The Count of Monte Cristo
“If you wish, I will inquire.”
“Yes, ask her for one of her _liqueur_ cellarets, mine is incomplete;
and tell her I shall have the honor of seeing her about three o’clock,
and that I request permission to introduce someone to her.”
The valet left the room. Albert threw himself on the divan, tore off
the cover of two or three of the papers, looked at the theatre
announcements, made a face seeing they gave an opera, and not a ballet;
hunted vainly amongst the advertisements for a new tooth-powder of
which he had heard, and threw down, one after the other, the three
leading papers of Paris, muttering,
“These papers become more and more stupid every day.”
A moment after, a carriage stopped before the door, and the servant
announced M. Lucien Debray. A tall young man, with light hair, clear
gray eyes, and thin and compressed lips, dressed in a blue coat with
beautifully carved gold buttons, a white neckcloth, and a tortoiseshell
eye-glass suspended by a silken thread, and which, by an effort of the
superciliary and zygomatic muscles, he fixed in his eye, entered, with
a half-official air, without smiling or speaking.
“Good-morning, Lucien, good-morning,” said Albert; “your punctuality
really alarms me. What do I say? punctuality! You, whom I expected
last, you arrive at five minutes to ten, when the time fixed was
half-past! Has the ministry resigned?”
“No, my dear fellow,” returned the young man, seating himself on the
divan; “reassure yourself; we are tottering always, but we never fall,
and I begin to believe that we shall pass into a state of immobility,
and then the affairs of the Peninsula will completely consolidate us.”
“Ah, true; you drive Don Carlos out of Spain.”
“No, no, my dear fellow, do not confound our plans. We take him to the
other side of the French frontier, and offer him hospitality at
Bourges.”
“At Bourges?”
“Yes, he has not much to complain of; Bourges is the capital of Charles
VII. Do you not know that all Paris knew it yesterday, and the day
before it had already transpired on the Bourse, and M. Danglars (I do
not know by what means that man contrives to obtain intelligence as
soon as we do) made a million!”
“And you another order, for I see you have a blue ribbon at your
button-hole.”
“Yes; they sent me the order of Charles III.,” returned Debray
carelessly.
“Come, do not affect indifference, but confess you were pleased to have
it.”
“Oh, it is very well as a finish to the toilet. It looks very neat on a
black coat buttoned up.”
“And makes you resemble the Prince of Wales or the Duke of Reichstadt.”
“It is for that reason you see me so early.”
“Because you have the order of Charles III., and you wish to announce
the good news to me?”
“No, because I passed the night writing letters,—five-and-twenty
despatches. I returned home at daybreak, and strove to sleep; but my
head ached and I got up to have a ride for an hour. At the Bois de
Boulogne, _ennui_ and hunger attacked me at once,—two enemies who
rarely accompany each other, and who are yet leagued against me, a sort
of Carlo-republican alliance. I then recollected you gave a breakfast
this morning, and here I am. I am hungry, feed me; I am bored, amuse
me.”
“It is my duty as your host,” returned Albert, ringing the bell, while
Lucien turned over, with his gold-mounted cane, the papers that lay on
the table. “Germain, a glass of sherry and a biscuit. In the meantime,
my dear Lucien, here are cigars—contraband, of course—try them, and
persuade the minister to sell us such instead of poisoning us with
cabbage leaves.”
“_Peste!_ I will do nothing of the kind; the moment they come from
government you would find them execrable. Besides, that does not
concern the home but the financial department. Address yourself to M.
Humann, section of the indirect contributions, corridor A., No. 26.”
“On my word,” said Albert, “you astonish me by the extent of your
knowledge. Take a cigar.”
“Really, my dear Albert,” replied Lucien, lighting a manilla at a
rose-colored taper that burnt in a beautifully enamelled stand—“how
happy you are to have nothing to do. You do not know your own good
fortune!”
“And what would you do, my dear diplomatist,” replied Morcerf, with a
slight degree of irony in his voice, “if you did nothing? What? private
secretary to a minister, plunged at once into European cabals and
Parisian intrigues; having kings, and, better still, queens, to
protect, parties to unite, elections to direct; making more use of your
cabinet with your pen and your telegraph than Napoleon did of his
battle-fields with his sword and his victories; possessing
five-and-twenty thousand francs a year, besides your place; a horse,
for which Château-Renaud offered you four hundred louis, and which you
would not part with; a tailor who never disappoints you; with the
opera, the jockey-club, and other diversions, can you not amuse
yourself? Well, I will amuse you.”
“How?”
“By introducing to you a new acquaintance.”
“A man or a woman?”
“A man.”
“I know so many men already.”
“But you do not know this man.”
“Where does he come from—the end of the world?”
“Farther still, perhaps.”
“The deuce! I hope he does not bring our breakfast with him.”
“Oh, no; our breakfast comes from my father’s kitchen. Are you hungry?”
“Humiliating as such a confession is, I am. But I dined at M. de
Villefort’s, and lawyers always give you very bad dinners. You would
think they felt some remorse; did you ever remark that?”
“Ah, depreciate other persons’ dinners; you ministers give such
splendid ones.”
“Yes; but we do not invite people of fashion. If we were not forced to
entertain a parcel of country boobies because they think and vote with
us, we should never dream of dining at home, I assure you.”
“Well, take another glass of sherry and another biscuit.”
“Willingly. Your Spanish wine is excellent. You see we were quite right
to pacify that country.”
