The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (176 page)

‘Call the prince! Tell him it’s his turn to sign!’ Danglars shouted to an usher. But at the same moment the crowd of onlookers swept back into the main reception room, terrified, as if some dreadful monster had entered the apartments,
quaerens quem devoret
.
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Indeed, there was reason to shrink back and cry out in fear.

An officer of the gendarmerie stationed two gendarmes at the door of each drawing-room, then marched over toward Danglars, preceded by a commissioner of police decked out in his scarf of office. Mme Danglars gave a cry and fainted. Danglars, who felt himself under threat – some consciences are never at rest – presented his guests with a face contorted by terror.

‘What is the matter, Monsieur?’ asked Monte Cristo, going to meet the commissioner.

‘Which of you gentlemen is named Andrea Cavalcanti?’ the commissioner asked, without replying to the count’s question.

A cry of amazement rose from every corner of the room. Everyone looked around and asked questions.

‘Who is this Andrea Cavalcanti, then?’ Danglars enquired, in a state of near distraction.

‘A former convict who escaped from the penitentiary of Toulon.’

‘What crime has he committed?’

‘He is accused of the murder of one Caderousse,’ the commissioner
said, in his impassive voice, ‘formerly his fellow-inmate, as the said Caderousse was leaving the house of the Count of Monte Cristo.’

Monte Cristo looked quickly around him. Andrea had vanished.

A few minutes after the scene of confusion produced by the sudden appearance of the brigadier of the gendarmerie in M. Danglars’ house, and the revelation that followed, the vast mansion had emptied with much the same haste as would have followed the announcement of a case of the plague or cholera among the guests. In a few minutes, everyone had hurried to leave, or, rather, to flee, by every door, down every stairway, out of every exit. This was one of those circumstances in which one should not even try to offer the trite consolations that make the best of friends so unwelcome in the event of a great catastrophe.

No one remained in the banker’s mansion except Danglars, shut up in his study with the officer of gendarmes; Mme Danglars, terrified, in the boudoir with which we are already acquainted; and Eugénie who, with her proud eyes and scornfully curled lips, had retired to her room with her inseparable companion, Mlle Louise d’Armilly.

As for the many servants, even more numerous that evening than usual because they had been joined for the occasion by the ice-cream chefs, cooks and maîtres d’hôtel of the Café de Paris, they were standing around in groups in the pantries and the kitchens, or in their rooms, turning against their masters the anger they felt at what they called this ‘affront’ to them and not at all bothered about their domestic duties – which had, in any case, naturally been suspended.

In the midst of these various people, all agitated by their own interests, only two deserve our attention: Mlle Eugénie Danglars and Mlle Louise d’Armilly.

The young fiancée, as we mentioned, had retired with a haughty air and a curled lip, and with the bearing of an insulted queen,
followed by her companion who was paler and more disturbed than she was.

When they got to her room, Eugénie locked the door from the inside, while Louise slumped into a chair.

‘Oh, my God! My God! What a dreadful thing!’ said the young musician. ‘Whoever could have imagined it? Monsieur Andrea Cavalcanti… an assassin… an escaped convict… a criminal!’

An ironic smile formed on Eugénie’s lips. ‘I really am fated,’ she said. ‘I escape from Morcerf and find Cavalcanti!’

‘Oh, Eugénie, don’t confuse one with the other.’

‘Be quiet. All men are scoundrels and I am happy to be able to do more than hate them: now I despise them.’

‘What can we do?’ Louise asked.

‘What shall we do?’

‘Yes.’

‘The very thing we should have done three days ago: leave.’

‘So, as you are not getting married, you still want to?’

‘Listen, Louise, I abhor this society life, ordered, measured and ruled out like our sheets of music paper. What I’ve always wanted, aspired to and yearned for is an artist’s life, free, independent, where one depends only on oneself and is responsible only to oneself. Why should we stay? So that they will try, in a month’s time, to marry me off again? To whom? Perhaps to Monsieur Debray: they did consider it for a while. No, Louise, no. This evening’s adventure will be my excuse. I didn’t look for it, I didn’t ask for it. God sent it, and I welcome it.’

