Chapter 39 The Guests
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IN
THE HOUSE in the Rue du Helder, where Albert had invited the Count of
Monte Cristo, everything was being prepared on the morning of the 21st of
May to do honor to the occasion. Albert de Morcerf inhabited a pavilion
situated at the corner of a large court, and directly opposite another
building, in which were the servants' apartments. Two windows only of the
pavilion faced the street; three other windows looked into the court, and
two at the back into the garden. Between the court and the garden, built
in the heavy style of the imperial architecture, was the large and
fashionable dwelling of the Count and Countess of Morcerf. A high wall
surrounded the whole of the hotel, surmounted at intervals by vases filled
with flowers, and broken in the centre by a large gate of gilded iron,
which served as the carriage entrance. A small door, close to the lodge of
the conciจจrge,
gave ingress and egress to the servants and masters when they were on
foot. It
was easy to discover that the delicate care of a mother, unwilling to part
from her son, and yet aware that a young man of the viscount's age
required the full exercise of his liberty, had chosen this habitation for
Albert. There were not lacking, however, evidences of what we may call the
intelligent egoism of a youth who is charmed with the indolent, careless
life of an only son, and who lives as it were in a gilded cage. By means
of the two windows looking into the street, Albert could see all that
passed; the sight of what is going on is necessary to young men, who
always want to see the world traverse their horizon, even if that horizon
is only a public thoroughfare. Then, should anything appear to merit a
more minute examination, Albert de Morcerf could follow up his researches
by means of a small gate, similar to that close to the conciจจrge's door, and which merits a
particular description. It was a little entrance that seemed never to have
been opened since the house was built, so entirely was it covered with
dust and dirt; but the well-oiled hinges and locks told quite another
story. This door was a mockery to the conciจจrge,
from whose vigilance and jurisdiction it was free, and, like that famous
portal in the Arabian Nights, opening at the "Sesame" of Ali
Baba, it was wont to swing backward at a cabalistic word or a concerted
tap from without from the sweetest voices or whitest fingers in the world.
At the end of a long corridor, with which the door communicated, and which
formed the ante-chamber, was, on the right, Albert's breakfast-room,
looking into the court, and on the left the salon, looking into the
garden. Shrubs and creeping plants covered the windows, and hid from the
garden and court these two apartments, the only rooms into which, as they
were on the ground-floor, the prying eyes of the curious could penetrate.
On the floor above were similar rooms, with the addition of a third,
formed out of the ante-chamber; these three rooms were a salon, a boudoir,
and a bedroom. The salon down-stairs was only an Algerian divan, for the
use of smokers. The boudoir up-stairs communicated with the bed-chamber by
an invisible door on the staircase; it was evident that every precaution
had been taken. Above this floor was a large atelier, which had been
increased in size by pulling down the partitions--a pandemonium, in which
the artist and the dandy strove for preeminence. There were collected and
piled up all Albert's successive caprices, hunting-horns, bass-viols,
flutes--a whole orchestra, for Albert had had not a taste but a fancy for
music; easels, palettes, brushes, pencils--for music had been succeeded by
painting; foils, boxing-gloves, broadswords, and single-sticks--for,
following the example of the fashionable young men of the time, Albert de
Morcerf cultivated, with far more perseverance than music and drawing, the
three arts that complete a dandy's education, i.e., fencing, boxing, and
single-stick; and it was here that he received Grisier, Cook, and Charles
Leboucher. The rest of the furniture of this privileged apartment
consisted of old cabinets, filled with Chinese porcelain and Japanese
vases, Lucca della Robbia faience, and Palissy platters; of old
arm-chairs, in which perhaps had sat Henry IV or Sully, Louis XIII or
Richelieu--for two of these arm-chairs, adorned with a carved shield, on
which were engraved the fleur-de-lis of France on an azure field evidently
came from the Louvre, or, at least, some royal residence. Over these dark
and sombre chairs were thrown splendid stuffs, dyed beneath Persia's sun,
or woven by the fingers of the women of Calcutta or of Chandernagor. What
these stuffs did there, it was impossible to say; they awaited, while
gratifying the eyes, a destination unknown to their owner himself; in the
meantime they filled the place with their golden and silky reflections. In
the centre of the room was a Roller and Blanchet "baby grand"
piano in rosewood, but holding the potentialities of an orchestra in its
narrow and sonorous cavity, and groaning beneath the weight of the
chefs-d'oeuvre of Beethoven, Weber, Mozart, Haydn, Gretry, and Porpora. On
the walls, over the doors, on the ceiling, were swords, daggers, Malay
creeses, maces, battle-axes; gilded, damasked, and inlaid suits of armor;
dried plants, minerals, and stuffed birds, their flame-colored wings
outspread in motionless flight, and their beaks forever open. This was
Albert's favorite lounging place. However,
the morning of the appointment, the young man had established himself in
the small salon down-stairs. There, on a table, surrounded at some
distance by a large and luxurious divan, every species of tobacco
known,--from the yellow tobacco of Petersburg to the black of Sinai, and
so on along the scale from Maryland and Porto-Rico, to Latakia,--was
exposed in pots of crackled earthenware of which the Dutch are so fond;
beside them, in boxes of fragrant wood, were ranged, according to their
size and quality, pueros, regalias, havanas, and manillas; and, in an open
cabinet, a collection of German pipes, of chibouques, with their amber
mouth-pieces ornamented with coral, and of narghiles, with their long
tubes of morocco, awaiting the caprice or the sympathy of the smokers.
