Monte Cristo gave a nod to signify his full approval.
‘But that is not all,’ Danglars went on. ‘He has opened a credit with us on behalf of his son.’
‘If I might venture to ask, how much is he giving the young man?’
‘Five thousand francs a month.’
‘Sixty thousand a year. I’m not surprised,’ Monte Cristo said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘They are so timorous, these Cavalcantis. What does he expect a young man to do with five thousand a month?’
‘But you know, if the young man should need a few thousand more…’
‘Don’t. The father would leave you to foot the bill. You don’t know these Italian millionaires: they are real misers. By whom was the credit opened?’
‘By the firm of Fenzi, one of the best in Florence.’
‘I’m not saying that you’ll lose, far from it. But keep strictly to the letter.’
‘Don’t you have confidence in this Cavalcanti?’
‘Me? I’d give him ten million against his signature. My dear sir, his is one of those second-class fortunes we were just talking about.’
‘Yet he is such an ordinary man. I’d have taken him for a major, nothing more.’
‘He would have been honoured, because you’re right, he’s nothing to look at. When I saw him for the first time, he looked to me like an old lieutenant gone to seed. But all Italians are like that: either they look like old money-lenders, or else they dazzle you like Oriental magi.’
‘The young man is better,’ said Danglars.
‘Yes. A trifle shy, perhaps. But all in all he seemed respectable enough to me. I was worried about him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because when you met him at my house, that was virtually his first encounter with society, or so they tell me. He travelled with a very strict tutor and had never been to Paris.’
‘These upper-class Italians, they usually marry among themselves, don’t they?’ Danglars asked casually. ‘They like to unite their fortunes.’
‘Usually that’s true. But Cavalcanti is an eccentric who does nothing like anyone else. I am convinced that he has sent his son to France to find a wife.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘I’m sure of it.’
‘And you know about his fortune?’
‘I hear about nothing else. Except that some people say he has millions, others that he doesn’t have a farthing.’
‘What’s your personal opinion?’
‘Just that: personal, so don’t rely on it.’
‘But…’
‘My opinion is that all these old podestas, the former condottieri – because the Cavalcantis used to command armies and used to rule provinces… Well, my opinion, as I say, is that they buried millions in nooks and crannies that only their ancestors knew and passed down from eldest son to eldest son through the generations. The proof is that they are all dry and yellow like their florins from the days of the republic: their faces have spent so long looking at the coins that they have come to reflect them.’
‘Exactly,’ said Danglars. ‘All the more so since none of these people seems to own a square inch of land.’
‘Very little, at least. In Cavalcanti’s case, all I know is his palace in Lucca.’
‘Ah, so he does have a palace,’ said Danglars, laughing. ‘That’s something at any rate.’
‘Yes, and he rents it to the Minister of Finance, while he himself lives in a cottage. I told you: I think the fellow’s tight-fisted.’
‘I must say, you don’t flatter him.’
‘Listen, I hardly know him. I may have seen him three times in my life. What I do know comes from Abbé Busoni and from Cavalcanti himself. He was talking to me this morning about his plans for his son and hinted that he was tired of letting large sums of money sleep idly in Italy, which is a dead country, so he would like to find a way, in either France or Italy, of making his millions bear fruit. However, I must insist that, though I have every confidence in Abbé Busoni himself, I can guarantee nothing.’
‘No matter. Thank you for sending me a customer. It’s a fine name to write on my register, and my cashier, to whom I explained about the Cavalcantis, is full of self-importance about it all. By the way – just out of idle curiosity – when such people marry off their sons, do they give them a dowry?’
‘It depends. I knew one Italian prince, as rich as a gold mine, one of the leading families in Tuscany, who would give millions to his sons when they married as he wished and, when they went against his wishes, cut them off with an income of twenty écus a month. Supposing Andrea were to marry someone of whom his father approved, he might give him one, two or three million. If it was with the daughter of a banker, for example, he might take an interest in his son’s father-in-law’s firm. On the other hand, suppose he was not pleased with his daughter-in-law: well, slap-bang, old Cavalcanti grabs the key to his safe, gives a double turn to the lock and Master Andrea is obliged to live like a young Parisian beau, marking cards and loading dice.’
