The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (81 page)

‘Take care,’ said Morcerf. ‘Cleverer men have given up the search.’

‘Huh! We have a budget of three million for intelligence. Admittedly it is almost always spent in advance; but, no matter, there will still be fifty thousand for this.’

‘And when you know who he is, you will tell me?’

‘I promise. Au revoir, Albert. Gentlemen, your most humble servant.’

As he left, Debray cried out loudly in the antechamber: ‘Bring my carriage.’

‘Very well,’ Beauchamp told Albert. ‘I shall not go to the House, but offer my readers something better than a speech by Monsieur Danglars.’

‘I beg you, Beauchamp,’ Morcerf said. ‘Not a word, I pray. Don’t deprive me of the credit for introducing him and explaining him. Isn’t he an odd fellow?’

‘Better than that,’ replied Château-Renaud. ‘One of the most extraordinary men I have ever seen. Morrel, are you coming?’

‘I must just give my card to Monsieur le Comte, who has kindly promised to visit us at fourteen, Rue Meslay.’

‘You may be sure that I shall not fail to do so, Monsieur,’ the count said with a bow. And Maximilien Morrel went out with the Baron de Château-Renaud, leaving Monte Cristo alone with Morcerf.

When Albert was alone with Monte Cristo, he said: ‘Monsieur le Comte, let me embark on my duties as your guide by showing you this example of a bachelor apartment. Accustomed as you are to Italian palaces, it will be interesting for you to estimate in how few square feet a young man can live in Paris without being counted among those who are the most poorly housed. As we pass from one room to the next, we shall open the windows to allow you to breathe.’

Monte Cristo already knew the dining-room and the downstairs drawing-room. Firstly, Albert conducted him to his attic; this, you will remember, was his favourite room.

Monte Cristo was well able to appreciate all the things that Albert had amassed in the room: old chests, Japanese porcelain, oriental cloths, jewels of Venetian glass and weapons from every country in the world: he was familiar with all these things and needed only a glance to recognize century, country and provenance. Morcerf imagined that he would do the explaining, but on the contrary, under the count’s guidance, he found himself taking lessons in archaeology, mineralogy and natural history. They came back down to the first floor and Albert showed his guest into the drawing-room. The walls here were hung with modern paintings: there were landscapes by Dupré, with long reeds, slender trees, lowing cows and wonderful skies; there were Arab riders by Delacroix, dressed in flowing white burnous, with shining belts and damascened weapons, whose horses were biting their own flanks in fury while the riders rent one another with iron maces; there were watercolours by Boulanger illustrating the whole of
Notre-Dame de Paris
with the energy that makes the painter the equal of the poet; there were canvases by Diaz, who makes flowers more lovely than flowers and a sun brighter than the sun; drawings by Decamps, as highly coloured as those of Salvator Rosa, but more poetic; pastels by Giraud and Müller depicting children with angel faces and women with virginal features; pages torn from Dauzat’s sketchbook of his journeys to the East, drawn in a few seconds on the saddle of a camel or beneath the dome of a mosque; in short, everything
that modern art can offer in exchange and compensation for the art lost and vanished with earlier centuries.
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Here, at least, Albert expected to show the stranger something new but, to his great astonishment, the count, without even having to look for the signature (some of those in any case only took the form of initials), instantly put the name of each artist on his work, so that it was easy to see that not only was each of these names already known to him, but that he had also studied and judged each of these talented artists.

From the drawing-room they went into the bedroom. This was at the same time a model of elegance and austere in its taste. Only one portrait here, but by Léopold Robert,
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magnificent in its burnished gold frame. The portrait at once attracted the Count of Monte Cristo’s attention, because he took three rapid paces across the room and stopped in front of it.

It showed a young woman of twenty-five or twenty-six, dark in colouring, her burning eyes veiled beneath languorous lids. She was wearing the picturesque costume of a Catalan fisherwoman, with a red-and-black bodice and her hair held back with gold pins. She was looking at the sea, so that her elegant figure was outlined against the two blues, of the sky and the waves.

