“Does anyone know anything of a Count of Monte Cristo?”
“He comes possibly from the Holy Land, and one of his ancestors possessed Calvary, as the Mortemarts did the Dead Sea.”
“I think I can assist your researches,” said Maximilian. “Monte Cristo is a little island I have often heard spoken of by the old sailors my father employed — a grain of sand in the center of the Mediterranean, an atom in the infinite.”
“Precisely!” cried Albert. “Well, he of whom I speak is the lord and master of this grain of sand, of this atom; he has purchased the title of count somewhere in Tuscany.”
“He is rich, then?”
“I believe so.”
“But that ought to be visible.”
“That is what deceives you, Debray.”
“I do not understand you.”
“Have you read the ‘Arabian Nights’?”
“What a question!”
“Well, do you know if the persons you see there are rich or poor, if their sacks of wheat are not rubies or diamonds? They seem like poor fishermen, and suddenly they open some mysterious cavern filled with the wealth of the Indies.”
“Which means?”
“Which means that my Count of Monte Cristo is one of those fishermen. He has even a name taken from the book, since he calls himself Sinbad the Sailor, and has a cave filled with gold.”
“And you have seen this cavern, Morcerf?” asked Beauchamp.
“No, but Franz has; for heaven’s sake, not a word of this before him. Franz went in with his eyes blindfolded, and was waited on by mutes and by women to whom Cleopatra was a painted strumpet. Only he is not quite sure about the women, for they did not come in until after he had taken hashish, so that what he took for women might have been simply a row of statues.”
The two young men looked at Morcerf as if to say, — “Are you mad, or are you laughing at us?”
“And I also,” said Morrel thoughtfully, “have heard something like this from an old sailor named Penelon.”
“Ah,” cried Albert, “it is very lucky that M. Morrel comes to aid me; you are vexed, are you not, that he thus gives a clue to the labyrinth?”
“My dear Albert,” said Debray, “what you tell us is so extraordinary.”
“Ah, because your ambassadors and your consuls do not tell you of them — they have no time. They are too much taken up with interfering in the affairs of their countrymen who travel.”
“Now you get angry, and attack our poor agents. How will you have them protect you? The Chamber cuts down their salaries every day, so that now they have scarcely any. Will you be ambassador, Albert? I will send you to Constantinople.”
“No, lest on the first demonstration I make in favor of Mehemet Ali, the Sultan send me the bowstring, and make my secretaries strangle me.”
“You say very true,” responded Debray.
“Yes,” said Albert, “but this has nothing to do with the existence of the Count of Monte Cristo.”
“Pardieu, every one exists.”
“Doubtless, but not in the same way; everyone has not black slaves, a princely retinue, an arsenal of weapons that would do credit to an Arabian fortress, horses that cost six thousand francs apiece, and Greek mistresses.”
“Have you seen the Greek mistress?”
“I have both seen and heard her. I saw her at the theatre, and heard her one morning when I breakfasted with the count.”
“He eats, then?”
“Yes; but so little, it can hardly be called eating.”
“He must be a vampire.”
“Laugh, if you will; the Countess G — — , who knew Lord Ruthven, declared that the count was a vampire.”
“Ah, capital,” said Beauchamp. “For a man not connected with newspapers, here is the pendant to the famous sea-serpent of the Constitutionnel.”
“Wild eyes, the iris of which contracts or dilates at pleasure,” said Debray; “facial angle strongly developed, magnificent forehead, livid complexion, black beard, sharp and white teeth, politeness unexceptionable.”
“Just so, Lucien,” returned Morcerf; “you have described him feature for feature. Yes, keen and cutting politeness. This man has often made me shudder; and one day that we were viewing an execution, I thought I should faint, more from hearing the cold and calm manner in which he spoke of every description of torture, than from the sight of the executioner and the culprit.”
“Did he not conduct you to the ruins of the Colosseum and suck your blood?” asked Beauchamp.
“Or, having delivered you, make you sign a flaming parchment, surrendering your soul to him as Esau did his birthright?”
