XXXVIII. Le rendez-vous.

XXXVIII

The Appointment.

The next day, upon rising, Albert's first words were to propose to Franz that they go and pay a visit to the count; he had already thanked him the evening before, but he understood that a service such as the one he had rendered was worth two thanks.

Franz, whom a feeling mingled with terror drew toward the Count of Monte Cristo, did not wish to let him go alone to this man's and accompanied him; both were shown into the salon: five minutes later, the count appeared.

"Count," said Albert, going up to him, "allow me to repeat to you this morning what I poorly expressed yesterday: that I shall never forget in what circumstance you came to my aid, and that I shall always remember that I owe you my life or thereabouts."

"My dear neighbor," replied the count, laughing, "you exaggerate your obligations toward me. You owe me a small saving of some twenty thousand francs on your travel budget, and that is all; you see well that it is not worth speaking of. On your side," he added, "accept all my compliments, you were adorable in your unconcern and your abandon."

"What would you have, count," said Albert; "I pictured to myself that I had gotten into a bad quarrel and that a duel had followed, and I wanted to make these bandits understand one thing: that one fights in every country in the world, but that only the French fight laughing. Nevertheless, as my obligation toward you is none the less great, I come to ask you if, through me, my friends and my acquaintances, I might not be of some use to you. My father, the Count of Morcerf, who is of Spanish origin, holds a high position in France and in Spain; I come to place myself, and all those who love me, at your disposal."

"Well," said the count, "I confess to you, Monsieur de Morcerf, that I was expecting your offer and that I accept it with all my heart. I had already set my heart on you to ask you a great service."

"Which?"

"I have never been to Paris! I do not know Paris...."

"Really!" cried Albert; "you have been able to live until now without seeing Paris? It is incredible!"

"It is so, however; but I feel as you do that a longer ignorance of the capital of the intelligent world is impossible. There is more: perhaps I would even have made this necessary journey long ago, if I had known someone who could introduce me into that world where I had no connections."

"Oh! a man like you!" cried Albert.

"You are very kind, but as I recognize no other merit in myself than being able to rival Monsieur Aguado or Monsieur Rothschild as a millionaire, and as I am not going to Paris to play the stock exchange, this small circumstance held me back. Now your offer decides me. Come, do you pledge yourself, my dear Monsieur de Morcerf"—the count accompanied these words with a singular smile—"do you pledge yourself, when I go to France, to open the doors of that world to me, where I shall be as much a stranger as a Huron or a Cochin-Chinese?"

"Oh! as for that, Count, admirably and with all my heart!" replied Albert; "and all the more willingly"—(my dear Franz, do not laugh too much at me!)—"that I am recalled to Paris by a letter I receive this very morning and in which there is question for me of an alliance with a most agreeable house which has the best connections in the Parisian world."

"An alliance by marriage?" said Franz, laughing.

"Oh! my God, yes! So, when you return to Paris you will find me a settled man and perhaps a family man. That will suit my natural gravity, will it not? In any case, count, I repeat to you, myself and my own are yours body and soul."

"I accept," said the count; "for I swear to you that nothing was lacking to me but this occasion to realize projects that I have been ruminating for a long time."

Franz did not doubt for an instant that these projects were those of which the count had let slip a word in the grotto of Monte Cristo, and he looked at the count while he said these words to try to catch upon his features some revelation of those projects which were leading him to Paris; but it was very difficult to penetrate into the soul of this man, especially when he veiled it with a smile.

"But come, count," resumed Albert, enchanted to have to present a man like Monte Cristo, "is this not one of those projects in the air, such as one makes a thousand of in travel, and which, built upon sand, are carried off at the first breath of wind?"

"No, upon my honor," said the count; "I wish to go to Paris, I must go there."

"And when?"

"But when will you be there yourself?"

"I," said Albert; "oh! my God! in a fortnight or three weeks at the latest; the time to return."

"Well," said the count, "I give you three months; you see that I allow you ample measure."

"And in three months," cried Albert with joy, "you come and knock at my door?"

"Do you want an appointment day for day, hour for hour?" said the count; "I warn you that I am of a despairing exactitude."

"Day for day, hour for hour," said Albert; "that suits me admirably."

"Well, so be it." He stretched his hand toward a calendar hanging near the mirror. "We are today," he said, "the 21st of February"—(he drew out his watch)—"it is half past ten in the morning. Will you expect me on the 21st of May next, at half past ten in the morning?"

"Admirably!" said Albert; "breakfast will be ready."

"Where do you live?"

"Rue du Helder, No. 27."

"You are there as a bachelor, I shall not disturb you?"

"I live in my father's hotel, but in a pavilion at the back of the courtyard entirely separate."

"Good."

The count took his notebook and wrote: "Rue du Helder, No. 27, 21 May, at half past ten in the morning."

"And now," said the count, putting his notebook back in his pocket, "be at ease, the hand of your clock will be no more exact than I."

"Shall I see you again before my departure?" asked Albert.

"That depends: when do you leave?"

"I leave tomorrow, at five in the evening."

"In that case, I say farewell to you. I have business in Naples and shall not be back here until Saturday evening or Sunday morning. And you," the count asked Franz, "do you leave also, Baron?"

"Yes."

"For France?"

"No, for Venice. I remain still a year or two in Italy."

"Then we shall not see each other in Paris?"

"I fear I shall not have that honor."

"Well, gentlemen, good journey," said the count to the two friends, extending a hand to each.

It was the first time Franz touched the hand of this man; he shuddered, for it was icy like that of a dead man.

"One last time," said Albert, "it is well settled, upon your word of honor, is it not? Rue du Helder, No. 27, the 21st of May, at half past ten in the morning?"

"The 21st of May, at half past ten in the morning, Rue du Helder, No. 27," repeated the count.

