‘Oh, so far as that is concerned, Monsieur le Comte, entirely and most willingly!’ Albert replied. ‘And all the more so – my dear Franz, do not make too much fun of me! – since I have been recalled to Paris by a letter which I received this morning, which speaks of my alliance with a very fine house, and one that has excellent connections in Parisian society.’
‘An alliance by marriage?’ Franz asked, laughing.
‘Heavens above, yes! So, when you return to Paris you will find me firmly settled down and perhaps even a father. This should suit my natural gravity, don’t you think? In any case, Count, I repeat: I and my family are entirely at your disposal.’
‘I accept,’ said the count. ‘I assure you that I was only waiting for this opportunity to carry out some plans that I have been considering for a long while.’
Franz did not doubt for a moment that these plans were the same that the count had mentioned in passing in the caves of Monte Cristo, and he watched him as he was speaking in an attempt to glimpse something in his expression which would indicate what it was that would bring him to Paris; but it was very difficult to probe the man’s soul, especially when he veiled it with a smile.
‘Come now, Count,’ Albert went on, delighted at the idea of being able to exhibit a man like Monte Cristo. ‘Isn’t this one of those vague plans, like thousands that one makes when travelling, which are founded on sand and which blow away in the first breeze?’
‘No, I guarantee that,’ said the count. ‘I want to go to Paris. I must go there.’
‘When?’
‘When will you be there yourself?’
‘Me?’ said Albert. ‘My goodness! In a fortnight or three weeks: as long as it takes me to get there.’
‘In that case,’ said the count, ‘I give you three months. You see that I am leaving you considerable latitude.’
‘And in three months,’ Albert exclaimed joyfully, ‘you will knock on my door?’
‘Do you want us to make an appointment, day for day and hour for hour?’ said the count. ‘I warn you, I am fearfully punctual.’
‘Day for day, hour for hour,’ said Albert. ‘That will suit me down to the ground.’
‘Agreed, then.’ He reached over to a calendar hanging beside the mirror. ‘Today is the twenty-first of February…’ (he took out his watch) ‘… and it is half-past ten in the morning. May I call at half-past ten on May the twenty-first next?’
‘Perfect!’ said Albert. ‘Breakfast will be ready.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Number twenty-seven, Rue du Helder.’
‘Is that a bachelor apartment? I won’t be disturbing you?’
‘I live in my father’s house, but in entirely separate lodgings at the back of the courtyard.’
‘Very well.’
The count took his notebook and wrote: ‘Rue du Helder, No. 27, on May 21, at half-past ten in the morning.’
‘Now,’ he said, returning the notebook to his pocket, ‘have no fear: the hand of your clock will not be more punctual than I.’
‘Shall I see you before my departure?’ asked Albert.
‘That depends. When do you leave?’
‘Tomorrow, at five in the evening.’
‘In that case, I must bid you farewell. I have business in Naples and I shall not return until Saturday evening or Sunday morning. And you, Monsieur le Baron,’ the count asked, turning to Franz, ‘are you also leaving?’
‘Yes.’
‘For France?’
‘No, for Venice. I shall be staying another year or two in Italy.’
‘So we shall not see you in Paris?’
‘I fear I shall not have that honour.’
‘Very well, gentlemen. Bon voyage,’ the count said to the two friends, offering each of them a hand.
This was the first time that Franz had touched the man’s hand, and he shuddered; it was as icy as the hand of a corpse.
‘One last time,’ said Albert. ‘It’s agreed, isn’t it, on your word? Number twenty-seven, Rue du Helder, on May the twenty-first at half-past ten in the morning?’
‘May the twenty-first, at half-past ten in the morning, at number twenty-seven, Rue du Helder,’ the count repeated.
At this, the two young men took their leave of the count and left.
‘What’s wrong?’ Albert asked Franz when they got back to his rooms. ‘You seem quite preoccupied with something.’
‘Yes,’ said Franz. ‘I must confess that the count is an odd man and I am worried about the rendez-vous that he made with you in Paris.’
