The Count of Monte Cristo
“Stay,” said Debray; “I recognize this Hobbema.”
“Ah, indeed!”
“Yes; it was proposed for the Museum.”
“Which, I believe, does not contain one?” said Monte Cristo.
“No; and yet they refused to buy it.”
“Why?” said Château-Renaud.
“You pretend not to know,—because government was not rich enough.”
“Ah, pardon me,” said Château-Renaud; “I have heard of these things
every day during the last eight years, and I cannot understand them
yet.”
“You will, by and by,” said Debray.
“I think not,” replied Château-Renaud.
“Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti and Count Andrea Cavalcanti,” announced
Baptistin.
A black satin stock, fresh from the maker’s hands, gray moustaches, a
bold eye, a major’s uniform, ornamented with three medals and five
crosses—in fact, the thorough bearing of an old soldier—such was the
appearance of Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, that tender father with whom
we are already acquainted. Close to him, dressed in entirely new
clothes, advanced smilingly Count Andrea Cavalcanti, the dutiful son,
whom we also know. The three young people were talking together. On the
entrance of the new-comers, their eyes glanced from father to son, and
then, naturally enough, rested on the latter, whom they began
criticising.
“Cavalcanti!” said Debray.
“A fine name,” said Morrel.
“Yes,” said Château-Renaud, “these Italians are well named and badly
dressed.”
“You are fastidious, Château-Renaud,” replied Debray; “those clothes
are well cut and quite new.”
“That is just what I find fault with. That gentleman appears to be well
dressed for the first time in his life.”
“Who are those gentlemen?” asked Danglars of Monte Cristo.
“You heard—Cavalcanti.”
“That tells me their name, and nothing else.”
“Ah! true. You do not know the Italian nobility; the Cavalcanti are all
descended from princes.”
“Have they any fortune?”
“An enormous one.”
“What do they do?”
“Try to spend it all. They have some business with you, I think, from
what they told me the day before yesterday. I, indeed, invited them
here today on your account. I will introduce you to them.”
“But they appear to speak French with a very pure accent,” said
Danglars.
“The son has been educated in a college in the south; I believe near
Marseilles. You will find him quite enthusiastic.”
“Upon what subject?” asked Madame Danglars.
“The French ladies, madame. He has made up his mind to take a wife from
Paris.”
“A fine idea that of his,” said Danglars, shrugging his shoulders.
Madame Danglars looked at her husband with an expression which, at any
other time, would have indicated a storm, but for the second time she
controlled herself.
“The baron appears thoughtful today,” said Monte Cristo to her; “are
they going to put him in the ministry?”
“Not yet, I think. More likely he has been speculating on the Bourse,
and has lost money.”
“M. and Madame de Villefort,” cried Baptistin.
They entered. M. de Villefort, notwithstanding his self-control, was
visibly affected, and when Monte Cristo touched his hand, he felt it
tremble.
“Certainly, women alone know how to dissimulate,” said Monte Cristo to
himself, glancing at Madame Danglars, who was smiling on the procureur,
and embracing his wife.
After a short time, the count saw Bertuccio, who, until then, had been
occupied on the other side of the house, glide into an adjoining room.
He went to him.
“What do you want, M. Bertuccio?” said he.
“Your excellency has not stated the number of guests.”
“Ah, true.”
“How many covers?”
“Count for yourself.”
“Is everyone here, your excellency?”
“Yes.”
Bertuccio glanced through the door, which was ajar. The count watched
him. “Good heavens!” he exclaimed.
“What is the matter?” said the count.
“That woman—that woman!”
“Which?”
“The one with a white dress and so many diamonds—the fair one.”
“Madame Danglars?”
“I do not know her name; but it is she, sir, it is she!”
“Whom do you mean?”
“The woman of the garden!—she that was _enceinte_—she who was walking
while she waited for——”
Bertuccio stood at the open door, with his eyes starting and his hair
on end.
“Waiting for whom?” Bertuccio, without answering, pointed to Villefort
with something of the gesture Macbeth uses to point out Banquo.
“Oh, oh!” he at length muttered, “do you see?”
“What? Who?”
“Him!”
“Him!—M. de Villefort, the king’s attorney? Certainly I see him.”
“Then I did not kill him?”
“Really, I think you are going mad, good Bertuccio,” said the count.
“Then he is not dead?”
30213m
“No; you see plainly he is not dead. Instead of striking between the
sixth and seventh left ribs, as your countrymen do, you must have
struck higher or lower, and life is very tenacious in these lawyers, or
rather there is no truth in anything you have told me—it was a fright
of the imagination, a dream of your fancy. You went to sleep full of
thoughts of vengeance; they weighed heavily upon your stomach; you had
the nightmare—that’s all. Come, calm yourself, and reckon them up—M.
and Madame de Villefort, two; M. and Madame Danglars, four; M. de
Château-Renaud, M. Debray, M. Morrel, seven; Major Bartolomeo
Cavalcanti, eight.”
“Eight!” repeated Bertuccio.
“Stop! You are in a shocking hurry to be off—you forget one of my
guests. Lean a little to the left. Stay! look at M. Andrea Cavalcanti,
the young man in a black coat, looking at Murillo’s ‘Madonna’; now he
is turning.”
This time Bertuccio would have uttered an exclamation, had not a look
from Monte Cristo silenced him.
“Benedetto?” he muttered; “fatality!”
