Toward the beginning of the year 1838, there were in Florence two young men belonging to the most elegant society of Paris, one the Viscount Albert de Morcerf, the other the Baron Franz d'Épinay. It had been agreed between them that they would go to spend the carnival of that same year at Rome, where Franz, who had been living in Italy for nearly four years, would act as cicerone to Albert.
Now, as it is no small matter to go and spend the carnival at Rome, especially when one is anxious not to sleep in the Piazza del Popolo or in the Campo Vaccino, they wrote to Signor Pastrini, proprietor of the Hotel de Londres, in the Piazza di Spagna, begging him to reserve them a comfortable apartment.
Signor Pastrini replied that he had at their disposal only two bedrooms and a closet situated on the second floor, and that he offered them for the moderate sum of a louis a day. The two young men accepted; then, wishing to make good use of the time that remained to him, Albert set out for Naples. As for Franz, he stayed in Florence.
When he had for some time enjoyed the life that the city of the Medici affords, when he had walked well in that Eden called the Cascine, when he had been received by those magnificent hosts who do the honors of Florence, it occurred to him, having already seen Corsica, the cradle of Bonaparte, to go and see the island of Elba, that great staging-post of Napoleon.
One evening, therefore, he detached a little barque from the iron ring that moored it to the port of Leghorn, lay down in the bottom wrapped in his cloak, saying to the boatmen only these words: "To the island of Elba!"
The boat left the port like the sea-bird leaves its nest, and the next day it landed Franz at Porto-Ferrajo.
Franz crossed the imperial island, after following all the traces that the giant's footsteps had left there, and went to embark at Marciana.
Two hours after leaving the shore, he touched land again to land at the Pianosa, where, it was said, there were infinite flocks of red partridges.
The sport was bad. Franz with great difficulty killed a few lean partridges, and, like every sportsman who has wearied himself for nothing, he remounted his boat in a very ill humor.
"Ah! if Your Excellency pleased," said the patron, "you would have fine sport!"
"And where is that?"
"Do you see that island?" continued the patron, extending his finger toward the south and pointing out a conical mass that rose from the midst of a sea tinted with the finest indigo.
"Well, what is that island?" asked Franz.
"The island of Monte-Cristo," answered the Leghorn man.
"But I have no permission to shoot on that island."
"Your Excellency has no need of any; the island is deserted."
"Ah! by Jove," said the young man, "a deserted island in the midst of the Mediterranean, that is a curious thing."
"And a natural thing, Excellency. This island is a heap of rocks, and, over all its extent, there is perhaps not an acre of arable land."
"And to whom does this island belong?"
"To Tuscany."
"What game shall I find there?"
"Thousands of wild goats."
"Who live by licking the stones," said Franz with an incredulous smile.
"No, but by browsing on the heather, the myrtles, the lentisks that grow in the intervals."
"But where shall I sleep?"
"On shore in the grottoes, or on board in your cloak. Besides, if Your Excellency wishes, we can set off immediately after the sport; you know we sail as well by night as by day, and, for want of sail, we have oars."
As Franz still had ample time to rejoin his companion, and had no longer to trouble himself about his lodging at Rome, he accepted this proposal to indemnify himself for his first expedition.
At his affirmative reply, the sailors exchanged a few words among themselves in a low voice.
"Well," he asked, "what is new? has some impossibility arisen?"
"No," replied the patron; "but we must warn Your Excellency that the island is in quarantine."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that, as Monte-Cristo is uninhabited, and sometimes serves as a rendezvous for smugglers and pirates who come from Corsica, Sardinia, or Africa, if any sign whatever betrays our stay on the island, we shall be forced, on our return to Leghorn, to undergo a quarantine of six days."
"The devil! that alters the case! six days! Exactly as many as it took God to create the world. That is rather long, my lads."
"But who will say that Your Excellency has been to Monte-Cristo?"
"Oh! it will not be I," cried Franz.
"Nor we either," said the sailors.
"In that case, off to Monte-Cristo."
The patron gave the order to maneuver; they steered for the island, and the boat began to row in its direction. Franz let the operation complete itself, and when the new course was taken, when the sail had filled with the breeze, and the four boatmen had resumed their places, three at the bow, one at the helm, he renewed the conversation.
