The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (77 page)

‘Oh, my dear man,’ Lucien said, with sovereign contempt, ‘do you think I read the papers?’

‘All the better: then you can argue even more about them.’

‘Monsieur Beauchamp!’ the valet announced.

‘Come in, come in, acid pen!’ Albert said, getting up and going to meet the young man. ‘I have Debray here, as you see. He hates you without even reading you, apparently.’

‘He’s quite right,’ said Beauchamp. ‘I’m just the same. I criticize him without knowing what he does. Good morning,
Commandeur
.’

‘So! You already know about that, do you?’ the private secretary replied, smiling and shaking hands with the journalist.

‘As you see,’ said Beauchamp.

‘And what are they saying about it out there?’

‘Out where? There are a lot of constellations out there in this year of grace 1838.’

‘In the critical-political one where you shine so brightly.’

‘They say that it is well deserved and that you have sown enough red for a little blue to spring from it.’

‘Now then, that’s not bad at all,’ said Lucien. ‘Why aren’t you with us, my dear Beauchamp? With your wit you would make your fortune in three or four years.’

‘I am quite ready to follow your advice, as soon as I see a government that is guaranteed to last at least six months. Now, one word, dear Albert, because I must give poor Lucien a chance to draw breath. Are we to have breakfast, or lunch? I’m expected in the House: as you see, all is not roses in our profession.’

‘Just breakfast. We are waiting for two more guests, and we shall start as soon as they arrive.’

‘And what sort of people are these whom you are expecting for breakfast?’

‘A nobleman and a diplomat.’

‘Then we can expect to be kept waiting barely two hours for the nobleman and fully two hours for the diplomat. I’ll come back for the last course. Keep me some strawberries, coffee and cigars. I can take a lamb cutlet at the House.’

‘Please, don’t do that, Beauchamp, because even if the nobleman were a Montmorency and the diplomat a Metternich, we should still take breakfast at exactly half-past ten. Meanwhile, do what Debray is doing: taste my sherry and biscuits.’

‘Very well then, I’ll stay. I really must have something to take my mind off things this morning.’

‘Well, well, you are just like Debray! I would have thought that when the government is sad, the opposition would be merry.’

‘Ah, you don’t realize, old man, what is in store for me. This
morning I shall have to sit through a speech by Monsieur Danglars in the lower house, and this evening, at his wife’s, a tragedy by a peer of the realm. The devil take this constitutional government! They do say that we had a choice, so what did we choose this one for?’

‘I understand: you need to store up some merriment.’

‘Don’t say anything against Monsieur Danglars’ speeches,’ said Debray. ‘He votes for your side; he’s in the opposition.’

‘Damnation, that’s the worst thing about it! That’s why I’m waiting for you to boot him into the Upper House, where I can laugh at him as much as I like.’

‘My dear,’ Albert said to Beauchamp, ‘it’s plain to see that the Spanish business is settled: you’re in a foul temper this morning. So I shall have to remind you that the gossip columns are talking about a marriage between myself and Mademoiselle Eugénie Danglars. For that reason I cannot, in all conscience, allow you to speak ill of the eloquence of a man who one day could well be saying to me: “Monsieur le Vicomte, you know that I am giving my daughter a dowry of two millions.” ’

‘Be serious!’ said Beauchamp. ‘The marriage will never take place. The king may have made him a baron, he could make him a peer of the realm, but he can never make him a gentleman, and the Comte de Morcerf comes of too aristocratic a line ever to agree to such a misalliance for a mere two million francs. The Vicomte de Morcerf must marry a marchioness at least.’

‘Two million! It’s a pretty sum, even so!’ said Morcerf.

‘It’s the working capital you would invest in a music-hall or a railway line from the Jardin des Plantes to the Râpée.’

‘Take no notice, Morcerf,’ Debray said offhandedly. ‘Get married. You will be marrying the label on a moneybag, won’t you? So what does it matter? Better that the label should have one more nought and one less shield on it. There are seven blackbirds on your own coat of arms: well, you can give three to your wife and still have four left for yourself. That is one more than Monsieur de Guise, who was nearly king of France and whose first cousin was emperor of Germany.’

