Albert went up to Eugénie with a smile on his lips. Danglars whispered into the Count’s ear: “You gave me excellent advice. There is a long and terrible history connected with the two words Fernand and Janina.”
“Nonsense,” was Monte Cristo’s reply.
“Yes, there is. I will tell you about it. But now take the young man away. It is too embarrassing for me to be together with him at this moment.”
“That is just what I was going to do. Do you still wish me to send his father to you?”
“More than ever.”
The Count made a sign to Albert. They took their leave of the ladies and went away, and M. Cavalcanti remained master of the field.
Chapter L
HAYDEE’S STORY
Scarcely had the horses turned the corner of the boulevard when Albert looked at the Count and burst into a loud fit of laughter, so loud that it was obviously forced.
“Well,” said he, “I will ask you the same question King Charles put to Catherine de’ Medici after the massacre of St Bartholomew.bv How do you think I played my part?”
“In what respect?” asked Monte Cristo.
“Why, with regard to the reception of my rival and your protégé, Monsieur Andrea Cavalcanti, in the bosom of the Danglars family.”
“None of your poor jokes, Viscount! Monsieur Andrea is no protégé of mine, at any rate not so far as Monsieur Danglars is concerned.”
“That is just what I should reproach you with if the young man had any need of protection. Happily for me, he can dispense with it.”
“What, do you think he is paying her attentions?”
“I am sure of it. He makes eyes at her, sighs and speaks to her in amorous tones. He aspires to the hand of the proud Eugénie!”
“What does that matter so long as they favour you?”
“Don’t say that, Count. I am being repulsed from two sides: Mademoiselle Eugénie scarcely answered me to-day, while Mademoiselle d’Armilly, her confidante, did not answer me at all. As to the father, I will warrant that within a week he will shut the door in my face.”
“You are quite mistaken, my dear Viscount.”
“Have you proofs?”
“Do you want one?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, I have been requested to ask the Count of Morcerf to come to some definite arrangement with the Baron.”
“Who requested you?”
“The Baron himself.”
“Oh, you surely will not do that, will you?” said Albert coaxingly.
“Oh, yes, I shall since I have promised to.”
“Come, now,” said Albert with a sigh. “You are absolutely determined to make me marry.”
“I only wish to be on good terms with every one.”
The carriage stopped.
“Here we are,” said Monte Cristo. “It is only half-past ten. Will you come in with me?”
“With pleasure.”
They both entered the house. The salon was lit up.
“Give us some tea, Baptistin,” said the Count.
Baptistin went out without saying a word. Two minutes later he reappeared with a tray laden with all his master’s requirements as though, like the supper tables in fairy plays, it had sprung up from the earth.
“Really, Count,” said Morcerf, “what I admire in you is not your wealth, for there are perhaps others richer than you; it is not your wit—Beaumarchais had no more, but he had as much as you; no, what I admire is your way of being served without a question, to the minute, to the second, as though your servants guessed what you desired by your manner of sounding the gong, and as though everything were ready and waiting upon your desire.”
“What you say is more or less true. My servants know my habits. I will give you an instance. Is there nothing you would like to have with your tea?”
“Indeed there is. I should dearly love a smoke.”
Monte Cristo went up to the gong and sounded it once. Within a second a private door opened, and Ali appeared with two chibouques filled with excellent Latakia.
“It is wonderful,” said Morcerf.
“Oh, no, it is quite simple,” said Monte Cristo. “Ali knows that I generally smoke when I am drinking tea or coffee; he knows I have asked for tea, also that you came in with me. On hearing the gong he guessed my desire, and, coming from a country where the chibouque plays an essential part in hospitality, he brings in two of them.”
“That is certainly quite a simple explanation, but it is nevertheless true that you alone . . . Ah, but what is that I hear!” he added, bending his ear towards a door through which sounds were issuing similar to those of a guitar.
“You are doomed to have music this evening, Viscount. You have only just escaped from Mademoiselle Danglars’ piano and must now submit to Haydee’s guzla.”
“Haydee! What a charming name. Are there really women elsewhere than in Byron’s poems with the name of Haydee?”
“Certainly. It may be an uncommon name in France, but it is common enough in Albania and Epirus; it is as though you said, for instance, Chastity, Modesty, Innocence: it is a baptismal name, as you Parisians call it.”
“How very charming! How I should like to hear our French girls called Mademoiselle Goodness, Mademoiselle Silence, Mademoiselle Christian Charity. I say, supposing Mademoiselle Claire Marie Eugénie Danglars were called Mademoiselle Chastity Modesty Innocence Danglars, what a fine effect it would have when the banns of marriage were published!”
“You are mad,” said the Count. “Do not joke so loud, Haydee might hear you.”
“Would she be annoyed?”
“Certainly not,” said the Count. “A slave has no right to be annoyed with her master.”
“Now it is you who are joking. There are no slaves now!”
“Since Haydee is my slave there must be.”
“Really, Count, you have nothing and do nothing like other people. Monte Cristo’s slave! What a position in France! To judge from the lavish way in which you spend your money, it must be worth a hundred thousand crowns a year.”