‘How strong and courageous you are!’ the fragile young blonde said to her dark-haired companion.

‘Surely you know me by now? Come, Louise, let’s discuss the whole matter. The carriage…’

‘Was purchased three days ago, luckily.’

‘Did you have it taken where we are to join it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And our passport?’

‘Here it is!’

And Eugénie, with her usual sang-froid, unfolded the document and read: ‘Monsieur Léon d’Armilly, twenty years old, an artist by profession, black hair, black eyes, travelling with his sister.’

‘Wonderful! How did you obtain this passport?’

‘I went and asked Monsieur de Monte Cristo for letters to the
directors of the theatres in Rome and Naples, telling him that I was afraid to travel as a woman. He quite understood my feelings and offered to get me a man’s passport. Two days later, I received this one and added, with my own hands, “travelling with his sister”.’

‘Fine!’ Eugénie said merrily. ‘Now all that’s left is to pack our trunks. We’ll leave on the evening of signing the contract, instead of leaving on the wedding night, that’s all.’

‘Think carefully, Eugénie.’

‘Oh, I’ve thought about it. I’m tired of hearing about nothing but reports, ends of the month, rises, falls, Spanish funds, Haitian paper. Instead of that, Louise, don’t you see: the air, freedom, the song of the birds, the plains of Lombardy, the canals of Venice, the palaces of Rome, the beach at Naples. How much have we got, Louise?’

The young woman answered by taking a little locked wallet out of an inlaid bureau, opening it and counting twenty-three banknotes. ‘Twenty-three thousand francs,’ she said.

‘And at least as much again in pearls, diamonds and jewels,’ said Eugénie. ‘We are rich. With forty-five thousand francs, we can live like princesses for two years, or more modestly for four. But in less than six months, you with your music and I with my voice, we shall have doubled our capital. Come, you take the money, I’ll look after the jewel box, so that if one of us is unlucky enough to lose her treasure, the other will still have hers. Now the suitcase! Quickly, the suitcase!’

‘Wait,’ Louise said, going to listen at Mme Danglars’ door.

‘What are you afraid of?’

‘Being surprised.’

‘The door’s closed.’

‘Suppose they tell us to open it.’

‘Let them say what they like, we won’t open.’

‘You’re a real Amazon, Eugénie!’

With a prodigious show of activity, the two girls began to throw everything they thought they would need on their journey into a trunk.

‘There,’ said Eugénie. ‘Now, while I get changed, you close the case.’

Louise pressed with all the strength of her little hands on the lid of the trunk. ‘I can’t do it,’ she said. ‘I’m not strong enough. You close it.’

‘Of course,’ Eugénie said with a laugh. ‘I was forgetting that I’m Hercules and you’re just a feeble Omphale.’
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And, putting her knee on the trunk, she stiffened her two white muscular arms until the two halves of the case met and Mlle d’Armilly had slid the bar of the padlock through the two hooks. When this was done, Eugénie opened a cupboard with a key she had on her and brought out a travelling cloak in quilted violet silk. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You can see I’ve thought of everything. With this on, you won’t be cold.’

‘What about you?’

‘Oh, I don’t feel the cold, as you know. In any case, dressed as a man…’

‘Are you going to dress here?’

‘Certainly.’

‘But will you have time?’

‘Don’t worry, chicken-heart. No one is thinking of anything except the great affair. And what is there so surprising about my shutting myself in my room, when you think of how desperate I must be?’

‘No, that’s true. You’ve reassured me.’

‘Come on, give me a hand.’

And from the same drawer out of which she had taken the cloak that she had just given Mlle d’Armilly (and which the latter had put around her shoulders), she took a complete set of men’s clothes, from the boots to the frock-coat, with a supply of linen which included all the essentials, but nothing unnecessary.

