XXXII. Réveil.

XXXII

Awakening.

When Franz came to himself, outward objects seemed a second part of his dream; he believed himself in a sepulchre where, like a glance of pity, a ray of sunlight scarce penetrated; he stretched out his hand and felt stone; he raised himself to a sitting posture: he was lying in his burnous, upon a bed of dry heather, very soft and very fragrant.

Every vision had vanished, and, as if the statues had been but shadows issuing from their tombs during his dream, they had fled at his awakening.

He took a few steps toward the point whence the daylight came; to all the agitation of the slumber succeeded the calm of reality. He saw himself in a grotto, advanced toward the opening, and through the arched door perceived a blue sky and a sea of azure. The air and the water shone resplendent in the rays of the morning sun; upon the shore the sailors were seated, talking and laughing; ten paces out at sea the boat rocked gracefully at its anchor.

Then he savored for a while that fresh breeze which passed over his brow; he listened to the muffled noise of the wave moving along the edge and leaving upon the rocks a lacework of foam white as silver; he let himself go without reflecting, without thinking of that divine charm which lies in the things of nature, above all when one awakens from a fantastic dream; then by degrees that outward life, so calm, so pure, so great, recalled to him the improbability of his sleep, and memories began to return into his memory.

He remembered his arrival upon the island, his presentation to a chief of smugglers, an underground palace full of splendors, an excellent supper, and a spoonful of hashish.

Only, face to face with that broad-daylight reality, it seemed to him that at least a year had passed since all those things occurred, so living in his thought was the dream he had had, and so much importance did it take in his mind. Also, from time to time, his imagination made sit among the sailors, or cross a rock, or rock upon the boat, one of those shadows which had starred his night with their kisses. For the rest, he had his head perfectly clear and his body perfectly rested: no heaviness in the brain, but, on the contrary, a certain general well-being, a faculty of absorbing air and sunlight greater than ever.

He approached his sailors, then, gaily.

As soon as they saw him again they rose, and the patron came up to him.

"The Lord Sinbad," said he to him, "charged us with all his compliments for Your Excellency, and bade us express the regret he feels at not being able to take his leave of you; but he hopes you will excuse him when you know that a very pressing affair calls him to Malaga."

"Ah, come now! my dear Gaetano," said Franz, "is all this then truly a reality: there exists a man who received me on this island, who gave me a royal hospitality there, and who departed during my sleep?"

"He exists so well, that yonder is his little yacht moving away, all sails out, and that, if you will take your spyglass, you will in all probability recognize your host amid his crew."

And, as he said these words, Gaetano stretched his arm in the direction of a small vessel which was making sail toward the southern point of Corsica.

Franz drew his spyglass, set it to his sight, and directed it toward the indicated spot.

Gaetano was not mistaken. At the stern of the vessel, the mysterious stranger stood upright, turned toward him, and holding like him a spyglass in his hand; he had in every point the costume under which he had appeared the evening before to his guest, and was waving his handkerchief in sign of farewell.

Franz returned his salute by drawing his own handkerchief in turn and waving it as he waved his.

At the end of a second, a light cloud of smoke outlined itself at the poop of the vessel, detached itself gracefully from the stern and rose slowly toward the sky; then a faint report reached Franz.

"There, do you hear," said Gaetano, "that is him saying farewell to you!"

The young man took his carbine and discharged it in the air, but without hope that the noise could cross the distance which separated the yacht from the coast.

"What does Your Excellency order?" said Gaetano.

"First, that you light me a torch."

"Ah! yes, I understand," resumed the patron, "to seek the entrance of the enchanted apartment. Much pleasure, Excellency, if the thing amuses you, and I am going to give you the torch asked for. I too have been possessed by the idea that holds you, and have indulged the fancy three or four times; but I ended by giving it up. Giovanni," added he, "light a torch and bring it to His Excellency."

Giovanni obeyed. Franz took the torch and entered the underground, followed by Gaetano.

He recognized the place where he had awakened by his bed of heather still all crushed; but he in vain passed his torch over the whole outer surface of the grotto—he saw nothing, save, by traces of smoke, that others before him had already uselessly attempted the same investigation.

However, he left not a foot of that granite wall, impenetrable as the future, without examining it; he saw not a crack into which he did not introduce the blade of his hunting-knife; he noticed not a projecting point on which he did not press, in hope that it would yield; but all was useless, and he lost, without any result, two hours at this search.

At the end of that time, he gave it up; Gaetano was triumphant.

When Franz returned upon the beach, the yacht appeared no longer but as a small white point on the horizon; he had recourse to his spyglass, but even with the instrument it was impossible to distinguish anything.

Gaetano reminded him that he had come to hunt goats, which he had completely forgotten. He took his gun and began to traverse the island with the air of a man who performs a duty rather than takes a pleasure, and at the end of a quarter of an hour he had killed a goat and two kids. But these goats, though wild and alert as chamois, had too great a resemblance to our domestic goats, and Franz did not regard them as game.

Then ideas far more powerful preoccupied his mind. Since the previous day he was verily the hero of a tale from the _Thousand and One Nights_, and invincibly he was drawn back toward the grotto.

Then, despite the uselessness of his first inquiry, he began a second, after telling Gaetano to have one of the two kids roasted. This second visit lasted rather long, for when he returned the kid was roasted and the breakfast ready.

