The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (75 page)

‘Come now, Count,’ Albert went on, delighted at the idea of being able to exhibit a man like Monte Cristo. ‘Isn’t this one of
those vague plans, like thousands that one makes when travelling, which are founded on sand and which blow away in the first breeze?’

‘No, I guarantee that,’ said the count. ‘I want to go to Paris. I must go there.’

‘When?’

‘When will you be there yourself?’

‘Me?’ said Albert. ‘My goodness! In a fortnight or three weeks: as long as it takes me to get there.’

‘In that case,’ said the count, ‘I give you three months. You see that I am leaving you considerable latitude.’

‘And in three months,’ Albert exclaimed joyfully, ‘you will knock on my door?’

‘Do you want us to make an appointment, day for day and hour for hour?’ said the count. ‘I warn you, I am fearfully punctual.’

‘Day for day, hour for hour,’ said Albert. ‘That will suit me down to the ground.’

‘Agreed, then.’ He reached over to a calendar hanging beside the mirror. ‘Today is the twenty-first of February…’ (he took out his watch) ‘… and it is half-past ten in the morning. May I call at half-past ten on May the twenty-first next?’

‘Perfect!’ said Albert. ‘Breakfast will be ready.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Number twenty-seven, Rue du Helder.’

‘Is that a bachelor apartment? I won’t be disturbing you?’

‘I live in my father’s house, but in entirely separate lodgings at the back of the courtyard.’

‘Very well.’

The count took his notebook and wrote: ‘Rue du Helder, No. 27, on May 21, at half-past ten in the morning.’

‘Now,’ he said, returning the notebook to his pocket, ‘have no fear: the hand of your clock will not be more punctual than I.’

‘Shall I see you before my departure?’ asked Albert.

‘That depends. When do you leave?’

‘Tomorrow, at five in the evening.’

‘In that case, I must bid you farewell. I have business in Naples and I shall not return until Saturday evening or Sunday morning. And you, Monsieur le Baron,’ the count asked, turning to Franz, ‘are you also leaving?’

‘Yes.’

‘For France?’

‘No, for Venice. I shall be staying another year or two in Italy.’

‘So we shall not see you in Paris?’

‘I fear I shall not have that honour.’

‘Very well, gentlemen.
Bon voyage
,’ the count said to the two friends, offering each of them a hand.

This was the first time that Franz had touched the man’s hand, and he shuddered; it was as icy as the hand of a corpse.

‘One last time,’ said Albert. ‘It’s agreed, isn’t it, on your word? Number twenty-seven, Rue du Helder, on May the twenty-first at half-past ten in the morning?’

‘May the twenty-first, at half-past ten in the morning, at number twenty-seven, Rue du Helder,’ the count repeated.

At this, the two young men took their leave of the count and left.

‘What’s wrong?’ Albert asked Franz when they got back to his rooms. ‘You seem quite preoccupied with something.’

‘Yes,’ said Franz. ‘I must confess that the count is an odd man and I am worried about the rendez-vous that he made with you in Paris.’

‘Worried! About the rendez-vous! I never! Are you mad, my dear Franz?’ Albert exclaimed.

‘Mad or not, I can’t help it.’

‘Listen,’ Albert said, ‘I am happy to have an opportunity to say this to you: I have always thought you behaved rather coldly towards the count, while I think he, on his side, has always been most agreeable towards us. Do you have anything in particular against him?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Did you come across him somewhere before meeting him here?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Where?’

‘Do you promise me that you will not say a word of what I am about to tell you?’

‘I promise.’

‘On your honour?’

‘On my honour.’

‘Very well. Then I’ll tell you.’

Franz described his voyage to the island of Monte Cristo, how he had found a crew of smugglers there and two Corsican bandits among them. He told at great length about the fairy-tale hospitality
that the count had offered him in his grotto out of the
Thousand and One Nights
: the supper, the hashish, the statues, reality and dream, and how when he woke up there was nothing left as evidence to recall any of these events except the little yacht sailing over the horizon towards Porto Vecchio.

Then he went on to Rome, to the night in the Colosseum and the conversation that he had heard between the count and Vampa concerning Peppino, in which the count promised to secure a pardon for the bandit (a promise which he had fully kept, as the readers can judge).

Finally he got to the adventure of the previous night, the difficulty he found himself in when he discovered that he was six or seven hundred
piastres
short of the necessary amount; and the idea that he had eventually had of going to the count, an idea that had had such an exotic and, at the same time, satisfactory outcome.

Albert listened attentively.

‘Well, now,’ he said, when the story was over. ‘What do you have to reproach him with in all this? The count is a traveller and he had his own boat, because he is rich. Go to Portsmouth or Southampton and you will see the ports crowded with yachts belonging to rich Englishmen who are indulging the same whim. So that he has somewhere to stop in his travels and so that he does not have to eat this frightful cooking that has been poisoning me for the past four months, and you for the past four years, and so that he does not have to lie in those abominable beds where you can’t sleep, he had a pied-à-terre fitted out on Monte Cristo. When it was furnished, he was afraid that the Tuscan government would expel him and that he would lose his money, so he bought the island and took its name. My dear friend, just think: how many people can you remember who have taken the names of properties that they never had?’

‘But what about the Corsican bandits in his crew?’ Franz asked.

‘What about them? What is surprising about that? You know as well as anyone that Corsican bandits are not thieves, but purely and simply outlaws who have been exiled from their town or their village because of some vendetta. Anyone can mix with them without being compromised. Why, I do declare that if ever I go to Corsica, before I am introduced to the governor and the
préfet
, I shall have myself introduced to the bandits of
Colomba
,
²
if they are anywhere to be found. I think they’re delightful.’

