The Count of Monte Cristo

  ‘Monsieur le Comte! Perhaps you might help us to solve a problem that has so far proved insoluble. That firm once did our own a great service and yet, I don’t know why, always denies having done so.’

  ‘I shall look into it, Monsieur,’ said the count, bowing.

  ‘But the subject of Monsieur Danglars has taken us a long way,’ Morcerf said, ‘from the matter in hand, which was to find suitable accommodation for the Count of Monte Cristo. Come, now, gentlemen; let’s put our heads together. Where shall we house this newly arrived guest of our great city?’

  ‘In the Faubourg Saint-Germain,’ said Château-Renaud. ‘There the count will find a charming, secluded little private house.’

  ‘Puf! Château-Renaud,’ said Debray, ‘you know nothing beyond that gloomy and melancholy Faubourg Saint-Germain of yours. Don’t listen to him, Monsieur le Comte; find somewhere in the Chaussée d’Antin – that’s the true centre of Paris.’

  ‘The Boulevard de l’Opéra,’ said Beauchamp. ‘On the first floor, an apartment with a balcony. There, the count can have them bring his cushions embroidered in silver thread and, while he smokes his chibouk or swallows his pills, he can watch the whole city pass before his eyes.’

  ‘Morrel, don’t you have any suggestions?’ asked Château-Renaud. ‘Have you no ideas?’

  ‘Yes, certainly I do,’ the young man said, smiling. ‘But I was waiting to see if Monsieur was tempted by any of the fine offers that he has just been made. Now, since he has not replied, I think I might venture to offer him an apartment in a charming little house, in Pompadour style, which my sister has been renting for the past year in the Rue Meslay.’

  ‘Do you have a sister?’ Monte Cristo asked.

  ‘Yes, Count. The most excellent sister.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘For the past nine years.’

  ‘Is she happy?’ the Count continued.

  ‘As happy as any human creature may be,’ Maximilien replied. ‘She married the man whom she loved, the man who had remained loyal to us in our times of misfortune: Emmanuel Herbault.’

  Monte Cristo gave a faint smile.

  ‘I am staying there while I am on leave,’ Maximilien continued, ‘and, with that same brother-in-law Emmanuel, I shall be at the count’s disposal for any information he might require.’

  ‘One moment,’ Albert exclaimed, before Monte Cristo had time to reply. ‘Be careful, Monsieur Morrel: you are trying to cage a traveller, Sinbad the Sailor, in the prison of family life. Here is a man who came to see Paris, and you want to make him a patriarch.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Morrel replied with a smile. ‘My sister is twenty-five and my brother-in-law thirty: they are young, merry and contented. In any case, the count will be free to do as he wishes; he will only meet his hosts when he chooses to come down and do so.’

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur, thank you,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘It will be enough for me to be introduced to your sister and your brother-in-law, if you wish to do me that honour. But the reason I did not accept the offers of any of these gentlemen is that I have already arranged for somewhere to live.’

  ‘What!’ Morcerf exclaimed. ‘You are going to stay in a hotel? That would be very gloomy indeed for you.’

  ‘Was I so ill-housed in Rome?’ Monte Cristo asked.

  ‘Huh! In Rome,’ Morcerf said, ‘you spent fifty thousand piastres in furnishing an apartment for yourself, but I don’t suppose you are prepared to spend that every day.’

  ‘It was not the expense that deterred me,’ Monte Cristo replied. ‘But I was resolved to have a house in Paris – a house of my own, you understand. I sent my valet on ahead of me and he must have bought me this house and had it furnished.’

  ‘Are you telling us that you have a valet who knows Paris!’ Beauchamp exclaimed.

  ‘Like me, he is visiting France for the first time. He is black, and cannot speak,’ Monte Cristo replied.

  At this, there was general surprise. ‘So, it must be Ali?’ Albert ventured.

  ‘Yes, Monsieur, Ali himself, my Nubian, my dumb fellow, whom I believe you saw in Rome.’

  ‘Certainly, I recall him very well,’ Morcerf replied. ‘But why did you make a Nubian responsible for buying you a house in Paris and a dumb man for furnishing it? He will have got everything back to front, the poor fellow.’