Franz sat down at the spot where, the evening before, they had come to invite him to supper on the part of that mysterious host, and he again perceived, like a gull rocked on the crest of a wave, the little yacht which continued to advance toward Corsica.

"But," said he to Gaetano, "you announced to me that the Lord Sinbad was making sail for Malaga, whereas it seems to me that he is directing himself straight toward Porto-Vecchio."

"Do you not remember," resumed the patron, "that among the men of his crew I told you there were for the moment two Corsican bandits?"

"That is true! and he is going to set them ashore?" said Franz.

"Exactly. Ah! he is a fellow," cried Gaetano, "who fears neither God nor devil, so they say, and who would go fifty leagues out of his way to do a poor man a service."

"But this kind of service might very well embroil him with the authorities of the country where he exercises this kind of philanthropy," said Franz.

"Ah, well," said Gaetano laughing, "what does he care, he, about the authorities! he laughs at them not a little! Let them but try to pursue him. First, his yacht is not a ship, it is a bird, and he would give three knots in twelve to a frigate; and then he has but to run himself ashore, will he not find friends everywhere?"

What was clearest in all this was that the Lord Sinbad, the host of Franz, had the honor of being in relation with the smugglers and bandits of all the coasts of the Mediterranean; which did not fail to establish for him a rather strange position.

As for Franz, nothing detained him longer at Monte-Cristo, he had lost all hope of finding the secret of the grotto, he hastened then to breakfast, ordering his men to hold their boat ready for the moment he should have finished.

Half an hour after, he was aboard.

He cast a last look upon the yacht; it was ready to disappear in the gulf of Porto-Vecchio.

He gave the signal for departure.

At the moment the boat put itself in motion, the yacht disappeared. With it faded the last reality of the preceding night: also supper, Sinbad, hashish and statues, all began, for Franz, to melt into the same dream. The boat traveled all day and all night; and the next day, when the sun rose, it was the island of Monte-Cristo which had disappeared in its turn. Once Franz had touched land, he forgot, at least momentarily, the events which had just passed, to finish his affairs of pleasure and politeness at Florence, and to occupy himself only with rejoining his companion, who awaited him at Rome.

He departed then, and on Saturday evening he arrived at the Dogana place by the mail-coach.

The apartment, as we have said, was retained in advance, there was then but to rejoin the hotel of Master Pastrini; which was not a very easy thing, for the crowd encumbered the streets, and Rome was already in the grip of that dull and feverish murmur which precedes great events. Now, at Rome, there are four great events per year: the carnival, Holy Week, Corpus Christi and St. Peter.

All the rest of the year, the city falls back into its dreary apathy, an intermediate state between life and death, which renders it like a kind of station between this world and the other, a sublime station, a halt full of poetry and character which Franz had already made five or six times, and which each time he had found more marvelous and more fantastic still.

At length, he crossed that crowd ever swelling and more agitated and reached the hotel. At his first inquiry, it was answered him, with that impertinence peculiar to retained cab-drivers and to innkeepers complete, that there was no longer any place for him at the Hotel of London. Then he sent his card to Master Pastrini, and had himself announced to Albert de Morcerf. The means succeeded, and Master Pastrini ran himself, excusing himself for having made His Excellency wait, scolding his boys, taking the candlestick from the hand of the cicerone who had already seized the traveler, and preparing to lead him near Albert, when the latter came to meet him.

The retained apartment was composed of two small chambers and a closet. The two chambers gave upon the street, a circumstance which Master Pastrini set forth as adding to it an inappreciable merit. The rest of the floor was let to a very rich personage, believed to be Sicilian or Maltese; the innkeeper could not say exactly to which of the two nations this traveler belonged.

"That is very well, Master Pastrini," said Franz, "but we should need at once some sort of supper for this evening, and a calash for tomorrow and the following days."

"As for the supper," answered the innkeeper, "you are going to be served this instant; but as for the calash...."

"How! as for the calash!" cried Albert. "An instant, an instant! let us not jest, Master Pastrini! we must have a calash."

"Sir," said the innkeeper, "one will do all one can to have one for you. That is all I can tell you."

"And when shall we have the answer?" asked Franz.

"Tomorrow morning," answered the innkeeper.

"What the devil!" said Albert, "one will pay it dearer, that is all: one knows what that is; at Drake's or Aaron's twenty-five francs for ordinary days and thirty or thirty-five francs for Sundays and holidays; put five francs per day brokerage, that will make forty and let us say no more of it."

"I much fear that these gentlemen, even offering double, cannot procure themselves one."

"Then have horses put to mine; it is a little battered by the journey, but no matter."

"One will not find horses."

Albert looked at Franz like a man to whom one makes a reply that seems incomprehensible to him.

"Do you understand that, Franz! no horses," said he; "but post-horses, could one not have those?"

"They are all hired these fifteen days, and there now remain only those absolutely necessary to the service."

"What say you of that?" asked Franz.

"I say that, when a thing passes my understanding, I have the habit of not dwelling upon that thing and of passing to another. Is the supper ready, Master Pastrini?"

"Yes, Excellency."

"Well, let us sup first."

"But the calash and the horses?" said Franz.

"Be easy, dear friend, they will come of themselves; it will be but a question of putting the price on them."

And Morcerf, with that admirable philosophy which believes nothing impossible so long as it feels its purse round or its portfolio furnished, supped, went to bed, fell asleep soundly, and dreamed that he was running the carnival in a calash with six horses.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”