‘The boy will find a Bavarian or Peruvian princess: he’ll want a closed crown, an Eldorado with the Potosi running through it.’
‘No, these transmontane aristos often marry mere mortals: they are like Jupiter, they like mixing species.2 But tell me, my dear Monsieur Danglars, you’re not thinking of marrying Andrea yourself are you, with all these questions?’
‘By golly, it might not be a bad investment,’ Danglars said. ‘And I am a speculator.’
‘But surely not Mademoiselle Danglars? Do you want Albert to cut poor Andrea’s throat?’
‘Albert?’ said Danglars with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘Oh, he’s not worried.’
‘But he’s engaged to your daughter, I think?’
‘The fact is, Monsieur Morcerf and I have spoken a few times about this marriage, but Madame de Morcerf and Albert…’
‘You’re not telling me he isn’t a good match?’
‘Just a moment! I think Mademoiselle Danglars is worth Monsieur de Morcerf.’
‘Mademoiselle Danglars’ dowry will certainly be fine, I don’t doubt, especially if the telegraph doesn’t get up to its tricks again.’
‘It’s not just the dowry. But tell me, now we mention it…’
‘What?’
‘Why didn’t you invite Morcerf and his family to your dinner?’
‘I did so, but he said he was going to Dieppe with Madame de Morcerf, who was advised to take some sea air.’
‘My word, yes,’ said Danglars with a laugh. ‘It must be good for her.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it is the air she breathed when she was young.’
Monte Cristo let the allusion pass without comment. ‘But, when all’s said and done,’ he continued, ‘while Albert may not be as rich as Mademoiselle Danglars, you cannot deny that he bears a fine name.’
‘Yes, but I like mine too,’ said Danglars.
‘Agreed, your name is a popular one, and it ennobled the title with which they sought to ennoble it; but you are too intelligent not to realize that, according to certain prejudices which are too deeply ingrained for them to be eradicated, a title five centuries old is better than one of only twenty years.’
‘And that,’ said Danglars, with an attempt at a sardonic smile, ‘is why I should prefer Monsieur Andrea Cavalcanti to Monsieur Albert de Morcerf.’
‘Yet I imagine that the Morcerfs do not cede to the Cavalcantis?’
‘The Morcerfs! Tell me, my dear Count, you are a noble man, aren’t you?’
‘I think so.’
‘And well versed in heraldry?’
‘A little.’
‘Well, consider the paint on my coat of arms: it’s drier than that on Morcerf’s.’
‘How can that be?’
‘Because, even though I am not a baron by birth, I am at least called Danglars.’
‘So?’
‘While he is not called Morcerf.’
‘What! He is not called Morcerf???
?
‘Not in the slightest.’
‘Come now!’
‘I was made a baron by someone, so that is what I am; he made himself a count, so that is what he is not.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Listen, my dear Count,’ Danglars went on. ‘Monsieur de Morcerf has been my friend, or rather my acquaintance, for thirty years. You know that I don’t attach much importance to my coat of arms, since I have not forgotten where I came from.’
‘That is evidence either of great humility or of great pride,’ said Monte Cristo.
‘Well, when I was a clerk, Morcerf was a mere fisherman.’
‘What was his name then?’
‘Fernand.’
‘Just “Fernand”?’
‘Fernand Mondego.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Am I! I ought to know him. He sold me enough fish.’
‘So why are you giving him your daughter?’
‘Because Fernand and Danglars are two upstarts, both ennobled, both enriched and neither better than the other; except for some things that have been said about him and never about me.’
‘What things?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, I understand. What you have just said has refreshed my memory about the name Fernand Mondego. I heard it in Greece.’
‘About the affair of Ali Pasha?’
‘Precisely.’
‘That’s the mystery,’ said Danglars. ‘I confess, I’d give a lot to find out about it.’