‘Worried! About the rendez-vous! I never! Are you mad, my dear Franz?’ Albert exclaimed.
‘Mad or not, I can’t help it.’
‘Listen,’ Albert said, ‘I am happy to have an opportunity to say this to you: I have always thought you behaved rather coldly towards the count, while I think he, on his side, has always been most agreeable towards us. Do you have anything in particular against him?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Did you come across him somewhere before meeting him here?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Where?’
‘Do you promise me that you will not say a word of what I am about to tell you?’
‘I promise.’
‘On your honour?’
‘On my honour.’
‘Very well. Then I’ll tell you.’
Franz described his voyage to the island of Monte Cristo, how he had found a crew of smugglers there and two Corsican bandits among them. He told at great length about the fairy-tale hospitality that the count had offered him in his grotto out of the Thousand and One Nights: the supper, the hashish, the statues, reality and dream, and how when he woke up there was nothing left as evidence to recall any of these events except the little yacht sailing over the horizon towards Porto Vecchio.
Then he went on to Rome, to the night in the Colosseum and the conversation that he had heard between the count and Vampa concerning Peppino, in which the count promised to secure a pardon for the bandit (a promise which he had fully kept, as the readers can judge).
Finally he got to the adventure of the previous night, the difficulty he found himself in when he discovered that he was six or seven hundred piastres short of the necessary amount; and the idea that he had eventually had of going to the count, an idea that had had such an exotic and, at the same time, satisfactory outcome.
Albert listened attentively.
‘Well, now,’ he said, when the story was over. ‘What do you have to reproach him with in all this? The count is a traveller and he had his own boat, because he is rich. Go to Portsmouth or Southampton and you will see the ports crowded with yachts belonging to rich Englishmen who are indulging the same whim. So that he has somewhere to stop in his travels and so that he does not have to eat this frightful cooking that has been poisoning me for the past four months, and you for the past four years, and so that he does not have to lie in those abominable beds where you can’t sleep, he had a pied-à-terre fitted out on Monte Cristo. When it was furnished, he was afraid that the Tuscan government would expel him and that he would lose his money, so he bought the island and took its name. My dear friend, just think: how many people can you remember who have taken the names of properties that they never had?’
‘But what about the Corsican bandits in his crew?’ Franz asked.
‘What about them? What is surprising about that? You know as well as anyone that Corsican bandits are not thieves, but purely and simply outlaws who have been exiled from their town or their village because of some vendetta. Anyone can mix with them without being compromised. Why, I do declare that if ever I go to Corsica, before I am introduced to the governor and the préfet, I shall have myself introduced to the bandits of Colomba,2 if they are anywhere to be found. I think they’re delightful.’
‘But Vampa and his band,’ Franz went on, ‘are bandits who abduct people to steal from them: you won’t deny that, at least, I hope. What do you say abou
t the count’s influence over such men?’
‘What I say, my dear man, is that since I probably owe my life to it, it’s not my place to criticize him. So, instead of treating this influence as a capital offence, as you do, I wonder if you would mind if I excuse him, if not for having saved my life, which might be going a little too far, at least for saving me four thousand piastres, which is a good twenty-four thousand livres in our money: I should certainly not have had such a high price in France – which only goes to prove,’ Albert added, laughing, ‘that no man is a prophet in his own country.’
‘Precisely, there you have it! What country does the count come from? What is his language? What are his means of support? Where does his huge fortune come from? What was the first half of this mysterious and unknown life, that it has cast over the second half such a dark and misanthropic shadow? That, if I were you, is what I should want to know.’
‘My dear Franz,’ Albert said, ‘when you received my letter and you saw that we needed the count’s influence, you went to tell him: “My friend, Albert de Morcerf, is in danger; help me to rescue him from it.” Is that not so?’
‘Yes.’
