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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Above the first floor was a vast studio which had been enlarged by taking down the inner walls and partitions to make a domain of chaos in which the artist battled for supremacy over the dandy. Here was the resting-place in which were amassed all Albert's successive whims: hunting horns, basses and flutes -- a full orchestra -- because Albert had once conceived, not a taste for music, but a fancy; easels, palettes and pastels, because the fancy for music had been followed by a fad for painting; and, last of all, foils, boxing gloves, swords and sticks of every variety, because finally, in the way of fashionable young men at the time when our story is set, Albert de Morcerf gave infinitely greater application than he had done to music and painting to the three arts that go to make up the education of a member of the dominant class in society, namely fencing, boxing and exercising with the quarter-staff. In this room, designed for all kinds of physical exertion, he would receive successively Grisier, Cooks and Charles Leboucher.

On the first floor, the two rooms were repeated with the addition of a third, above the antechamber. The three first-floor rooms were a drawing-room, a bedroom and a boudoir. The downstairs drawing-room was only a smoking-room, like an Algerian diwan. The first-floor boudoir led into the bedroom and, by a secret door, to the staircase. One can see that every precaution had been taken.

In the place of honour was a piano, made of rosewood by Roller and Blanchet, and designed to fit into a modern drawing-room, yet containing a whole orchestra within its compact and sonorous frame and groaning under the weight of masterpieces by Beethoven, Weber, Mozart, Haydn, Grétry and Porpora.

The remaining furniture in this special room consisted of chests dating from the time of François I, full of Chinese porcelain, Japanese vases, faience by Luca della Robbia and plates by Bernard de Palissy; and antique chairs on which Henri IV or Sully, Louis XIII or Richelieu might have sat, for two of them, bearing carved blue shields on which shone the French fleur-de-lis surmounted by a royal crown, clearly came from the collection at the Louvre, or at least from some other royal palace. Across the chairs with their dark upholstery were casually draped rich materials in bright colours, dyed in the Persian sun or brought to light beneath the fingers of women in Calcutta or Chandannagar. It was impossible to say what these fabrics were doing there; they were awaiting some destiny unknown even to their owner, providing sustenance for the eyes and meanwhile setting the room ablaze with their silken and golden lights.

Then, everywhere, along the walls, above the doors, on the ceiling, were swords, daggers, kris, maces, axes, complete suits of gilded, damascened or encrusted armour, as well as herbaria, blocks of mineral samples and stuffed birds spreading their brilliant, fiery wings in immobile flight and opening beaks that were never closed.

It goes without saying that this room was Albert's favourite.

However, on the day fixed for the meeting, the young man, dressed, but wearing casual indoor clothes, had set up his headquarters in the little ground-floor drawing-room. Here, on a table set some way from the divan that surrounded it and magnificently displayed in the crackled faience pots that the Dutch appreciate so much, were all the known varieties of tobacco, from yellow Petersburg to black Sinai, through Maryland, Puerto Rico and Latakia. Beside them, in boxes of aromatic wood and in order of size and quality, were laid out puros, regalias, Havanas and Manillas. And finally, on an open rack, a collection of German pipes, chibouks with amber bowls, decorated with coral, and nargiles encrusted with gold, their long morocco stems twisted like serpents, awaited the smoker's preference or whim. Albert himself had supervised the arrangement -- or, rather, the systematic disorder that guests at a modern luncheon like to contemplate through the smoke as it escapes from their lips and rises, in long, fantastic spirals, towards the ceiling.

Albert glanced casually at the various missives and chose two, with perfumed envelopes addressed in fine hands; these he unsealed and read with a certain amount of attention. "How did these letters come?" he asked.

The valet de chambre, who was called Germain and who enjoyed his young master's entire confidence, was holding a bundle of newspapers, which he put down on a table, and a packet of letters, which he gave to Albert.

At a quarter to ten, a valet de chambre came in. This was a little fifteen-year-old groom, who spoke nothing but English and answered to the name of "John". He was Morcerf's only servant. Of course, on ordinary days the cook from the main house was at his disposal -- as was also, on grand occasions, his father the count's lackey.

"One came by the post, the other was brought by Madame Danglars' valet."