Then, with a rapidity that showed this was surely not the first time that she had, for fun, put on the clothes of the other sex, Eugénie pulled on the boots, slipped into the trousers, rumpled her cravat, buttoned a high-necked waistcoat up to the top and got into a frock-coat that outlined her slender, well-turned waist.

‘Oh, that’s very good! It’s truly very good indeed!’ Louise said, looking admiringly at her. ‘But what about your lovely black hair, those splendid locks that were the envy of every woman: will they fit under a man’s hat like the one I see there?’

‘You’ll see,’ said Eugénie. And with her left hand she grasped the thick plait of hair which her slender fingers could barely reach around, while with the right she took a pair of long scissors. Very soon the steel blades were squeaking in the midst of the magnificent and luxuriant head of hair, which fell in tresses around the young woman’s feet as she bent backwards to prevent it covering her coat.

Then, when the hair on the crown of her head was cut, she turned to the sides, shearing them without the slightest sign of remorse. On the contrary, her eyes shone, more sparkling and joyful than usual under her ebony-black brows.

‘Oh, your lovely hair!’ said Louise, regretfully.

‘Don’t I look a hundred times better like this?’ Eugénie asked, smoothing down the few curls left on her now entirely masculine haircut. ‘Don’t you think I’m more beautiful as I am?’

‘Oh, you are beautiful, beautiful still,’ Louise cried. ‘Now, where are we going?’

‘To Brussels, if you like. It’s the nearest frontier. We’ll travel through Brussels, Liège and Aix-la-Chapelle, then up the Rhine to Strasbourg, across Switzerland and into Italy by the Saint Gothard pass. Agreed?’

‘Of course.’

‘What are you looking at?’

‘You. You truly are adorable like that. Anyone would say you were abducting me.’

‘By God, they’d be right!’

‘Oh, Eugénie! I think you swore!’

And the two girls, whom anyone would have expected to be plunged in misery, one on her own account, the other out of devotion to her friend, burst out laughing while they set about clearing up the most obvious signs of the mess that had naturally accompanied the preparations for their flight.

Then the two fugitives blew out their lights and, with eyes peeled, ears pricked and necks craned, they opened the door to a dressing-room which gave access to the service stairs leading down to the courtyard. Eugénie went first, holding the suitcase in one hand, while Mlle d’Armilly struggled with the opposite handle in both of hers.

The courtyard was empty. Midnight had just struck. The concierge was still on duty.

Eugénie crept up and saw the trusty guard asleep at the back of his lodge, spread out across a chair. She went back to Louise, picked up the case which she had put down for a moment, and the two of them, keeping to the shadow cast by the wall, reached the porch.

Eugénie got Louise to hide behind the door so that the concierge, if he should chance to wake up, would see only one person. Then, herself standing in the full glare of the lamp lighting the courtyard,
she cried: ‘Door!’ in her finest contralto voice, knocking on the window.

The concierge got up, as Eugénie had anticipated, and even took a few steps to try to recognize the person who was going out but, seeing a young man impatiently tapping his trouser-leg with his cane, he opened immediately.

Louise at once slid like an adder through the half-open door and lightly bounded outside. Eugénie followed, apparently calm, though it is quite probable that her heart was beating faster than it usually did.

A delivery man was passing, so they asked him to take charge of the trunk, and the two young women told him they were going to the Rue de la Victoire and to Number 36 in that street; then they followed behind the man, whose presence Louise found reassuring. As for Eugénie, she was as strong as a Judith or a Delilah.

They arrived at the door of Number 36. Eugénie told the delivery man to put the trunk down, gave him a few small coins and, after knocking at the shutter, sent him on his way. The shutter on which Eugénie had tapped belonged to a little washerwoman who had been forewarned of their arrival. She had not yet gone to bed, so she opened up.

‘Mademoiselle,’ Eugénie said, ‘have the concierge bring the barouche out of the coachhouse and send him to fetch horses from the post. Here are five francs for his trouble.’