"My dear Gaetano," said he to the patron, "you were telling me, I think, that the island of Monte-Cristo served as a refuge for pirates, which seems to me a very different sort of game from goats."
"Yes, Excellency, and it is the truth."
"I knew well enough of the existence of smugglers, but I thought that, since the taking of Algiers and the destruction of the Regency, pirates existed only in the novels of Cooper and Captain Marryat."
"Well, Your Excellency was mistaken: there are pirates as there are bandits, who are supposed to be exterminated by Pope Leo XII, and who nevertheless stop travelers every day at the very gates of Rome. Have you not heard that scarcely six months ago the chargé d'affaires of France near the Holy See was plundered within five hundred paces of Velletri?"
"I have indeed."
"Well, if, like us, Your Excellency lived at Leghorn, you would hear from time to time that a little vessel laden with goods, or a pretty English yacht, expected at Bastia, at Porto-Ferrajo, or at Civita-Vecchia, has not arrived, and no one knows what has become of it, and that doubtless it has been wrecked against some rock. Well, the rock it met was a low, narrow boat, manned by six or eight men, who surprised or plundered it on a dark and stormy night round some wild and uninhabited islet, as bandits stop and plunder a post-chaise at the corner of a wood."
"But after all," said Franz, still lying in his boat, "why do those to whom such an accident happens not complain, why do they not call down upon these pirates the vengeance of the French, Sardinian, or Tuscan government?"
"Why?" said Gaetano with a smile.
"Yes, why?"
"Because, first, they transport from the vessel or the yacht into the boat everything worth taking; then they bind the crew hand and foot, fasten a twenty-four pound shot round each man's neck, make a hole the size of a barrel in the keel of the captured vessel, go back on deck, close the hatches, and pass into the boat. At the end of ten minutes, the vessel begins to complain and to groan, by degrees it sinks. First one side plunges, then the other; then it rights itself, then plunges again, sinking deeper and deeper. Suddenly a noise like a cannon-shot resounds: it is the air bursting the deck. Then the vessel struggles like a drowning man, growing heavier at every movement. Soon the water, too closely pent in the cavities, springs from the openings, like the liquid columns that some gigantic cachalot would throw from its vents. At length it gives a last rattle, makes a last turn upon itself, and plunges in, scooping in the abyss a vast funnel that whirls for an instant, gradually fills up, and ends by entirely disappearing; so that at the end of five minutes the eye of God Himself would be needed to seek in the bottom of that calm sea the vanished vessel.
"Do you understand now," added the patron, smiling, "how the vessel does not return to port, and why the crew lodges no complaint?"
If Gaetano had told the story before proposing the expedition, it is probable that Franz would have looked twice before undertaking it; but they were off, and it seemed to him that it would be cowardice to draw back. He was one of those men who do not run to meet a perilous occasion, but who, if that occasion comes to meet them, remain with an unalterable coolness to combat it: he was one of those men of calm will, who regard a danger in life only as an adversary in a duel, who calculate its movements, who study its strength, who retreat enough to recover breath, not enough to seem cowardly, who, comprehending at a single glance all their advantages, kill with a single blow.
"Bah!" he resumed, "I have crossed Sicily and Calabria, I have sailed two months in the Archipelago, and I have never seen the shadow of a bandit or a pirate."
"Also I did not say that to Your Excellency," said Gaetano, "to make you renounce your project; you questioned me and I answered, that is all."
"Yes, my dear Gaetano, and your conversation is most interesting; so, as I wish to enjoy it as long as possible, off to Monte-Cristo."
Meanwhile, they were rapidly approaching the end of the voyage; it was blowing fresh, and the boat was making six or seven miles an hour. As they drew near, the island seemed to rise, growing from the bosom of the sea; and, through the limpid atmosphere of the last rays of day, one could distinguish, like cannon-balls in an arsenal, that heap of rocks piled one upon another, and in the interstices of which one saw the heather redden and the trees grow green. As for the sailors, though they appeared perfectly tranquil, it was evident that their vigilance was awake, and that their eyes questioned the vast mirror over which they glided, and of which a few fishermen's boats, with their white sails, alone peopled the horizon, balancing like gulls on the crest of the waves.
