Mercédès shuddered; she noticed that the young man did not say: ‘of my father’s’.
‘My dear,’ she said, ‘people of the count’s standing have many enemies whom they do not even know. In any case, the enemies whom one does know are clearly not the most dangerous.’
‘Yes, I know that, so I am appealing to all your perspicacity. Mother, you are a woman of such superior intellect, that nothing escapes you!’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because you will have noticed, for example, that on the evening of our ball Monsieur de Monte Cristo did not want to take any refreshment in our house.’
Mercédès raised herself on one arm, trembling with fever. ‘Monsieur de Monte Cristo!’ she exclaimed. ‘What has he to do with your question to me?’
‘You know, mother, Monsieur de Monte Cristo is almost a man of the East and an Oriental; in order not to interfere with his freedom to take revenge, he never eats or drinks in his enemy’s house.’
‘What are you saying, Albert?’ Mercédès asked, turning whiter than the sheet that covered her. ‘Monsieur de Monte Cristo – one of our enemies? Whoever told you such a thing? Why? You are mad, Albert. Monsieur de Monte Cristo has shown nothing but courtesy towards us. He saved your life and you yourself introduced him to us. Oh please, my son, if you have any such ideas, discard them; and if I have anything to say to you – even more, if I have any prayer to make to you – it is that you should remain in good standing with him.’
‘Mother,’ the young man said, glowering, ‘you have your own reasons for telling me to remain on good terms with this man.’
‘I!’ Mercédès cried, blushing as rapidly as she had previously gone pale, then almost immediately turning even whiter than before.
‘Yes, certainly; and the reason must surely be that he can only do us harm?’
Mercédès shuddered and, looking enquiringly at her son, said: ‘You are speaking strangely and it seems to me that you have some odd prejudices. What has the count done to you? Three days ago you were with him in Normandy. Three days ago, I considered him, as you also did, your best friend.’
An ironic smile flickered across Albert’s lips. Mercédès saw it and, with the combined instincts of a wife and a mother, she guessed everything; but, strong and prudent, she hid her anxiety.
Albert fell silent, and a moment later the countess resumed the conversation. ‘You came to ask me how I was,’ she said. ‘And I will tell you frankly, my dear, that I am not feeling well. You should stay here, Albert, and keep me company. I have a need not to be alone.’
‘Mother,’ the young man replied, ‘I should obey you, and you know how happily, if urgent and important business did not oblige me to leave you for the whole evening.’
‘Very well, Albert,’ she replied, sighing. ‘I should not like to make you a slave to your filial duty.’
Albert pretended not to have heard, kissed his mother and left. Hardly had he closed the door, however, than Mercédès called a trusted servant and ordered him to follow Albert wherever he went and to report back to her immediately. Then she rang for her chambermaid and, weak as she felt, had herself dressed to be prepared for any eventuality.
The task she had given the servant was not hard to carry out. Albert returned home and got dressed, in clothes that were somehow stylish, but not ostentatious. At ten to eight Beauchamp arrived. He had seen Château-Renaud, who had promised to be in the stalls before the curtain went up. Both got into Albert’s coupé and he, having no reason to hide where he was going, said aloud: ‘To the opera!’
In his impatience he arrived before the curtain went up. Château-Renaud was in his seat and, as he had been told everything by Beauchamp, Albert had no need to explain anything to him. The idea of a son seeking revenge for his father was so natural that Château-Renaud made no attempt to dissuade him, but merely repeated his assurance that he was at Albert’s disposal.
Debray had not yet arrived, but Albert knew that he rarely missed a performance at the opera. Albert wandered around the theatre, waiting for the curtain to rise. He did hope to meet Monte Cristo, either in the corridor or on the staircase. The bell called him to his seat and he went to sit in the stalls between Château-Renaud and Beauchamp, but his eyes remained fixed on the side box, which remained obstinately closed throughout the first act.
Finally, at the start of the second act, as Albert was looking at his watch for the hundredth time, the door of the box opened and Monte Cristo, dressed in black, came in and leant on the rail while he looked round the auditorium. Morrel followed him, searching for his sister and brother-in-law. He saw them in a box on the second level and waved.