"Let Madame Danglars know that I accept the place she is offering me in her box… Wait… Then, during the day, go to Rosa's and tell her that, in accordance with her invitation, I shall sup with her on leaving the opera; and take her six bottles of different wines, Cyprus, sherry, Malaga… and a barrel of Ostend oysters. Buy the oysters from Borel and make sure that he knows they are for me."

"At what time would Monsieur like to be served?"

"A quarter to ten."

"If Monsieur le Vicomte wishes, I can find out."

"Do. Ask her for one of her liqueur cabinets: mine is not fully replenished. And tell her that I shall have the honour to visit her at about three o'clock and should like her permission to introduce her to someone."

"What time is it now?"

"Well, serve breakfast at exactly half-past ten. Debray may be obliged to go into his ministry; and in any case…" (Albert looked at his notebook) "… that was the time that I agreed with the count: May the twenty-first at half-past ten in the morning. Even though I don't set much store by his promise, I want to be punctual. Do you know if the countess is up?"

When the valet had left, Albert slumped on to the divan, tore the wrappings off two or three newspapers, looked at the theatre programmes, winced on seeing that they were performing an opera and not a ballet, hunted in vain through the advertisements for cosmetics for an electuary for the teeth that he had heard mentioned, and successively tossed aside two or three of the most read prints in Paris, muttering in the midst of a prolonged yawn: "Really, these papers do get more and more frightfully dull."

"Good morning, Lucien, good morning," Albert said. "Ah, but you terrify me, my dear fellow, with your punctuality! What am I saying -- punctuality! I was expecting you last of all, and you arrive at five to ten, when the invitation was definitely fixed only at half-past! It's a miracle! Can this mean that the government is overthrown, by any chance?"

At that moment a light carriage pulled up in front of the door, and a moment later the valet returned to announce M. Lucien Debray. A tall young man, fair-haired, pale, with a confident grey eye and cold, thin lips, wearing a blue coat with engraved gold buttons, a white cravat and a monocle in a tortoiseshell rim dangling from a silk cord -- which, by a co-ordinated effort of the supercilliary and zygomatic arches, he managed from time to time to secure in the cavity of his right eye -- came in without smiling or speaking, and with a semi-official bearing.

"No, my dearest fellow," the young man said, planting himself on the divan. "Rest assured, we are always unsteady, but we never fall. I am beginning to think that we are becoming utterly unmovable, even without the affairs of the Peninsula, which are going to fix us in place once and for all."

"Yes, that's right. You are getting rid of Don Carlos of Spain."

"In Bourges?"

"And you, a new ribbon, apparently. Isn't that a blue band I can see with the rest of your decorations?"

"Huh! They sent me the Charles III medal, y'know," Debray answered in an offhand manner.

"Yes, and he has no grounds for complaint, dammit! Bourges is King Charles VII's capital. What! You hadn't heard? All Paris has known about it since yesterday, and it had already reached the Stock Exchange the day before that, because Monsieur Danglars -- I haven't the slightest idea how that man manages to learn everything as soon as we do -- Danglars bet on a bull market and won a million."

"Not at all, dearest fellow, we must put this straight: we are taking him across the French frontier and entertaining him most royally in Bourges."

"Come now, don't pretend you're not pleased. Admit that you're glad to have it."

"Well, yes, so I am. As a fashion accessory, a medal looks quite fine on a high-buttoned black frock-coat. Very elegant."

"No, because I spent the night sending out letters: twenty-five diplomatic dispatches. When I arrived home this morning at dawn, I tried to sleep but I was overcome with a headache, so I got up to go out for an hour's ride. In the Bois de Boulogne I was overcome with hunger and boredom, two enemies that rarely attack together but, despite that, were leagued against me in a sort of Carlist -- Republican alliance. It was then that I remembered we are feasting with you this morning. So here I am: I am hungry, feed me; I am bored, entertain me."

"It is my duty as your host to do both, dear friend," said Albert, ringing for his valet, while Lucien turned over the folded newspapers with the tip of a switch which he held by its gold knob inlaid with turquoise. "Germain, a glass of sherry and a biscuit. And, while you are waiting for those, dear Lucien, take a cigar -- contraband, naturally. I insist that you try one and suggest to your ministry that they sell us the same, instead of those dried walnut-leaves that they condemn conscientious citizens to smoke."