They were no more than some fifteen miles from Monte-Cristo when the sun began to set behind Corsica, whose mountains appeared to the right, cutting against the sky their dark indentation; that mass of stone, like the giant Adamastor, rose menacing before the boat, hiding from it the sun, the upper part of which was gilding itself; by degrees the shadow rose from the sea and seemed to chase before it that last reflection of the dying day, at length the luminous ray was driven back to the summit of the cone, where it rested an instant like the flaming plume of a volcano: at length the shadow, still ascending, progressively invaded the top, as it had invaded the base, and the island appeared no longer save as a gray mountain that kept growing darker. Half an hour after, it was pitch dark.
Fortunately the boatmen were in their accustomed waters and knew even the smallest rock of the Tuscan Archipelago; for, in the midst of the profound obscurity that enveloped the boat, Franz would not have been altogether without uneasiness. Corsica had entirely disappeared, the island of Monte-Cristo itself had become invisible, but the sailors seemed to have, like the lynx, the faculty of seeing in the darkness, and the pilot, who held the helm, showed not the slightest hesitation.
About an hour had elapsed since sunset, when Franz thought he perceived, a quarter of a mile to the left, a dark mass, but it was so impossible to distinguish what it was, that, fearing to excite the hilarity of his sailors by taking some floating clouds for the mainland, he kept silence. But suddenly a great light appeared on the shore; the land might resemble a cloud, but fire was no meteor.
"What is that light?" he asked.
"Hush!" said the patron, "it is a fire."
"But you said the island was uninhabited!"
"I said it had no fixed population, but I also said it is a place of call for smugglers."
"And for pirates!"
"And for pirates," said Gaetano, repeating Franz's words; "it is for that reason that I gave orders to pass the island, for, as you see, the fire is behind us."
"But this fire," continued Franz, "seems to me rather a motive for security than for uneasiness; people who feared to be seen would not have lighted this fire."
"Oh! that means nothing," said Gaetano, "if you could judge, in the midst of the darkness, of the position of the island, you would see that, placed as it is, this fire can be perceived neither from the coast, nor from the Pianosa, but only from the open sea."
"So you fear that this fire may announce us bad company?"
"That is what must be ascertained," replied Gaetano, his eyes still fixed on that terrestrial star.
"And how to ascertain it?"
"You shall see."
At these words Gaetano held counsel with his companions, and at the end of five minutes' discussion, they silently executed a maneuver, by means of which, in an instant, they had tacked about; then they resumed the course they had just been making, and a few seconds after this change of direction, the fire disappeared, hidden by some movement of the ground.
Then the pilot imprinted by the helm a new direction on the little craft, which visibly approached the island and soon was no more than fifty paces from it.
Gaetano lowered the sail, and the boat remained stationary.
All this had been done in the greatest silence, and moreover, since the change of route, not a word had been spoken on board.
Gaetano, who had proposed the expedition, had taken all the responsibility upon himself. The four sailors did not take their eyes off him, while preparing the oars and evidently holding themselves ready to pull with all their might, which, thanks to the darkness, was not difficult.
As for Franz, he examined his arms with the coolness we know him to possess; he had two double-barreled guns and a carbine, he loaded them, assured himself of the locks, and waited.
During this time, the patron had thrown off his capote and his shirt, secured his trousers round his loins, and, as he was barefoot, he had had neither shoes nor stockings to undo. Once in this costume, or rather out of his costume, he put a finger on his lips to sign to keep the deepest silence, and, letting himself slip into the sea, he swam toward the shore with such precaution that it was impossible to hear the slightest noise. Only, by the phosphorescent wake his movements disengaged, one could follow his track.
Soon, that wake itself disappeared: it was evident that Gaetano had touched land.
Every one on the little craft remained motionless for half an hour, at the end of which they saw reappear near the shore and approach the boat the same luminous wake. At the end of an instant, and in two strokes, Gaetano had reached the boat.
"Well?" said Franz and the four sailors together.
"Well," said he, "they are Spanish smugglers; they have with them only two Corsican bandits."
"And what are these two Corsican bandits doing with Spanish smugglers?"
"Eh! my God, Excellency," replied Gaetano in a tone of profound Christian charity, "they must help one another. Often the bandits find themselves a little pressed on land by the gendarmes or the carabineers, well, they find there a boat, and in that boat good fellows like ourselves. They come and ask us for hospitality in our floating house. How refuse help to a poor devil who is pursued! We receive him, and, for greater security, we make for the open sea. That costs us nothing and saves the life or, at least, the liberty of one of our fellows who, on occasion, acknowledges the service we have rendered him by pointing out to us a good spot where we can land our goods without being disturbed by the curious."