‘Lucien, by gad, I do believe you’re right,’ Albert replied absent-mindedly.

‘Of course I am! In any case, every millionaire is as noble as a bastard, or can be.’

‘Hush, don’t say that, Debray,’ Beauchamp replied, laughing. ‘Here is Château-Renaud who might well run you through with the sword of his ancestor, Renaud de Montauban, to cure you of the habit of making such quips.’

‘Then he would surely be lowering himself,’ Lucien retorted, ‘ “for I am low-born and very mean”.’

‘Huh!’ Beauchamp exclaimed. ‘Listen to this: the government sings Béranger.
³
What are we coming to, for heaven’s sake?’

‘Monsieur de Château-Renaud! Monsieur Maximilien Morrel!’ cried the
valet de chambre
, announcing the two new arrivals.

‘All present and correct,’ said Beauchamp. ‘Now we can eat! If I’m not mistaken, you were only expecting two more guests, Albert?’

‘Morrel!’ Albert muttered in surprise. ‘Morrel? Who’s that?’

Before he could finish, M. de Château-Renaud, a handsome young man of thirty and an aristocrat from head to foot (that is to say, with the face of a Guiche and the wit of a Mortemart), had seized Albert by the hand:

‘My dearest, allow me to present Captain Maximilien Morrel, my friend and, moreover, my saviour. In any event, the man presents himself well enough. Vicomte, salute my hero.’

At this, he stood aside to reveal the tall, noble young man with the broad brow, piercing eye and dark moustache whom our readers will remember seeing in Marseille – in such dramatic circumstances that they cannot so soon have forgotten about them. His broad chest, decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honour, was shown off by a rich uniform, part-French and part-Oriental, worn magnificently, which also brought out his military bearing. The young officer bowed with elegant good manners: every one of Morrel’s movements was graceful, because he was strong.

‘Monsieur,’ said Albert, with courteous warmth, ‘Monsieur le Baron de Château-Renaud already knew how much it would delight me to meet you. You are one of his friends, Monsieur; please be ours.’

‘Very well,’ said Château-Renaud, ‘and hope, my dear Vicomte, that if the situation should arise, he will do the same for you as he did for me.’

‘What was that?’ asked Albert.

‘Please!’ Morrel protested. ‘It is not worth mentioning. The baron exaggerates.’

‘What do you mean,’ said Château-Renaud, ‘ “not worth mentioning”?
Life is not worth mentioning? I must tell you that you are sounding a little bit too philosophical about it, my dear Morrel. It is all very well for you, when you risk your life every day, but for me, who does so only once, and by accident…’

‘If I understand you correctly, Baron, you are saying that Captain Morrel saved your life.’

‘By God he did, and that’s the long and short of it,’ said Château-Renaud.

‘On what occasion?’ Beauchamp asked.

‘Beauchamp, old chap, you must know I’m dying of hunger,’ said Debray. ‘Let’s not start on any long stories.’

‘Very well, then,’ said Beauchamp. ‘I certainly have no objection to sitting down at table. Château-Renaud can tell us about it over breakfast.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Morcerf, ‘please note that it is still only a quarter past ten, and we are waiting for one last guest.’

‘Of course, that’s right!’ said Debray. ‘A diplomat.’

‘A diplomat or something else, I don’t know what. All I do know is that I entrusted him with a mission on my behalf which he carried out so much to my satisfaction that if I had been king I should have instantly made him a knight of all orders, including the Garter and the Golden Fleece, if I had both to give.’

‘So, as we are not yet going in to breakfast,’ said Debray, ‘pour yourself a glass of sherry, as we have done, Baron, and tell us about it.’

‘You know that I got this notion of going to Africa.’

‘Your ancestors had already shown you the way, my dear Château-Renaud,’ Morcerf remarked elegantly.

‘Yes, but I doubt if your purpose was, like theirs, to liberate the tomb of Our Saviour.’