“Rail on, rail on at your ease, gentlemen,” said Morcerf, somewhat piqued. “When I look at you Parisians, idlers on the Boulevard de Gand or the Bois de Boulogne, and think of this man, it seems to me we are not of the same race.”
“I am highly flattered,” returned Beauchamp. “At the same time,” added Chateau-Renaud, “your Count of Monte Cristo is a very fine fellow, always excepting his little arrangements with the Italian banditti.”
“There are no Italian banditti,” said Debray.
“No vampire,” cried Beauchamp. “No Count of Monte Cristo” added Debray.
“There is half-past ten striking, Albert.”
“Confess you have dreamed this, and let us sit down to breakfast,” continued Beauchamp. But the sound of the clock had not died away when Germain announced, “His excellency the Count of Monte Cristo.” The involuntary start every one gave proved how much Morcerf’s narrative had impressed them, and Albert himself could not wholly refrain from manifesting sudden emotion. He had not heard a carriage stop in the street, or steps in the antechamber; the door had itself opened noiselessly. The count appeared, dressed with the greatest simplicity, but the most fastidious dandy could have found nothing to cavil at in his toilet. Every article of dress — hat, coat, gloves, and boots — was from the first makers. He seemed scarcely five and thirty. But what struck everybody was his extreme resemblance to the portrait Debray had drawn. The count advanced, smiling, into the centre of the room, and approached Albert, who hastened towards him holding out his hand in a ceremonial manner. “Punctuality,” said Monte Cristo, “is the politeness of kings, according to one of your sovereigns, I think; but it is not the same with travelers. However, I hope you will excuse the two or three seconds I am behindhand; five hundred leagues are not to be accomplished without some trouble, and especially in France, where, it seems, it is forbidden to beat the postilions.”
“My dear count,” replied Albert, “I was announcing your visit to some of my friends, whom I had invited in consequence of the promise you did me the honor to make, and whom I now present to you. They are the Count of Chateau-Renaud, whose nobility goes back to the twelve peers, and whose ancestors had a place at the Round Table; M. Lucien Debray, private secretary to the minister of the interior; M. Beauchamp, an editor of a paper, and the terror of the French government, but of whom, in spite of his national celebrity, you perhaps have not heard in Italy, since his paper is prohibited there; and M. Maximilian Morrel, captain of Spahis.”
At this name the count, who had hitherto saluted every one with courtesy, but at the same time with coldness and formality, stepped a pace forward, and a slight tinge of red colored his pale cheeks. “You wear the uniform of the new French conquerors, monsieur,” said he; “it is a handsome uniform.” No one could have said what caused the count’s voice to vibrate so deeply, and what made his eye flash, which was in general so clear, lustrous, and limpid when he pleased. “You have never seen our Africans, count?” said Albert. “Never,” replied the count, who was by this time perfectly master of himself again.
“Well, beneath this uniform beats one of the bravest and noblest hearts in the whole army.”
“Oh, M. de Morcerf,” interrupted Morrel.
“Let me go on, captain. And we have just heard,” continued Albert, “of a new deed of his, and so heroic a
one, that, although I have seen him today for the first time, I request you to allow me to introduce him as my friend.” At these words it was still possible to observe in Monte Cristo the concentrated look, changing color, and slight trembling of the eyelid that show emotion. “Ah, you have a noble heart,” said the count; “so much the better.” This exclamation, which corresponded to the count’s own thought rather than to what Albert was saying, surprised everybody, and especially Morrel, who looked at Monte Cristo with wonder. But, at the same time, the intonation was so soft that, however strange the speech might seem, it was impossible to be offended at it. “Why should he doubt it?” said Beauchamp to Chateau-Renaud.
“In reality,” replied the latter, who, with his aristocratic glance and his knowledge of the world, had penetrated at once all that was penetrable in Monte Cristo, “Albert has not deceived us, for the count is a most singular being. What say you, Morrel!”
“Ma foi, he has an open look about him that pleases me, in spite of the singular remark he has made about me.”
