The Count of Monte Cristo, Part Three. Александр Дюма
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Perhaps so, indeed.
DEBRAY
Do you think he’s capable of being punctual at least?
ALBERT
I think he’s capable of everything.
BEAUCHAMP
Observe that with the five minutes respite demanded we have only ten minutes.
ALBERT
Well, I’ve profited by speaking to you of my guest.
BEAUCHAMP
Is there a story from a news sheet that you are going to tell me?
ALBERT
Yes and something more curious beside.
BEAUCHAMP
Speak, then—for I see clearly I will miss the Chamber—and I must get back.
ALBERT
I was in Rome—it was two years ago during Carnival.
BEAUCHAMP
We know that.
ALBERT
Yes, but what you don’t know is that I was carried off by bandits.
DEBRAY
There were bandits.
ALBERT
And very hideous, in other words—wonderful. I found them wonderful to inspire fear. These gentlemen had kidnapped me and taken me to a very sad place, that they called the catacombs of Saint Sebastian. I was a prisoner against ransom, a miserly four thousand roman shillings or 26,000 francs. Unfortunately, I had only fifteen hundred; I was at the end of my travels. My credit was exhausted. I wrote to Frantz d’Epinay, who had traveled with me—and knew everything. The question was grave. If he hadn’t arrived at 6:00 in the morning with the four thousand shillings, at precisely 6:10, I was going to have to rejoin the blessed saints and glorious martyrs with whose relics, I had the honor of then finding myself.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Well, Frantz arrived with the four thousand shillings?
ALBERT
No, he came purely and simply accompanied by the guest I announced to you, and who, I hope; I shall have the honor of presenting to you.
DEBRAY
Ah, that’s it. Why here’s a Hercules killing Cacus, like this gentleman, a Perseus delivering Andromeda?
ALBERT
No, he’s a man of my build, a little less.
BEAUCHAMP
He was armed to the teeth?
ALBERT
He didn’t even have knitting needles.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
He paid your ransom then?
ALBERT
He said two words in the ear of the chief bandit and I was free.
BEAUCHAMP
(laughing)
Then he made some excuses for stopping you, right?
ALBERT
Exactly.
DEBRAY
Why then this was Ariosto?
ALBERT
No—it was the Count of Monte Cristo.
DEBRAY
Come on! No one’s called the Count of Monte Cristo.
BEAUCHAMP
Wait, wait! I think I can get you out of this embarrassment, Monte Cristo is a little island near which I passed on my way to Palermo.
ALBERT
Precisely. the man I speak of is King of this grain of sand, of this atom. He must have bought his title of Count somewhere in Tuscany.
BEAUCHAMP
He is rich, your Count?
ALBERT
I should think so. He has a cave full of gold.
BEAUCHAMP
And you have seen this cave?
ALBERT
No, but I’ve heard it spoken of.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Eh, but so have I. One night, in the tent while we were waiting for our supper which did not come.
DEBRAY
Like our lunch today.
ALBERT
Don’t interrupt, Debray. What the devil! We are not in the Senate.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Well, Morel, my savior, had always told me that he was going to hunt in this island of Monte-Cristo, and that there he had been invited to supper by a stranger, but on the condition that he let himself be blindfolded and escorted so he didn’t know where he was.
ALBERT
Well?
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Well—he went down to a cave. There he found a kind of magician who was served by mutes and by women compared to whom Aspasia and Cleopatra were only sluts.
ALBERT
Well, you are throwing ball of twine in my labyrinth, my dear Châteaubrun, the Count of your Captain de Spahis, is mine.
DEBRAY
Truly, my friend, you tell of unlikely things.
ALBERT
That doesn’t prevent my Count from existing.
DEBRAY
Everybody exists, quite a miracle!
ALBERT
Yes, but nobody exists in similar conditions. Not everybody has black slaves, princely galleries, weapons like Casuaba, horses of six million francs a piece, Greek mistresses.
BEAUCHAMP
He has a Greek mistress? Have you seen her?
ALBERT
Seen, with both my eyes, once at the Vallée theater and once when I lunched with the Count. Two times in all.
DEBRAY
So he actually eats, your extraordinary man?
ALBERT
My word, if he eats, it is so little that it is hardly worth speaking of.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
You see—he’s a vampire.
ALBERT
Well, gentleman, you are going to mock me, but I won’t say no.
BEAUCHAMP
Ah, bravo.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Your Count of Monte Cristo is a gallant man in his lost moments, right?
DEBRAY
Yes, except in his little arrangements with Italian bandits.
BEAUCHAMP
Bah! There are no Italian bandits.
DEBRAY
No vampires!
BEAUCHAMP
No Count de Monte Cristo! And the proof, my dear friend, is that the clock’s striking 10:30.
CHÂTEAUBRUN
Admit you are having a nightmare, and let’s go to lunch.