"Come now," said Franz, "you are a bit of a smuggler yourself, my dear Gaetano?"
"Eh! what would you have, Excellency!" said he with an indescribable smile, "one does a bit of everything; one must live."
"Then you are on terms of acquaintance with the people who are inhabiting Monte-Cristo at this hour?"
"About that. We sailors are like the Freemasons, we recognize each other by certain signs."
"And you think we should have nothing to fear in landing in our turn?"
"Absolutely nothing; smugglers are not thieves."
"But these two Corsican bandits—" resumed Franz, calculating in advance all the chances of danger.
"Eh, my God!" said Gaetano, "it is not their fault if they are bandits, it is the fault of the authorities."
"How so?"
"Doubtless! they are pursued for having done a _peau_, nothing else; as if it were not in the nature of the Corsican to avenge himself!"
"What do you mean by having done a _peau_? Having assassinated a man?" said Franz, continuing his investigations.
"I mean having killed an enemy," replied the patron, "which is quite different."
"Well," said the young man, "let us go and ask hospitality of the smugglers and the bandits. Do you think they would grant it us?"
"Without doubt."
"How many are they?"
"Four, Excellency, and the two bandits makes six."
"Well, that is exactly our number; we are even, in case these gentlemen should show bad dispositions, of equal force, and consequently in a position to contain them. So, for the last time, off to Monte-Cristo."
"Yes, Excellency; but you will allow us still to take some precautions?"
"Certainly, my dear fellow! be wise as Nestor, and prudent as Ulysses. I do more than permit you, I exhort you to it."
"Well then, silence!" said Gaetano.
Every one was silent.
For a man regarding, like Franz, everything under its true aspect, the situation, without being dangerous, was not without a certain gravity. He found himself in the deepest obscurity, isolated, in the midst of the sea, with sailors who did not know him and who had no motive to be devoted to him; who knew that he had in his belt some few thousand francs, and who had ten times, if not with envy, at least with curiosity, examined his arms, which were very fine. On the other hand, he was going to land, without other escort than these men, on an island which bore a very religious name, but which did not seem to promise Franz any other hospitality than that of Calvary to Christ, thanks to its smugglers and its bandits. Then this story of vessels sunk to the bottom, which he had thought exaggerated by day, seemed to him more probable by night. Also, placed as he was between this double danger perhaps imaginary, he did not take his eyes off these men nor his gun from his hand.
Meanwhile the sailors had again hoisted their sails and resumed their wake already plowed in going and coming. Through the obscurity Franz, already a little accustomed to the darkness, distinguished the giant of granite which the boat was coasting; then at length, in again passing the angle of a rock, he perceived the fire which shone, more brilliant than ever, and around that fire, five or six persons seated.
The reflection of the hearth extended a hundred paces out to sea. Gaetano coasted the light, taking care, however, to keep the boat in the unlighted part; then, when it was exactly opposite the hearth, he steered for it and boldly entered the luminous circle, striking up a fisherman's song which he alone sustained, and of which his companions took up the refrain in chorus.
At the first word of the song, the men seated around the fire had risen and approached the landing-place, their eyes fixed on the boat, which they were visibly endeavoring to judge as to strength and to divine as to intentions. Soon, they appeared to have made a sufficient examination and went, with the exception of one who remained standing on the shore, to reseat themselves around the fire, before which a whole kid was roasting.
When the boat had arrived within twenty paces of the land, the man who was on the shore made mechanically, with his carbine, the gesture of a sentinel who awaits a patrol, and cried "Who goes there!" in Sardinian patois.
Franz coolly cocked his two barrels. Gaetano then exchanged with this man a few words to which the traveler understood nothing, but which concerned him evidently.
"Does Your Excellency wish to name himself or remain incognito?" asked the patron.
"My name must be perfectly unknown; tell them, then, simply," resumed Franz, "that I am a Frenchman traveling for pleasure."
When Gaetano had transmitted this answer, the sentinel gave an order to one of the men seated before the fire, who immediately rose, and disappeared among the rocks.
