead of a post to fill—I say that they escape
your narrow, limited field of observation. It is thus that human weakness
fails, from its debilitated and imperfect organs. Tobias took the angel
who restored him to light for an ordinary young man. The nations took
Attila, who was doomed to destroy them, for a conqueror similar to
other conquerors, and it was necessary for both to reveal their missions,
that they might be known and acknowledged; one was compelled to say,
‘I am the angel of the Lord’; and the other, ‘I am the hammer of God,’ in
order that the divine essence in both might be revealed.”
“Then,” said Villefort, more and more amazed, and really supposing he
was speaking to a mystic or a madman, “you consider yourself as one of
those extraordinary beings whom you have mentioned?”

“And why not?” said Monte Cristo coldly.
“Your pardon, sir,” replied Villefort, quite astounded, “but you will
excuse me if, when I presented myself to you, I was unaware that I
should meet with a person whose knowledge and understanding so far
surpass the usual knowledge and understanding of men. It is not usual
with us corrupted wretches of civilization to find gentlemen like
yourself, possessors, as you are, of immense fortune—at least, so it is
said—and I beg you to observe that I do not inquire, I merely repeat;—it
is not usual, I say, for such privileged and wealthy beings to waste their
time in speculations on the state of society, in philosophical reveries,
intended at best to console those whom fate has disinherited from the
goods of this world.”
“Really, sir,” retorted the count, “have you attained the eminent situation
in which you are, without having admitted, or even without having met
with exceptions? and do you never use your eyes, which must have
acquired so much finesse and certainty, to divine, at a glance, the kind of
man by whom you are confronted? Should not a magistrate be not
merely the best administrator of the law, but the most crafty expounder
of the chicanery of his profession, a steel probe to search hearts, a
touchstone to try the gold which in each soul is mingled with more or
less of alloy?”
“Sir,” said Villefort, “upon my word, you overcome me. I really never
heard a person speak as you do.”
“Because you remain eternally encircled in a round of general
conditions, and have never dared to raise your wings into those upper
spheres which God has peopled with invisible or exceptional beings.”
“And you allow then, sir, that spheres exist, and that these marked and
invisible beings mingle amongst us?”

“Why should they not? Can you see the air you breathe, and yet without
which you could not for a moment exist?”
“Then we do not see those beings to whom you allude?”
“Yes, we do; you see them whenever God pleases to allow them to
assume a material form. You touch them, come in contact with them,
speak to them, and they reply to you.”
“Ah,” said Villefort, smiling, “I confess I should like to be warned when
one of these beings is in contact with me.”
“You have been served as you desire, monsieur, for you were warned
just now, and I now again warn you.”
“Then you yourself are one of these marked beings?”
“Yes, monsieur, I believe so; for until now, no man has found himself in
a position similar to mine. The dominions of kings are limited either by
mountains or rivers, or a change of manners, or an alteration of
language. My kingdom is bounded only by the world, for I am not an
Italian, or a Frenchman, or a Hindu, or an American, or a Spaniard—I
am a cosmopolite. No country can say it saw my birth. God alone knows
what country will see me die. I adopt all customs, speak all languages.
You believe me to be a Frenchman, for I speak French with the same
facility and purity as yourself. Well, Ali, my Nubian, believes me to be
an Arab; Bertuccio, my steward, takes me for a Roman; Haidee, my
slave, thinks me a Greek. You may, therefore, comprehend, that being of
no country, asking no protection from any government, acknowledging
no man as my brother, not one of the scruples that arrest the powerful, or
the obstacles which paralyze the weak, paralyzes or arrests me. I have
only two adversaries—I will not say two conquerors, for with
perseverance I subdue even them,—they are time and distance. There is
a third, and the most terrible—that is my condition as a mortal being.
This alone can stop me in my onward career, before I have attained the