"Which is why you are seeing me at this time in the morning, my dearest fellow."

"And," Morcerf said, smiling, "it makes one look like the Prince of Wales or the Duke of Reichstadt."

"Because you wanted to let me know they had given you the Charles III medal?"

"Pooh! Certainly not! As soon as you knew they came from the government, you would find them abominable and refuse to touch them. In any case, it's nothing to do with the Home Office, it's a matter for the Inland Revenue. Apply to Monsieur Humann, Department of Indirect Taxes, corridor A, room twenty-six."

"Ah, my dear Viscount," Lucien said, lighting a Manilla at a pink candle burning in a silver-gilt candlestick before slumping back on to the divan, "my dear Viscount, how lucky you are to have nothing to do! You really can't tell how lucky!"

"And what would you do, my jolly old pacifier of kingdoms," Morcerf asked, with a hint of irony, "if you had nothing to occupy you? What! The minister's private secretary, engaged simultaneously in the great European cabal and in the petty intrigues of Parisian society; with kings -- and, better still, queens -- to protect, parties to unite, elections to manage; doing more from your study with your pen and your telegraph than Napoleon did from his battlefields with his sword and his victories; enjoying an income of twenty-five thousand livres apart from your salary, and a horse that Château-Renaud offered to buy from you for four hundred louis, which you refused to sell, and a tailor who never fails to make you a perfect pair of trousers; being able to go to the Opera, the Jockey Club and the Théâtre des Variétés… you have all this, and you are bored? Well, I have got something to entertain you."

"Well, I never," said Albert. "I am amazed at how much you know. But, go on: take a cigar."

"Perhaps from even further than that."

"A man."

"Huh! You can afford to disparage other people's dinners, seeing the kind of spread one gets from your ministers."

"I am ashamed to confess it, but I am. I had dinner yesterday at the home of Baron Danglars. I don't know if you have noticed, my friend, but one always dines very poorly with these Stock Exchange types. It's as though they had a guilty conscience."

"Where does he come from? The end of the world?"

"In that case, my good fellow, have another glass of sherry and a biscuit."

"Not like the one I am speaking about."

"No! Then I hope he's not bringing our breakfast."

"I'm going to introduce you to someone."

"Don't worry. Breakfast is being cooked in the kitchens of the maternal home. Are you hungry, then?"

"Man or woman?"

"Huh! I already know plenty of those!"

"Yes, but at least we don't invite respectable people. If we were not obliged to do the honours for some right-thinking and, above all, right-voting bumpkins, we would shun our own tables like the plague, believe me."

"What's that?"

"Ah, you must admit that's the diet that best satisfies the stomach. But wait: I can hear Beauchamp's voice in the antechamber. You can have an argument; that will pass the time."

"Monsieur Beauchamp!" the valet announced.

"Yes, but what about Don Carlos?"

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

"With pleasure. Your Spanish wine is excellent: you see, we were quite right to pacify that country."

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

"About the newspapers."

"Which should get you the Golden Fleece if you're still in the ministry."

"I do believe, Albert, that you are quite set this morning on feeding me with illusions."

"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."

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

"Let Don Carlos drink claret, and in ten years we'll marry his son to the little queen."

"Argument about what?"

"And what are they saying about it out there?"

"As you see," said Beauchamp.

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"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."

"A nobleman and a diplomat."

"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?"

"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."

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

"I understand: you need to store up some merriment."

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

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

"Two million! It's a pretty sum, even so!" said Morcerf.

"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."

"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."

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

"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?"

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

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."

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

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.

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

"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.

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"Of course, that's right!" said Debray. "A diplomat."

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

"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."

"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."

"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, 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."

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

"So you had a really bad fright?" asked Beauchamp.

"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."

"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 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."

"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?"

"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…"

"The horse?" Morcerf asked, laughing.

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

"A pâté from Chez Félix?" suggested Beauchamp.

"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."

"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."

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

"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.

"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."

"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."

"Where will he be coming from?" Debray asked. "Forgive my insisting; I know that you have already answered the question, but so vaguely that I feel entitled to ask it again."

"How shall we manage?" asked Debray. "There is only one Prix Montyon."