There was a silence. Each seemed occupied with his own affairs: Franz with his landing, the sailors with their sails, the smugglers with their kid, but, amid this apparent carelessness, they were mutually observing one another.
The man who had gone away reappeared suddenly, on the opposite side from that by which he had disappeared. He made a sign with his head to the sentinel, who turned toward them and contented himself with pronouncing these only words: "S'accommodi."
The Italian "s'accommodi" is untranslatable; it means at once, come, enter, you are welcome, make yourself at home, you are master. It is like that Turkish phrase of Molière's, which so astonished the bourgeois gentilhomme by the quantity of things it contained.
The sailors did not need to be told twice: in four strokes of the oar, the boat touched land. Gaetano sprang onto the beach, exchanged a few more words in a low voice with the sentinel, his companions descended one after the other; then came at length the turn of Franz.
He had one of his guns in a shoulder-belt, Gaetano had the other, one of the sailors held his carbine. His costume partook at once of the artist and the dandy, which inspired in the hosts no suspicion, and consequently no uneasiness.
They moored the boat to the shore, took a few steps to seek a convenient bivouac; but doubtless the spot toward which they were making was not to the liking of the smuggler who filled the post of overseer, for he cried to Gaetano:
"No, not that way, if you please."
Gaetano stammered an excuse, and, without insisting further, advanced in the opposite direction, while two sailors, to light the way, went to light torches at the fire.
They went about thirty paces and stopped on a little esplanade entirely surrounded by rocks in which were hollowed species of seats, much like little sentry-boxes where one might mount guard seated. Around grew, in veins of vegetable earth, some dwarf oaks and thick tufts of myrtle. Franz lowered a torch and recognized, by a heap of ashes, that he was not the first to perceive the comfort of this locality, and that this must be one of the habitual stations of the nomadic visitors of the island of Monte-Cristo.
As for his expectation of an event, it had ceased; once his foot on solid ground, once he had seen the dispositions, if not friendly, at least indifferent, of his hosts, all his preoccupation had disappeared, and, at the smell of the kid roasting at the neighboring bivouac, the preoccupation had changed into appetite.
He touched Gaetano on the matter of this new incident, who answered him that there was nothing simpler than a supper when one had, as they in their boat, bread, wine, six partridges, and a good fire to roast them.
"Besides," added he, "if Your Excellency finds the smell of this kid so tempting, I can go offer our neighbors two of our birds for a slice of their quadruped."
"Do so, Gaetano, do so," said Franz; "you are veritably born with the genius of negotiation."
During this time, the sailors had torn up armfuls of heather, made fagots of myrtle and holm-oak, to which they had put fire, which presented a fairly respectable hearth.
Franz was therefore waiting with impatience, ever sniffing the smell of the kid, for the return of the patron, when the latter reappeared and came to him with a very preoccupied air.
"Well," he asked, "what is new? do they reject our offer?"
"On the contrary," said Gaetano. "The chief, to whom it was said that you are a young Frenchman, invites you to sup with him."
"Well, but," said Franz, "that is a very civilized man, this chief, and I do not see why I should refuse; all the more since I bring my share of the supper."
"Oh! it is not that: he has enough and to spare to sup, but it is that he attaches to your presentation at his house a singular condition."
"At his house!" resumed the young man; "has he then had a house built?"
"No; but he has none the less a home of his own very comfortable, at least so it is said."
"You know this chief then?"
"I have heard him spoken of."
"Well or ill?"
"Both ways."
"The devil! And what is this condition?"
"It is that you allow yourself to be blindfolded and not remove your bandage until he himself invites you to."
Franz sounded as far as possible the look of Gaetano to know what this proposition concealed.
"Ah, indeed!" resumed the latter, answering Franz's thought, "I know well enough, the thing deserves reflection."
"What would you do in my place?" said the young man.
"I, who have nothing to lose, would go."
"You would accept?"
"Yes, were it only from curiosity."
"Is there then something curious to see at this chief's?"
"Listen," said Gaetano, lowering his voice, "I do not know if what is said is true—"
He stopped, looking if any stranger were listening.
"And what is said?"
"It is said that this chief inhabits a subterranean place beside which the Pitti Palace is but a small thing."
"What a dream!" said Franz, reseating himself.