‘You are quite right, Beauchamp,’ said the young aristocrat. ‘It was quite simply to get some amateur pistol-shooting. As you know, I hate duels, since the time when two witnesses, whom I had chosen to settle some dispute, obliged me to break an arm of one of my best friends. Yes, by heaven! It was poor Franz d’Epinay, whom you all know.’

‘Of course! That’s right,’ said Debray. ‘You did have a duel once. What was it about?’

‘The devil only knows: I can’t remember!’ said Château-Renaud. ‘What I clearly recall is that I felt ashamed at letting a talent like
mine go to waste, and, as I had been given some new pistols, I thought I’d try them out on the Arabs. So I set sail for Oran, and from Oran I went on to Constantine
⁴
, where I arrived in time to witness the end of the siege. Like the rest, I joined the retreat. For the first forty-eight hours I was able to put up with the rain by day and the snow by night well enough; then, at last, on the third morning, my horse froze to death. Poor animal! It was used to a blanket and the stove in its stables – an Arab horse, which just happened to find itself a little out of place in Arabia when the temperature dropped to minus ten.’

‘That’s why you wanted to buy my English horse,’ said Debray. ‘You thought he would stand the cold better than your Arab.’

‘No, you’re wrong there, because I have sworn never to go back to Africa again.’

‘So you had a really bad fright?’ asked Beauchamp.

‘Yes, I confess I did,’ Château-Renaud replied, ‘and I was right to be scared. As I said, my horse died, so I was continuing my retreat on foot when six Arabs bore down on me at a gallop, intending to cut off my head. I shot two with the two barrels of my gun, and another two with my two pistols, all right on target. But there were still two left and I had no other weapons. One of them seized me by the hair (which is why I have it cut short nowadays, because you never know what might happen), and the other put his yataghan
⁵
against my throat so that I could already feel the cold steel, when this gentleman here charged at them, shot dead with his pistol the one who was holding my hair and used his sabre to crack open the skull of the one who was about to cut my throat. He had taken it upon himself to save a man that day and, as luck would have it, I was the one. When I am rich, I shall have a statue of Luck made by Klagmann or Marochetti.’
⁶

‘Yes,’ Morrel said, smiling. ‘It was the fifth of September, which is the anniversary of a day on which my father’s life was miraculously saved. So, whenever possible, I celebrate that day with some… With some action…’

‘Some heroic deed, you mean,’ Château-Renaud interrupted. ‘In short, I was the lucky man. But that is not all. After having saved me from the cold steel, he saved me from the cold itself, not by giving me half of his cloak, as Saint Martin did, but by giving me the whole of it. And then he saved me from hunger, by sharing… guess what?’

‘A pâté from Chez Félix?’ suggested Beauchamp.

‘Not so. His horse: we each ate a piece of it with great relish. It was tough.’

‘The horse?’ Morcerf asked, laughing.

‘No, sacrificing it,’ Château-Renaud replied. ‘Ask Debray if he would sacrifice his English horse for a stranger.’

‘Not for a stranger,’ said Debray. ‘For a friend, perhaps.’

‘I guessed that you would become mine, Baron,’ said Morrel. ‘In any case, as I already told you, heroism or not, sacrifice or not, on that particular day I owed an offering to ill-fortune as a reward for the favour that good fortune once did for us.’

‘The story that Monsieur Morrel refers to,’ Château-Renaud continued, ‘is a quite admirable one which he will tell you one day, when you know him better. For the present, let’s line our stomachs instead of plundering our memories. When do we breakfast, Albert?’

‘At half-past ten.’

‘On the dot?’ Debray asked, taking out his watch.

‘Oh, you must allow me the usual five minutes’ grace,’ said Morcerf, ‘for I too am awaiting a saviour.’

‘Whose?’

‘Why, my own!’ Morcerf replied. ‘Do you think me incapable of being saved like anyone else? It is not only Arabs who cut off heads, you know. Ours is to be a philanthropic breakfast, and I sincerely hope that we shall have two benefactors of mankind at our table.’

‘How shall we manage?’ asked Debray. ‘There is only one Prix Montyon.’
⁷

‘Well, we shall just have to give it to someone who has done nothing to deserve it,’ said Beauchamp. ‘That’s how the Academy usually solves the dilemma.’