The Count of Monte Cristo
“Do not give yourselves the trouble, excellency,” returned Signor
Pastrini, with the smile peculiar to the Italian speculator when he
confesses defeat; “I will do all I can, and I hope you will be
satisfied.”
“And now we understand each other.”
“When do you wish the carriage to be here?”
“In an hour.”
“In an hour it will be at the door.”
An hour after the vehicle was at the door; it was a hack conveyance
which was elevated to the rank of a private carriage in honor of the
occasion, but, in spite of its humble exterior, the young men would
have thought themselves happy to have secured it for the last three
days of the Carnival.
“Excellency,” cried the _cicerone_, seeing Franz approach the window,
“shall I bring the carriage nearer to the palace?”
Accustomed as Franz was to the Italian phraseology, his first impulse
was to look round him, but these words were addressed to him. Franz was
the “excellency,” the vehicle was the “carriage,” and the Hôtel de
Londres was the “palace.” The genius for laudation characteristic of
the race was in that phrase.
Franz and Albert descended, the carriage approached the palace; their
excellencies stretched their legs along the seats; the _cicerone_
sprang into the seat behind.
“Where do your excellencies wish to go?” asked he.
“To Saint Peter’s first, and then to the Colosseum,” returned Albert.
But Albert did not know that it takes a day to see Saint Peter’s, and a
month to study it. The day was passed at Saint Peter’s alone.
Suddenly the daylight began to fade away; Franz took out his watch—it
was half-past four. They returned to the hotel; at the door Franz
ordered the coachman to be ready at eight. He wished to show Albert the
Colosseum by moonlight, as he had shown him Saint Peter’s by daylight.
When we show a friend a city one has already visited, we feel the same
pride as when we point out a woman whose lover we have been.
He was to leave the city by the Porta del Popolo, skirt the outer wall,
and re-enter by the Porta San Giovanni; thus they would behold the
Colosseum without finding their impressions dulled by first looking on
the Capitol, the Forum, the Arch of Septimus Severus, the Temple of
Antoninus and Faustina, and the Via Sacra.
They sat down to dinner. Signor Pastrini had promised them a banquet;
he gave them a tolerable repast. At the end of the dinner he entered in
person. Franz thought that he came to hear his dinner praised, and
began accordingly, but at the first words he was interrupted.
“Excellency,” said Pastrini, “I am delighted to have your approbation,
but it was not for that I came.”
“Did you come to tell us you have procured a carriage?” asked Albert,
lighting his cigar.
“No; and your excellencies will do well not to think of that any
longer; at Rome things can or cannot be done; when you are told
anything cannot be done, there is an end of it.”
“It is much more convenient at Paris,—when anything cannot be done, you
pay double, and it is done directly.”
“That is what all the French say,” returned Signor Pastrini, somewhat
piqued; “for that reason, I do not understand why they travel.”
“But,” said Albert, emitting a volume of smoke and balancing his chair
on its hind legs, “only madmen, or blockheads like us, ever do travel.
Men in their senses do not quit their hotel in the Rue du Helder, their
walk on the Boulevard de Gand, and the Café de Paris.”
It is of course understood that Albert resided in the aforesaid street,
appeared every day on the fashionable walk, and dined frequently at the
only restaurant where you can really dine, that is, if you are on good
terms with its waiters.
Signor Pastrini remained silent a short time; it was evident that he
was musing over this answer, which did not seem very clear.
“But,” said Franz, in his turn interrupting his host’s meditations,
“you had some motive for coming here, may I beg to know what it was?”
20099m
“Ah, yes; you have ordered your carriage at eight o’clock precisely?”
“I have.”
“You intend visiting _Il Colosseo_.”
“You mean the Colosseum?”
“It is the same thing. You have told your coachman to leave the city by
the Porta del Popolo, to drive round the walls, and re-enter by the
Porta San Giovanni?”
“These are my words exactly.”
“Well, this route is impossible.”
“Impossible!”
“Very dangerous, to say the least.”
“Dangerous!—and why?”
“On account of the famous Luigi Vampa.”
“Pray, who may this famous Luigi Vampa be?” inquired Albert; “he may be
very famous at Rome, but I can assure you he is quite unknown at
Paris.”
“What! do you not know him?”
“I have not that honor.”
“You have never heard his name?”
“Never.”
“Well, then, he is a bandit, compared to whom the Decesaris and the
Gasparones were mere children.”
“Now then, Albert,” cried Franz, “here is a bandit for you at last.”
“I forewarn you, Signor Pastrini, that I shall not believe one word of
what you are going to tell us; having told you this, begin. ‘Once upon
a time——’ Well, go on.”
Signor Pastrini turned toward Franz, who seemed to him the more
reasonable of the two; we must do him justice,—he had had a great many
Frenchmen in his house, but had never been able to comprehend them.
“Excellency,” said he gravely, addressing Franz, “if you look upon me
as a liar, it is useless for me to say anything; it was for your
interest I——”
“Albert does not say you are a liar, Signor Pastrini,” said Franz, “but
that he will not believe what you are going to tell us,—but I will
believe all you say; so proceed.”
“But if your excellency doubt my veracity——”
“Signor Pastrini,” returned Franz, “you are more susceptible than
Cassandra, who was a prophetess, and yet no one believed her; while
you, at least, are sure of the credence of half your audience. Come,
sit down, and tell us all about this Signor Vampa.”
