Villefort’s was destroyed by the discovery of his attempt to kill his bastard son 23 years ago. Fernand betrayed the ruler of Yannina and sold his wife and daughter to slavery. This truth was revealed in the newspaper and disgraces the general.
What struck me was that if even in mid 19th century a man could not bury his past. Today everything is documented, recorded for eternity and indexed. A teenager with an internet connection can dig buried skeletons from your closet by finding embarrassing facts and figures about you. It’s easy to say that the best escape is to do no evil, but sometimes even common men like you and me want to bury their past.
There are often many actions that we did because we were not mature enough, or ignorant of the consequences of our actions. Sometimes there are certain actions that looked cool during the teenage but you might not be proud of them now. Morals evolve with time and are dependent on the culture of the people around. Certain actions might be OK or even desirable at one point of time or circumstances but your friends and relatives now might not understand that. Certain times you want to bury your past not because you are ashamed of it, but because you don’t want your kids to repeat the same mistakes (like skipping college to join a band)
How does one protect himself? You might say by coming clean and tell the world your version of the story before it’s used against you. However how good a first impression will one make if he does that?