goal at which I aim, for all the rest I have reduced to mathematical
terms. What men call the chances of fate—namely, ruin, change,
circumstances—I have fully anticipated, and if any of these should
overtake me, yet it will not overwhelm me. Unless I die, I shall always
be what I am, and therefore it is that I utter the things you have never
heard, even from the mouths of kings—for kings have need, and other
persons have fear of you. For who is there who does not say to himself,
in a society as incongruously organized as ours, ‘Perhaps some day I
shall have to do with the king’s attorney’?”
“But can you not say that, sir? The moment you become an inhabitant of
France, you are naturally subjected to the French law.”
“I know it sir,” replied Monte Cristo; “but when I visit a country I begin
to study, by all the means which are available, the men from whom I
may have anything to hope or to fear, till I know them as well as,
perhaps better than, they know themselves. It follows from this, that the
king’s attorney, be he who he may, with whom I should have to deal,
would assuredly be more embarrassed than I should.”
“That is to say,” replied Villefort with hesitation, “that human nature
being weak, every man, according to your creed, has committed faults.”
“Faults or crimes,” responded Monte Cristo with a negligent air.
“And that you alone, amongst the men whom you do not recognize as
your brothers—for you have said so,” observed Villefort in a tone that
faltered somewhat—”you alone are perfect.”
“No, not perfect,” was the count’s reply; “only impenetrable, that’s all.
But let us leave off this strain, sir, if the tone of it is displeasing to you; I
am no more disturbed by your justice than are you by my second–sight.”
“No, no,—by no means,” said Villefort, who was afraid of seeming to
abandon his ground. “No; by your brilliant and almost sublime

conversation you have elevated me above the ordinary level; we no
longer talk, we rise to dissertation. But you know how the theologians in
their collegiate chairs, and philosophers in their controversies,
occasionally say cruel truths; let us suppose for the moment that we are
theologizing in a social way, or even philosophically, and I will say to
you, rude as it may seem, ‘My brother, you sacrifice greatly to pride; you
may be above others, but above you there is God.’”
“Above us all, sir,” was Monte Cristo’s response, in a tone and with an
emphasis so deep that Villefort involuntarily shuddered. “I have my
pride for men—serpents always ready to threaten every one who would
pass without crushing them under foot. But I lay aside that pride before
God, who has taken me from nothing to make me what I am.”
“Then, count, I admire you,” said Villefort, who, for the first time in this
strange conversation, used the aristocratic form to the unknown
personage, whom, until now, he had only called monsieur. “Yes, and I
say to you, if you are really strong, really superior, really pious, or
impenetrable, which you were right in saying amounts to the same thing
—then be proud, sir, for that is the characteristic of predominance. Yet
you have unquestionably some ambition.”
“I have, sir.”
“And what may it be?”
“I too, as happens to every man once in his life, have been taken by
Satan into the highest mountain in the earth, and when there he showed
me all the kingdoms of the world, and as he said before, so said he to
me, ‘Child of earth, what wouldst thou have to make thee adore me?’ I
reflected long, for a gnawing ambition had long preyed upon me, and
then I replied, ‘Listen,—I have always heard of providence, and yet I
have never seen him, or anything that resembles him, or which can make
me believe that he exists. I wish to be providence myself, for I feel that

the most beautiful, noblest, most sublime thing in the world, is to
recompense and punish.’ Satan bowed his head, and groaned. ‘You
mistake,’ he said, ‘providence does exist, only you have never seen him,
because the child of God is as invisible as the parent. You have seen
nothing that resembles him, because he works by secret springs, and
moves by hidden ways. All I can do for you is to make you one of the
agents of that providence.’ The bargain was concluded. I may sacrifice
my soul, but what matters it?” added Monte Cristo. “If the thing were to
do again, I would again do it.” Villefort looked at Monte Cristo with
extreme amazement. “Count,” he inquired, “have you any relations?”
“No, sir, I am alone in the world.”
“So much the worse.”
“Why?” asked Monte Cristo.
“Because then you might witness a spectacle calculated to break down
your pride. You say you fear nothing but death?”
“I did not say that I feared it; I only said that death alone could check the
execution of my plans.”
“And old age?”
“My end will be achieved before I grow old.”
“And madness?”
“I have been nearly mad; and you know the axiom,—non bis in idem. It
is an axiom of criminal law, and, consequently, you understand its full
application.”
“Sir,” continued Villefort, “there is something to fear besides death, old
age, and madness. For instance, there is apoplexy—that lightning–stroke