As the count was running his eyes over the audience, he noticed a pale head and shining gaze that seemed eager to draw his attention; and he did indeed recognize Albert, but the expression he saw on that devastated face must have warned him to give no sign that he had seen him. Without any indication of what he was thinking, he sat down, took his glasses out of their case and turned them in another direction.
However, even though he appeared not to see Albert, the count did not lose sight of him; and when the curtain fell at the end of the second act, his eagle eyes followed the young man as he left the stalls with his two friends. Then he saw the same head appear in a box on the balcony, opposite his own. He anticipated the approaching storm and, when he heard the key turn in the door of his box, even though he was at that moment speaking to Morrel with his most cheerful expression, he knew what to expect and was ready for it.
The door opened. Only then did Monte Cristo turn around and see Albert, white and trembling. Behind him were Beauchamp and Château-Renaud.
‘Well, now!’ he exclaimed, with the benevolent courtesy that usually distinguished his greeting from the banal politeness of social convention. ‘Here is my horseman, at the end of his ride! Good evening, Monsieur de Morcerf.’ And the man, so utterly in command of himself, wore an expression of the utmost cordiality.
Only now did Morrel remember the letter that the viscount had sent him in which the latter, with no further explanation, had asked him to come to the opera; and he realized that something dreadful was about to take place.
‘We have not come to exchange hypocritical courtesies or pretensions of friendship,’ the young man said. ‘We have come to ask you for an explanation, Monsieur le Comte.’ His trembling voice was loath to emerge from between his clenched teeth.
‘Explanation? At the opera?’ said the count with his calm voice and penetrating gaze, two signs that infallibly indicate a man who is utterly sure of himself. ‘Unfamiliar though I am with Parisian manners, I should not have thought, Monsieur, that this is where one would go to explain oneself.’
‘Yet when someone hides away,’ Albert retorted, ‘when one cannot reach him, on the grounds that he is in the bath, at table or in bed, one must repair to wherever he can be met.’
‘I am not hard to find, Monsieur,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘Only yesterday, unless my memory deceives me, you were staying in my house.’
‘Yesterday, Monsieur,’ said the young man, whose head was starting to spin, ‘I was in your house because I did not know who you were.’
As he spoke these words, Albert raised his voice so that he could be heard by the people in the neighbouring boxes and those passing along the corridor. At the sound of the argument, the people in the boxes turned around and those passing along the corridor stopped behind Beauchamp and Château-Renaud.
‘Where have you come from, Monsieur!’ Monte Cristo said, without giving the slightest appearance of any emotion. ‘You do not appear to be in your right mind.’
‘I shall always be sensible enough,’ Albert said furiously, ‘if I can understand your perfidy and manage to make you understand that I want revenge for it.’
‘I don’t understand a word of what you are saying,’ Monte Cristo retorted. ‘Even if I did, you would still be saying it too loudly. I am at home here, Monsieur, and only I have the rig
ht to raise my voice above the rest. So kindly leave!’ And he showed him the door with a splendidly imperative gesture.
‘Oh, I’ll get you out of your home all right!’ said Albert, convulsively twisting a glove in his hands, while Monte Cristo kept his eyes firmly fixed on it.
‘Very well, very well,’ he said resignedly. ‘You want an argument with me, Monsieur, I can see that. But let me just give you one word of advice, Viscount, and don’t forget it: it is a bad habit to shout it from the rooftops when one challenges a person. Not everyone benefits from attracting attention, Monsieur de Morcerf.’
At the name, a murmur of astonishment passed like a shiver among all those who had been observing the scene. Since the previous day the name of Morcerf had been on everyone’s lips.
Albert understood the implication of the quip sooner and better than anyone, and made to throw his glove in the count’s face; but Morrel grasped his wrist, while Beauchamp and Château-Renaud, fearing that the incident might develop into something more than a challenge, restrained him from behind.
