The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (117 page)

Servants were coming and going joyfully in the superb courtyard: some belonged to the kitchens and they were gliding along the corridors as if they had always inhabited this place, or up staircases that had been restored only the day before; others were stationed in the coachhouse, where the different sets of harness, numbered and stored, seemed to have been here for fifty years, and the stables, where the horses in their stalls neighed in answer to their grooms, who spoke to them with more respect than many servants use in addressing their masters.

The library was installed in two chambers on two sides of one wing; it contained roughly ten thousand volumes. A whole section was devoted to the modern novel and the latest work was already in its place, showing off its red-and-gold binding.

On the other side of the house, corresponding to the library, was the conservatory, full of rare plants blooming in wide Japanese pots. In the middle of this conservatory, which was a delight to look at and to smell, was a billiard table which seemed to have been abandoned only an hour earlier by players who had let the balls lie where they came to rest on the cloth.

The grand Bertuccio had only left one room alone. This was the bedroom in the left corner on the first floor, reached by the main staircase but also containing the entrance to the secret stairway into the garden. When the servants passed in front of this room, they looked at it with curiosity; Bertuccio looked with terror.

At exactly five o’clock the count arrived at the house, followed by Ali. Bertuccio had been waiting for his master with impatience and a measure of anxiety: he hoped for a compliment, but feared a raised eyebrow.

Monte Cristo got down in the courtyard, then looked around
the house and the garden in silence, giving no sign of either approval or disapproval. However, when he came into his bedroom, which was opposite the locked room, he pointed to the drawer of a little rosewood table that he had picked out on his first visit.

‘That can only be for gloves,’ he said.

‘As you say, Excellency,’ Bertuccio replied, delighted. ‘If you open it, you will find gloves.’

In the other pieces of furniture the count also found just what he expected: perfume bottles, cigars, jewellery.

‘Very good!’ he said.

M. Bertuccio withdrew, gratified to the very depth of his soul, so great, so powerful and so real was the influence of the man on everything about him.

At six o’clock precisely, there was the sound of a horse stamping its hoofs in front of the door: the captain of spahis had arrived on Médéah. Monte Cristo was waiting for him at the top of the steps with a smile on his lips.

‘I’m the first – certain of it!’ Morrel called. ‘Deliberately: I wanted to have you to myself for a moment, before the others arrive. Julie and Emmanuel have a million things to tell you. Oh, but it’s splendid here, you know! Tell me, Count, can I trust your people to look after my horse for me?’

‘Don’t worry, my dear Maximilien, they are experts.’

‘He needs to be rubbed down, though. If you could only have seen him: he went like a whirlwind.’

‘I should think so, dammit,’ said Monte Cristo in the sort of voice a father would use to his son. ‘A horse costing five thousand francs!’

‘Do you regret the money?’ Morrel asked, with his candid smile.

‘Heavens, no!’ the count replied. ‘No, I would only be sorry if the horse was no good.’

‘So good is he, my dear Count, that Monsieur de Château-Renaud, the best judge of horseflesh in France, and Monsieur Debray, who rides the Arabs belonging to the ministry, are even now chasing after me and lagging a bit behind, as you see. They have Baroness Danglars breathing down their necks, and her horses can manage a steady six leagues an hour.’

‘So, they’re behind you?’ Monte Cristo asked.

‘In fact, here they are.’ At that very moment, a coupé with a steaming team, then two panting saddle-horses, stopped in front of
the gate, which opened to let them in. The coupé drove around and stopped at the foot of the steps, followed by the riders. In a moment, Debray had dismounted and was standing beside the carriage door. He offered the baroness his hand and she, as she stepped down, made a movement that anyone except Monte Cristo would have failed to notice. But the count missed nothing, and he saw, in Mme Danglars’ palm, the flash of a little white paper, no more visible than the movement of the hand that held it, which passed between Mme Danglars and the minister’s secretary with an ease that suggested the manoeuvre was well practised.

