The Count of Monte Cristo
speak to me before my servant.”
“How can I help that, my boy? I speak to you when I can catch you. You
have a quick horse, a light tilbury, you are naturally as slippery as
an eel; if I had missed you tonight, I might not have had another
chance.”
“You see, I do not conceal myself.”
“You are lucky; I wish I could say as much, for I do conceal myself;
and then I was afraid you would not recognize me, but you did,” added
Caderousse with his unpleasant smile. “It was very polite of you.”
“Come,” said Andrea, “what do you want?”
“You do not speak affectionately to me, Benedetto, my old friend, that
is not right—take care, or I may become troublesome.”
This menace smothered the young man’s passion. He urged the horse again
into a trot.
“You should not speak so to an old friend like me, Caderousse, as you
said just now; you are a native of Marseilles, I am——”
“Do you know then now what you are?”
“No, but I was brought up in Corsica; you are old and obstinate, I am
young and wilful. Between people like us threats are out of place,
everything should be amicably arranged. Is it my fault if fortune,
which has frowned on you, has been kind to me?”
“Fortune has been kind to you, then? Your tilbury, your groom, your
clothes, are not then hired? Good, so much the better,” said
Caderousse, his eyes sparkling with avarice.
“Oh, you knew that well enough before speaking to me,” said Andrea,
becoming more and more excited. “If I had been wearing a handkerchief
like yours on my head, rags on my back, and worn-out shoes on my feet,
you would not have known me.”
“You wrong me, my boy; now I have found you, nothing prevents my being
as well-dressed as anyone, knowing, as I do, the goodness of your
heart. If you have two coats you will give me one of them. I used to
divide my soup and beans with you when you were hungry.”
“True,” said Andrea.
“What an appetite you used to have! Is it as good now?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Andrea, laughing.
“How did you come to be dining with that prince whose house you have
just left?”
“He is not a prince; simply a count.”
“A count, and a rich one too, eh?”
“Yes; but you had better not have anything to say to him, for he is not
a very good-tempered gentleman.”
“Oh, be easy! I have no design upon your count, and you shall have him
all to yourself. But,” said Caderousse, again smiling with the
disagreeable expression he had before assumed, “you must pay for it—you
understand?”
“Well, what do you want?”
“I think that with a hundred francs a month——”
“Well?”
“I could live——”
“Upon a hundred francs!”
“Come—you understand me; but that with——”
“With?”
“With a hundred and fifty francs I should be quite happy.”
“Here are two hundred,” said Andrea; and he placed ten gold louis in
the hand of Caderousse.
30233m
“Good!” said Caderousse.
“Apply to the steward on the first day of every month, and you will
receive the same sum.”
“There now, again you degrade me.”
“How so?”
“By making me apply to the servants, when I want to transact business
with you alone.”
“Well, be it so, then. Take it from me then, and so long at least as I
receive my income, you shall be paid yours.”
“Come, come; I always said you were a fine fellow, and it is a blessing
when good fortune happens to such as you. But tell me all about it?”
“Why do you wish to know?” asked Cavalcanti.
“What? do you again defy me?”
“No; the fact is, I have found my father.”
“What? a real father?”
“Yes, so long as he pays me——”
“You’ll honor and believe him—that’s right. What is his name?”
“Major Cavalcanti.”
“Is he pleased with you?”
“So far I have appeared to answer his purpose.”
“And who found this father for you?”
“The Count of Monte Cristo.”
“The man whose house you have just left?”
“Yes.”
“I wish you would try and find me a situation with him as grandfather,
since he holds the money-chest!”
“Well, I will mention you to him. Meanwhile, what are you going to do?”
“I?”
“Yes, you.”
“It is very kind of you to trouble yourself about me.”
“Since you interest yourself in my affairs, I think it is now my turn
to ask you some questions.”
“Ah, true. Well; I shall rent a room in some respectable house, wear a
decent coat, shave every day, and go and read the papers in a café.
Then, in the evening, I shall go to the theatre; I shall look like some
retired baker. That is what I want.”
“Come, if you will only put this scheme into execution, and be steady,
nothing could be better.”
“Do you think so, M. Bossuet? And you—what will you become? A peer of
France?”
“Ah,” said Andrea, “who knows?”
“Major Cavalcanti is already one, perhaps; but then, hereditary rank is
abolished.”
“No politics, Caderousse. And now that you have all you want, and that
we understand each other, jump down from the tilbury and disappear.”
“Not at all, my good friend.”
“How? Not at all?”
“Why, just think for a moment; with this red handkerchief on my head,
with scarcely any shoes, no papers, and ten gold napoleons in my
pocket, without reckoning what was there before—making in all about two
hundred francs,—why, I should certainly be arrested at the barriers.
Then, to justify myself, I should say that you gave me the money; this
would cause inquiries, it would be found that I left Toulon without
giving due notice, and I should then be escorted back to the shores of
the Mediterranean. Then I should become simply No. 106, and good-bye to
my dream of resembling the retired baker! No, no, my boy; I prefer
remaining honorably in the capital.”
Andrea scowled. Certainly, as he had himself owned, the reputed son of
Major Cavalcanti was a wilful fellow. He drew up for a minute, threw a
rapid glance around him, and then his hand fell instantly into his
pocket, where it began playing with a pistol. But, meanwhile,
Caderousse, who had never taken his eyes off his companion, passed his
hand behind his back, and opened a long Spanish knife, which he always
carried with him, to be ready in case of need. The two friends, as we
see, were worthy of and understood one another. Andrea’s hand left his
pocket inoffensively, and was carried up to the red moustache, which it
played with for some time.