Monte Cristo, without getting up, tipped his chair back and reached out to snatch the damp, crumpled glove from the young man’s hand. ‘Monsieur,’ he said in a terrifying voice, ‘I will consider your gauntlet thrown down and send it back wrapped around a bullet. Now leave me or I shall call my servants to throw you out.’
Intoxicated, horrified, wild-eyed, Albert took two steps back, and Morrel seized the opportunity to shut the door.
Monte Cristo took up his lorgnette and went back to his survey of the theatre, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The man had a heart of bronze and a face of marble. Morrel leant over and whispered: ‘What did you do to him?’
‘I? Nothing, at least nothing personal,’ the count replied.
‘But there must be some reason for this peculiar incident?’
‘The young man is enraged by the Comte de Morcerf’s misfortune.’
‘Did you have anything to do with that?’
‘Haydée was the one who told the House of his father’s treachery.’
‘Indeed,’ said Morrel, ‘I was told, though I couldn’t believe it, that the Greek slave I saw with you in this very box was the daughter of Ali Pasha.’
‘It’s absolutely true.’
‘Good heavens! Now I understand everything. The incident was premeditated.’
‘How is that?’
‘Yes, Albert wrote to me to come to the opera this evening. He wanted me to witness his insult to you.’
‘Probably,’ said Monte Cristo with his imperturbable calm.
‘But what will you do with him?’
‘With whom?’
‘Albert.’
‘With Albert?’ Monte Cristo replied, in the same voice. ‘What will I do with him, Maximilien? Why, as surely as you are here and I am shaking your hand, I shall kill him tomorrow before ten in the morning. That’s what I’ll do with him.’
Morrel took Monte Cristo’s hand in both of his and shuddered to feel how cold and steady it was.
‘Oh, Count,’ he said. ‘His father loves him so much!’
‘Don’t tell me that!’ said Monte Cristo with the first sign of anger that he had allowed himself to show. ‘I would make him suffer!’
Morrel dropped the count’s hand in amazement. ‘Count!’ he exclaimed.
‘My dear Maximilien,’ the count interrupted, ‘listen to how admirably Duprez sings that phrase: O, Mathilde, idole de mon âme!1 Now I was the first to spot Duprez in Naples and the first to applaud him. Bravo! Bravo!’
Morrel understood that there was no more to be said, and he waited.
The curtain, which had risen at the end of the incident with Albert, fell shortly after. There was a knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ said Monte Cristo, his voice not betraying any emotion.
Beauchamp appeared.
‘Good evening, Monsieur Beauchamp,’ said Monte Cristo, as if meeting the journalist for the first time that evening. ‘Do sit down.’
Beauchamp bowed, came in and sat down.
‘Monsieur,’ he said to Monte Cristo. ‘A short time ago, as you will have observed, I accompanied Monsieur de Morcerf.’
‘That probably means,’ Monte Cristo said with a laugh, ‘that you had just had dinner together. I am happy to see that you are more sober than he was, Monsieur Beauchamp.’
‘I admit, Monsieur, that Albert was wrong to lose his temper and I have come on my own account to make my excuses to you. But now that my excuses have been made – and mine only, you understand, Count – I have come to tell you that I consider you too honourable a man to refuse to give me some explanation of your relations with the people in Janina; and I shall add a few words about that young Greek woman.’
With a gesture of the lips and eyes, Monte Cristo ordered silence. ‘Well now,’ he said with a laugh, ‘all my expectations are disappointed.’
‘What do you mean?’ Beauchamp asked.
‘No doubt you were in a hurry to give me a reputation for eccentricity: according to you, I am a Lara, a Manfred, a Lord Ruthwen.2 Then, once the time for seeing me as eccentric has gone, the image is spoiled and you try to turn me into an ordinary man. You want me to be commonplace and vulgar. You even ask me for explanations. Come, come, Monsieur Beauchamp! You are joking!’