“I had told your excellency he is the most famous bandit we have had
since the days of Mastrilla.”
“Well, what has this bandit to do with the order I have given the
coachman to leave the city by the Porta del Popolo, and to re-enter by
the Porta San Giovanni?”
20101m
“This,” replied Signor Pastrini, “that you will go out by one, but I
very much doubt your returning by the other.”
“Why?” asked Franz.
“Because, after nightfall, you are not safe fifty yards from the
gates.”
“On your honor, is that true?” cried Albert.
“Count,” returned Signor Pastrini, hurt at Albert’s repeated doubts of
the truth of his assertions, “I do not say this to you, but to your
companion, who knows Rome, and knows, too, that these things are not to
be laughed at.”
“My dear fellow,” said Albert, turning to Franz, “here is an admirable
adventure; we will fill our carriage with pistols, blunderbusses, and
double-barrelled guns. Luigi Vampa comes to take us, and we take him—we
bring him back to Rome, and present him to his holiness the Pope, who
asks how he can repay so great a service; then we merely ask for a
carriage and a pair of horses, and we see the Carnival in the carriage,
and doubtless the Roman people will crown us at the Capitol, and
proclaim us, like Curtius and Horatius Cocles, the preservers of their
country.”
Whilst Albert proposed this scheme, Signor Pastrini’s face assumed an
expression impossible to describe.
“And pray,” asked Franz, “where are these pistols, blunderbusses, and
other deadly weapons with which you intend filling the carriage?”
“Not out of my armory, for at Terracina I was plundered even of my
hunting-knife. And you?”
“I shared the same fate at Aquapendente.”
“Do you know, Signor Pastrini,” said Albert, lighting a second cigar at
the first, “that this practice is very convenient for bandits, and that
it seems to be due to an arrangement of their own.”
Doubtless Signor Pastrini found this pleasantry compromising, for he
only answered half the question, and then he spoke to Franz, as the
only one likely to listen with attention. “Your excellency knows that
it is not customary to defend yourself when attacked by bandits.”
“What!” cried Albert, whose courage revolted at the idea of being
plundered tamely, “not make any resistance!”
“No, for it would be useless. What could you do against a dozen bandits
who spring out of some pit, ruin, or aqueduct, and level their pieces
at you?”
“Eh, _parbleu!_—they should kill me.”
The innkeeper turned to Franz with an air that seemed to say, “Your
friend is decidedly mad.”
“My dear Albert,” returned Franz, “your answer is sublime, and worthy
the ‘_Let him die_,’ of Corneille, only, when Horace made that answer,
the safety of Rome was concerned; but, as for us, it is only to gratify
a whim, and it would be ridiculous to risk our lives for so foolish a
motive.”
Albert poured himself out a glass of _lacryma Christi_, which he sipped
at intervals, muttering some unintelligible words.
“Well, Signor Pastrini,” said Franz, “now that my companion is quieted,
and you have seen how peaceful my intentions are, tell me who is this
Luigi Vampa. Is he a shepherd or a nobleman?—young or old?—tall or
short? Describe him, in order that, if we meet him by chance, like Jean
Sbogar or Lara, we may recognize him.”
“You could not apply to anyone better able to inform you on all these
points, for I knew him when he was a child, and one day that I fell
into his hands, going from Ferentino to Alatri, he, fortunately for me,
recollected me, and set me free, not only without ransom, but made me a
present of a very splendid watch, and related his history to me.”
“Let us see the watch,” said Albert.
Signor Pastrini drew from his fob a magnificent Bréguet, bearing the
name of its maker, of Parisian manufacture, and a count’s coronet.
“Here it is,” said he.
“_Peste!_” returned Albert, “I compliment you on it; I have its
fellow”—he took his watch from his waistcoat pocket—“and it cost me
3,000 francs.”
“Let us hear the history,” said Franz, motioning Signor Pastrini to
seat himself.
“Your excellencies permit it?” asked the host.
“_Pardieu!_” cried Albert, “you are not a preacher, to remain
standing!”
The host sat down, after having made each of them a respectful bow,
which meant that he was ready to tell them all they wished to know
concerning Luigi Vampa.
“You tell me,” said Franz, at the moment Signor Pastrini was about to
open his mouth, “that you knew Luigi Vampa when he was a child—he is
still a young man, then?”
“A young man? he is only two-and-twenty;—he will gain himself a
reputation.”
“What do you think of that, Albert?—at two-and-twenty to be thus
famous?”
“Yes, and at his age, Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon, who have all made
some noise in the world, were quite behind him.”
“So,” continued Franz, “the hero of this history is only
two-and-twenty?”
“Scarcely so much.”
“Is he tall or short?”
“Of the middle height—about the same stature as his excellency,”
returned the host, pointing to Albert.
“Thanks for the comparison,” said Albert, with a bow.
“Go on, Signor Pastrini,” continued Franz, smiling at his friend’s
susceptibility. “To what class of society does he belong?”
“He was a shepherd-boy attached to the farm of the Count of San-Felice,
situated between Palestrina and the Lake of Gabri; he was born at
Pampinara, and entered the count’s service when he was five years old;
his father was also a shepherd, who owned a small flock, and lived by
the wool and the milk, which he sold at Rome. When quite a child, the
little Vampa displayed a most extraordinary precocity. One day, when he
was seven years old, he came to the curate of Palestrina, and asked to
be taught to read; it was somewhat difficult, for he could not quit his
flock; but the good curate went every day to say mass at a little