The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (105 page)

‘I don’t know if that is it,’ said Albert. ‘What I do know is that I feel that, if this marriage takes place, she will be unhappy about it. We should have met six weeks ago to talk business, but I had such migraines…’

‘Real ones?’ the count asked, smiling.

‘Oh, quite real… no doubt caused by fear. So the appointment was delayed for two months. You understand, there is no hurry. I am not yet twenty-one and Eugénie is only seventeen; but the two months are over at the end of next week. We shall have to go through with it. You cannot imagine, Count, how much it bothers me… Oh, how lucky you are to be free!’

‘Then be free yourself. What is stopping you, I want to know?’

‘My father would be too disappointed if I did not marry Mademoiselle Danglars.’

‘Then marry her,’ said the count, with an odd shrug of the shoulders.

‘Yes,’ said Morcerf. ‘But for my mother that would not be a disappointment, but a pain.’

‘Don’t marry her, then,’ said the count.

‘I shall see, I shall try. You will advise me, won’t you? And, if possible, get me out of this trap. I do believe that, to avoid causing pain to my dear mother, I would fall out with the count.’

Monte Cristo turned away. He seemed moved. ‘Well, now,’ he said to Debray, who was sitting in a deep armchair at the far end of the room, holding a pencil in his right hand and a notebook in the left. ‘What are you doing? A drawing from Poussin?’

‘I?’ he answered calmly. ‘A drawing? No, I love painting too much for that. No, I am doing the very opposite of painting: arithmetic.’

‘Arithmetic?’

‘Yes, I am calculating. It concerns you, indirectly, Viscount. I am calculating what the firm of Danglars made on the last rise in Haitian stock: from 206, the fund rose to 409 in three days, and the provident banker bought a lot at 206. He must have made three hundred thousand
livres
.’

‘That’s not his best coup,’ said Morcerf. ‘Didn’t he make a million this year with Spanish bonds?’

‘Listen, my dear fellow,’ said Lucien. ‘The Count of Monte Cristo here will tell you, as the Italians do,

Danaro e santità
Metà della Metà
¹

And that’s a lot. So when I hear stories like that, I shrug my shoulders.’

‘You were talking about Haiti?’ said Monte Cristo.

‘Oh, Haiti is something else; Haiti is the écarté of French speculation. You may like bouillotte, be attached to whist, be mad about boston, and yet tire of them all; but one always comes back to écarté: it is in a class of its own. So yesterday Monsieur Danglars sold at 406 and pocketed three hundred thousand francs. If he had waited until today, when the rate fell to 205; instead of gaining three hundred thousand francs, he would have lost twenty or twenty-five thousand.’

‘Why did the rate fall from 409 to 205?’ Monte Cristo asked. ‘I must apologize, but I am very ignorant when it comes to all these manoeuvrings on the exchange.’

‘Because,’ Albert said with a laugh, ‘news comes in dribs and drabs, and one piece is unlike another.’

‘The devil!’ said the count. ‘Monsieur Danglars plays to win or lose three hundred thousand francs in a day. He must be immensely rich?’

‘He’s not the one who gambles!’ Lucien exclaimed. ‘It’s Madame Danglars. She is really daring.’

‘But you are reasonable, Lucien, and you know how news changes, since you are at the source of it, so you should stop her,’ said Morcerf.

‘How could I, if her husband can’t?’ Lucien asked. ‘You know what the baroness is like. No one has any sway over her; she does precisely as she wishes.’

‘If I was in your place…’ Albert said.

‘What?’

‘I should cure her; it would be a service to her future son-in-law.’

‘How?’

‘Dammit, man, it’s quite easy. I’d teach her a lesson.’

‘A lesson?’

‘Yes. Your position as the minister’s secretary gives you great authority as a source of news. As soon as you open your mouth, stockbrokers are hurrying to telegraph what you have said. Let her lose a hundred thousand francs or so straight off, and it will make her more cautious.’

‘I don’t follow you,’ Lucien stammered.