‘It wouldn’t be hard if you really want to.’
‘How could it be done?’
‘I suppose you have a correspondent in Greece?’
‘Of course.’
‘In Janina?’
‘I have connections everywhere…’
‘Well, then. Write to your man in Janina and ask him what part was played in the catastrophe of Ali Tebelin by a Frenchman named Fernand.’
‘That’s it!’ Danglars exclaimed, leaping to his feet. ‘I’ll write this very day.’
‘Do that.’
‘I shall.’
‘And if you uncover some scandal…’
‘I’ll let you know.’
‘I should be glad.’
Danglars rushed out of the apartments and, in one bound, was in his carriage.
LXVII
THE CROWN PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE
Let us leave the banker’s horses trotting smartly home with him and follow Mme Danglars on her morning excursion. We said that at half-past twelve she had called for her carriage and gone out.
She set off towards the Faubourg Saint-Germain, went down the Rue Mazarine and called for the driver to halt at the Passage du Pont-Neuf. Here she got down and crossed the street. She was very simply dressed, appropriately for a woman of taste at this time of day. At the Rue Guénégaud, she got into a cab and asked to be driven to the Rue du Harlay.
No sooner was she inside the cab than she took a thick black veil out of her pocket and pinned it on her straw hat. Then she put the hat back on her head and was pleased to see, looking in her little pocket-mirror, that only her white skin and the shining pupils of her eyes were visible.
The cab drove across the Pont Neuf and through the Place Dauphine into the courtyard at Rue du Harlay. Mme Danglars paid the driver as he opened the door and swept towards the stairway, which she lightly mounted, soon reaching the Salle des Pas-Perdus. In the morning there is lots of business and still more busy people in the Palais de Justice. Busy people do not bother much with women, so Mme Danglars crossed the Salle des Pas-Perdus without attracting any more notice than ten other women waiting to see their lawyers.
There was a crowd in M. de Villefort’s antechamber, but Mme Danglars did not even have to mention his name. As soon as she appeared, an usher got up, came across to her and asked whether she were not the person who had an appointment with the crown prosecutor. When she replied that she was, he led her along a private corridor into M. de Villefort’s study.
The magistrate was sitting in his armchair, writing, with his back towards the door. He heard it open and the usher say: ‘This way, Madame!’, then the door close, all without moving; but as soon as he heard the usher’s footsteps going away along the corridor, he leapt up, went to draw the curtains, lock the doors and inspect every corner of the study. Only when his mind was at rest and he was certain of not being seen or heard, did he say: ‘Madame, thank you for your punctuality,’ and he offered Mme Danglars a seat, which she accepted, because her heart was beating so hard that she felt as though she was suffocating.
The crown prosecutor also sat down and turned his chair around to face Mme Danglars. ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘it is a long time since I had the pleasure of speaking to you alone, and I deeply regret that we should be meeting to discuss something so disagreeable.’
‘Despite that, Monsieur, you see that I have come as soon as you asked, even though the topic must be still more disagreeable for me than for you.’
Villefort gave a bitter smile and said, in response more to his own thoughts than to Mme Danglars’ words: ‘So it is true that every one of our actions leaves some trace on our past, either dark or bright. So it is true that every step we take is more like a reptile’s progress across the sand, leaving a track behind it. And often, alas, the track is the mark of our tears!’
‘Monsieur,’ said Mme Danglars, ‘you must understand my feelings. I beg you to spare me as much as possible. This room, through which so many guilty men and women have passed, trembling and ashamed… this chair on which I, in my turn, sit trembling and ashamed… It takes all the strength of my reason to persuade me that I am not a guilty woman and you a threatening judge.’
Villefort shook his head and sighed: ‘I tell myself that my place is not on the judge’s bench, but in the dock with the accused.’
‘You?’ Mme Danglars said in astonishment.
‘Yes, I.’