‘And yet,’ Beauchamp replied haughtily, ‘there are some occasions when honesty commands us…’
‘What commands the Count of Monte Cristo,’ the strange man interrupted, ‘is the Count of Monte Cristo. So, not a word of all this, I beg you. I do what I wish, Monsieur Beauchamp, and believe me, it is always very well done.’
‘Sir,’ said the young man, ‘an honourable person cannot be paid in such coin. One must have guarantees of honour.’
‘I am a living guarantee,’ said Monte Cristo, imperturbably, but with a threatening light in his eyes. ‘We both have blood in our veins which we wish to spill, there is our mutual guarantee. Take that reply back to the viscount and tell him that tomorrow, before ten o’clock, I shall have seen the colour of his.’
‘So there is nothing left for me but to make arrangements for the duel.’
‘All that is a matter of perfect indifference to me, Monsieur,’ said the count. ‘There was no need to come and interrupt the performance for such a slight thing. In France, one fights with sword or pistol; in the colonies they take carbines; in Arabia, a dagger. Tell your client that, though I am the injured party, to keep my eccentricity to the very end I shall let him have the choice of weapons and will accept any, without discussion or argument. Any, do you understand? Even a duel by drawing lots, which is always stupid. But with me, it is a different matter: I am sure of winning.’
‘Sure of winning!’ Beauchamp repeated, looking at the count with alarm.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Monte Cristo, lightly shrugging his shoulders. ‘Otherwise, I should not fight Monsieur de Morcerf. I shall kill him, I must do it and so it will be. Simply send round to my house this evening to tell me the weapon and the place. I do not like to be kept waiting.’
‘Pistols, eight in the morning, in the Bois de Vincennes,’ said Beauchamp, somewhat put out, not knowing whether he was dealing with an impudent braggart or a supernatural being.
‘Perfect, Monsieur,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘And now that we have settled that, I beg you, let me watch the performance and ask your friend Albert not to come back this evening: he would do himself no good with all his ill-mannered aggression. Tell him to go home and get some sleep.’
Beauchamp left in astonishment.
‘And now,’ Monte Cristo said, turning to Morrel, ‘I can call on you, can’t I?’
‘Certainly, Count; I am at your disposal. Yet…’
‘What?’
‘It is important for me to know the true cause…’
‘Does this mean you are refusing me?’
‘Not at all.’
‘The cause, Monsieur Morrel?’ said the count. ‘The young man himself is going
forward blindly, without realizing it. The true cause is known only to myself and to God; but I give you my word of honour that God, who does know it, will be on our side.’
‘That is enough, Count,’ said Morrel. ‘Who is your other second?’
‘I know no one in Paris whom I would wish to honour in that way apart from yourself, Morrel, and your brother-in-law, Emmanuel. Do you think he would perform this service for me?’
‘I can answer for him as for myself, Count.’
‘Good! That’s all I need. Tomorrow at seven o’clock, at my house then?’
‘We shall be there.’
‘Hush! the curtain is just rising. Listen. I never miss a note of this opera. It’s such wonderful music, William Tell!’
LXXXIX
NIGHT
Monte Cristo waited, as he usually did, until Duprez had sung his famous ‘Suivez-moi!’,1 and only then did he get up and leave.
Morrel left him at the door, repeating his promise to be at the count’s, with Emmanuel, the next morning at exactly seven o’clock. Then the count got into his coupé, still calm and smiling. Five minutes later he was home. But one would have not to know the man to mistake the tone in which he said to Ali, as he came in: ‘Ali, my ivory-handled pistols!’
Ali brought his master the box, and the count started to examine the weapons with the natural concern of a man who is about to entrust his life to some scraps of lead and metal. These were private weapons that Monte Cristo had had made for target practice in his apartments. A percussion cap was enough to fire the bullet, and from the adjoining room no one could doubt that the count, as they say on the firing ranges, was engaged in getting his eye in.
He was just fitting the weapon in his hand and looking for the bull on a small metal plaque that served him as a target, when the door of his study opened and Baptistin came in. But, even before he had opened his mouth, the count noticed through the still-open door a veiled woman standing in the half-light of the next room. She had followed Baptistin.