The banker followed his wife, as pale as though he had just stepped from the tomb, instead of from his coupé.

Mme Danglars cast a rapid, exploratory glance about her (which only Monte Cristo could understand), taking in the courtyard, the peristyle and the façade of the house. Then, mastering some slight emotion which would surely have shown on her face had she allowed its colour to change, she walked up the steps, saying to Morrel: ‘Monsieur, if you were a friend of mine, I should ask you whether your horse is for sale.’

Morrel gave a pained smile and turned to Monte Cristo, as if to beg him for help in escaping from this dilemma. The count took his meaning.

‘Oh, Madame,’ he replied. ‘Why don’t you ask me?’

‘With you, Monsieur,’ the baroness said, ‘one cannot be permitted to wish for anything, because one is too certain of obtaining it. So I asked Monsieur Morrel.’

‘Unfortunately,’ the count said, ‘I happen to know that Monsieur Morrel cannot give away his horse, since honour requires him to keep it.’

‘How is that?’

‘He wagered that he could break Médéah in within six months. Now, Baroness, you understand that if he were to part with the animal before that time, not only would he lose the bet, but people would also say that he was afraid. A captain of spahis, even to satisfy the whim of a beautiful woman – which, in my view, is one of the most sacred of obligations – cannot allow such a stain on his reputation.’

‘So, you see, Madame…’ Morrel said, turning a grateful smile in the direction of Monte Cristo.

‘In any case, I should have thought that you’d had enough of
horses for a while,’ Danglars said, in a surly manner, ill-concealed behind a coarse smile.

It was not usual for Mme Danglars to let such a sally pass without some retort; yet, much to the surprise of the young men, she pretended not to hear and said nothing.

Monte Cristo smiled at her silence, a sign of unaccustomed humility, while at the same time showing the baroness two vast Chinese porcelain pots, wreathed in marine vegetation of such size and craftsmanship that only nature can possess such richness, vigour and ingenuity. The baroness was amazed.

‘But you could plant one of the chestnuts from the Tuileries in there!’ she exclaimed. ‘How on earth did they ever fire such an enormous object?’

‘Don’t expect our craftsmen to answer that, Madame,’ he said, ‘with their Sèvres figurines and fine glass. This is the product of another age, the work, as it were, of the genies of earth and sea.’

‘How do you mean? What age?’

‘I don’t know, but I heard that an emperor of China had a kiln specially built and in it, one after another, they fired twelve pots like this. Two broke in the heat of the fire. The ten remaining ones were sunk three hundred fathoms under the sea. The sea knew what was expected of her: she wrapped her weeds around them, built her corals on them and encrusted them with shells. For two hundred years this decoration was cemented in place at these unheard-of depths, because a revolution overthrew the emperor who thought of the experiment and left only the record of the firing of the pots and their immersion at the bottom of the sea. After two hundred years, this document was discovered and a plan made to recover the vases. Divers were sent down, in specially made engines, to search the bay where the pots had been deposited. Out of the ten, only three were found, the others having been scattered and broken by the waves. I love these vases. Sometimes I imagine that in their depths shapeless, terrifying, mysterious monsters, like those that only divers see, have fastened their cold, flat and astonished eyes, and myriads of fish have slept, finding a refuge from their enemies.’

While the count was speaking, Danglars, who had little interest in curios, had been automatically tearing the leaves off a splendid orange tree; and, when he had dealt with that, turned to a cactus, which he found less compliant than the orange: it pricked him
horribly. He shuddered and rubbed his eyes, like someone awaking from a dream.

‘Monsieur,’ Monte Cristo said to him, ‘I know you are a connoisseur of paintings and have magnificent things yourself, so I cannot recommend mine. However, I have here a couple of Hobbemas, a Paul Potter, a Mieris, two Gerrit Dous, a Raphael, a Van Dyck, a Zurbaran, and two or three Murillos, which are worth pointing out to you.’