“Good Caderousse,” he said, “how happy you will be.”
“I will do my best,” said the innkeeper of the Pont du Gard, shutting
up his knife.
“Well, then, we will go into Paris. But how will you pass through the
barrier without exciting suspicion? It seems to me that you are in more
danger riding than on foot.”
“Wait,” said Caderousse, “we shall see.” He then took the greatcoat
with the large collar, which the groom had left behind in the tilbury,
and put it on his back; then he took off Cavalcanti’s hat, which he
placed upon his own head, and finally he assumed the careless attitude
of a servant whose master drives himself.
“But, tell me,” said Andrea, “am I to remain bareheaded?”
“Pooh,” said Caderousse; “it is so windy that your hat can easily
appear to have blown off.”
“Come, come; enough of this,” said Cavalcanti.
“What are you waiting for?” said Caderousse. “I hope I am not the
cause.”
“Hush,” said Andrea. They passed the barrier without accident. At the
first cross street Andrea stopped his horse, and Caderousse leaped out.
“Well!” said Andrea,—“my servant’s coat and my hat?”
“Ah,” said Caderousse, “you would not like me to risk taking cold?”
“But what am I to do?”
“You? Oh, you are young while I am beginning to get old. _Au revoir_,
Benedetto;” and running into a court, he disappeared.
“Alas,” said Andrea, sighing, “one cannot be completely happy in this
world!”
Chapter 65. A Conjugal Scene
At the Place Louis XV. the three young people separated—that is to say,
Morrel went to the Boulevards, Château-Renaud to the Pont de la
Révolution, and Debray to the Quai. Most probably Morrel and
Château-Renaud returned to their “domestic hearths,” as they say in the
gallery of the Chamber in well-turned speeches, and in the theatre of
the Rue Richelieu in well-written pieces; but it was not the case with
Debray. When he reached the wicket of the Louvre, he turned to the
left, galloped across the Carrousel, passed through the Rue Saint-Roch,
and, issuing from the Rue de la Michodière, he arrived at M. Danglars’
door just at the same time that Villefort’s landau, after having
deposited him and his wife at the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, stopped to
leave the baroness at her own house.
Debray, with the air of a man familiar with the house, entered first
into the court, threw his bridle into the hands of a footman, and
returned to the door to receive Madame Danglars, to whom he offered his
arm, to conduct her to her apartments. The gate once closed, and Debray
and the baroness alone in the court, he asked:
“What was the matter with you, Hermine? and why were you so affected at
that story, or rather fable, which the count related?”
“Because I have been in such shocking spirits all the evening, my
friend,” said the baroness.
“No, Hermine,” replied Debray; “you cannot make me believe that; on the
contrary, you were in excellent spirits when you arrived at the
count’s. M. Danglars was disagreeable, certainly, but I know how much
you care for his ill-humor. Someone has vexed you; I will allow no one
to annoy you.”
“You are deceived, Lucien, I assure you,” replied Madame Danglars; “and
what I have told you is really the case, added to the ill-humor you
remarked, but which I did not think it worth while to allude to.”
It was evident that Madame Danglars was suffering from that nervous
irritability which women frequently cannot account for even to
themselves; or that, as Debray had guessed, she had experienced some
secret agitation that she would not acknowledge to anyone. Being a man
who knew that the former of these symptoms was one of the inherent
penalties of womanhood, he did not then press his inquiries, but waited
for a more appropriate opportunity when he should again interrogate
her, or receive an avowal _proprio motu_.
At the door of her apartment the baroness met Mademoiselle Cornélie,
her confidential maid.
“What is my daughter doing?” asked Madame Danglars.
“She practiced all the evening, and then went to bed,” replied
Mademoiselle Cornélie.
“Yet I think I hear her piano.”
“It is Mademoiselle Louise d’Armilly, who is playing while Mademoiselle
Danglars is in bed.”
“Well,” said Madame Danglars, “come and undress me.”
They entered the bedroom. Debray stretched himself upon a large couch,
and Madame Danglars passed into her dressing-room with Mademoiselle
Cornélie.
“My dear M. Lucien,” said Madame Danglars through the door, “you are
always complaining that Eugénie will not address a word to you.”
“Madame,” said Lucien, playing with a little dog, who, recognizing him
as a friend of the house, expected to be caressed, “I am not the only
one who makes similar complaints, I think I heard Morcerf say that he
could not extract a word from his betrothed.”
“True,” said Madame Danglars; “yet I think this will all pass off, and
that you will one day see her enter your study.”
“My study?”
“At least that of the minister.”
“Why so!”
“To ask for an engagement at the Opera. Really, I never saw such an
infatuation for music; it is quite ridiculous for a young lady of
fashion.”
Debray smiled. “Well,” said he, “let her come, with your consent and
that of the baron, and we will try and give her an engagement, though
we are very poor to pay such talent as hers.”
“Go, Cornélie,” said Madame Danglars, “I do not require you any
longer.”
Cornélie obeyed, and the next minute Madame Danglars left her room in a
charming loose dress, and came and sat down close to Debray. Then she