The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (56 page)

‘Do you expect to go soon?’

‘I don’t know yet; it depends on circumstances that are still uncertain.’

‘I should like to be there when you come, so that I could return, as far as I am able, the hospitality that you have been so generous as to offer me on Monte Cristo.’

‘I would be most happy to accept your offer,’ the host replied. ‘But if I do go, unfortunately, it might well be incognito.’

Meanwhile the dinner continued and appeared to have been served purely for Franz, for the stranger had barely nibbled at one or two of the dishes in the splendid feast that he had offered him and on which his unexpected guest had dined handsomely.

Finally Ali brought the dessert; or, rather, he took the baskets from the hands of the statues and placed them on the table. Between the two baskets he set down a little bowl in vermeil, with a lid of the same metal. Franz’s curiosity was awakened by the respect with which the servant had brought this bowl. He lifted the lid and saw a sort of greenish paste that he did not recognize, though it resembled a sort of sweet made from angelica. He replaced the lid, as ignorant of the contents of the bowl after lifting the lid as he had been before and, turning back to his host, saw him smile at his disappointment.

‘You cannot guess,’ he said, ‘what kind of foodstuff is in that little container, and it intrigues you, I imagine?’

‘I admit it does.’

‘I’ll tell you. That sort of green sweetmeat is nothing more nor less than the ambrosia that Hebe served at the table of Jupiter.’

‘Which ambrosia,’ said Franz, ‘no doubt, on coming into the hand of man, lost its celestial name to take a human one. What is the name of this substance – to which, I must admit, I feel no great attraction – in ordinary speech?’

‘Ah!’ cried Sinbad. ‘It is precisely in this that we reveal our base material origins. Often we pass beside happiness without seeing it, without looking at it, or, even if we have seen and looked at it, without recognizing it. If you are a practical man and gold is your God, then taste this, and the mines of Peru, Gujarat and Golconda will be open to you. If you are a man of imagination, a poet, then taste this too, and the boundaries of the possible will vanish, the fields of infinity will be open and you will walk through them, free in heart, free in mind, in the limitless pasture of reverie. If you are ambitious and seek earthly glory, then you too can taste this and in an hour you will be a king, not the king of some little kingdom buried away in a corner of Europe, like France, Spain or England, but king of the world, king of the universe, king of creation. Your throne will be raised up on the mountain where Satan took Jesus. And, without having to pay him homage, without having to kiss his claw, you will be the sovereign master of all the kingdoms on earth. Aren’t you tempted by my offer? Tell me, is it not an easy thing to do, since there is nothing to do but that? Look.’

With this, he lifted the lid off the little vermeil bowl which contained the substance of which he had spoken so highly, took a coffee-spoon full of the magic sweetmeat, raised it to his lips
and slowly savoured it, his eyes half closed and his head leaning back.

Franz gave him as long as he needed to enjoy his favourite food; then, seeing that he had somewhat recovered his attention, said: ‘But tell me, what is this precious sweetmeat?’

‘Have you heard speak of the Old Man of the Mountain?’ his host asked. ‘The one who tried to kill Philip Augustus?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, you know that he ruled over a rich valley overlooked by the mountain from which he had taken his picturesque name. In that valley were splendid gardens planted by Hassanben-Sabah, and in those gardens were isolated pavilions. According to Marco Polo, he would bring his chosen friends into these pavilions and there make them eat a certain grass which would take them into paradise, in the midst of plants that were always in flower, fruits that were always ripe and women who were always virgins. What these fortunate young men imagined was reality was a dream; but a dream so sweet, so intoxicating, so voluptuous that they would sell themselves, body and soul, to the person who had procured it for them, obey his orders like those of God and strike whatever victim he directed at the furthest end of the earth, dying under torture without a murmur, simply because they believed that the death they would suffer was merely a transition to that life of delights of which the holy grass, which you see before you, had given them a foretaste.’