“A hundred thousand crowns! The poor child possesses a great deal more than that. She came into the world to a cradle lined with treasures compared with which those in A Thousand and One Nights are as nought.”
“Is she a real princess then?”
“She is; one of the greatest in her country.”
“I thought as much. But tell me, how did such a princess become your slave?”
“You are one of my friends and will not chatter. Do you promise to keep a secret?”
“On my word of honour.”
“Do you know the history of the Pasha of Janina?”
“Of Ali Tebelin? Surely, since my father made his fortune in his service.”
“True, I had forgotten that.”
“Well, what has Haydee to do with Ali Tebelin?”
“She is merely his daughter!”
“What! The daughter of Ali Pasha your slave!”
“Oh, dear me, yes.”
“But how comes it?”
“Simply that I was passing through the market at Constantinople one fine day and bought her.”
“Wonderful! With you, Count, life becomes a dream. Now, listen, I am going to ask you something very indiscreet.”
“Say on.”
“Since you go out with her and take her to the Opera . . .”
“Well?”
“Will you introduce me to your princess?”
“With pleasure, but on two conditions.”
“I accept them in advance.”
“The first is that you never tell anyone of this introduction; the second is that you do not tell her that your father served under her father.”
“Very well.” Morcerf held up his hand. “I swear I will not.”
The Count again struck the gong, whereupon Ali appeared and Monte Cristo said to him: “Inform your mistress that I am coming to take my coffee with her, and give her to understand that I ask permissi
on to introduce one of my friends to her.”
Ali bowed and retired.
“Then it is understood that you will not ask her any direct questions. If you wish to know anything, tell me and I will ask her.”
“Agreed!”
Ali reappeared for the third time and held up the door curtain as an indication to his master and Albert that they were welcome.
“Let us go,” said Monte Cristo.
Albert passed his hand through his hair and curled his moustache, while the Count took his hat, put on his gloves, and preceded Albert into the room, which was guarded by Ali as advance guard, and defended by three French maids under his command.
Haydee was awaiting them in her salon, her eyes wide open with surprise. This was the first time that any other man than Monte Cristo had found his way to her room. She was seated in a corner of a sofa with her legs crossed under her, thus making, as it were, a nest of the richly embroidered striped Eastern material that fell in soft folds around her. Beside her was the instrument whose sounds had revealed her presence. Altogether she made a charming picture.
“Whom do you bring me?” the girl asked of Monte Cristo in Romaic. “A brother, a friend, a simple acquaintance, or an enemy?”
“A friend,” replied Monte Cristo in the same language.
“His name?”
“Count Albert. It is he whom I delivered from the hands of the bandits at Rome.”
“In what tongue do you wish me to speak to him?”
Monte Cristo turned toward Albert with the question: “Do you speak modern Greek?”
“Alas! not even ancient Greek,” said Albert. “Never have Homer and Plato had a more unworthy, I might almost say contemptuous, scholar than myself.”
“Then I shall use the French or Italian tongue if my lord wishes me to speak at all,” responded Haydee, showing by this remark that she had understood the Count’s question and Albert’s answer.
Monte Cristo thought for a moment. “You will speak in Italian,” said he at last. Then turning toward Albert: “It is a pity you do not speak either modern or ancient Greek. Haydee speaks both to perfection, and the poor girl may give you a wrong impression of herself by being forced to speak in Italian.”
He made a sign to Haydee.
“Welcome, my friend, who have come hither with my lord and master,” said the girl in excellent Tuscan with the soft Roman accent which makes the language of Dante as sonorous as that of Homer. “Ali, bring coffee and pipes,” she then added.
Ali went to execute his young mistress’s order, while Monte Cristo and Albert drew their seats up to a table which contained a narghile as its centre-piece, and on which were arranged flowers, drawings, and music albums. Ali returned with the coffee and chibouques, but Albert refused the pipe the Nubian offered him.
“Take it, take it,” said Monte Cristo, “Haydee is almost as civilized as a Parisian. Havanas are distasteful to her because she does not like their strong odour, but Eastern tobacco is a perfume, you must know.”
Haydee put out her hand and, encircling the cup of Japanese china with her dainty pink fingers, carried it to her lips with the simple pleasure of a child drinking or eating something it likes.
At the same time two women entered carrying trays laden with ices and sherbet, which they placed on two small tables intended for that purpose.
“Pray excuse my amazement,” said Albert in Italian. “I am quite bewildered, and it could not well be otherwise. But a few moments ago I heard the rumbling of the omnibuses and the tinkling of the lemonade-sellers’ bells, yet here I am transported to the East, the true East, not as I have seen it, unfortunately, but as I have pictured it to myself in the dreams I have dreamt in the heart of Paris. Oh, signora! if only I could speak Greek, your conversation, coupled with these fairylike surroundings, would afford an evening that would ever remain in my memory!”
“I speak Italian well enough to converse with you, monsieur,” said Haydee calmly. “If you love the East, I will do my best to bring its atmosphere to you.”
Albert turned toward Haydee, saying: “At what age did you leave Greece, signora?”
“When I was five years old,” responded Haydee.