“Half-past six o’clock has just struck, M. Bertuccio,” said the count
severely; “I ordered dinner at that hour, and I do not like to wait;”
and he returned to his guests, while Bertuccio, leaning against the
wall, succeeded in reaching the dining-room. Five minutes afterwards
the doors of the drawing-room were thrown open, and Bertuccio appearing
said, with a violent effort, “The dinner waits.”
The Count of Monte Cristo offered his arm to Madame de Villefort. “M.
de Villefort,” he said, “will you conduct the Baroness Danglars?”
Villefort complied, and they passed on to the dining-room.
Chapter 63. The Dinner
It was evident that one sentiment affected all the guests on entering
the dining-room. Each one asked what strange influence had brought them
to this house, and yet astonished, even uneasy though they were, they
still felt that they would not like to be absent. The recent events,
the solitary and eccentric position of the count, his enormous, nay,
almost incredible fortune, should have made men cautious, and have
altogether prevented ladies visiting a house where there was no one of
their own sex to receive them; and yet curiosity had been enough to
lead them to overleap the bounds of prudence and decorum.
And all present, even including Cavalcanti and his son, notwithstanding
the stiffness of the one and the carelessness of the other, were
thoughtful, on finding themselves assembled at the house of this
incomprehensible man. Madame Danglars had started when Villefort, on
the count’s invitation, offered his arm; and Villefort felt that his
glance was uneasy beneath his gold spectacles, when he felt the arm of
the baroness press upon his own. None of this had escaped the count,
and even by this mere contact of individuals the scene had already
acquired considerable interest for an observer.
M. de Villefort had on the right hand Madame Danglars, on his left
Morrel. The count was seated between Madame de Villefort and Danglars;
the other seats were filled by Debray, who was placed between the two
Cavalcanti, and by Château-Renaud, seated between Madame de Villefort
and Morrel.
The repast was magnificent; Monte Cristo had endeavored completely to
overturn the Parisian ideas, and to feed the curiosity as much as the
appetite of his guests. It was an Oriental feast that he offered to
them, but of such a kind as the Arabian fairies might be supposed to
prepare. Every delicious fruit that the four quarters of the globe
could provide was heaped in vases from China and jars from Japan. Rare
birds, retaining their most brilliant plumage, enormous fish, spread
upon massive silver dishes, together with every wine produced in the
Archipelago, Asia Minor, or the Cape, sparkling in bottles, whose
grotesque shape seemed to give an additional flavor to the draught,—all
these, like one of the displays with which Apicius of old gratified his
guests, passed in review before the eyes of the astonished Parisians,
who understood that it was possible to expend a thousand louis upon a
dinner for ten persons, but only on the condition of eating pearls,
like Cleopatra, or drinking refined gold, like Lorenzo de’ Medici.
Monte Cristo noticed the general astonishment, and began laughing and
joking about it.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “you will admit that, when arrived at a certain
degree of fortune, the superfluities of life are all that can be
desired; and the ladies will allow that, after having risen to a
certain eminence of position, the ideal alone can be more exalted. Now,
to follow out this reasoning, what is the marvellous?—that which we do
not understand. What is it that we really desire?—that which we cannot
obtain. Now, to see things which I cannot understand, to procure
impossibilities, these are the study of my life. I gratify my wishes by
two means—my will and my money. I take as much interest in the pursuit
of some whim as you do, M. Danglars, in promoting a new railway line;
you, M. de Villefort, in condemning a culprit to death; you, M. Debray,
in pacifying a kingdom; you, M. de Château-Renaud, in pleasing a woman;
and you, Morrel, in breaking a horse that no one can ride. For example,
you see these two fish; one brought from fifty leagues beyond St.
Petersburg, the other five leagues from Naples. Is it not amusing to
see them both on the same table?”
“What are the two fish?” asked Danglars.
“M. Château-Renaud, who has lived in Russia, will tell you the name of
one, and Major Cavalcanti, who is an Italian, will tell you the name of
the other.”
“This one is, I think, a sterlet,” said Château-Renaud.
“And that one, if I mistake not, a lamprey.”
“Just so. Now, M. Danglars, ask these gentlemen where they are caught.”
“Sterlets,” said Château-Renaud, “are only found in the Volga.”
“And,” said Cavalcanti, “I know that Lake Fusaro alone supplies
lampreys of that size.”
“Exactly; one comes from the Volga, and the other from Lake Fusaro.”
“Impossible!” cried all the guests simultaneously.
“Well, this is just what amuses me,” said Monte Cristo. “I am like
Nero—_cupitor impossibilium_; and that is what is amusing you at this
moment. This fish, which seems so exquisite to you, is very likely no
better than perch or salmon; but it seemed impossible to procure it,
and here it is.”
“But how could you have these fish brought to France?”
“Oh, nothing more easy. Each fish was brought over in a cask—one filled
with river herbs and weeds, the other with rushes and lake plants; they
were placed in a wagon built on purpose, and thus the sterlet lived
twelve days, the lamprey eight, and both were alive when my cook seized
them, killing one with milk and the other with wine. You do not believe
me, M. Danglars!”
“I cannot help doubting,” answered Danglars with his stupid smile.
“Baptistin,” said the count, “have the other fish brought in—the
sterlet and the lamprey which came in the other casks, and which are
yet alive.”
Danglars opened his bewildered eyes; the company clapped their hands.
Four servants carried in two casks covered with aquatic plants, and in
each of which was breathing a fish similar to those on the table.
“But why have two of each sort?” asked Danglars.