‘And did he ask you: “Who is that Albert de Morcerf? Where does he get his name? Where does his fortune come from? What are his means of support? What is his country? Where was he born?” Tell me, did he ask you all that?’
‘No, he didn’t, I admit.’
‘He came, quite simply. He helped me to escape from the clutches of Monsieur Vampa in which, despite what you call my air of entire unconcern, I must confess I was in a pretty sorry pass. Well, my dear fellow, when in exchange for such a service he asks me to do what one does every day for the first Russian or Italian prince who passes through Paris, that is to say, to introduce him to society, how could I refuse! You are mad to suggest it!’
It must be admitted that this time, contrary to what was usually the case, Albert had all the arguments on his side.
‘Very well,’ Franz said, sighing, ‘do as you wish, my dear Vicomte, because I have to agree that everything you have just said is very persuasive. But the fact remains that the Count of Monte Cristo is a very strange man.’
‘The Count of Monte Cristo is a philanthropist. He didn’t tell you his purpose in coming to Paris, but he is coming to take part in the Prix Montyon;3 and if he only needs my vote and that of the very ugly gentleman who distributes them to succeed, then I shall give him the first and make sure he has the second. With that, my dear Franz, let’s say no more about it, but have lunch and go on a final visit to Saint Peter’s.’
It was as Albert said, and the following day, at five in the afternoon, the two young men took their leave of one another, Albert de Morcerf to return to Paris and Franz d’Epinay to go and spend a fortnight in Venice.
But before he got into his carriage, Albert gave the waiter at the hotel a card for the Count of Monte Cristo, so determined was he that his guest should not fail to attend their meeting. On it were the words: ‘Vicomte Albert de Morcerf’ and, under them, in pencil: ‘May 21, at half-past ten in the morning, at 27, Rue du Helder.’
XXXIX
THE GUESTS
On the morning of 21 May, in the house in the Rue du Helder where Albert de Morcerf, while in Rome, had agreed to meet the Count of Monte Cristo, everything was being prepared to honour the young man’s word.
Albert de Morcerf lived in a pavillon, or lodge, in the corner of a large courtyard, opposite another building containing the outhouses. Only two windows of the lodge overlooked the street, three of the others being in the wall looking across the courtyard and two at right-angles overlooking the garden. Between the court and the garden, built with the bad taste of the Empire style in architecture, was the vast and fashionable residence of the Count and Countess de Morcerf.
The whole extent of the property was surrounded by a wall, abutting on the street, crowned at intervals with vases of flowers and broken in the middle by a large wrought-iron gateway with gilded lances, which was used for formal comings and goings; a little door almost next to the concierge’s lodge was intended for the servants or for the masters, if they should be coming in or going out on foot.
One could guess that there was the delicate forethought of a mother behind this choice of the pavillon for Albert: while not wanting to be separated from her son, she nevertheless realized that a young man of the viscount’s age needed all his freedom. On the other hand, it must be said that one could also recognize in this the intelligent egoism of the young man, the son of wealthy parents, who enjoyed the benefits of a free and idle life, which was gilded for him like a birdcage.
Through the windows that overlooked the street, Albert de Morcerf could explore the outside world: life outdoors is so essential to young men, who always want to see the world pass over their horizon, even if that horizon is bounded by the street! Then, once his preliminary exploration was finished, if it should reveal anything that deserved closer examination, Albert de Morcerf could pursue his investigation by going out through a little door corresponding to the one (already noted) near the porter’s lodge, which deserves particular mention.
It was a little door that you would have thought forgotten by everyone on the very day that the house was built and which you would imagine was condemned to eternal neglect, so dusty and well concealed did it seem – except that, on close examination, the lock and the hinges, assiduously oiled, showed it to be in continual and mysterious use. This sly little door competed with its two fellows and cocked a snook at the concierge, escaping both his vigilance and his jurisdiction, to open like the famous cavern door in the Thousand and One Nights, like Ali Baba’s enchanted Sesame, only by means of some occult phrase or some prearranged tapping, spoken in the softest of voices or performed by the slenderest fingers in the world.
