The Count of Monte Cristo
“Ah, because your ambassadors and your consuls do not tell you of
them—they have no time. They are too much taken up with interfering in
the affairs of their countrymen who travel.”
“Now you get angry, and attack our poor agents. How will you have them
protect you? The Chamber cuts down their salaries every day, so that
now they have scarcely any. Will you be ambassador, Albert? I will send
you to Constantinople.”
“No, lest on the first demonstration I make in favor of Mehemet Ali,
the Sultan send me the bowstring, and make my secretaries strangle me.”
“You say very true,” responded Debray.
“Yes,” said Albert, “but this has nothing to do with the existence of
the Count of Monte Cristo.”
“_Pardieu!_ everyone exists.”
“Doubtless, but not in the same way; everyone has not black slaves, a
princely retinue, an arsenal of weapons that would do credit to an
Arabian fortress, horses that cost six thousand francs apiece, and
Greek mistresses.”
“Have you seen the Greek mistress?”
“I have both seen and heard her. I saw her at the theatre, and heard
her one morning when I breakfasted with the count.”
“He eats, then?”
“Yes; but so little, it can hardly be called eating.”
“He must be a vampire.”
“Laugh, if you will; the Countess G——, who knew Lord Ruthven, declared
that the count was a vampire.”
“Ah, capital,” said Beauchamp. “For a man not connected with
newspapers, here is the pendant to the famous sea-serpent of the
_Constitutionnel_.”
“Wild eyes, the iris of which contracts or dilates at pleasure,” said
Debray; “facial angle strongly developed, magnificent forehead, livid
complexion, black beard, sharp and white teeth, politeness
unexceptionable.”
“Just so, Lucien,” returned Morcerf; “you have described him feature
for feature. Yes, keen and cutting politeness. This man has often made
me shudder; and one day when we were viewing an execution, I thought I
should faint, more from hearing the cold and calm manner in which he
spoke of every description of torture, than from the sight of the
executioner and the culprit.”
“Did he not conduct you to the ruins of the Colosseum and suck your
blood?” asked Beauchamp.
“Or, having delivered you, make you sign a flaming parchment,
surrendering your soul to him as Esau did his birth-right?”
“Rail on, rail on at your ease, gentlemen,” said Morcerf, somewhat
piqued. “When I look at you Parisians, idlers on the Boulevard de Gand
or the Bois de Boulogne, and think of this man, it seems to me we are
not of the same race.”
“I am highly flattered,” returned Beauchamp.
“At the same time,” added Château-Renaud, “your Count of Monte Cristo
is a very fine fellow, always excepting his little arrangements with
the Italian banditti.”
“There are no Italian banditti,” said Debray.
“No vampire,” cried Beauchamp.
“No Count of Monte Cristo” added Debray. “There is half-past ten
striking, Albert.”
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“Confess you have dreamed this, and let us sit down to breakfast,”
continued Beauchamp.
But the sound of the clock had not died away when Germain announced,
“His excellency the Count of Monte Cristo.” The involuntary start
everyone gave proved how much Morcerf’s narrative had impressed them,
and Albert himself could not wholly refrain from manifesting sudden
emotion. He had not heard a carriage stop in the street, or steps in
the antechamber; the door had itself opened noiselessly. The count
appeared, dressed with the greatest simplicity, but the most fastidious
dandy could have found nothing to cavil at in his toilet. Every article
of dress—hat, coat, gloves, and boots—was from the first makers. He
seemed scarcely five-and-thirty. But what struck everybody was his
extreme resemblance to the portrait Debray had drawn. The count
advanced, smiling, into the centre of the room, and approached Albert,
who hastened towards him holding out his hand in a ceremonial manner.
“Punctuality,” said Monte Cristo, “is the politeness of kings,
according to one of your sovereigns, I think; but it is not the same
with travellers. However, I hope you will excuse the two or three
seconds I am behindhand; five hundred leagues are not to be
accomplished without some trouble, and especially in France, where, it
seems, it is forbidden to beat the postilions.”
“My dear count,” replied Albert, “I was announcing your visit to some
of my friends, whom I had invited in consequence of the promise you did
me the honor to make, and whom I now present to you. They are the Count
of Château-Renaud, whose nobility goes back to the twelve peers, and
whose ancestors had a place at the Round Table; M. Lucien Debray,
private secretary to the minister of the interior; M. Beauchamp, an
editor of a paper, and the terror of the French government, but of
whom, in spite of his national celebrity, you perhaps have not heard in
Italy, since his paper is prohibited there; and M. Maximilian Morrel,
captain of Spahis.”
At this name the count, who had hitherto saluted everyone with
courtesy, but at the same time with coldness and formality, stepped a
pace forward, and a slight tinge of red colored his pale cheeks.
“You wear the uniform of the new French conquerors, monsieur,” said he;
“it is a handsome uniform.”
No one could have said what caused the count’s voice to vibrate so
deeply, and what made his eye flash, which was in general so clear,
lustrous, and limpid when he pleased.
“You have never seen our Africans, count?” said Albert.
“Never,” replied the count, who was by this time perfectly master of
himself again.
“Well, beneath this uniform beats one of the bravest and noblest hearts
in the whole army.”
“Oh, M. de Morcerf,” interrupted Morrel.
“Let me go on, captain. And we have just heard,” continued Albert, “of
a new deed of his, and so heroic a one, that, although I have seen him
today for the first time, I request you to allow me to introduce him as
my friend.”