“Gentlemen,” said Albert, “Germain informs me that breakfast is ready. My dear count, allow me to show you the way.” They passed silently into the breakfast-room, and every one took his place. “Gentlemen,” said the count, seating himself, “permit me to make a confession which must form my excuse for any improprieties I may commit. I am a stranger, and a stranger to such a degree, that this is the first time I have ever been at Paris. The French way of living is utterly unknown to me, and up to the present time I have followed the Eastern customs, which are entirely in contrast to the Parisian. I beg you, therefore, to excuse if you find anything in me too Turkish, too Italian, or too Arabian. Now, then, let us breakfast.”
• • •
The gentleman, unbeknownst to them, had acquired another guest for breakfast, yet she was not greeted nor did she go down to the table to join the young throng of gentlemen. A doting mother was not an admirable asset to any young man, and the lady wished not to bestow embarrassment upon her child. Instead, she slipped into a small antechamber to the dining room, curious to learn what she could of his new acquaintance from unchecked speech.
The Countess de Morcef, or Mercedes, as our dear reader might know her at his point in our story, became enrapt by the sound of a voice, the sound of a voice she thought she knew once upon a time, many moons previously.
The countess watched silently amid the household’s fine china; she had no fear of being caught as the servants rarely had cause to visit this place. Though she could not see his person well enough through the crack in the outer door, his voice stirred in her longings she had not dreamed of since the days of her youth. He did not have that man’s build, his hair, or any part of him from the angle in which she viewed him but, oh, their voices were so similar in dissonance and cadence that she almost fainted away when she first heard him speak in the chamber.
If she closed her eyes and simply listened to this man speak, the countess was transported to another time, another place, when she was young and beautiful and most decidedly poor.
Her Edmond. She dared not even breathe his name out loud, the man whose absence caused the greatest pain in her life, even now, years later. She could still see the merry cast of his eyes and feel his breath on her neck as they made love — and, oh, how they’d made love.
He’d touched her with a reverence she had accounted to the male sex as a whole but when she lay, her heart almost dead, in Fernand’s arms, he did not look at her thus. Edmond saw love and beauty, Fernand simply saw a woman — beautiful yes, but another treasure for a collection of treasures for a man who wished to be rich in many ways.
The ghosts of Edmond’s hands trailed up the lady’s calf. There had been nothing like this for some time, something slightly resembling wantonness and lust. Since her youth, the countess had decided she would do away with such frivolities as she had no need of them with her new husband and new life. But at this small imaginary touch, she was now unable to decide if she would be able to go back to the frigid shell of her body. And what had awakened her, but the distant words of a stranger rousing old memories and ghosts inside her mind! How could he come here and alter her reposed sense of order?
He continued to converse with the young gentlemen, and Mercedes drank in his words like a fine wine to be savored, each word passing his lips and stirring the countess’s body to life. She cast her memory back to the time she and Edmond made love in her hovel on the palette by the door. They were both as poor as they would ever be, but lying in each other’s arms in that moment had made them the happiest they would ever be. The pinnacle of happiness in two lives, yet neither participant knew it at the time.
“Edmond.” She whispered the name that haunted her daylight hours, her dreams, and her nightmares. She’d told him it would only ever be him and yet here she was, the Countess de Morcef, Fernand’s frigid wife.
Her mind continued to wander in faraway places, the sensation of Edmond’s lips on her neck and the expanse of his large bronzed hands sliding up her parted thighs. There was no one in the world who could have come between them, save the lady of justice, and she had ripped him out of her life like they were pawns playing a greater game.
Her body started to flare up and spark like a wet candle point, faulty at first but familiar with the usual rhythms until it burst into glorious flame. The weight of his body on top of hers had to be her most cherished memory. Edmond was not a large and heavy man but he was built as a sailor and with that came a muscular build of a working man. And, oh, how had Mercedes enjoyed the hard planes of her lover’s back as he drove into her as they made love.