‘But it’s as clear as daylight,’ the young man replied with a naïvety that was entirely unaffected. ‘Tell her one fine morning about something quite unheard of: news from the telegraph that you alone can know; for example, that Henri IV was seen at Gabrielle’s yesterday. It will mean that stock prices will go up, she will hazard her money on it and certainly lose when Beauchamp writes the following day: “Well-informed people are quite wrong to say that King Henri IV was seen at Gabrielle’s yesterday. The report is entirely unfounded. King Henri IV has not left the Pont Neuf.” ’
²

Lucien forced a laugh, while Monte Cristo, though apparently not at all interested in the conversation, had not missed a word of it. His
penetrating eye even thought it detected a secret behind the private secretary’s embarrassment. This embarrassment had altogether escaped Albert, but it resulted in Lucien cutting his visit short. He clearly felt ill at ease. The count, seeing him to the door, whispered a few words to him, and he replied: ‘Very well, Count, I agree.’

The count came back to young Morcerf.

‘Don’t you think,’ he said, ‘on reflection, that you were wrong to speak in that way about your mother-in-law in front of Debray?’

‘Please, Count,’ Morcerf said. ‘I beg you, don’t use that word in anticipation.’

‘Really, and without exaggerating, is the countess so strongly opposed to the match?’

‘So much so that the baroness rarely comes to the house and my mother, I believe, has not been twice in her life to Madame Danglars’.’

‘What you say emboldens me to be frank with you,’ said the count. ‘Monsieur Danglars is my banker and Monsieur de Villefort has been showering me with attention in gratitude for a service which a fortunate chance allowed me to perform for him. Behind all this I can anticipate an avalanche of dinners and balls. Well, to avoid all this ostentation and, so to speak, to recapture the advantage, I thought I might invite Monsieur and Madame Danglars, together with Monsieur and Madame de Villefort, to my country house in Auteuil. If I invite you to this dinner, with the Count and Countess de Morcerf, won’t it seem rather like a sort of matrimonial gathering, or, at least, might not the Countess de Morcerf see things in that way, especially if Baron Danglars does me the honour of bringing his daughter? So your mother might shun me, which I certainly don’t want; on the contrary – and I hope you’ll tell her so at every opportunity – I want her to think well of me.’

‘My dear Count,’ said Morcerf, ‘thank you for speaking to me so frankly. I accept your suggested non-invitation. You say that you want my mother to think well of you, and she already does.’

‘You think so?’ Monte Cristo asked, with interest.

‘I’m sure of it. When you left us the other day, we spoke about you for an hour. But, to get back to what we were saying, if my mother could know that you were concerned for her – and I shall tell her about it – I am sure that she would be very grateful to you. It is true that, for his part, my father would be furious.’

The count laughed. ‘Well,’ he told Morcerf, ‘you have been warned. But I think it is not only your father who would be furious. Monsieur and Madame Danglars would consider me a very ill-mannered person. They know that you and I are friends, and even that you are my oldest acquaintance in Paris – and they won’t see you at my house. They will ask why I didn’t invite you. At least think some prior engagement that will be more or less plausible, and write a little note informing me of it. You know: with bankers, nothing is valid unless it is in writing.’

‘I shall do better than that, Count,’ said Albert. ‘My mother wants to take the sea air. What day is your dinner?’

‘Saturday.’

‘It is Tuesday today. Very well, we’ll leave tomorrow evening and, the day after, we’ll be in Le Tréport. Count, do you know how charming it is of you to put people at their ease in this way?’

‘No! You imagine me to be something more than I am. I just want to please you, that’s all.’

‘When did you send out your invitations?’

‘Today.’

‘Fine! I’ll go straight round to Danglars and announce that my mother and I are leaving Paris tomorrow. I have not seen you, so I know nothing about your dinner.’

‘Are you crazy? What about Monsieur Debray, who has just seen you here?’

‘Oh! You’re right!’

‘On the contrary, I saw and invited you here, and you quite simply replied that you could not be my guest, because you were leaving for Le Tréport.’

