The Count of Monte Cristo, Part Three. Александр Дюма
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than that, perhaps.
DEBRAY
I hope he isn’t bringing our lunch?
ALBERT
Rest easy—our lunch is preparing in the maternal kitchen. Decidedly, you must be hungry?
DEBRAY
Yes, I dined yesterday at Mr. de Villefort’s. Have you noticed something, dear friend—one dines very badly at the homes of all the legal people.
ALBERT
Oh, by God! Disparage the dinners of others—this way one may dine well with your ministers.
BEAUCHAMP
(in the antechamber)
He’s waiting for us, right?
ALBERT
Eh! Hold on, I heard the voice of Beauchamp in the antechamber, you can argue and that will make you patient.
GERMAIN
(announcing)
Mr. Beauchamp!
ALBERT
Come in, come in—ferocious writer! Wait, here’s Mr. Debray who detests you without reading you—at least that’s what he says.
BEAUCHAMP
I’m the same. I criticize him without knowing what he does. Good day, my dear Albert! An explanation! I see Debray who drinks sherry and eats biscuits. Are we lunching or having dinner? I have to go to the Chamber. As you see, all is not rosy in our job.
ALBERT
We are lunching. We are waiting only for two more people.
BEAUCHAMP
What type of people?
ALBERT
A gentleman and a traveler.
BEAUCHAMP
Fine! Two hours for the gentleman and one hour for the traveler. I will return for dessert. Keep me some fresh coffee and cigars. I will eat a cutlet at the Senate.
ALBERT
Don’t do anything of the kind, my dear fellow, whether the guests arrive or not, at 10:30 we go to table.
BEAUCHAMP
(looking at his watch)
Ten o’clock! Well, all right, we will test it. Anyway, I am horribly sulky this morning.
ALBERT
Fine, you are like Debray. Now it seems to me if the ministry is sad, the opposition should be gay.
BEAUCHAMP
Ah, that’s because you don’t know what threatens me. I heard Mr. Danglars speak in the Chamber this morning and tonight, at his wife’s, a tragedy of a peer of France.
ALBERT
My dear fellow, this morning you are revoltingly bitter. Recall that the Parisian gossip speaks of a marriage between myself and Miss Eugenie Danglars. I cannot in good conscience let you speak ill of the eloquence of a man who one day must say to me, “You know, Monsieur le Vicomte, that I am giving two millions to my daughter.”
BEAUCHAMP
Come now, Albert, this marriage will never take place. The King is able to make Danglars a baron—can even make him a peer—but he can never make him a gentleman and the Count de Morcerf is too aristocratic a swordsman to consent to a misalliance for two paltry millions.
ALBERT
Two millions, that’s pretty now.
BEAUCHAMP
It’s the social capital for a Boulevard theater or a railway from the Jardin de Plantes to La Rapée.
DEBRAY
Let him say it, Morcerf, and get married. You are marrying the escutcheon of a moneybags, right? Well, what does the rest matter to you? A blason less and a zero more is worth more on this type of escutcheon. You have seven martlets in your coat-of-arms and you will give three to your wife—that leaves you with four. It’s one more than the Duke of Guise who failed to be king of France, and whose cousin-germain was Emperor of Germany.
BEAUCHAMP
Oh, you, Debray, everyone knows your weakness for the whole family.
GERMAIN
(announcing)
The Marquis de Châteaubrun.
(Châteaubrun enters.)
BEAUCHAMP
Good! Here’s the gentleman; we are waiting only for the traveler.
DEBRAY
What! Châteaubrun? But I thought he was in Africa.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
I got back yesterday, my dear Mr. Debray.
ALBERT
And I offer you something today, one can’t be served any hotter, I hope!
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Good day, Albert. Good day, Mr. de Beauchamp. I have to thank you.
BEAUCHAMP
Me?
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Yes. You have consecrated half a column to me and while that doesn’t displease us very much, it flatters us greatly—we men of the world.
BEAUCHAMP
I think so, indeed! Monsieur le Marquis plays in amateur theaters—to look arms crossed like the taking of Constantine; they don’t take Constantine. They beat the retreat; the gentleman uncrosses his arms and performs prodigies.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Yes, but there is a man who makes greater prodigies than I do, since he saved me—and that one you haven’t spoken of.
BEAUCHAMP
Ah, yes, Mr. Maximilian Morel, a Captain of the Spahis, who arrived just as two Arabs—note that four had already been killed—who arrived as two Arabs were getting ready to strangle you. Why the devil do I mention it? He’s a soldier and he’s only doing his job.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
It’s all the same, my dear fellow, on this occasion I recommend him to you and to you, also, my dear Debray.
DEBRAY
To me? But I am in the Interior and this concerns War.
BEAUCHAMP
Bah—between ministries.
DEBRAY
With the result that you are here, right? Good! We are only waiting for the traveler.
BEAUCHAMP
It’s 10:15.
ALBERT
I demand a respite until 10:30. Tell us, Châteaubrun, you should have brought us your savior. I ought to put him face-to-face with mine!
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Your savior, Albert? You have been saved, too? You?
DEBRAY
What can we do to reward these two benefactors of humanity? We have only the Montyon prize!
CHÂTEAUBRUN
And from what part of the world does this savior come to us?
ALBERT
Truly, I would be very embarrassed to say. When I invited him, it was nearly two years ago; it was in Rome, and who can say what road he’s been taking since then?
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Ah, so—then he’s the