which strikes but does not destroy you, and yet which brings everything
to an end. You are still yourself as now, and yet you are yourself no
longer; you who, like Ariel, verge on the angelic, are but an inert mass,
which, like Caliban, verges on the brutal; and this is called in human
tongues, as I tell you, neither more nor less than apoplexy. Come, if so
you will, count, and continue this conversation at my house, any day you
may be willing to see an adversary capable of understanding and anxious
to refute you, and I will show you my father, M. Noirtier de Villefort,
one of the most fiery Jacobins of the French Revolution; that is to say, he
had the most remarkable audacity, seconded by a most powerful
organization—a man who has not, perhaps, like yourself seen all the
kingdoms of the earth, but who has helped to overturn one of the
greatest; in fact, a man who believed himself, like you, one of the
envoys, not of God, but of a supreme being; not of providence, but of
fate. Well, sir, the rupture of a blood–vessel on the lobe of the brain has
destroyed all this, not in a day, not in an hour, but in a second. M.
Noirtier, who, on the previous night, was the old Jacobin, the old
senator, the old Carbonaro, laughing at the guillotine, the cannon, and
the dagger—M. Noirtier, playing with revolutions—M. Noirtier, for
whom France was a vast chess–board, from which pawns, rooks,
knights, and queens were to disappear, so that the king was checkmated
—M. Noirtier, the redoubtable, was the next morning ‘poor M.
Noirtier,’ the helpless old man, at the tender mercies of the weakest
creature in the household, that is, his grandchild, Valentine; a dumb and
frozen carcass, in fact, living painlessly on, that time may be given for
his frame to decompose without his consciousness of its decay.”
“Alas, sir,” said Monte Cristo “this spectacle is neither strange to my eye
nor my thought. I am something of a physician, and have, like my
fellows, sought more than once for the soul in living and in dead matter;
yet, like providence, it has remained invisible to my eyes, although
present to my heart. A hundred writers since Socrates, Seneca, St.
Augustine, and Gall, have made, in verse and prose, the comparison you
have made, and yet I can well understand that a father’s sufferings may

effect great changes in the mind of a son. I will call on you, sir, since
you bid me contemplate, for the advantage of my pride, this terrible
spectacle, which must have been so great a source of sorrow to your
family.”
“It would have been so unquestionably, had not God given me so large a
compensation. In contrast with the old man, who is dragging his way to
the tomb, are two children just entering into life—Valentine, the
daughter by my first wife—Mademoiselle Renee de Saint–Meran—and
Edward, the boy whose life you have this day saved.”
“And what is your deduction from this compensation, sir?” inquired
Monte Cristo.
“My deduction is,” replied Villefort, “that my father, led away by his
passions, has committed some fault unknown to human justice, but
marked by the justice of God. That God, desirous in his mercy to punish
but one person, has visited this justice on him alone.” Monte Cristo with
a smile on his lips, uttered in the depths of his soul a groan which would
have made Villefort fly had he but heard it. “Adieu, sir,” said the
magistrate, who had risen from his seat; “I leave you, bearing a
remembrance of you—a remembrance of esteem, which I hope will not
be disagreeable to you when you know me better; for I am not a man to
bore my friends, as you will learn. Besides, you have made an eternal
friend of Madame de Villefort.” The count bowed, and contented himself
with seeing Villefort to the door of his cabinet, the procureur being
escorted to his carriage by two footmen, who, on a signal from their
master, followed him with every mark of attention. When he had gone,
Monte Cristo breathed a profound sigh, and said,—”Enough of this
poison, let me now seek the antidote.” Then sounding his bell, he said to
Ali, who entered, “I am going to madam’s chamber—have the carriage
ready at one o’clock.”