"I was in Rome for the last carnival."

"But what you don't know is that I was kidnapped by bandits."

"Come now, my dear Albert," said Debray. "Admit it: your cook is late, the oysters have not arrived from Marennes or Ostend, and, like Madame de Maintenon, you want to make up for one course with a story. Carry on with it, old man, we are good enough guests to indulge you and listen to your tale, however incredible it may be."

"To tell the truth," Albert said, "I don't know. When I invited him, three months ago, he was in Rome, but, since then, who can tell where he may have been."

"Then I'll take advantage of it to tell you something about my guest."

"Certainly there is, and a very unusual one."

"I beg your pardon," said Beauchamp, "but is there the material for an article in what you are going to tell us?"

"I think he is capable of anything," Morcerf replied.

"Note that, with the five minutes' grace, we have now only ten minutes left."

"Do you think he is capable of being punctual?" asked Debray.

"Yes, there are, and some very ugly ones, which means they were good bandits, because I found them pretty terrifying."

"We know that much," said Beauchamp.

"There's no such thing as bandits," said Debray.

"Then carry on. I can see that I won't get to the House, so I must make up for it in some way."

"I tell you, incredible though it may be, it is true from beginning to end. The bandits captured me and took me to a very melancholy spot called the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian."

"I know them," said Château-Renaud. "I nearly caught a fever there."

"I did better than that," said Morcerf. "I really caught something. They told me that I was a hostage for a ransom of the trifling amount of four thousand Roman écus or twenty-six thousand livres. Unfortunately, I had only fifteen hundred left; I was at the end of my journey and my credit was exhausted. I wrote to Franz… But of course! Listen, Franz was there, you can ask him if I am not telling the absolute truth. I wrote to Franz that if he did not come before six in the morning with the four thousand écus, by ten past six I should have joined the blessed saints and glorious martyrs in whose company I had the honour to find myself. And I can assure you that Monsieur Luigi Vampa -- that was the name of my chief bandit -- would have kept his word to the letter."

"He must be a Hercules killing Cacus, this gentleman, or a Perseus delivering Andromeda?"

"He whispered two words to the chief bandit and I was free."

"Well, I never! Was he Ariosto, this man?"

"No, he arrived, but accompanied purely and simply by the guest I have promised you and to whom I hope to introduce you."

"No, just the Count of Monte Cristo."

"Perhaps he comes from the Holy Land," said Beauchamp. "One of his ancestors might have owned Calvary, just as the Mortemarts did the Dead Sea."

"He did not have so much as a knitting needle."

"But he did pay your ransom?"

"Exactly."

"They even apologized to him for arresting you," said Beauchamp.

"No. He's a man of about my height."

"Armed to the teeth?"

"No one is called Count of Monte Cristo," said Debray.

"I think not," Château-Renaud added, in the unruffled tones of a man who has the entire nobility of Europe at his fingertips. "Does anyone know of a Count of Monte Cristo anywhere?"

"So Franz arrived with the four thousand écus?" Château-Renaud said. "Of course he did! You are not short of four thousand écus when your name is Franz d'Epinay or Albert de Morcerf."

"Is your count rich, then?"

"Just so, Monsieur," said Albert. "And the person I am telling you about is the lord and king of this grain of sand, of this atom. He must have bought his deeds to the title of count somewhere in Tuscany."

"By gad, I think he is."

"But it must show, surely?"

"Excuse me, gentlemen," said Maximilien, "but I think I can solve the problem for you. Monte Cristo is a tiny island about which I often heard speak from the sailors who were employed by my father: it is a grain of sand in the midst of the Mediterranean, an atom in infinity."

"There's where you are wrong, Debray."

"I don't understand."

"Heavens! What an extraordinary question!"

"Have you read the Thousand and One Nights?"

"Well then: can you tell if the people in it are rich or poor? If their grains of wheat are not rubies and diamonds? They look like penniless fishermen, don't they? That's how you treat them, and suddenly they open up before you a mysterious cavern in which you find a treasure vast enough to purchase the Indies."

"It's true," Morrel said pensively, "that I did hear something similar to what Monsieur de Morcerf is telling us from an old sailor called Penelon."

"So?"