  ‘Not at all, Monsieur. I am certain, on the contrary, that he will have chosen everything in accordance with my tastes; because, you know, my tastes are not shared by everyone. He got here a week ago, and he will have criss-crossed the town with the instincts of a good hunting-dog, hunting alone. He knows my whims, my caprices, my needs. He will have arranged everything as I want it. He knew that I would be arriving today at ten o’clock, and since nine he has been waiting for me at the Fontainebleau gate. He handed me this paper, with my new address on it. Here, read it!’

  Monte Cristo passed the paper across to Albert, who read: ‘Number thirty, Champs-Elysées.’

  ‘That’s really novel!’ Beauchamp exclaimed involuntarily.

  ‘And very princely,’ Château-Renaud added.

  ‘What! You truly don’t know your house?’ Debray asked.

  ‘No,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘As I told you, I did not want to miss our appointment. I shaved and dressed in the carriage and got out at the viscount’s door.’

  The young men exchanged glances. They did not know whether Monte Cristo was play-acting, but everything that this man said, despite his eccentricity, was delivered in such a simple tone that it was impossible to suspect him of lying. And, for that matter, why should he lie?

  ‘So we must make do,’ Beauchamp said, ‘with ensuring that the count has all the other little things that we are able to give him. For my part, as a journalist, I offer him all the theatres of Paris.’

  ‘I thank you, Monsieur,’ said Monte Cristo, with a smile, ‘but my butler has already been ordered to rent me a box in each of them.’

  ‘Is your butler also a dumb Nubian?’ Debray asked.

  ‘No, sir, merely one of your compatriots, if a Corsican can be said to be anyone’s compatriot; but you know him, Monsieur de Morcerf…’

  ‘Not by any chance the good Signor Bertuccio who is so expert at hiring windows?’

  ‘The very same: you met him at my house on the day when I had the honour to invite you to luncheon. He is an excellent fellow who was something of a soldier, something of a smuggler and, in short, a little of all that one can be. I would not swear to it that he has not been in trouble with the police over some trifle – like a knifing, say.’

  ‘And you chose this honest citizen of the world as your butler, Count?’ Debray said. ‘How much does he steal from you every year?’

  ‘You have my word on it, no more than any other, I am sure. He is just what I need, he never takes no for an answer and I am keeping him.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Château-Renaud, ‘you have a household all ready: a mansion on the Champs-Elysées, servants, a butler; the only thing lacking is a mistress.’

  Albert smiled, thinking of the beautiful Greek woman whom he had seen in the count’s box at the Teatro Valle and the Argentina.

  ‘I have something better than that,’ Monte Cristo replied. ‘I have a slave. You hire your mistresses at the Théâtre de l’Opéra, at the Vaudeville, at the Variétés. I bought mine in Constantinople. She was more expensive, but I have no further worries on that score.’

  Debray laughed. ‘You are forgetting that here, as King Charles said, we are Franks by name and frank by nature. As soon as she set foot in France, your slave became free.’

  ‘Who will tell her?’ asked Monte Cristo.

  ‘Heavens, anybody who comes along.’

  ‘She only speaks Romaic.’

  ‘Ah, that’s another matter.’

  ‘Shall we see her, at least?’ asked Beauchamp. ‘Or, having already one dumb servant, do you also have eunuchs?’

  ‘No, certainly not,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘I do not tak
e my orientalism that far. All those around me are free to leave, and will have no further need of me or of anyone else. Perhaps that is why they do not leave me.’

  They had long since moved on to the dessert and the cigars.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ Debray said, getting up, ‘it is half-past two and your guest is charming, but there is no company so good as that one leaves, even sometimes for worse. I must go back to my Ministry. I shall speak of the count to the minister and we must find out who he is.’

  ‘Take care,’ said Morcerf. ‘Cleverer men have given up the search.’

  ‘Huh! We have a budget of three million for intelligence. Admittedly it is almost always spent in advance; but, no matter, there will still be fifty thousand for this.’

  ‘And when you know who he is, you will tell me?’

  ‘I promise. Au revoir, Albert. Gentlemen, your most humble servant.’

  As he left, Debray cried out loudly in the antechamber: ‘Bring my carriage.’

