“I wrote or studied.”
“Were you then permitted the use of pens, ink, and paper?”
“Oh, no,” answered the abbé; “I had none but what I made for myself.”
“You made paper, pens and ink?”
“Yes.”
Dantès gazed with admiration, but he had some difficulty in believing. Faria saw this.
“When you pay me a visit in my cell, my young friend,” said he, “I will show you an entire work, the fruits of the thoughts and reflections of my whole life; many of them meditated over in the shades of the Colosseum at Rome, at the foot of St. Mark’s column at Venice, and on the borders of the Arno at Florence, little imagining at the time that they would be arranged in order within the walls of the Château d’If. The work I speak of is called A Treatise on the Possibility of a General Monarchy in Italy, and will make one large quarto volume.”
“And on what have you written all this?”
“On two of my shirts. I invented a preparation that makes linen as smooth and as easy to write on as parchment.”
“You are, then, a chemist?”