‘I think that, so far as you are concerned, Monsieur,’ said Mme Danglars, her lovely eyes briefly lighting up, ‘you are overscrupulous and exaggerating the situation. The tracks that you mentioned have been made by all hot-blooded youths. Beneath passion and beyond pleasure, there is always a trace of remorse; and that is why the Gospel, that everlasting succour to the unfortunate, has given us poor women as a prop the excellent parable of the sinner and the woman taken in adultery. So, when I consider the follies of my youth, I sometimes think that God will forgive them, because some compensation for them (though not an excuse) is to be found in my sufferings. But what do you have to fear from all this, you men whom everyone excuses and who are elevated by scandal?’
‘Madame,’ Villefort replied, ‘you know me. I am not a hypocrite – or, at least, I never dissemble without some purpose. My brow may be forbidding, but that is because it is darkened by many misfortunes; my heart may be stone, but it needs must be to withstand the blows that have assailed it. I was not like this in my youth, I was not like this at the betrothal feast in Marseille when we all sat at a table in the Rue du Cours. Since then, much has changed, both around me and within me. My life has been worn away in the pursuit of difficult things and in breaking down those who, voluntarily or otherwise, of their own free will or as a result of chance, stood in my way and raised such obstacles. It is rare to feel an ardent desire for something and not find that it is ardently defended by those from whom one would like to take it or seize it. So, most ill deeds present themselves to their perpetrators in the specious guise of necessity; then, when the deed has been committed – in a moment of passion, fear or delirium – one realizes that it might have been avoided. Blind as you were, you did not see the correct course of action, which now appears plainly and simply before you. You think: how can I have done that, instead of this? You ladies, on the other hand, are rarely tormented by remorse, because the decision rarely comes from you. Your misfortunes are almost always imposed on you and your errors almost always another’s crime.’
‘In any event, Monsie
ur, you must agree,’ Mme Danglars replied, ‘if I did make a mistake, I was severely punished for it yesterday.’
‘Poor woman!’ said Villefort, pressing her hand. ‘Too severely, since your strength twice nearly gave way; and yet…’
‘Well?’
‘Well, I must tell you… Be brave, Madame, we are not yet at an end.’
‘My God!’ Mme Danglars exclaimed in terror. ‘What is there still to come?’
‘You can only see the past, and it is grim, I confess. But imagine a still grimmer future, a future that is sure to be frightful… and perhaps stained with blood!’
The baroness knew Villefort’s usual restraint and was so horrified by this lurid outburst that she opened her mouth to scream, but the cry was stifled in her throat.
‘How has this terrible past been resurrected?’ Villefort asked. ‘How has it arisen from its sleep in the depths of the tomb and the depths of our hearts, like a ghost draining the blood from our cheeks and making the pulse beat in our temples?’
‘Alas!’ said Hermine. ‘By chance, no doubt.’
‘Chance!’ said Villefort. ‘No, no, Madame, there is no chance.’
‘Of course there is. Was it not chance, admittedly a fatal one, but chance none the less that was behind all this? Was it not chance that the Count of Monte Cristo bought that house? That he had the earth dug? And, finally, that the unhappy child was dug up from under the trees? That poor innocent creature, flesh of my flesh, to whom I never gave a kiss, but only tears. Oh, my heart fluttered when I heard the count speak of those cherished remains that were found among the flowers.’
‘And yet it is not so, Madame. This is the frightful thing that I must tell you,’ Villefort replied, in a stifled voice. ‘There were no remains discovered among the flowers, no child unearthed. No! You should not be weeping, you should not moan! You should be trembling with fear!’
‘What can you mean?’ Mme Danglars exclaimed with a shudder.
‘I mean that Monsieur Monte Cristo, had he dug under those trees, would not have found either a child’s skeleton or the iron of a box, because neither was there to be found.’
‘Neither was there!’ Mme Danglars repeated, looking at the prosecutor with eyes of sheer terror, their pupils horribly dilated. Then, like someone trying, in the sound of the words or the voice, to grasp an idea that is about to elude them, she repeated: ‘Neither was there!’