  ‘Very well,’ Beauchamp told Albert. ‘I shall not go to the House, but offer my readers something better than a speech by Monsieur Danglars.’

  ‘I beg you, Beauchamp,’ Morcerf said. ‘Not a word, I pray. Don’t deprive me of the credit for introducing him and explaining him. Isn’t he an odd fellow?’

  ‘Better than that,’ replied Château-Renaud. ‘One of the most extraordinary men I have ever seen. Morrel, are you coming?’

  ‘I must just give my card to Monsieur le Comte, who has kindly promised to visit us at fourteen, Rue Meslay.’

  ‘You may be sure that I shall not fail to do so, Monsieur,’ the count said with a bow. And Maximilien Morrel went out with the Baron de Château-Renaud, leaving Monte Cristo alone with Morcerf.

  XLI

  THE INTRODUCTION

  When Albert was alone with Monte Cristo, he said: ‘Monsieur le Comte, let me embark on my duties as your guide by showing you this example of a bachelor apartment. Accustomed as you are to Italian palaces, it will be interesting for you to estimate in how few square feet a young man can live in Paris without being counted among those who are the most poorly housed. As we pass from one room to the next, we shall open the windows to allow you to breathe.’

  Monte Cristo already knew the dining-room and the downstairs drawing-room. Firstly, Albert conducted him to his attic; this, you will remember, was his favourite room.

  Monte Cristo was well able to appreciate all the things that Albert had amassed in the room: old chests, Japanese porcelain, oriental cloths, jewels of Venetian glass and weapons from every country in the world: he was familiar with all these things and needed only a glance to recognize century, country and provenance. Morcerf imagined that he would do the explaining, but on the contrary, under the count’s guidance, he found himself taking lessons in archaeology, mineralogy and natural history. They came back down to the first floor and Albert showed his guest into the drawing-room. The walls here were hung with modern paintings: there were landscapes by Dupré, with long reeds, slender trees, lowing cows and wonderful skies; there were Arab riders by Delacroix, dressed in flowing white burnous, with shining belts and damascened weapons, whose horses were biting their own flanks in fury while the riders rent one another with iron maces; there were watercolours by Boulanger illustrating the whole of Notre-Dame de Paris with the energy that makes the painter the equal of the poet; there were canvases by Diaz, who makes flowers more lovely than flowers and a sun brighter than the sun; drawings by Decamps, as highly coloured as those of Salvator Rosa, but more poetic; pastels by Giraud and Müller depicting children with angel faces and women with virginal features; pages torn from Dauzat’s sketchbook of his journeys to the East, drawn in a few seconds on the saddle of a camel or beneath the dome of a mosque; in short, everything that modern art can offer in exchange and compensation for the art lost and vanished with earlier centuries.1

  Here, at least, Albert expected to show the stranger something new but, to his great astonishment, the count, without even having to look for the signature (some of those in any case only took the form of initials), instantly put the name of each artist on his work, so that it was easy to see that not only was each of these names already known to him, but that he had also studied and judged each of these talented artists.

  From the drawing-room they went into the bedroom. This was at the same time a model of elegance and austere in its taste. Only one portrait here, but by Léopold Robert,2 magnificent in its burnished gold frame. The portrait at once attracted the Count of Monte Cristo’s attention, because he took three rapid paces across the room and stopped in front of it.

  It showed a young woman of twenty-five or twenty-six, dark in colouring, her burning eyes veiled beneath languorous lids. She was wearing the picturesque costume of a Catalan fisherwoman, with a red-and-black bodice and her hair held back with gold pins. She was looking at the sea, so that her elegant figure was outlined against the two blues, of the sky and the waves.

  Had it not been dark in the room, Albert would have observed the livid pallor that spread across the count’s cheeks and noticed the nervous tremor that shook his shoulders and his chest.

  There was a moment’s silence, in which Monte Cristo remained with his eyes unwaveringly fixed on the painting.

  ‘You have a beautiful mistress there, Vicomte,’ he said, in a perfectly calm voice. ‘And this costume, no doubt intended for the ball, suits her astonishingly well.’