"Oh! it is not a dream," continued the patron, "it is a reality! Cama, the pilot of the Saint-Ferdinand, went in there one day, and came out all astonished, saying there are no such treasures except in fairy tales."
"Come now! but, do you know," said Franz, "with such words you would make me descend into the cave of Ali Baba?"
"I tell you what I have been told, Excellency."
"Then, you advise me to accept?"
"Oh! I do not say that! Your Excellency will do as pleases you. I would not give you advice in such an occasion."
Franz reflected some instants, understood that this man so rich could not bear him ill will, he who carried only some few thousand francs; and, as he foresaw in all this only an excellent supper, he accepted. Gaetano went to carry his answer.
Meanwhile we have said, Franz was prudent; also he wished to have the most details possible about his strange and mysterious host. He turned therefore toward the sailor who, during this dialogue, had plucked the partridges with the gravity of a man proud of his functions, and asked him in what his men could have landed, since neither boats, nor speronaras, nor tartans were to be seen.
"I am not uneasy about that," said the sailor, "and I know the craft they sail."
"Is it a pretty craft?"
"I could wish Your Excellency one like it to go round the world."
"Of what burden is it?"
"Why, of about a hundred tons. It is, besides, a pleasure craft, a yacht, as the English say, but built, you see, in a way to keep the sea in all weathers."
"And where was it built?"
"I know not. Yet I believe it Genoese."
"And how does a chief of smugglers," continued Franz, "dare have a yacht built destined to his trade in the port of Genoa?"
"I did not say," said the sailor, "that the owner of this yacht was a smuggler."
"No; but Gaetano said so, it seems to me."
"Gaetano had seen the crew from afar, but had not yet spoken to any one."
"But if this man is not a chief of smugglers, what is he then?"
"A rich gentleman who travels for his pleasure."
"Come," thought Franz, "the personage is only the more mysterious, since the versions differ."
"And what is he called?"
"When one asks him, he answers that he is named Sindbad the Sailor. But I doubt that being his true name."
"Sindbad the Sailor?"
"Yes."
"And where does this gentleman live?"
"On the sea."
"Of what country is he?"
"I know not."
"Have you seen him?"
"Sometimes."
"What sort of man is he?"
"Your Excellency will judge for yourself."
"And where is he going to receive me?"
"Doubtless in that subterranean palace of which Gaetano spoke to you."
"And you have never had the curiosity, when you touched here and found the island deserted, to try to penetrate into this enchanted palace?"
"Oh! indeed, Excellency," replied the sailor, "and more than once even; but always our researches were useless. We have searched the grotto on all sides and have not found the smallest passage. Besides, it is said the door opens not with a key, but with a magic word."
"Come," murmured Franz, "decidedly I am embarked in a tale of the Thousand and One Nights."
"His Excellency awaits you," said behind him a voice he recognized for that of the sentinel. The newcomer was accompanied by two men of the yacht's crew. For all answer, Franz drew his handkerchief and presented it to him who had addressed him.
Without saying a single word, they bandaged his eyes with a care that indicated the fear he might commit some indiscretion; after which they made him swear he would in no way attempt to remove his bandage.
He swore. Then the two men took him each by an arm, and he walked guided by them and preceded by the sentinel. After some thirty paces, he felt, by the increasingly appetizing smell of the kid, that he was passing before the bivouac; then they made him continue his route for some fifty paces more, evidently advancing in the direction where they had not wished to let Gaetano penetrate: a prohibition which was now explained. Soon, at the change of atmosphere, he understood that he was entering a subterranean passage; at the end of some seconds of walking, he heard a creaking, and it seemed to him the atmosphere changed again in nature and became warm and perfumed; at length, he felt his feet rest on a thick and downy carpet; his guides abandoned him. There was an instant of silence, and a voice said in good French, though with a foreign accent:
"You are welcome in my house, sir, and you may remove your handkerchief."
As may be supposed, Franz did not have this invitation repeated twice; he lifted his handkerchief, and found himself face to face with a man of thirty-eight to forty years, wearing a Tunisian costume, that is to say a red cap with a long tassel of blue silk, a jacket of black cloth all embroidered with gold, trousers of ox-blood red wide and full, gaiters of the same color embroidered with gold like the jacket, and yellow babouches; a magnificent cashmere girded his waist, and a small aigu and curved cangiar was passed through this belt.