Had it not been dark in the room, Albert would have observed the livid pallor that spread across the count’s cheeks and noticed the nervous tremor that shook his shoulders and his chest.

There was a moment’s silence, in which Monte Cristo remained with his eyes unwaveringly fixed on the painting.

‘You have a beautiful mistress there, Vicomte,’ he said, in a perfectly calm voice. ‘And this costume, no doubt intended for the ball, suits her astonishingly well.’

‘Ah, Monsieur!’ Albert said. ‘I should not forgive you this mistake, if you had seen any other portrait beside this one. You do not know my mother, Monsieur. She is the person in that picture, which she had done six or eight years ago, dressed like this in some imaginary costume, apparently; the resemblance is so good that I feel I can still see my mother as she was in 1830. The countess had the portrait done for herself while the count was away. No doubt she intended to give him a pleasant surprise when he returned, but, oddly enough, the portrait displeased my father and the value of the canvas which, as you can see, is one of Léopold Robert’s excellent works, could not overcome the dislike he had conceived
for it. Between ourselves, my dear Count, it is true to say that Monsieur de Morcerf is one of the most conscientious peers in the Upper Chamber and a general renowned for his theories, but a very poor connoisseur of art. The same is not true of my mother, who paints remarkably well and has too much respect for such a work to relinquish it altogether and who gave it to me so that in my house it would be less liable to upset Monsieur de Morcerf. I shall shortly show you his portrait, painted by Gros.
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Forgive me if I seem to chatter on about domestic matters and my family, but as I shall later have the honour of introducing you to the count I am telling you this so that you will know not to praise this portrait in front of him. In any case, it has an unhappy aura. My mother very seldom comes to my house without looking at it and still less often does she look at it without weeping. The cloud that entered our household with the appearance in it of this painting is the only one that has ever fallen across the count and countess who, though they have been married for more than twenty years, are still as closely united as on the very first day.’

Monte Cristo glanced rapidly at Albert as if to discover some hidden meaning behind his words, but it was clear that the young man had spoken with all the candour of his simple heart.

‘Now that you have seen all my riches, Monsieur le Comte,’ he continued, ‘allow me to offer them to you, unworthy though they are. Consider this your home here and, to put you still more at your ease, pray accompany me to Monsieur de Morcerf’s. I wrote from Rome to tell him of the service you had done me and to announce that you had promised to visit me. I may tell you that the count and countess are impatient to thank you. I know, Monsieur le Comte, that you are a little blasé about everything, and that Sinbad the Sailor is little touched by scenes of family life: you have witnessed other so much more exciting ones! However, as your initiation to Parisian life, allow me to offer you the round of daily etiquette, visits and introductions.’

Monte Cristo bowed in reply. He accepted the proposal without enthusiasm or reluctance, as one of those social conventions with which every well-bred man must comply. Albert called his valet and told him to go and advise M. and Mme de Morcerf that the Count of Monte Cristo would shortly wait on them. Albert and the count followed him.

On reaching the count’s antechamber, the visitor could see a
shield above the door leading to the reception room which, being extravagantly mounted and made to harmonize with the décor of the room, indicated the importance that the owner of the mansion attached to this coat of arms. Monte Cristo paused in front of it and examined it carefully.

‘Azur, seven merlets, or, placed bender. No doubt this is your family’s coat of arms, Monsieur? Apart from the knowledge of the elements of the shield that permits me to decipher it, I am very ignorant in matters of heraldry, being myself an accidental count, fabricated by Tuscany with the help of a commandership of Saint Stephen: I should never have passed myself off as a great nobleman were it not that I was repeatedly told this was absolutely necessary for anyone who travels a lot. When it comes down to it, one must have something on the doors of one’s coach to dissuade the Customs from searching it. So forgive me for asking.’