“Yes; but Don Carlos?”
“Well, Don Carlos will drink Bordeaux, and in ten years we will marry
his son to the little queen.”
“You will then obtain the Golden Fleece, if you are still in the
ministry.”
“I think, Albert, you have adopted the system of feeding me on smoke
this morning.”
“Well, you must allow it is the best thing for the stomach; but I hear
Beauchamp in the next room; you can dispute together, and that will
pass away the time.”
“About what?”
“About the papers.”
“My dear friend,” said Lucien with an air of sovereign contempt, “do I
ever read the papers?”
“Then you will dispute the more.”
“M. Beauchamp,” announced the servant. “Come in, come in,” said Albert,
rising and advancing to meet the young man. “Here is Debray, who
detests you without reading you, so he says.”
“He is quite right,” returned Beauchamp; “for I criticise him without
knowing what he does. Good-day, commander!”
“Ah, you know that already,” said the private secretary, smiling and
shaking hands with him.
“_Pardieu!_”
“And what do they say of it in the world?”
“In which world? we have so many worlds in the year of grace 1838.”
“In the entire political world, of which you are one of the leaders.”
“They say that it is quite fair, and that sowing so much red, you ought
to reap a little blue.”
“Come, come, that is not bad!” said Lucien. “Why do you not join our
party, my dear Beauchamp? With your talents you would make your fortune
in three or four years.”
“I only await one thing before following your advice; that is, a
minister who will hold office for six months. My dear Albert, one word,
for I must give poor Lucien a respite. Do we breakfast or dine? I must
go to the Chamber, for our life is not an idle one.”
“You only breakfast; I await two persons, and the instant they arrive
we shall sit down to table.”
Chapter 40. The Breakfast
And what sort of persons do you expect to breakfast?” said Beauchamp.
“A gentleman, and a diplomatist.”
“Then we shall have to wait two hours for the gentleman, and three for
the diplomatist. I shall come back to dessert; keep me some
strawberries, coffee, and cigars. I shall take a cutlet on my way to
the Chamber.”
“Do not do anything of the sort; for were the gentleman a Montmorency,
and the diplomatist a Metternich, we will breakfast at eleven; in the
meantime, follow Debray’s example, and take a glass of sherry and a
biscuit.”
“Be it so; I will stay; I must do something to distract my thoughts.”
“You are like Debray, and yet it seems to me that when the minister is
out of spirits, the opposition ought to be joyous.”
“Ah, you do not know with what I am threatened. I shall hear this
morning that M. Danglars make a speech at the Chamber of Deputies, and
at his wife’s this evening I shall hear the tragedy of a peer of
France. The devil take the constitutional government, and since we had
our choice, as they say, at least, how could we choose that?”
“I understand; you must lay in a stock of hilarity.”
“Do not run down M. Danglars’ speeches,” said Debray; “he votes for
you, for he belongs to the opposition.”
“_Pardieu_, that is exactly the worst of all. I am waiting until you
send him to speak at the Luxembourg, to laugh at my ease.”
“My dear friend,” said Albert to Beauchamp, “it is plain that the
affairs of Spain are settled, for you are most desperately out of humor
this morning. Recollect that Parisian gossip has spoken of a marriage
between myself and Mlle. Eugénie Danglars; I cannot in conscience,
therefore, let you run down the speeches of a man who will one day say
to me, ‘Vicomte, you know I give my daughter two millions.’”
“Ah, this marriage will never take place,” said Beauchamp. “The king
has made him a baron, and can make him a peer, but he cannot make him a
gentleman, and the Count of Morcerf is too aristocratic to consent, for
the paltry sum of two million francs, to a _mésalliance_. The Viscount
of Morcerf can only wed a marchioness.”
“But two million francs make a nice little sum,” replied Morcerf.
“It is the social capital of a theatre on the boulevard, or a railroad
from the Jardin des Plantes to La Râpée.”
“Never mind what he says, Morcerf,” said Debray, “do you marry her. You
marry a money-bag label, it is true; well, but what does that matter?
It is better to have a blazon less and a figure more on it. You have
seven martlets on your arms; give three to your wife, and you will
still have four; that is one more than M. de Guise had, who so nearly
became King of France, and whose cousin was Emperor of Germany.”
“On my word, I think you are right, Lucien,” said Albert absently.
“To be sure; besides, every millionaire is as noble as a bastard—that
is, he can be.”
“Do not say that, Debray,” returned Beauchamp, laughing, “for here is
Château-Renaud, who, to cure you of your mania for paradoxes, will pass
the sword of Renaud de Montauban, his ancestor, through your body.”
“He will sully it then,” returned Lucien; “for I am low—very low.”
“Oh, heavens,” cried Beauchamp, “the minister quotes Béranger, what
shall we come to next?”
“M. de Château-Renaud—M. Maximilian Morrel,” said the servant,
announcing two fresh guests.
“Now, then, to breakfast,” said Beauchamp; “for, if I remember, you
told me you only expected two persons, Albert.”
“Morrel,” muttered Albert—“Morrel—who is he?”
But before he had finished, M. de Château-Renaud, a handsome young man
of thirty, gentleman all over,—that is, with the figure of a Guiche and
the wit of a Mortemart,—took Albert’s hand.
“My dear Albert,” said he, “let me introduce to you M. Maximilian
Morrel, captain of Spahis, my friend; and what is more—however the man
speaks for himself—my preserver. Salute my hero, viscount.”