Though of an almost livid paleness, this man had a remarkably handsome face; his eyes were lively and piercing; his nose straight, and almost on a level with the brow, indicated the Greek type in all its purity, and his teeth, white as pearls, stood out admirably beneath the black mustache that framed them.
Only this paleness was strange; one would have said a man shut up a long time in a tomb, and who could not regain the complexion of the living.
Without being of great stature, he was well made for the rest, and, like the men of the South, had small hands and feet.
But what astonished Franz, who had treated Gaetano's account as a dream, was the sumptuousness of the furniture.
The whole room was hung with Turkish stuffs of crimson color and brocaded with flowers of gold. In a recess was a kind of divan surmounted by a trophy of Arab arms with sheaths of vermeil and handles resplendent with precious stones; from the ceiling hung a lamp of Venetian glass, of charming form and color, and the feet rested on a Turkey carpet into which they sank to the ankle: portières hung before the door by which Franz had entered, and before another door giving passage into a second chamber which appeared splendidly lighted.
The host left Franz for an instant to his surprise, and moreover he returned look for look, and did not take his eyes off him.
"Sir," said he to him at length, "a thousand pardons for the precautions that have been required of you to introduce you into my house: but, as most of the time this island is deserted, if the secret of this dwelling were known, I should doubtless find, on my return, my pied-à-terre in rather bad condition, which would be very disagreeable to me, not for the loss it would cause me, but because I should not have the certainty of being able, when I wish, to separate myself from the rest of the earth. Now, I shall try to make you forget this little disagreeableness, by offering you what you certainly did not hope to find here, that is to say a passable supper and fairly good beds."
"Faith, my dear host," replied Franz, "you need not excuse yourself for that. I have always seen that they bandaged the eyes of those who penetrated into enchanted palaces: see rather Raoul in the Huguenots; and truly I have no cause to complain, for what you show me is in continuation of the wonders of the Thousand and One Nights."
"Alas! I shall say to you as Lucullus: Had I known the honor of your visit, I should have prepared for it. But after all, such as my hermitage is, I place it at your disposal; such as it is, my supper is offered you. Ali, are we served?"
Almost at the same instant, the portière was lifted, and a Nubian Negro, black as ebony and clad in a simple white tunic, made sign to his master that he might pass into the dining-room.
"Now," said the unknown to Franz, "I know not if you are of my opinion, but I find that nothing is so embarrassing as to remain two or three hours tête-à-tête without knowing by what name or title to call one another. Observe that I respect too much the laws of hospitality to ask you either your name or your title; I beg you only to designate me by some appellation, by means of which I may address you. As for me, to put you at ease I shall tell you that one is in the habit of calling me Sindbad the Sailor."
"And I," resumed Franz, "shall tell you that, as I lack, to be in the situation of Aladdin, only the famous wonderful lamp, I see no difficulty in your calling me, for the moment, Aladdin. That does not take us out of the Orient, where I am tempted to believe I have been transported by the power of some good genius."
"Well, Lord Aladdin," said the strange Amphitryon, "you have heard that we are served, have you not? then be so good as to enter the dining-room; your very humble servant passes before you to show the way."
And at these words, lifting the portière, Sindbad indeed passed before Franz.
Franz walked from enchantment to enchantment; the table was splendidly served. Once convinced of this important point, he carried his eyes around him. The dining-room was no less splendid than the boudoir he had just left; it was all of marble, with antique bas-reliefs of the greatest value, and at the two extremities of this oblong room, two magnificent statues bore baskets on their heads. These baskets contained two pyramids of magnificent fruit; there were Sicilian pineapples, Malaga pomegranates, Balearic oranges, French peaches, and Tunisian dates.
As for the supper, it consisted of a roasted pheasant surrounded by Corsican blackbirds, a boar's ham in jelly, a quarter of kid à la tartare, a magnificent turbot, and a gigantic langouste. The intervals of the large dishes were filled by small dishes containing the side-dishes.
The dishes were of silver, the plates of Japan porcelain.
Franz rubbed his eyes to assure himself he was not dreaming.
Ali alone was admitted to do the service and acquitted himself very well. The guest complimented his host thereupon.
"Yes," resumed the latter, doing the honors of his supper with the greatest ease, "yes, he is a poor devil very devoted to me and who does his best. He remembers that I saved his life, and as he was attached to his head, it appears, he has kept me some gratitude for having preserved it to him."