‘The question is not at all indiscreet, Monsieur,’ Morcerf replied in the frank tones of someone who believed what he said. ‘You are right: this is our coat of arms, that is to say it bears my father’s crest, but attached to a shield that is gules with a silver tower, bearing my mother’s crest. On her side I am Spanish, but the Morcerfs are French and, so I am told, one of the oldest families in the south of France.’

‘Yes,’ said Monte Cristo, ‘that is shown by the merlets or blackbirds. Almost all the crusaders who conquered, or tried to conquer, the Holy Land took either crosses as their emblems, as a sign of the mission to which they had dedicated themselves, or else migratory birds, as a symbol of the long journey that they intended to undertake and which they hoped to accomplish on the wings of faith. One of your paternal ancestors must have taken part in the Crusades; and, if it was only the Crusade led by Saint Louis, that already takes us back to the thirteenth century, which is already a very fine thing.’

‘That may be so,’ said Morcerf. ‘Somewhere in my father’s study there is a family tree which will answer these questions for us; I used to have a commentary on it that would have meant a lot to d’Hozier and Jaucourt.
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Nowadays I don’t bother about it, but I should tell you, Monsieur le Comte – and this falls within my scope as your guide – that people are starting to worry a great deal about such things under this popular government of ours.’

‘Well then, your government should have chosen something
better from French history than those two placards I have noticed on your public monuments, which are meaningless in heraldic terms. As for you, Viscount,’ Monte Cristo continued, turning back towards Morcerf, ‘you are luckier than your government, because your coat of arms is truly beautiful and inspiring. Yes, that is it: you come both from Provence and from Spain and, if the portrait you showed me is a good likeness, that explains the fine tan that I so greatly admired on the face of the Catalan.’

One would have needed to be Oedipus or the Sphinx itself to detect the irony that the count put into these words, which were apparently delivered with the finest good manners. Morcerf consequently thanked him with a smile and, going ahead to show him the way, opened the door beneath his coat of arms, which, as we mentioned, led into the reception room.

In the most prominent place on the walls of the room there was another portrait. It depicted a man of between thirty-five and thirty-eight years old, wearing a general’s uniform with the twisted double epaulette that indicates the higher ranks and the ribbon of the Legion of Honour around his neck, showing that he was a Commander of the Order. On his chest, to the right, he wore the medal of a Grand Officer of the Order of the Saviour and, to the left, that of the Great Cross of Charles III, demonstrating that the person represented in the portrait must have fought in the Spanish and Greek Wars, or else (this being identical as far as medals were concerned) have carried out some diplomatic mission in those two countries.

Monte Cristo was examining this portrait with no less attention than he had given to the other when a side door opened and he was confronted with the Comte de Morcerf himself.

The count was aged between forty and forty-five but had the appearance of a man of at least fifty. His dark moustache and eyebrows contrasted oddly with almost white hair, cut short in the military manner. He was dressed in the everyday clothes of a man of his class; the different strands of the ribbon that he wore in his buttonhole recalled the various orders with which he had been decorated. He came in with quite an aristocratic step and, at the same time, a sort of condescending alacrity. Monte Cristo watched him approach without taking a step to meet him: it was as though his feet were fixed to the floor and his eyes on the Comte de Morcerf’s face.

‘Father,’ the young man said, ‘I have the honour to introduce the Count of Monte Cristo, the generous friend whom I was fortunate enough to meet in the awkward circumstances about which I told you.’

‘Monsieur is welcome to my house,’ the Comte de Morcerf said, smiling and bowing to Monte Cristo. ‘He has done our family such a favour, in preserving its only heir, that it will elicit our eternal gratitude.’ As he spoke, the Comte de Morcerf motioned to a chair and, at the same time, took one himself facing the window.

As for Monte Cristo, while he took the chair that the Comte de Morcerf had indicated, he repositioned it in such a way as to remain hidden in the shadow of the great velvet curtains. From there he could read in the count’s tired and careworn features a whole history of secret sorrows which lay imprinted there in each of the lines that the years had marked on it.