  ‘Ah, Monsieur!’ Albert said. ‘I should not forgive you this mistake, if you had seen any other portrait beside this one. You do not know my mother, Monsieur. She is the person in that picture, which she had done six or eight years ago, dressed like this in some imaginary costume, apparently; the resemblance is so good that I feel I can still see my mother as she was in 1830. The countess had the portrait done for herself while the count was away. No doubt she intended to give him a pleasant surprise when he returned, but, oddly enough, the portrait displeased my father and the value of the canvas which, as you can see, is one of Léopold Robert’s excellent works, could not overcome the dislike he had conceived for it. Between ourselves, my dear Count, it is true to say that Monsieur de Morcerf is one of the most conscientious peers in the Upper Chamber and a general renowned for his theories, but a very poor connoisseur of art. The same is not true of my mother, who paints remarkably well and has too much respect for such a work to relinquish it altogether and who gave it to me so that in my house it would be less liable to upset Monsieur de Morcerf. I shall shortly show you his portrait, painted by Gros.3 Forgive me if I seem to chatter on about domestic matters and my family, but as I shall later have the honour of introducing you to the count I am telling you this so that you will know not to praise this portrait in front of him. In any case, it has an unhappy aura. My mother very seldom comes to my house without looking at it and still less often does she look at it without weeping. The cloud that entered our household with the appearance in it of this painting is the only one that has ever fallen across the count and countess who, though they have been married for more than twenty years, are still as closely united as on the very first day.’

  Monte Cristo glanced rapidly at Albert as if to discover some hidden meaning behind his words, but it was clear that the young man had spoken with all the candour of his simple heart.

  ‘Now that you have seen all my riches, Monsieur le Comte,’ he continued, ‘allow me to offer them to you, unworthy though they are. Consider this your home here and, to put you still more at your ease, pray accompany me to Monsieur de Morcerf’s. I wrote from Rome to tell him of the service you had done me and to announce that you had promised to visit me. I may tell you that the count and countess are impatient to thank you. I know, Monsieur le Comte, that you are a little blasé about everything, and that Sinbad the Sailor is little touched by scenes of family life: you have witnessed other so much more exciting ones! However, as your initiation to Parisian life, allow me to offer you the round of daily etiquette, visits and introductio
ns.’

  Monte Cristo bowed in reply. He accepted the proposal without enthusiasm or reluctance, as one of those social conventions with which every well-bred man must comply. Albert called his valet and told him to go and advise M. and Mme de Morcerf that the Count of Monte Cristo would shortly wait on them. Albert and the count followed him.

  On reaching the count’s antechamber, the visitor could see a shield above the door leading to the reception room which, being extravagantly mounted and made to harmonize with the décor of the room, indicated the importance that the owner of the mansion attached to this coat of arms. Monte Cristo paused in front of it and examined it carefully.

  ‘Azur, seven merlets, or, placed bender. No doubt this is your family’s coat of arms, Monsieur? Apart from the knowledge of the elements of the shield that permits me to decipher it, I am very ignorant in matters of heraldry, being myself an accidental count, fabricated by Tuscany with the help of a commandership of Saint Stephen: I should never have passed myself off as a great nobleman were it not that I was repeatedly told this was absolutely necessary for anyone who travels a lot. When it comes down to it, one must have something on the doors of one’s coach to dissuade the Customs from searching it. So forgive me for asking.’

  ‘The question is not at all indiscreet, Monsieur,’ Morcerf replied in the frank tones of someone who believed what he said. ‘You are right: this is our coat of arms, that is to say it bears my father’s crest, but attached to a shield that is gules with a silver tower, bearing my mother’s crest. On her side I am Spanish, but the Morcerfs are French and, so I am told, one of the oldest families in the south of France.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Monte Cristo, ‘that is shown by the merlets or blackbirds. Almost all the crusaders who conquered, or tried to conquer, the Holy Land took either crosses as their emblems, as a sign of the mission to which they had dedicated themselves, or else migratory birds, as a symbol of the long journey that they intended to undertake and which they hoped to accomplish on the wings of faith. One of your paternal ancestors must have taken part in the Crusades; and, if it was only the Crusade led by Saint Louis, that already takes us back to the thirteenth century, which is already a very fine thing.’