‘In that case,’ Franz exclaimed, ‘it’s hashish! Yes, I do know it, at least by name.’

‘Precisely; you have said the word, my lord Aladdin, it’s hashish, the best and finest hashish of Alexandria, hashish from Abugour, the great maker, the only man, the man for whom they should build a palace with the following inscription: “To the merchant of happiness, from a grateful world”.’

‘Do you know,’ Franz said, ‘I am quite eager to judge for myself as to the truth or otherwise of your commendation?’

‘Do so, my dear guest, do so. But do not be content with just one experiment: as with everything, the senses must become accustomed to a new impression, whether it is pleasant or not, happy or sad. Nature wrestles with this divine substance, because our nature is not made for joy but clings to pain. Nature must be defeated in this struggle, reality must follow dreams; and then the dream will rule,
will become the master, the dream will become life and life become a dream. What a difference is made by this transfiguration! When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream for ever. When you leave your world for that of others, you will feel as if you have travelled from spring in Naples to winter in Lapland, from paradise to earth, from heaven to hell. Try some hashish, my friend! Try it!’

Instead of replying, Franz took a spoonful of the wonderful paste, about as much as his host had taken, and brought it to his mouth.

‘Dammit!’ he exclaimed, swallowing this divine substance. ‘I am not yet sure if the outcome will be as pleasant as you say. But the thing itself doesn’t seem to me as delicious as you claim.’

‘That is because the nodes of your palate are not yet accustomed to the sublimity of the thing they are tasting. Tell me: the first time, did you like oysters, tea, porter, truffles, all these things that you were later to adore? Can you understand the Romans, who seasoned pheasants with asafoetida, or the Chinese, who eat birds’ nests? Of course you can’t! Well, it’s the same with hashish: just try taking it for a whole week, and no food in the world will seem to you comparable in fineness to this taste which today you find musty and repellent. Now let us go into the next room, which is your bedroom, and Ali will serve us coffee and give us some pipes.’

They both got up and, while the man who called himself Sinbad – the name which we, too, have used from time to time, so that we may be able to designate him in some way – was giving orders to his servant, Franz went through to the other room.

The furnishings were simpler, though no less rich. The room was round and a large divan extended along the walls. But the divan, the walls, the ceiling and the floor were hung with splendid animal-skins, as sweet and soft as the deepest-piled carpet: there were lions’ skins from the Atlas Mountains, with great manes; there were tigers’ skins from Bengal, warmly striped; there were the skins of panthers from the Cape, as merrily spotted as the one that appeared to Dante; finally, there were bears’ skins from Siberia and Norwegian foxes. All these were heaped one upon the other, in such profusion that one would have imagined oneself to be walking on the thickest lawn and resting on the most silken couch.

Both men lay down upon the divan. Chibouks with jasmine stems
and amber mouthpieces were within easy reach, all prepared so that they never needed to smoke the same one twice. They each took one. Ali lit them and went out to fetch coffee.

There was a moment’s silence in which Sinbad was immersed in the thoughts that seemed continually to occupy him, even in the midst of conversation, and Franz abandoned himself to the silent reverie into which one almost invariably falls when smoking fine tobacco, which seems to carry away all the sufferings of the mind on its smoke and give the smoker in exchange all the dreams of the soul.

Ali brought them coffee.

‘How would you like it?’ the stranger said. ‘
A la française
or
à la turque
, strong or weak, with sugar or without, filtered or boiled? You choose. We have it prepared in every manner.’

‘I should like Turkish,’ Franz replied.

‘How right you are!’ cried his host. ‘This proves that you have a natural disposition for Oriental life. Ah, the Orientals, you understand, are the only people who know how to live! As for me,’ he added, with one of those odd smiles that did not escape the young man’s observant eye, ‘when I have finished my business in Paris, I shall go and die in the East; and then if you want to find me, you will have to look in Cairo, Baghdad or Isfahan.’