‘Well then, that’s settled. But will you come and see my mother before tomorrow?’

‘It will be difficult so soon; and I would interfere with the preparations for your departure.’

‘Well, do better than that. You were only a charming man, but you could be an adorable one.’

‘What must I do to achieve that distinction?’

‘What must you do?’

‘That’s what I asked.’

‘Well, today you are free as air. Come and dine with me. We shall make an intimate little party: just you, my mother and I. You have hardly glimpsed my mother: you could see her properly. She
is a very remarkable woman, and I only regret one thing, which is that there’s no one like her who is twenty years younger. If that were so, there would soon be a Viscountess as well as a Countess de Morcerf, I assure you. As far as my father is concerned, he won’t be there: he is on duty this evening and will be dining with the public auditor. Come along, we can talk about travel. You have seen the whole world, and you can tell us of your adventures. You can tell us about the beautiful Greek who was with you the other evening at the opera, whom you call your slave and treat like a princess. We can talk Italian or Spanish. Come on, accept. My mother will thank you.’

‘A thousand thanks,’ said the count. ‘Your invitation is most gracious and I deeply regret not being able to accept. I am not as free as you think and, on the contrary, I have a very important appointment.’

‘Ah, be careful! A moment ago you taught me how one discharges an unpleasant responsibility where dinners are concerned. I need proof. I am fortunately not a banker like Monsieur Danglars, but I warn you that I am as hard to convince as he is.’

‘I shall prove it,’ said the count; and he rang the bell.

‘Huh!’ said Morcerf. ‘This is the second time you have refused to dine with my mother. There is some prejudice here, Count.’

Monte Cristo shuddered. ‘Please don’t think such a thing,’ he said. ‘In any case, here is my proof.’

Baptistin came in and stood, waiting, at the door.

‘I was not warned of your visit, was I?’

‘Dammit! You’re such an extraordinary man that I can’t be certain of that.’

‘Well, at the very least, I could not guess that you would invite me to dinner, could I?’

‘That, I must admit, is probable.’

‘Well, listen… Baptistin, what did I tell you this morning when I called you into my study?’

‘To have Monsieur le Comte’s door closed when five o’clock struck.’

‘Then?’

‘Oh, Monsieur le Comte…’ said Albert.

‘No, no. I am quite determined to get rid of this mysterious reputation that you have given me, my dear Viscount. It is too hard
to have to play Manfred the whole time. I want to live in a house of glass. Then… Carry on, Baptistin.’

‘Only to admit Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti and his son.’

‘Do you hear: Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, a gentleman from the oldest noble family in Italy, for whom Dante acted as d’Hozier
³
– I don’t know if you remember: in the tenth canto of the
Inferno
. In addition, his son, a charming young man of about your age, Viscount, with the same title as you, who is making his debut in Parisian society with his father’s millions. This evening, the major will be bringing me his son Andrea, the
contino
, as we call him in Italy. He is entrusting him to me. I shall advance him, if he has any merit; and you will help me, won’t you?’

‘Of course. So is this Major Cavalcanti an old friend of yours?’ Albert asked.

‘Not at all. He’s a worthy aristocrat, very polite, very unassuming and very discreet, as there are many in Italy – descendants of old families who have descended a very long way. I have seen him several times, in Florence, or in Bologna, or in Lucca, and he told me he was coming here. Acquaintances made on journeys are demanding. They require of you, in any place whatsoever, the same friendship that you showed them once, by chance; as if a civilized man, who can pass an hour with anyone, did not always have some reservations! The good Major Cavalcanti wants to revisit Paris, which he has only seen once, during the empire, when he passed through on his way to catch a cold in Moscow. I shall give him a good dinner, he will leave me his son. I shall promise to look after the boy, then I’ll let him commit whatever folly he wishes and we shall be quits.’

‘Perfectly so!’ said Albert. ‘I can see that you are a fine tutor. Farewell, then, we shall return on Sunday. Oh, by the way, I have heard from Franz.’