The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (146 page)

However, instead of receiving these words in the favourable manner that Morcerf would have expected, Danglars raised an eyebrow and – without inviting the count, who was still standing, to sit down – said: ‘Monsieur le Comte, I shall have to consider the matter before giving you a reply.’

‘Consider!’ Morcerf exclaimed with mounting astonishment. ‘Haven’t you had time to consider in the eight years since we first mentioned this match?’

‘Every day, Count,’ Danglars said, ‘we find that we are obliged to reconsider things in the light of new considerations.’

‘What do you mean?’ Morcerf asked. ‘I don’t follow you, Baron.’

‘I mean, Monsieur, that in the past fortnight certain new circumstances…’

‘One moment, I beg you,’ said Morcerf. ‘Are you serious, or is this some game we are playing?’

‘What game?’

‘Yes, let’s put our cards on the table.’

‘That’s all I ask.’

‘You have seen Monte Cristo!’

‘I see him quite often,’ said Danglars, tugging his chin, ‘he’s a friend of mine.’

‘Well, last time you saw him, you told him that I seemed vague and uncertain where this match is concerned.’

‘Quite so.’

‘Well, here I am, neither vague nor forgetful, as you can see, since I have come to ask you to keep your promise.’

Danglars said nothing.

‘Have you changed your mind,’ Morcerf added, ‘or are you forcing me to make an explicit request just for the pleasure of humiliating me?’

Danglars realized that, if the conversation were to continue along these lines, it would be to his disadvantage, so he said: ‘Monsieur le Comte, you must be justifiably surprised by my coolness; I understand that; so, believe me, you cannot regret it more than I do myself; but, I assure you, it is required by circumstances beyond my control.’

‘That’s all very well, my dear sir,’ said the count. ‘And your average visitor might be satisfied with such mumbo-jumbo. But the Comte de Morcerf is not your average visitor and, when a man like myself comes to see another, when he reminds him of a promise and the other fails to keep his word, then he has the right to demand on the spot that he at least be given a good reason.’

Danglars was a coward, but he did not wish to appear one. He was irritated by Morcerf’s tone.

‘I have plenty of good reasons,’ he answered.

‘And what do you mean by that?’

‘That there is a good reason, but not one that I can easily give you.’

‘I suppose you must realize, however,’ said Morcerf, ‘that your reservations are of little use to me; and, in any event, one thing seems clear, which is that you are rejecting the match.’

‘No,’ said Danglars. ‘I am postponing a decision, that’s all.’

‘You surely cannot be expecting that I should submit to your
whim and wait, quietly and humbly, until you are more favourably disposed?’

‘Very well then, Count, if you cannot wait, consider our arrangement annulled.’

The count bit his lip until it bled in order to restrain himself from the outburst that his proud and irascible temperament urged him to make. Realizing, however, that in these circumstances he was the one who would appear ridiculous, he was already making his way to the door of the room when he changed his mind and returned. A cloud had passed across his brow, replacing injured pride with a hint of uncertainty.

‘Come, my dear Danglars,’ he said. ‘We have known one another for many years and should consequently show some consideration for one another. You owe me an explanation and the least I can ask is that you should tell me what unfortunate event has caused my son to forfeit your good intentions towards him.’

‘It is nothing personal to the Viscount, that’s all I can tell you, Monsieur,’ Danglars replied, becoming impertinent again when he saw that Morcerf was giving ground.

‘So to whom is it personal?’ Morcerf asked in a strangled voice, the colour draining from his face.

Danglars noted each of these symptoms and stared at the count with unusual self-confidence. ‘You should be grateful to me for refusing to clarify the matter,’ he said.

A nervous shudder, doubtless the product of repressed anger, shook Morcerf. He made a supreme effort to contain himself. ‘I have the right,’ he said, ‘and the intention of requiring the satisfaction of an explanation. Do you have something against Madame de Morcerf? Is it that my wealth is insufficient? Or my political opinions, the contrary of yours…’

‘None of that, Monsieur,’ said Danglars. ‘In those cases, it would be unforgivable since I knew all that when I entered the agreement. No, look no further. I am truly ashamed of having made you suggest such things. Believe me, we should leave it there. Let’s settle for a simple delay, which will be neither an engagement nor a breach. For heaven’s sake, there is no hurry! My daughter is seventeen and your son twenty-one. Time will move on, even as we pause, and events will occur… Things that appear obscure one day are sometimes only too clear the next; in that way, the cruellest slanders can vanish from one day to the next.’

‘Slanders! Did you say slanders, Monsieur!’ Morcerf cried, white as a sheet. ‘Someone is slandering me!’

‘I tell you, Count, look no further.’

‘So I must accept this rejection without a murmur?’

‘It is above all painful for me. Yes, more than for you, because I was counting on the honour of a match with you, and a broken engagement always looks worse for the girl than for her fiancé.’

‘Very well, Monsieur, let’s say no more,’ Morcerf muttered and, angrily slapping his gloves, left the room. Danglars noticed that not once had Morcerf dared to ask if it was because of him – Morcerf – that Danglars was withdrawing his consent.

That evening, he had a long meeting with several of his friends and M. Cavalcanti, who had remained constantly in the salon with the ladies, was the last to leave the banker’s house.

The next day, when he woke up, Danglars asked for the papers and they were brought to him at once. He put three or four aside, and picked up
L’Impartial
. This was the one managed and edited by Beauchamp. He quickly tore off the wrapper, opened it with nervous haste, cast a contemptuous eye over the home news and came to the ‘news in brief’, where he stopped with a malicious grin at an item beginning with the words: ‘A correspondent writes from Janina…’

‘Very well,’ he said, after reading it. ‘There is a little piece on Colonel Fernand which will quite probably relieve me of the obligation to give the Comte de Morcerf any further explanation.’