"Have you seen this cavern, Morcerf?" asked Beauchamp.

"No, I haven't; it was Franz who saw it. But, hush! Don't say a word about this in front of him. Franz was taken there blindfolded and served by dumb men and women beside whom, it appears, Cleopatra was nothing but a strumpet. However, he is not quite sure about the women, since they only appeared after he had consumed some hashish, so that it could well be that what he took for women were in fact quite simply a group of statues."

"So my Count of Monte Cristo is one of those fishermen. He even has an appropriate name: he calls himself Sinbad the Sailor and he owns a cavern full of gold."

The young men looked at Morcerf as if to say: "My good fellow, have you lost your wits, or are you teasing us?"

"Ah!" Albert exclaimed. "It's a good thing that Monsieur Morrel has come to my support. You're not pleased, are you, that he has trailed this ball of thread through my labyrinth?"

"Forgive us, dear fellow," said Debray, "but what you are saying just seems too improbable…"

"Now, now! You're getting angry and taking it out on our poor emissaries. Heavens above, how do you expect them to protect us? Every day the House nibbles away at their salaries, to the point where it is getting impossible to find anyone. Would you like to be an ambassador, Albert? I'll have you appointed to Constantinople."

"But that does not mean that my Count of Monte Cristo does not exist!"

"Damnation! Just because your ambassadors and your consuls don't tell you anything about it! They don't have time, they're too busy molesting their compatriots whenever they go abroad."

"No, thank you! Just so the sultan, the first time I put in a good word for Mehmet Ali, can send round a rope for my secretaries to strangle me."

"Everybody exists! What a miracle!"

"You see," said Debray.

"No doubt everybody does exist, but not as he does. Not everybody has black slaves, princely galleries, weapons like those in the Casauba, horses worth six thousand francs apiece, and Greek mistresses!"

"Did you see this Greek mistress?"

"So he does eat then, your extraordinary man?"

"If he does eat, it is too little to be worth mentioning."

"Certainly: saw and heard. I saw her at the Teatro Valle and heard her one day when I dined with the count."

"You see: he's a vampire."

"Laugh if you wish. That was precisely the opinion of Countess G --, who, as you know, was acquainted with Lord Ruthwen."

"A savage eye, with a pupil that is dilated or contracted at will," said Debray. "Highly developed facial angle, splendid forehead, livid colouring, black beard, teeth white and pointed, manners the same."

"Oh, that's fine!" said Beauchamp. "For a man who is not a journalist, this is the answer to the Constitutionnel's famous sea-serpent: a vampire! The very thing!"

"That's it precisely, Lucien," said Morcerf. "You have described him to a 't'. Yes: sharp and pointed manners. The man often made me shudder; for example, one day when we were together watching an execution, I thought I would faint, much more from seeing him and hearing him discourse coldly about all the sufferings imaginable than from seeing the executioner carry out his task and hearing the cries of the condemned man."

"Didn't he take you for a stroll through the ruins of the Colosseum to suck your blood, Morcerf?" asked Beauchamp.

"Mock, mock as much as you wish, gentlemen!" said Morcerf, a trifle irritated. "When I look at you fine Parisians, regulars on the Boulevard de Gand, strollers through the Bois de Boulogne, and then remember that man -- well, it strikes me that we are not of the same race."

"Huh! There are no Italian bandits!" said Debray.

"And after setting you free, didn't he make you sign some fiery coloured parchment, by which you ceded him your soul, like Esau his birthright?"

"Flattered!" said Beauchamp.

"And no Count of Monte Cristo," concluded Debray. "Listen, my dear Albert: half-past ten is striking."

"The fact remains," Château-Renaud added, "that your Count of Monte Cristo is a gentleman in his spare time, except for his little understandings with Italian bandits."

"No vampires!" Beauchamp added.

"Admit that you had a nightmare, and let's start breakfast," said Beauchamp.

But the echo of the striking clock had not yet died away when the door opened and Germain announced: "His Excellency, the Count of Monte Cristo!"

The count was framed in it, dressed with the greatest simplicity; but the most demanding of dandies would not have found anything to criticize in his appearance. Everything -- clothes, hat, linen -- was in perfect taste and came from the finest suppliers.