“Do you remember your country?”
“When I close my eyes, I seem to see once more all that I have ever seen. We have a twofold power of vision, that of the body and that of the mind. Whereas the body may sometimes forget the impressions it has received, the mind never does.”
“How far back does your memory go?”
“To the time when I could scarcely walk.”
“How old were you at the time?”
“Three years,” said Haydee.
“Do you then remember everything that happened around you from the time you were three years of age?”
“Everything.”
“Count,” said Morcerf to Monte Cristo, “you should let the signora tell us something of her sad history. You have forbidden me to mention my father to her, but perhaps she may speak of him herself, and you have no idea what happiness it would give me to hear his name pronounced by those beautiful lips.”
Monte Cristo turned toward Haydee and, making a sign to her to pay great attention to the injunction he was about to impose on her, said in Greek: “Tell us your father’s fate, but mention not the treason nor the name of the traitor.”
Haydee sighed deeply, and a dark cloud passed over her beautiful brow.
“You are still young, signora,” said Albert, taking refuge in banality in spite of himself, “what sufferings can you have experienced?”
Haydee looked at Monte Cristo, who made an almost imperceptible sign to her, murmuring: “Tell it all!”
“Nothing makes such a deep impression on our minds as our earliest memories, and all those of my childhood are mingled with sadness. Do you really wish me to relate them?”
“I implore you to tell them!” said Albert.
“Well, I was four years old when I was awakened one evening by my mother. We were at the palace at Janina. She snatched me up with the cushions on which I was lying, and when I opened my eyes I perceived that hers were filled with big tears. She carried me away without a word. On seeing her weeping, I began to cry too. ‘Be quiet, child!’ she said.
“At any other time, no matter what my mother might do to console me, or what threats she held out to me, I should have continued to cry, but this time there was such a note of terror in her voice that I stopped instantly. She bore me rapidly away. Then I perceived that we were going down a wide staircase and rushing on in front of us were my mother’s women, carrying trunks, bags, clothing, jewellery, and purses filled with gold. Behind the women came a guard of twenty men armed with long rifles and pistols and clad in the uniform which must be familiar to you in France now that Greece has once more become independent. Believe me,” continued Haydee, shaking her head and turning pale at the thought of the scene, “there was something ominous in this long line of slaves and women all heavy with sleep, or at least I thought they were, though perhaps it may only have been that as I was only half awake myself, I imagined they were still as sleepy as I. Gigantic shadows thrown by the flickering light of the pine torches chased each other along the walls of the staircase and descended to the very vaults.
“‘Quickly, quickly!’ said a voice from the end of the gallery, and every one bent forward like a field of corn bowed down by the passing wind. It was my father’s voice. He marched in the rearmost clad in his most splendid robes and holding in his hand the carbine your Emperor gave him. Leaning on his favourite Selim, he drove us on before him as a shepherd drives his straggling flock. My father,” continued Haydee, raising her head, “was an illustrious man known in Europe under the name of Ali Tebelin, Pasha of Janina, before whom all Turkey trembled.”
Without any apparent reason, Albert shuddered on hearing these words uttered with such unspeakable pride and dignity. There seemed to be something terrifying and sombre lurking in the maiden’s eyes.
&n
bsp; “Soon we came to a halt; we had reached the bottom of the staircase and were on the borders of a lake. My mother pressed me to her heaving bosom, and two paces from us I saw my father looking anxiously round him. Before us were four marble steps, at the bottom of which was a small boat. In the middle of the lake a black object was discernible; it was the kiosk to which we were going. It looked to me to be very far away, but that was probably owing to the darkness of the night.
“We stepped into the boat. I remember noticing that there was no sound as the oars skimmed the water, and I leaned over to look for the cause: they were muffled with the sashes of our Palikars.bw Besides the oarsmen there was no one in the boat but some women, my father, my mother, Selim, and myself. The Palikars had remained on the edge of the lake to protect us in case of pursuit. Our bark sped like the wind.
“‘Why is our boat going so fast?’ I asked my mother.
“‘Hush, child, hush!’ she said. ‘It is because we are fleeing.’
“I did not understand. Why should my father, the all-powerful one, flee? He before whom others were accustomed to flee? He who had taken as his device: ‘They hate me, therefore they fear me.’
“My father was indeed fleeing across the lake. He told me later that the garrison of the Janina Castle, tired of long service . . .”
Here Haydee cast a questioning look at Monte Cristo, who had never taken his eyes off her. She then continued slowly as though inventing or suppressing some part of her narrative.
“You were saying, signora,” returned Albert, who was paying the utmost attention to the recital, “that the garrison of Janina tired of long service . . .”
“Had treated with the Seraskier Kourschid sent by the Sultan to seize my father. Upon learning this Ali Tebelin sent to the Sultan a French officer in whom he placed entire confidence, and then resolved to retire to the place of retreat he had since long prepared for himself, to which he had given the name of kataphygion, which means his refuge.”
“Do you recollect the officer’s name, signora?” Albert asked.
Monte Cristo exchanged a lightning-like glance with the girl which was unobserved by Morcerf.