Albert had himself presided at the arrangement, or, rather, the
symmetrical derangement, which, after coffee, the guests at a breakfast of
modern days love to contemplate through the vapor that escapes from their
mouths, and ascends in long and fanciful wreaths to the ceiling. At a
quarter to ten, a valet entered; he composed, with a little groom named
John, and who only spoke English, all Albert's establishment, although the
cook of the hotel was always at his service, and on great occasions the
count's chasseur also. This valet, whose name was Germain, and who enjoyed
the entire confidence of his young master, held in one hand a number of
papers, and in the other a packet of letters, which he gave to Albert.
Albert glanced carelessly at the different missives, selected two written
in a small and delicate hand, and enclosed in scented envelopes, opened
them and perused their contents with some attention. "How did these
letters come?" said he. "One
by the post, Madame Danglars' footman left the other." "Let
Madame Danglars know that I accept the place she offers me in her box.
Wait; then, during the day, tell Rosa that when I leave the Opera I will
sup with her as she wishes. Take her six bottles of different
wine--Cyprus, sherry, and Malaga, and a barrel of Ostend oysters; get them
at Borel's, and be sure you say they are for me." "At
what o'clock, sir, do you breakfast?" "What
time is it now?" "A
quarter to ten." "Very
well, at half past ten. Debray will, perhaps, be obliged to go to the
minister--and besides" (Albert looked at his tablets), "it is
the hour I told the count, 21st May, at half past ten; and though I do not
much rely upon his promise, I wish to be punctual. Is the countess up
yet?" "If
you wish, I will inquire." "Yes,
ask her for one of her liqueur cellarets, mine is incomplete; and tell her
I shall have the honor of seeing her about three o'clock, and that I
request permission to introduce some one to her." The valet left the
room. Albert threw himself on the divan, tore off the cover of two or
three of the papers, looked at the theatre announcements, made a face
seeing they gave an opera, and not a ballet; hunted vainly amongst the
advertisements for a new tooth-powder of which he had heard, and threw
down, one after the other, the three leading papers of Paris, muttering,
"These papers become more and more stupid every day." A moment
after, a carriage stopped before the door, and the servant announced M.
Lucien Debray. A tall young man, with light hair, clear gray eyes, and
thin and compressed lips, dressed in a blue coat with beautifully carved
gold buttons, a white neckcloth, and a tortoiseshell eye-glass suspended
by a silken thread, and which, by an effort of the superciliary and
zygomatic muscles, he fixed in his eye, entered, with a half-official air,
without smiling or speaking. "Good-morning, Lucien,
good-morning," said Albert; "your punctuality really alarms me.
What do I say? punctuality! You, whom I expected last, you arrive at five
minutes to ten, when the time fixed was half-past! Has the ministry
resigned?" "No,
my dear fellow," returned the young man, seating himself on the
divan; "reassure yourself; we are tottering always, but we never
fall, and I begin to believe that we shall pass into a state of
immobility, and then the affairs of the Peninsula will completely
consolidate us." "Ah,
true; you drive Don Carlos out of Spain." "No,
no, my dear fellow, do not confound our plans. We take him to the other
side of the French frontier, and offer him hospitality at Bourges." "At
Bourges?" "Yes,
he has not much to complain of; Bourges is the capital of Charles VII. Do
you not know that all Paris knew it yesterday, and the day before it had
already transpired on the Bourse, and M. Danglars (I do not know by what
means that man contrives to obtain intelligence as soon as we do) made a
million!" "And
you another order, for I see you have a blue ribbon at your
button-hole." "Yes;
they sent me the order of Charles III.," returned Debray, carelessly.
"Come,
do not affect indifference, but confess you were pleased to have it."