Whereupon the two young men saluted the count and went out.

"What is the matter with you?" said Albert to Franz on returning home; "you look quite thoughtful."

"Yes," said Franz; "I confess it to you, the count is a singular man, and I see with unease this appointment he has given you in Paris."

"This appointment... with unease! Why, are you mad, my dear Franz?" cried Albert.

"What would you have," said Franz; "mad or not, it is so."

"Listen," resumed Albert, "and I am very glad the occasion presents itself to tell you this, but I have always found you rather cold toward the count, whom, on his side, I have always found perfect, on the contrary, toward us. Have you something particular against him?

"Perhaps."

"Had you seen him somewhere before meeting him here?"

"Precisely."

"Where?"

"Do you promise me not to say a word of what I am going to tell you?"

"I promise you."

"Word of honor?"

"Word of honor."

"Very well. Then listen."

And then Franz told Albert of his excursion to the island of Monte Cristo, how he had found there a crew of smugglers, and amid that crew two Corsican bandits. He dwelt upon all the circumstances of the fairylike hospitality that the count had given him in his grotto of the Thousand and One Nights; he told him of the supper, the hashish, the statues, reality and dream, and how upon awakening there remained as proof and as memory of all these events only that little yacht, making sail on the horizon for Porto-Vecchio.

Then he passed to Rome, to the night of the Coliseum, to the conversation he had overheard between him and Vampa, a conversation relating to Peppino, and in which the count had promised to obtain the bandit's pardon, a promise he had so well kept, as our readers may have judged.

Finally, he came to the adventure of the previous night, to the embarrassment he had found himself in upon seeing that he lacked some six or seven hundred piastres to complete the sum; finally to the idea he had had of addressing himself to the count, an idea which had had at once so picturesque and so satisfying a result.

Albert listened to Franz with all his ears.

"Well," he said to him when he had finished, "where do you see in all that anything to blame? The count is a traveler, the count has a vessel of his own, because he is rich. Go to Portsmouth or to Southampton, you will see the ports crowded with yachts belonging to rich Englishmen who have the same fancy. To know where to stop in his excursions, not to eat that awful cuisine which poisons us—me for four months, you for four years—not to sleep in those abominable beds where one cannot sleep, he has a pied-à-terre furnished at Monte Cristo: when his pied-à-terre is furnished, he fears lest the Tuscan government give him notice and his expenses be lost, so he buys the island and takes its name. My dear fellow, search your memory, and tell me how many people of your acquaintance take the names of properties they never had.

"But," said Franz to Albert, "the Corsican bandits who are in his crew?"

"Well, what is astonishing in that? You know better than anyone, do you not, that Corsican bandits are not thieves, but purely and simply fugitives whom some vendetta has exiled from their town or village; one may therefore see them without compromising oneself: as for me, I declare that if ever I go to Corsica, before having myself presented to the governor and the prefect, I shall have myself presented to the bandits of Colomba, if indeed one can lay hands on them; I find them charming.

"But Vampa and his troop," resumed Franz; "those are bandits who stop to rob; you will not deny it, I hope. What do you say of the count's influence over such men?"

"I shall say, my dear fellow, that, as in all probability I owe my life to that influence, it is not for me to criticize it too closely. Thus, instead of making of it, as you do, a capital crime, you will find good that I excuse him, if not for having saved my life, which is perhaps a little exaggerated, but at least for having spared me four thousand piastres, which make a good twenty-four thousand livres of our money, a sum for which I should certainly not have been valued in France; which proves," added Albert, laughing, "that no man is a prophet in his own country."

"Well, that is just it; what country is the count from? what language does he speak? what are his means of existence? whence comes his immense fortune? what was that first part of his mysterious and unknown life which cast upon the second that dark and misanthropic tint? That is, in your place, what I should wish to know."

"My dear Franz," resumed Albert, "when, upon receiving my letter, you saw that we had need of the count's influence, you went and said to him: 'Albert de Morcerf, my friend, is in danger; help me to draw him from this danger!' is that not so?"

"Yes."

"Then, did he ask you: 'What is Monsieur Albert de Morcerf? whence comes his name? whence comes his fortune? what are his means of existence? what is his country? where was he born?' Did he ask you all that, say?"

"No, I confess it."

"He came, that is all. He drew me from the hands of Monsieur Vampa; where, despite my appearances full of unconcern, as you say, I was making a very poor figure, I confess. Well, my dear fellow, when in exchange for such a service he asks me to do for him what is done every day for the first Russian or Italian prince who passes through Paris, that is to say, to present him in society, you want me to refuse him that! Come now, you are mad."

It must be said that, contrary to habit, all the good reasons were this time on Albert's side.

"Finally," resumed Franz with a sigh, "do as you will, my dear viscount; for all you tell me is very specious, I confess; but it is none the less true that the Count of Monte Cristo is a strange man."

"The Count of Monte Cristo is a philanthropist. He did not tell you for what purpose he was coming to Paris. Well, he comes to compete for the Montyon prizes; and if he needs but my voice to obtain them, and the influence of that very ugly gentleman who obtains them, well, I shall give him the one and guarantee him the other. On that, my dear Franz, let us speak no more of it, let us sit down to table and go make a last visit to Saint Peter's."

It was done as Albert said, and the next day, at five in the afternoon, the two young men parted, Albert de Morcerf to return to Paris, Franz d'Épinay to go spend a fortnight in Venice.

But, before getting into the carriage, Albert handed the hotel boy another card for the Count of Monte Cristo, so afraid was he that his guest might miss the appointment, on which, beneath these words: "Viscount Albert de Morcerf," he had written in pencil:

_21 May, at half past ten in the morning, 27, Rue du Helder._

“Stories of the world, in your language.”