The Count of Monte Cristo
He rose to return the salutation.
“Mademoiselle de Villefort, my step-daughter,” said Madame de Villefort
to Monte Cristo, leaning back on her sofa and motioning towards
Valentine with her hand.
“And M. de Monte Cristo, King of China, Emperor of Cochin-China,” said
the young imp, looking slyly towards his sister.
Madame de Villefort at this really did turn pale, and was very nearly
angry with this household plague, who answered to the name of Edward;
but the count, on the contrary, smiled, and appeared to look at the boy
complacently, which caused the maternal heart to bound again with joy
and enthusiasm.
“But, madame,” replied the count, continuing the conversation, and
looking by turns at Madame de Villefort and Valentine, “have I not
already had the honor of meeting yourself and mademoiselle before? I
could not help thinking so just now; the idea came over my mind, and as
mademoiselle entered the sight of her was an additional ray of light
thrown on a confused remembrance; excuse the remark.”
“I do not think it likely, sir; Mademoiselle de Villefort is not very
fond of society, and we very seldom go out,” said the young lady.
“Then it was not in society that I met with mademoiselle or yourself,
madame, or this charming little merry boy. Besides, the Parisian world
is entirely unknown to me, for, as I believe I told you, I have been in
Paris but very few days. No,—but, perhaps, you will permit me to call
to mind—stay!”
The Count placed his hand on his brow as if to collect his thoughts.
“No—it was somewhere—away from here—it was—I do not know—but it appears
that this recollection is connected with a lovely sky and some
religious _fête_; mademoiselle was holding flowers in her hand, the
interesting boy was chasing a beautiful peacock in a garden, and you,
madame, were under the trellis of some arbor. Pray come to my aid,
madame; do not these circumstances appeal to your memory?”
“No, indeed,” replied Madame de Villefort; “and yet it appears to me,
sir, that if I had met you anywhere, the recollection of you must have
been imprinted on my memory.”
“Perhaps the count saw us in Italy,” said Valentine timidly.
“Yes, in Italy; it was in Italy most probably,” replied Monte Cristo;
“you have travelled then in Italy, mademoiselle?”
“Yes; madame and I were there two years ago. The doctors, anxious for
my lungs, had prescribed the air of Naples. We went by Bologna,
Perugia, and Rome.”
“Ah, yes—true, mademoiselle,” exclaimed Monte Cristo as if this simple
explanation was sufficient to revive the recollection he sought. “It
was at Perugia on Corpus Christi Day, in the garden of the Hôtel des
Postes, when chance brought us together; you, Madame de Villefort, and
her son; I now remember having had the honor of meeting you.”
“I perfectly well remember Perugia, sir, and the Hôtel des Postes, and
the festival of which you speak,” said Madame de Villefort, “but in
vain do I tax my memory, of whose treachery I am ashamed, for I really
do not recall to mind that I ever had the pleasure of seeing you
before.”
“It is strange, but neither do I recollect meeting with you,” observed
Valentine, raising her beautiful eyes to the count.
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“But I remember it perfectly,” interposed the darling Edward.
“I will assist your memory, madame,” continued the count; “the day had
been burning hot; you were waiting for horses, which were delayed in
consequence of the festival. Mademoiselle was walking in the shade of
the garden, and your son disappeared in pursuit of the peacock.”
“And I caught it, mamma, don’t you remember?” interposed Edward, “and I
pulled three such beautiful feathers out of his tail.”
“You, madame, remained under the arbor; do you not remember, that while
you were seated on a stone bench, and while, as I told you,
Mademoiselle de Villefort and your young son were absent, you conversed
for a considerable time with somebody?”
“Yes, in truth, yes,” answered the young lady, turning very red, “I do
remember conversing with a person wrapped in a long woollen mantle; he
was a medical man, I think.”
“Precisely so, madame; this man was myself; for a fortnight I had been
at that hotel, during which period I had cured my valet de chambre of a
fever, and my landlord of the jaundice, so that I really acquired a
reputation as a skilful physician. We discoursed a long time, madame,
on different subjects; of Perugino, of Raphael, of manners, customs, of
the famous _aqua Tofana_, of which they had told you, I think you said,
that certain individuals in Perugia had preserved the secret.”
“Yes, true,” replied Madame de Villefort, somewhat uneasily, “I
remember now.”
“I do not recollect now all the various subjects of which we
discoursed, madame,” continued the count with perfect calmness; “but I
perfectly remember that, falling into the error which others had
entertained respecting me, you consulted me as to the health of
Mademoiselle de Villefort.”
“Yes, really, sir, you were in fact a medical man,” said Madame de
Villefort, “since you had cured the sick.”
“Molière or Beaumarchais would reply to you, madame, that it was
precisely because I was not, that I had cured my patients; for myself,
I am content to say to you that I have studied chemistry and the
natural sciences somewhat deeply, but still only as an amateur, you
understand.”
At this moment the clock struck six.
“It is six o’clock,” said Madame de Villefort, evidently agitated.
“Valentine, will you not go and see if your grandpapa will have his
dinner?”
Valentine rose, and saluting the count, left the apartment without
speaking.
“Oh, madame,” said the count, when Valentine had left the room, “was it
on my account that you sent Mademoiselle de Villefort away?”