"Oh,
it is very well as a finish to the toilet. It looks very neat on a black
coat buttoned up." "And
makes you resemble the Prince of Wales or the Duke of Reichstadt." "It
is for that reason you see me so early." "Because
you have the order of Charles III., and you wish to announce the good news
to me?" "No,
because I passed the night writing letters,--five and twenty despatches. I
returned home at daybreak, and strove to sleep; but my head ached and I
got up to have a ride for an hour. At the Bois de Boulogne, ennui and
hunger attacked me at once,--two enemies who rarely accompany each other,
and who are yet leagued against me, a sort of Carlo-republican alliance. I
then recollected you gave a breakfast this morning, and here I am. I am
hungry, feed me; I am bored, amuse me." "It
is my duty as your host," returned Albert, ringing the bell, while
Lucien turned over, with his gold-mounted cane, the papers that lay on the
table. "Germain, a glass of sherry and a biscuit. In the meantime. my
dear Lucien, here are cigars--contraband, of course--try them, and
persuade the minister to sell us such instead of poisoning us with cabbage
leaves." "Peste,
I will do nothing of the kind; the moment they come from government you
would find them execrable. Besides, that does not concern the home but the
financial department. Address yourself to M. Humann, section of the
indirect contributions, corridor A., No. 26." "On
my word," said Albert, "you astonish me by the extent of your
knowledge. Take a cigar." "Really,
my dear Albert," replied Lucien, lighting a manilla at a rose-colored
taper that burnt in a be beautifully enamelled stand--"how happy you
are to have nothing to do. You do not know your own good fortune!" "And
what would you do, my dear diplomatist," replied Morcerf, with a
slight degree of irony in his voice, "if you did nothing? What?
private secretary to a minister, plunged at once into European cabals and
Parisian intrigues; having kings, and, better still, queens, to protect,
parties to unite, elections to direct; making more use of your cabinet
with your pen and your telegraph than Napoleon did of his battle-fields
with his sword and his victories; possessing five and twenty thousand
francs a year, besides your place; a horse, for which Chateau-Renaud
offered you four hundred louis, and which you would not part with; a
tailor who never disappoints you; with the opera, the jockey-club, and
other diversions, can you not amuse yourself? Well, I will amuse
you." "How?"
"By
introducing to you a new acquaintance." "A
man or a woman?" "A
man." "I
know so many men already." "But
you do not know this man." "Where
does he come from--the end of the world?" "Farther
still, perhaps." "The
deuce! I hope he does not bring our breakfast with him." "Oh,
no; our breakfast comes from my father's kitchen. Are you hungry?" "Humiliating
as such a confession is, I am. But I dined at M. de Villefort's, and
lawyers always give you very bad dinners. You would think they felt some
remorse; did you ever remark that?" "Ah,
depreciate other persons' dinners; you ministers give such splendid
ones." "Yes;
but we do not invite people of fashion. If we were not forced to entertain
a parcel of country boobies because they think and vote with us, we should
never dream of dining at home, I assure you." "Well,
take another glass of sherry and another biscuit." "Willingly.
Your Spanish wine is excellent. You see we were quite right to pacify that
country." "Yes;
but Don Carlos?" "Well,
Don Carlos will drink Bordeaux, and in ten years we will marry his son to
the little queen." "You
will then obtain the Golden Fleece, if you are still in the
ministry." "I
think, Albert, you have adopted the system of feeding me on smoke this
morning." "Well,
you must allow it is the best thing for the stomach; but I hear Beauchamp
in the next room; you can dispute together, and that will pass away the
time." "About
what?" "About
the papers." "My
dear friend," said Lucien with an air of sovereign contempt, "do
I ever read the papers?" "Then
you will dispute the more." "M.
Beauchamp," announced the servant. "Come in, come in," said
Albert, rising and advancing to meet the young man. "Here is Debray,
who detests you without reading you, so he says." "He
is quite right," returned Beauchamp; "for I criticise him
without knowing what he does. Good-day, commander!" "Ah,
you know that already," said the private secretary, smiling and
shaking hands with him. "Pardieu?"
"And
what do they say of it in the world?" "In
which world? we have so many worlds in the year of grace 1838." "In
the entire political world, of which you are one of the leaders." "They
say that it is quite fair, and that sowing so much red, you ought to reap
a little blue." "Come,
come, that is not bad!" said Lucien. "Why do you not join our
party, my dear Beauchamp? With your talents you would make your fortune in
three or four years." "I
only await one thing before following your advice; that is, a minister who
will hold office for six months. My dear Albert, one word, for I must give
poor Lucien a respite. Do we breakfast or dine? I must go to the Chamber,
for our life is not an idle one." "You
only breakfast; I await two persons, and the instant they arrive we shall
sit down to table." |
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