Every tiny moment of that exchange remained etched behind her eyes, the column of his tanned neck within reaching distance of her lips. The way his body arched into hers once they found a perfect rhythm in which to enjoy each other’s pleasure. Edmond had ensured her pleasure at every touch, and when they made love it was like he took that promise and multiplied it a thousand fold. How was it that even now, years later, a dead man could still create such vibrant, bold, and wanton memories in Mercedes’s mind?
This count, she had to meet him in person, had to hear her name come from his lips, and if he propositioned her Mercedes could not say if she would not sacrifice her honor and fall into his bed for that voice alone, a connection to her memories with Edmond.
Every part of the lady’s body now glowed with the heat and fire of lust. Whoever this count was, he had awakened the countess’s heart, something she’d believed long ago dead for anyone other than her dear son Albert.
Oh, Albert, would he learn of his mother’s affinity for his new friend? She had no choice but to keep it secret, a longing in her now beating heart, to have this man’s words whispered across her naked flesh. No one would ever know; she would not breathe a word of it to anyone.
*
My dear readers, we now journey from the countess’s wayward thoughts back to the other side of the conversation, the gentlemen.
“With what an air he says all this,” muttered Beauchamp; “decidedly he is a great man.”
“A great man in his own country,” added Debray.
“A great man in every country, M. Debray,” said Chateau-Renaud. The count was, it may be remembered, a most temperate guest. Albert remarked this, expressing his fears lest, at the outset, the Parisian mode of life should displease the traveller in the most essential point. “My dear count,” said he, “I fear one thing, and that is, that the fare of the Rue du Helder is not so much to your taste as that of the Piazza di Spagni. I ought to have consulted you on the point, and have had some dishes prepared expressly.”
“Did you know me better,” returned the count, smiling, “you would not give one thought of such a thing for a traveler like myself, who has successively lived on macaroni at Naples, polenta at Milan, olla podrida at Valencia, pilau at Constantinople, karrick in India, and swallows’ nests in China. I eat everywhere, and of everything, only I eat but little; and today, that you
reproach me with my want of appetite, is my day of appetite, for I have not eaten since yesterday morning.”
“What,” cried all the guests, “you have not eaten for four and twenty hours?”
“No,” replied the count; “I was forced to go out of my road to obtain some information near Nimes, so that I was somewhat late, and therefore I did not choose to stop.”
“And you ate in your carriage?” asked Morcerf.
“No, I slept, as I generally do when I am weary without having the courage to amuse myself, or when I am hungry without feeling inclined to eat.”
“But you can sleep when you please, monsieur?” said Morrel.
“Yes.”
“You have a recipe for it?”
“An infallible one.”
“That would be invaluable to us in Africa, who have not always any food to eat, and rarely anything to drink.”
“Yes,” said Monte Cristo; “but, unfortunately, a recipe excellent for a man like myself would be very dangerous applied to an army, which might not awake when it was needed.”
“May we inquire what is this recipe?” asked Debray.
“Oh, yes,” returned Monte Cristo; “I make no secret of it. It is a mixture of excellent opium, which I fetched myself from Canton in order to have it pure, and the best hashish which grows in the East — that is, between the Tigris and the Euphrates. These two ingredients are mixed in equal proportions, and formed into pills. Ten minutes after one is taken, the effect is produced. Ask Baron Franz d’Epinay; I think he tasted them one day.”
“Yes,” replied Morcerf, “he said something about it to me.”
“But,” said Beauchamp, who, as became a journalist, was very incredulous, “you always carry this drug about you?”
“Always.”
“Would it be an indiscretion to ask to see those precious pills?” continued Beauchamp, hoping to take him at a disadvantage.
“No, monsieur,” returned the count; and he drew from his pocket a marvelous casket, formed out of a single emerald and closed by a golden lid which unscrewed and gave passage to a small greenish colored pellet about the size of a pea. This ball had an acrid and penetrating odor. There were four or five more in the emerald, which would contain about a dozen. The casket passed around the table, but it was more to examine the admirable emerald than to see the pills that it passed from hand to hand. “And is it your cook who prepares these pills?” asked Beauchamp.
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