He seemed to be barely thirty-five years of age; and what struck everybody was how closely he resembled the portrait that Debray had sketched of him.

He came forward, smiling, into the middle of the drawing-room, going directly towards Albert who was advancing to meet him and affably holding out his hand.

All those present started despite themselves, in a way indicating that Morcerf's story had touched something deep inside them. Even Albert could not avoid feeling faintly shocked. They had heard no sound of a vehicle in the street or a step in the antechamber, and even the door had opened silently.

"Punctuality," said Monte Cristo, "is the politeness of kings, or so I believe one of your sovereigns claimed. However, it is not always that of travellers, despite their good intentions. I hope, dear Vicomte, that you will take my good intentions into consideration and forgive me if, as I think, I am two or three seconds late for our rendez-vous. It is impossible to cover five hundred leagues without some small accidents, especially in France, where it appears that it is forbidden to whip a postilion."

"Monsieur le Comte," Albert replied, "I was just announcing your imminent arrival to a few of my friends, whom I invited to join us, in view of the promise that you were kind enough to make me, and whom I should like to introduce to you. They are Monsieur le Comte de Château-Renaud, who traces his noble lineage back to the paladins of Charlemagne and whose ancestors sat at the Round Table; Monsieur Lucien Debray, private secretary to the Minister of the Interior; Monsieur Beauchamp, a fearful journalist and the scourge of the French government -- of whom, despite his celebrity here, you may never have heard tell in Italy, since his newspaper is not distributed there; and finally Monsieur Maximilien Morrel, a captain in the regiment of spahis."

"Monsieur wears the uniform of the recent French victors," he said, "and it is a fine one."

Up to this point the count had bowed courteously, but with a certain English coldness and impassivity; but at the last name he involuntarily stepped forward and a faint touch of red passed like a flash across his pale cheeks.

It was impossible to tell what emotion gave the count's voice such a profoundly vibrant tone and made his eye shine, as if against his will -- that eye which was so fine, so calm and so clear when he had no reason to shade it.

"You have never seen our African soldiers, Monsieur?" said Albert.

"Never," the count replied, entirely regaining control of himself.

"Well, Monsieur, under this uniform beats one of the bravest and noblest hearts in the army."

Again, at these words, one could detect in Monte Cristo that strangely intense look, that slight blush and barely perceptible trembling of the eyelid that signalled some deep feeling in him.

"Let me continue, Captain," Albert said. "We have just been hearing of such a heroic deed by this gentleman that, even though I met him today for the first time, I would ask him the favour of introducing him to you as my friend."

"Oh, Monsieur le Comte…" said Morrel, interrupting.

This sort of exclamation, which responded to the count's own thoughts rather than to what Albert had just said, surprised everyone, most of all Morrel, who looked at Monte Cristo with astonishment. But at the same time the tone was so soft and -- for want of a better word -- so soothing that, strange though the exclamation was, it would be impossible to be annoyed by it.

"Ah, Monsieur has a noble heart," he said. "So much the better!"

"Why should he doubt it?" Beauchamp asked Château-Renaud.

"In truth," said the latter, who, being accustomed to society and with the sharpness of his aristocratic eye, had seen everything that it was possible to see in Monte Cristo, "in truth, Albert did not deceive us: this count is an unusual person. What do you think, Morrel?"

They walked silently through into the dining-room, where each took his place.

"A noble lord," Debray repeated.

"Gentlemen," said Albert, "Germain tells me that you are served. My dear Count, allow me to show you the way."

"Gentlemen," the count said as he sat down, "allow me to confess something that will serve as my excuse for any impropriety on my part: I am a foreigner, and so much one that this is the first time I have been in Paris. Consequently, I know absolutely nothing of French manners, having virtually up to now practised only an Oriental style of life, which is the one most opposed to the fine traditions of Paris. I beg you therefore to excuse me if you find anything in my behaviour which is too Turkish, too Neapolitan or too Arabian. Having said that, gentlemen, let us dine."

"Frankly," he said, "he has an honest eye and a pleasing voice, so I like him, despite the odd reflection he has just made regarding me."

"How well he says all that!" Beauchamp muttered. "He is undoubtedly some noble lord."

"A noble lord of all countries, Monsieur Debray," said Château-Renaud.