‘But Vampa and his band,’ Franz went on, ‘are bandits who abduct people to steal from them: you won’t deny that, at least, I hope. What do you say about the count’s influence over such men?’

‘What I say, my dear man, is that since I probably owe my life to it, it’s not my place to criticize him. So, instead of treating this influence as a capital offence, as you do, I wonder if you would mind if I excuse him, if not for having saved my life, which might be going a little too far, at least for saving me four thousand
piastres
, which is a good twenty-four thousand
livres
in our money: I should certainly not have had such a high price in France – which only goes to prove,’ Albert added, laughing, ‘that no man is a prophet in his own country.’

‘Precisely, there you have it! What country does the count come from? What is his language? What are his means of support? Where does his huge fortune come from? What was the first half of this mysterious and unknown life, that it has cast over the second half such a dark and misanthropic shadow? That, if I were you, is what I should want to know.’

‘My dear Franz,’ Albert said, ‘when you received my letter and you saw that we needed the count’s influence, you went to tell him: “My friend, Albert de Morcerf, is in danger; help me to rescue him from it.” Is that not so?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did he ask you: “Who is that Albert de Morcerf? Where does he get his name? Where does his fortune come from? What are his means of support? What is his country? Where was he born?” Tell me, did he ask you all that?’

‘No, he didn’t, I admit.’

‘He came, quite simply. He helped me to escape from the clutches of Monsieur Vampa in which, despite what you call my air of entire unconcern, I must confess I was in a pretty sorry pass. Well, my dear fellow, when in exchange for such a service he asks me to do what one does every day for the first Russian or Italian prince who passes through Paris, that is to say, to introduce him to society, how could I refuse! You are mad to suggest it!’

It must be admitted that this time, contrary to what was usually the case, Albert had all the arguments on his side.

‘Very well,’ Franz said, sighing, ‘do as you wish, my dear Vicomte, because I have to agree that everything you have just said is
very persuasive. But the fact remains that the Count of Monte Cristo is a very strange man.’

‘The Count of Monte Cristo is a philanthropist. He didn’t tell you his purpose in coming to Paris, but he is coming to take part in the Prix Montyon;
³
and if he only needs my vote and that of the very ugly gentleman who distributes them to succeed, then I shall give him the first and make sure he has the second. With that, my dear Franz, let’s say no more about it, but have lunch and go on a final visit to Saint Peter’s.’

It was as Albert said, and the following day, at five in the afternoon, the two young men took their leave of one another, Albert de Morcerf to return to Paris and Franz d’Epinay to go and spend a fortnight in Venice.

But before he got into his carriage, Albert gave the waiter at the hotel a card for the Count of Monte Cristo, so determined was he that his guest should not fail to attend their meeting. On it were the words: ‘Vicomte Albert de Morcerf’ and, under them, in pencil: ‘May 21, at half-past ten in the morning, at 27, Rue du Helder.’

On the morning of 21 May, in the house in the Rue du Helder where Albert de Morcerf, while in Rome, had agreed to meet the Count of Monte Cristo, everything was being prepared to honour the young man’s word.

Albert de Morcerf lived in a
pavillon
, or lodge, in the corner of a large courtyard, opposite another building containing the outhouses. Only two windows of the lodge overlooked the street, three of the others being in the wall looking across the courtyard and two at right-angles overlooking the garden. Between the court and the garden, built with the bad taste of the Empire style in architecture, was the vast and fashionable residence of the Count and Countess de Morcerf.

The whole extent of the property was surrounded by a wall, abutting on the street, crowned at intervals with vases of flowers
and broken in the middle by a large wrought-iron gateway with gilded lances, which was used for formal comings and goings; a little door almost next to the concierge’s lodge was intended for the servants or for the masters, if they should be coming in or going out on foot.

One could guess that there was the delicate forethought of a mother behind this choice of the
pavillon
for Albert: while not wanting to be separated from her son, she nevertheless realized that a young man of the viscount’s age needed all his freedom. On the other hand, it must be said that one could also recognize in this the intelligent egoism of the young man, the son of wealthy parents, who enjoyed the benefits of a free and idle life, which was gilded for him like a birdcage.

Through the windows that overlooked the street, Albert de Morcerf could explore the outside world: life outdoors is so essential to young men, who always want to see the world pass over their horizon, even if that horizon is bounded by the street! Then, once his preliminary exploration was finished, if it should reveal anything that deserved closer examination, Albert de Morcerf could pursue his investigation by going out through a little door corresponding to the one (already noted) near the porter’s lodge, which deserves particular mention.

It was a little door that you would have thought forgotten by everyone on the very day that the house was built and which you would imagine was condemned to eternal neglect, so dusty and well concealed did it seem – except that, on close examination, the lock and the hinges, assiduously oiled, showed it to be in continual and mysterious use. This sly little door competed with its two fellows and cocked a snook at the concierge, escaping both his vigilance and his jurisdiction, to open like the famous cavern door in the
Thousand and One Nights
, like Ali Baba’s enchanted Sesame, only by means of some occult phrase or some prearranged tapping, spoken in the softest of voices or performed by the slenderest fingers in the world.

At the end of a wide, peaceful corridor, entered through this little door and serving as an antechamber to the apartments, were two rooms: on the right, Albert’s dining-room, overlooking the court, and on the left his little drawing-room, overlooking the garden. Banks of climbing plants, fanned out in front of the windows, hid the interior of these two rooms from the court and the garden; since
they were the only ones on the ground floor, they were also the only ones which might be spied on by prying eyes.