“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 clew 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; every one 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 birth-right?”
“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.”