At these words it was still possible to observe in Monte Cristo the
concentrated look, changing color, and slight trembling of the eyelid
that show emotion.
“Ah, you have a noble heart,” said the count; “so much the better.”
This exclamation, which corresponded to the count’s own thought rather
than to what Albert was saying, surprised everybody, and especially
Morrel, who looked at Monte Cristo with wonder. But, at the same time,
the intonation was so soft that, however strange the speech might seem,
it was impossible to be offended at it.
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“Why should he doubt it?” said Beauchamp to Château-Renaud.
“In reality,” replied the latter, who, with his aristocratic glance and
his knowledge of the world, had penetrated at once all that was
penetrable in Monte Cristo, “Albert has not deceived us, for the count
is a most singular being. What say you, Morrel!”
“_Ma foi_, he has an open look about him that pleases me, in spite of
the singular remark he has made about me.”
“Gentlemen,” said Albert, “Germain informs me that breakfast is ready.
My dear count, allow me to show you the way.” They passed silently into
the breakfast-room, and everyone took his place.
“Gentlemen,” said the count, seating himself, “permit me to make a
confession which must form my excuse for any improprieties I may
commit. I am a stranger, and a stranger to such a degree, that this is
the first time I have ever been at Paris. The French way of living is
utterly unknown to me, and up to the present time I have followed the
Eastern customs, which are entirely in contrast to the Parisian. I beg
you, therefore, to excuse if you find anything in me too Turkish, too
Italian, or too Arabian. Now, then, let us breakfast.”
“With what an air he says all this,” muttered Beauchamp; “decidedly he
is a great man.”
“A great man in his own country,” added Debray.
“A great man in every country, M. Debray,” said Château-Renaud.
The count was, it may be remembered, a most temperate guest. Albert
remarked this, expressing his fears lest, at the outset, the Parisian
mode of life should displease the traveller in the most essential
point.
“My dear count,” said he, “I fear one thing, and that is, that the fare
of the Rue du Helder is not so much to your taste as that of the Piazza
di Spagna. I ought to have consulted you on the point, and have had
some dishes prepared expressly.”
“Did you know me better,” returned the count, smiling, “you would not
give one thought of such a thing for a traveller like myself, who has
successively lived on macaroni at Naples, polenta at Milan, olla
podrida at Valencia, pilau at Constantinople, curry in India, and
swallows’ nests in China. I eat everywhere, and of everything, only I
eat but little; and today, that you reproach me with my want of
appetite, is my day of appetite, for I have not eaten since yesterday
morning.”
“What,” cried all the guests, “you have not eaten for four-and-twenty
hours?”
“No,” replied the count; “I was forced to go out of my road to obtain
some information near Nîmes, so that I was somewhat late, and therefore
I did not choose to stop.”
“And you ate in your carriage?” asked Morcerf.
“No, I slept, as I generally do when I am weary without having the
courage to amuse myself, or when I am hungry without feeling inclined
to eat.”
“But you can sleep when you please, monsieur?” said Morrel.
“Yes.”
“You have a recipe for it?”
“An infallible one.”
“That would be invaluable to us in Africa, who have not always any food
to eat, and rarely anything to drink.”
“Yes,” said Monte Cristo; “but, unfortunately, a recipe excellent for a
man like myself would be very dangerous applied to an army, which might
not awake when it was needed.”
“May we inquire what is this recipe?” asked Debray.
“Oh, yes,” returned Monte Cristo; “I make no secret of it. It is a
mixture of excellent opium, which I fetched myself from Canton in order
to have it pure, and the best hashish which grows in the East—that is,
between the Tigris and the Euphrates. These two ingredients are mixed
in equal proportions, and formed into pills. Ten minutes after one is
taken, the effect is produced. Ask Baron Franz d’Épinay; I think he
tasted them one day.”
“Yes,” replied Morcerf, “he said something about it to me.”
“But,” said Beauchamp, who, as became a journalist, was very
incredulous, “you always carry this drug about you?”
“Always.”
“Would it be an indiscretion to ask to see those precious pills?”
continued Beauchamp, hoping to take him at a disadvantage.
“No, monsieur,” returned the count; and he drew from his pocket a
marvellous casket, formed out of a single emerald and closed by a
golden lid which unscrewed and gave passage to a small greenish colored
pellet about the size of a pea. This ball had an acrid and penetrating
odor. There were four or five more in the emerald, which would contain
about a dozen. The casket passed around the table, but it was more to
examine the admirable emerald than to see the pills that it passed from
hand to hand.
“And is it your cook who prepares these pills?” asked Beauchamp.
“Oh, no, monsieur,” replied Monte Cristo; “I do not thus betray my
enjoyments to the vulgar. I am a tolerable chemist, and prepare my
pills myself.”
“This is a magnificent emerald, and the largest I have ever seen,” said
Château-Renaud, “although my mother has some remarkable family jewels.”
“I had three similar ones,” returned Monte Cristo. “I gave one to the
Sultan, who mounted it in his sabre; another to our holy father the
Pope, who had it set in his tiara, opposite to one nearly as large,
though not so fine, given by the Emperor Napoleon to his predecessor,
Pius VII. I kept the third for myself, and I had it hollowed out, which
reduced its value, but rendered it more commodious for the purpose I
intended.”