“By no means,” replied the young lady quickly; “but this is the hour
when we usually give M. Noirtier the unwelcome meal that sustains his
pitiful existence. You are aware, sir, of the deplorable condition of
my husband’s father?”
“Yes, madame, M. de Villefort spoke of it to me—a paralysis, I think.”
“Alas, yes; the poor old gentleman is entirely helpless; the mind alone
is still active in this human machine, and that is faint and
flickering, like the light of a lamp about to expire. But excuse me,
sir, for talking of our domestic misfortunes; I interrupted you at the
moment when you were telling me that you were a skilful chemist.”
“No, madame, I did not say as much as that,” replied the count with a
smile; “quite the contrary. I have studied chemistry because, having
determined to live in eastern climates I have been desirous of
following the example of King Mithridates.”
“_Mithridates, rex Ponticus_,” said the young scamp, as he tore some
beautiful portraits out of a splendid album, “the individual who took
cream in his cup of poison every morning at breakfast.”
“Edward, you naughty boy,” exclaimed Madame de Villefort, snatching the
mutilated book from the urchin’s grasp, “you are positively past
bearing; you really disturb the conversation; go, leave us, and join
your sister Valentine in dear grandpapa Noirtier’s room.”
“The album,” said Edward sulkily.
“What do you mean?—the album!”
“I want the album.”
“How dare you tear out the drawings?”
“Oh, it amuses me.”
“Go—go at once.”
“I won’t go unless you give me the album,” said the boy, seating
himself doggedly in an armchair, according to his habit of never giving
way.
“Take it, then, and pray disturb us no longer,” said Madame de
Villefort, giving the album to Edward, who then went towards the door,
led by his mother. The count followed her with his eyes.
“Let us see if she shuts the door after him,” he muttered.
Madame de Villefort closed the door carefully after the child, the
count appearing not to notice her; then casting a scrutinizing glance
around the chamber, the young wife returned to her chair, in which she
seated herself.
“Allow me to observe, madame,” said the count, with that kind tone he
could assume so well, “you are really very severe with that dear clever
child.”
“Oh, sometimes severity is quite necessary,” replied Madame de
Villefort, with all a mother’s real firmness.
“It was his Cornelius Nepos that Master Edward was repeating when he
referred to King Mithridates,” continued the count, “and you
interrupted him in a quotation which proves that his tutor has by no
means neglected him, for your son is really advanced for his years.”
“The fact is, count,” answered the mother, agreeably flattered, “he has
great aptitude, and learns all that is set before him. He has but one
fault, he is somewhat wilful; but really, on referring for the moment
to what he said, do you truly believe that Mithridates used these
precautions, and that these precautions were efficacious?”
“I think so, madame, because I myself have made use of them, that I
might not be poisoned at Naples, at Palermo, and at Smyrna—that is to
say, on three several occasions when, but for these precautions, I must
have lost my life.”
“And your precautions were successful?”
“Completely so.”
“Yes, I remember now your mentioning to me at Perugia something of this
sort.”
“Indeed?” said the count with an air of surprise, remarkably well
counterfeited; “I really did not remember.”
“I inquired of you if poisons acted equally, and with the same effect,
on men of the North as on men of the South; and you answered me that
the cold and sluggish habits of the North did not present the same
aptitude as the rich and energetic temperaments of the natives of the
South.”
“And that is the case,” observed Monte Cristo. “I have seen Russians
devour, without being visibly inconvenienced, vegetable substances
which would infallibly have killed a Neapolitan or an Arab.”
“And you really believe the result would be still more sure with us
than in the East, and in the midst of our fogs and rains a man would
habituate himself more easily than in a warm latitude to this
progressive absorption of poison?”
“Certainly; it being at the same time perfectly understood that he
should have been duly fortified against the poison to which he had not
been accustomed.”
“Yes, I understand that; and how would you habituate yourself, for
instance, or rather, how did you habituate yourself to it?”
“Oh, very easily. Suppose you knew beforehand the poison that would be
made use of against you; suppose the poison was, for instance,
brucine——”
“Brucine is extracted from the false angostura8 is it not?” inquired
Madame de Villefort.
“Precisely, madame,” replied Monte Cristo; “but I perceive I have not
much to teach you. Allow me to compliment you on your knowledge; such
learning is very rare among ladies.”
“Oh, I am aware of that,” said Madame de Villefort; “but I have a
passion for the occult sciences, which speak to the imagination like
poetry, and are reducible to figures, like an algebraic equation; but
go on, I beg of you; what you say interests me to the greatest degree.”
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“Well,” replied Monte Cristo “suppose, then, that this poison was
brucine, and you were to take a milligramme the first day, two
milligrammes the second day, and so on. Well, at the end of ten days
you would have taken a centigramme, at the end of twenty days,
increasing another milligramme, you would have taken three hundred
centigrammes; that is to say, a dose which you would support without
inconvenience, and which would be very dangerous for any other person
who had not taken the same precautions as yourself. Well, then, at the
end of a month, when drinking water from the same carafe, you would
kill the person who drank with you, without your perceiving, otherwise
than from slight inconvenience, that there was any poisonous substance
mingled with this water.”