At the end of a wide, peaceful corridor, entered through this little door and serving as an antechamber to the apartments, were two rooms: on the right, Albert’s dining-room, overlooking the court, and on the left his little drawing-room, overlooking the garden. Banks of climbing plants, fanned out in front of the windows, hid the interior of these two rooms from the court and the garden; since they were the only ones on the ground floor, they were also the only ones which might be spied on by prying eyes.
On the first floor, the two rooms were repeated with the addition of a third, above the antechamber. The three first-floor rooms were a drawing-room, a bedroom and a boudoir. The downstairs drawing-room was only a smoking-room, like an Algerian diwan. The first-floor boudoir led into the bedroom and, by a secret door, to the staircase. One can see that every precaution had been taken.
Above the first floor was a vast studio which had been enlarged by taking down the inner walls and partitions to make a domain of chaos in which the artist battled for supremacy over the dandy. Here was the resting-place in which were amassed all Albert’s successive whims: hunting horns, basses and flutes – a full orchestra – because Albert had once conceived, not a taste for music, but a fancy; easels, palettes and pastels, because the fancy for music had been followed by a fad for painting; and, last of all, foils, boxing gloves, swords and sticks of every variety, because finally, in the way of fashionable young men at the time when our story is set, Albert de Morcerf gave infinitely greater application than he had done to music and painting to the three arts that go to make up the education of a member of the dominant class in society, namely fencing, boxing and exercising with the quarter-staff. In this room, designed for all kinds of physical exertion, he would receive successively Grisier, Cooks and Charles Leboucher.1
The remaining furniture in this special room consisted of chests dating from the time of François I, full of Chinese porcelain, Japanese vases, faience by Luca della Robbia and plates by Bernard de Palissy; and antique chairs on which Henri IV or Sully, Louis XIII or Richelieu might have sat, for two of them, bearing carved blue shields on which shone the French fleur-de-lis surmounted by a royal crown, clearly came from the colle
ction at the Louvre, or at least from some other royal palace. Across the chairs with their dark upholstery were casually draped rich materials in bright colours, dyed in the Persian sun or brought to light beneath the fingers of women in Calcutta or Chandannagar. It was impossible to say what these fabrics were doing there; they were awaiting some destiny unknown even to their owner, providing sustenance for the eyes and meanwhile setting the room ablaze with their silken and golden lights.
In the place of honour was a piano, made of rosewood by Roller and Blanchet, and designed to fit into a modern drawing-room, yet containing a whole orchestra within its compact and sonorous frame and groaning under the weight of masterpieces by Beethoven, Weber, Mozart, Haydn, Grétry and Porpora.
Then, everywhere, along the walls, above the doors, on the ceiling, were swords, daggers, kris, maces, axes, complete suits of gilded, damascened or encrusted armour, as well as herbaria, blocks of mineral samples and stuffed birds spreading their brilliant, fiery wings in immobile flight and opening beaks that were never closed.
It goes without saying that this room was Albert’s favourite.
However, on the day fixed for the meeting, the young man, dressed, but wearing casual indoor clothes, had set up his headquarters in the little ground-floor drawing-room. Here, on a table set some way from the divan that surrounded it and magnificently displayed in the crackled faience pots that the Dutch appreciate so much, were all the known varieties of tobacco, from yellow Petersburg to black Sinai, through Maryland, Puerto Rico and Latakia. Beside them, in boxes of aromatic wood and in order of size and quality, were laid out puros, regalias, Havanas and Manillas. And finally, on an open rack, a collection of German pipes, chibouks with amber bowls, decorated with coral, and nargiles encrusted with gold, their long morocco stems twisted like serpents, awaited the smoker’s preference or whim. Albert himself had supervised the arrangement – or, rather, the systematic disorder that guests at a modern luncheon like to contemplate through the smoke as it escapes from their lips and rises, in long, fantastic spirals, towards the ceiling.