At this same moment, which is to say just as nine o’clock was striking, Albert de Morcerf, dressed in black and neatly buttoned up, arrived at the house in the Champs-Elysées in a state of some agitation and curtly asked for the count.

‘Monsieur le Comte went out some half an hour ago,’ said the concierge.

‘Did he take Baptistin with him?’ Morcerf asked.

‘No, Monsieur le Vicomte.’

‘Call Baptistin, I wish to speak with him.’

The concierge went to look for the valet himself and came back with him a short time later.

‘My friend,’ said Albert, ‘I beg you to forgive me for asking, but I wanted to find out from you whether your master is really not at home.’

‘No, Monsieur, he is not,’ Baptistin replied.

‘Even to me?’

‘I know how happy my master is to receive Monsieur and I should be careful to exclude him from any general instruction.’

‘You are right, because I have a serious matter to discuss with him. Do you think he will be long?’

‘No, he ordered breakfast for ten o’clock.’

‘Very well, I shall take a walk along the Champs-Elysées and be here at ten. If Monsieur le Comte returns before I do, ask him to be so good as to expect me.’

‘I shall, Monsieur may be sure of that.’

Albert left his hired cab at the count’s door and went off on foot. Walking past the Allée des Veuves, he thought he recognized the count’s horses standing at the door of Gosset’s shooting gallery. He went over and, having recognized the horses, now recognized the driver.

‘Is the count shooting?’ he asked him.

‘Yes, Monsieur,’ the coachman replied.

Several shots had rung out at regular intervals since Morcerf had approached the shooting gallery. He went in. The attendant was standing in the little garden.

‘I beg the vicomte’s pardon,’ he said, ‘but would you mind waiting for a moment?’

‘Why is that, Philippe?’ Albert asked: being a regular visitor, he was astonished at this incomprehensible barrier.

‘Because the gentleman who is practising at the moment hires the whole range for himself and never shoots in front of anyone.’

‘Not even you, Philippe.’

‘As you see, Monsieur, I am standing by the door to my office.’

‘And who loads his pistols?’

‘His servant.’

‘A Nubian?’

‘A negro.’

‘That’s what I mean.’

‘Do you know the gentleman, then?’

‘I have come to find him. He is a friend.’

‘Oh, that’s a different matter. I’ll go in and tell him.’ And Philippe, driven by curiosity, went into the shooting gallery. A moment later Monte Cristo appeared at the door.

‘Please forgive me for following you here, my dear Count,’ said Albert, ‘and I must start by telling you that it was not the fault of
your servants; I alone have been indiscreet. I went to your house and was told that you were out walking, but that you would return at ten o’clock for breakfast. I also went out for a walk to pass the time and it was then that I saw your horses and your carriage.’

‘What you say leads me to hope that you have come to invite me to breakfast.’

‘No, thank you, there’s no question of dining for the moment. Perhaps we may lunch together later, but I shall be poor company, confound it.’

‘What on earth is the matter?’

‘My dear Count, I am going to fight today.’

‘You! How on earth is that?’

‘In a duel, of course.’

‘Yes, I realize that, but for what reason? You understand, people fight for all sorts of reasons.’

‘On a point of honour.’

‘Ah, now. That’s serious.’

‘So serious that I have come to ask a favour of you.’

‘Which is?’

‘To be my second.’

‘Then it’s really serious. Let’s not discuss it here, but go home. Ali, some water!’

The count rolled up his sleeves and went into the little hallway outside the shooting ranges where the marksmen are accustomed to wash their hands.

‘Come in, Monsieur le Vicomte,’ Philippe whispered. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

Morcerf followed him. Instead of targets, playing cards had been fixed to the board. From a distance, Morcerf thought it was a complete pack from the ace to the ten.

‘Huh!’ he said. ‘Were you playing piquet?’

‘No,’ said the count. ‘I was making a pack of cards.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Those are aces and twos that you see; my bullets made them into threes, fives, sevens, eights, nines and tens.’

Albert went over to look and saw that, indeed, the bullets had replaced the absent symbols with perfectly precise holes at perfectly equal distances, passing through each card at the points where it should have been painted. As he was walking across to the board, Morcerf also picked up two or three swallows that the count
had shot when they were rash enough to fly within range of his pistol.

‘I’ll be damned!’ said Albert.

‘What do you expect, my dear Viscount?’ Monte Cristo said, wiping his hands on a towel that Ali brought. ‘I must fill in my idle moments. Come, now, let’s go.’

They both got into Monte Cristo’s coupé and a few minutes later it put them down at the door of No. 30. Monte Cristo showed Morcerf into his study and offered him a seat. They sat down.

‘Now, let’s discuss this calmly,’ the count said.

‘As you see, I am perfectly calm.’

‘Who are you going to fight?’

‘Beauchamp.’

‘But he’s a friend of yours!’

‘It’s always one’s friends that one fights.’

‘But you must at least have a reason.’

‘I do.’

‘What has he done to you?’

‘In last night’s newspaper, there was… But read it for yourself.’ And Albert handed Monte Cristo a paper in which he read the following:

A correspondent writes from Janina:

We have learned a fact which has remained unknown, or at least unpublished up to now. The castles defending the town were betrayed to the Turks by a French officer in whom the vizier, Ali Tebelin, had placed all his trust. His name was Fernand.

‘Well?’ said Monte Cristo. ‘What have you found in that to shock you?’

‘What have I found!’

‘Yes. What does it matter to you that the castles of Janina were betrayed to the Turks by an officer called Fernand?’

‘It matters because my father, the Comte de Morcerf, was christened Fernand.’