‘I do believe,’ said Franz, ‘that it will be the easiest thing, because I think I am growing eagles’ wings and with them I shall fly round the world in a day.’

‘Ah, ha! That’s the hashish working. Well, then, open your wings and fly into regions beyond the reach of men. Fear nothing. You are being watched over and if, like those of Icarus, your wings should melt in the sun, we are there to catch you.’

He said a few words in Arabic to Ali, who signified his obedience and retired, without going too far away.

As for Franz, a strange transformation was taking place in him. All the physical tiredness of the day, all the concerns awakened in the mind by the events of the evening were disappearing as in that first moment of rest when one is still conscious enough to feel the arrival of sleep. His body seemed to acquire the lightness of some immaterial being, his mind became unimaginably clear and his senses seemed to double their faculties. The horizon was constantly receding; it was no longer that dark horizon which he had seen before falling asleep and over which a vague terror loomed, but a
blue, transparent and vast horizon, containing all the blueness of the sea, all the sparkle of the sun and all the perfumes of the breezes. Then, in the midst of the songs of his sailors, songs that were so pure and so clear that they would have made the most divine harmonies if one could have noted them down, he saw the island of Monte Cristo appear, no longer like a threatening reef rising out of the waves but like an oasis lost in the desert; and, as the boat approached, the songs swelled in volume, because an enchanting and mysterious harmony rose towards heaven out of the island, as if some fairy, like Lorelei, or some enchanter, like Amphion, wanted to lure a soul towards it or to build a city there.

Finally, the boat reached the shore, effortlessly, with no shock, but as lips touch lips, and he came into the cave, without a pause in the charming music. He went down a few steps, or seemed to do so, breathing a fresh and scented air such as must surround Circe’s grotto, composed of perfumes that inspire the soul to dream and warmth such that the senses are inflamed by it; and he saw everything that he had seen before falling asleep, from Sinbad, his fantastic host, to Ali, the dumb servant. Then everything seemed to fade and become confused before his eyes, like the last rays of a magic lantern going out; and he found himself in the room with the statues, lit only by one of those dim antique lights that are kept burning at night to watch over sleep or voluptuous pleasures.

The statues were indeed the same, rich in shape, in sensuality and in poetry, with their magnetic eyes, lustful smiles and opulently flowing hair. Here were those three great courtesans, Phryne, Cleopatra and Messalina; then, like a pure ray in the midst of these immodest shades, like a Christian angel among the gods of Olympus, came one of those chaste countenances, one of those calm shadows, one of those sweet visions that appeared to veil its virginal brow beside all these marble impurities.

At this, it seemed to him that the three statues had combined the love of all three, to offer to a single man, and that that man was himself; that they were approaching the bed where he was dreaming a second sleep, their feet covered by their long white tunics, bare-breasted, their hair coursing like water across their shoulders, in those poses which can seduce gods – but not saints – and those burning looks, such as those the serpent turns on a bird, and that he was abandoning himself to these painful expressions as if to an embrace, as voluptuous as a kiss.

Franz felt that he was closing his eyes and that in the last glance he cast around him he noticed the modest statue cover itself entirely with its veil; then his eyes closed on reality and his senses opened to inconceivable feelings.

After that, he felt unremitting sensuality and continual love-making, such as the Prophet promised to the elect. Now all those stone mouths became living ones and those breasts became warm, to such an extent that for Franz, falling for the first time under the domain of hashish, this lust was almost pain and this voluptuousness almost torture, as he felt the lips of these statues, supple and cold as the coils of a viper, touching his parched mouth. But the more his arms tried to ward off this unknown embrace, the more his senses fell beneath the spell of this mysterious dream, so that, after a struggle in which he would have given his soul, he abandoned himself unreservedly and eventually fell back, panting, seared with exhaustion, worn out with lust, beneath the kisses of these marble mistresses and the enchantment of this unimaginable dream.