‘Look!’ said Debray. ‘There’s a Hobbema I recognize.’

‘Really!’

‘Yes, they offered it to the museum.’

‘Which doesn’t have one, I believe?’ Monte Cristo ventured.

‘No, but they turned it down, even so.’

‘Why?’ asked Château-Renaud.

‘You’re so tactful! Because the government is not rich enough, that’s why!’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ said Château-Renaud. ‘I’ve been hearing this kind of thing for eight years now, and I still can’t get used to the idea.’

‘You will,’ said Debray.

‘I doubt it,’ said Château-Renaud.

‘Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti!’ Baptistin announced.

With a black satin collar fresh from the tailor’s hands, a newly trimmed beard, grey moustaches, a confident eye and a major’s uniform with three medals and five ribbons – in short, an impeccable veteran’s costume: enter Major Bartolomeo Cavalcanti, the loving father we met a short while ago.

Beside him, in a brand-new outfit and with a smile on his face, walked Viscount Andrea Cavalcanti, that obedient son whom we also know.

The three young men were talking among themselves and they looked from father to son, naturally subjecting the latter to a longer and more detailed examination.

‘Cavalcanti!’ said Debray.

‘Dammit!’ said Morrel. ‘That’s a fine name.’

‘Yes,’ said Château-Renaud. ‘There’s no denying it, these Italians have stylish handles – but no dress sense.’

‘That’s a bit hard, Château-Renaud,’ said Debray. ‘Those are well-cut clothes, and brand new.’

‘Precisely what’s wrong about them. The fellow looks as though he had dressed up today for the first time in his life.’

‘Who are these gentlemen?’ Danglars asked Monte Cristo.

‘As you heard, the Cavalcantis.’

‘All that tells me about them is their name.’

‘Of course! You would not be acquainted with our Italian nobility. Cavalcanti is synonymous with royal blood.’

‘Wealthy?’ the banker asked.

‘Fabulously.’

‘What do they do?’

‘They try to spend their money, but are unable to exhaust their fortune. Moreover, they have some credits with your bank, according to what they told me when they came to see me a couple of days ago. I even invited them for that very reason. I’ll introduce you.’

‘They seem to speak French very well,’ said Danglars.

‘I understand the son was educated in a college in the south, in Marseille or thereabouts. You will find him a great enthusiast.’

‘For what?’ asked the baroness.

‘For Frenchwomen, Madame. He is determined to find a wife in Paris.’

‘That’s a fine notion!’ Danglars said, shrugging his shoulders.

Mme Danglars gave her husband a look that on any other occasion would have preceded an outburst, but for the second time she kept silent.

‘The baron seems very gloomy today,’ Monte Cristo said to Mme Danglars. ‘Are they trying to appoint him minister, by any chance?’

‘Not yet, as far as I know. I think he must have been gambling on the Stock Exchange and lost, and doesn’t know who to blame.’

‘Monsieur and Madame de Villefort!’ Baptistin announced.

The two people in question came in. Despite his self-control, M. de Villefort was visibly disturbed. Taking his hand, Monte Cristo noticed that it was trembling.

‘Really, only women know how to disguise their feelings,’ he thought, looking at Mme Danglars, who was smiling at the crown prosecutor and embracing his wife.

After these first exchanges, the count noticed Bertuccio, who up to then had been busy in the kitchens, and was now slipping into a little drawing-room next to the one where they had gathered.
He went over to him and said: ‘What do you want, Monsieur Bertuccio?’

‘His Excellency did not tell me the number of his guests.’

‘Ah! You’re right!’

‘How many places should I lay?’

‘Count for yourself.’

‘Is everyone here now, Excellency?’

‘Yes.’

Monte Cristo did not take his eyes off Bertuccio while he glanced through the half-open door.

‘Oh, my God!’ Bertuccio cried.

‘What is it?’ the count asked.

‘That woman… That woman!’

‘Which one?’