Ali approached his master, took his hand and kissed it.
"And would it be too indiscreet, Lord Sindbad," said Franz, "to ask you in what circumstance you performed this fine action?"
"Oh! my God, it is very simple," answered the host. "The rogue appears to have prowled nearer the seraglio of the Bey of Tunis than was fitting for a fellow of his color; so that he had been condemned by the Bey to have tongue, hand, and head cut off: the tongue the first day, the hand the second, and the head the third. I had always had a mind to have a mute in my service; I waited until he had his tongue cut, and went to propose to the Bey to give him to me for a magnificent double-barreled gun which, the evening before, had seemed to awaken the desires of His Highness. He hesitated an instant, so attached was he to finishing with the poor devil. But I added to this gun an English hunting-knife with which I had hacked the yataghan of His Highness; so that the Bey decided to grant him pardon of hand and head, but on condition he should never set foot in Tunis again. The recommendation was useless. As soon as the miscreant perceives the coasts of Africa, he hides in the hold, and one cannot get him out of there until one is out of sight of the third part of the world."
Franz remained a moment mute and thoughtful, seeking what he ought to think of the cruel good-nature with which his host had just related this tale to him.
"And, like the honorable sailor whose name you have taken," said he, changing the conversation, "you pass your life in traveling?"
"Yes; it is a vow I made at a time when I little thought I could accomplish it," said the unknown, smiling. "I have made some like that, and which, I hope, will all be accomplished in their turn."
Though Sindbad had pronounced these words with the greatest coolness, his eyes had flashed a strange look of ferocity.
"You have suffered much, sir?" said Franz to him.
Sindbad started and looked at him fixedly.
"How do you see that?" he asked.
"By everything," resumed Franz: "by your voice, by your look, by your paleness, and by the very life you lead."
"I! I lead the happiest life I know, a veritable pasha's life; I am king of creation: I stay in a place if it pleases me, I leave if I am bored; I am free as the bird, I have wings like him; the people about me obey me at a sign. From time to time, I amuse myself by mocking human justice in taking from it a bandit it seeks, a criminal it pursues. Then I have my own justice, low and high, without reprieve and without appeal, which condemns or absolves, and to which no one has anything to say. Ah! if you had tasted my life, you would wish no other, and you would never re-enter the world, unless you had some great project to accomplish there."
"A vengeance! for example," said Franz.
The unknown fixed on the young man one of those looks that plunge to the bottom of the heart and of the thought.
"And why a vengeance?" he asked.
"Because," resumed Franz, "you have all the air of a man who, persecuted by society, has a terrible account to settle with it."
"Well," said Sindbad, laughing his strange laugh, which showed his white and sharp teeth, "you are not there; such as you see me, I am a sort of philanthropist, and perhaps one day I shall go to Paris to rival M. Appert and the Man with the Little Blue Coat."
"And will this be the first time you make that journey?"
"Oh! my God, yes. I seem little curious, do I not? but I assure you it is not my fault if I have delayed so long, that will come one day or another!"
"And do you count on making this journey soon?"
"I know not yet, it depends on circumstances subject to uncertain combinations."
"I should like to be there at the time you come, I should try to return you, as far as in my power, the hospitality you so largely give me at Monte-Cristo."
"I should accept your offer with great pleasure," resumed the host; "but unfortunately, if I go there, it may be incognito."
Meanwhile, the supper advanced and appeared to have been served solely for Franz, for the unknown had scarce touched with the tip of his teeth one or two dishes of the splendid feast he had offered him, and to which his unexpected guest had done such ample honor.
At length, Ali brought the dessert, or rather took the baskets from the hands of the statues and placed them on the table.
Between the two baskets, he placed a small vermeil cup closed by a cover of the same metal.
The respect with which Ali had brought this cup piqued Franz's curiosity. He lifted the cover and saw a kind of green paste that resembled angelica preserves, but which was perfectly unknown to him.
He replaced the cover, as ignorant of what the cup contained after replacing the cover as before lifting it, and, bringing his eyes back to his host, he saw him smile at his disappointment.
"You cannot guess," said the latter to him, "what sort of comestible this little vase contains, and that intrigues you, does it not?"
"I confess it."
"Well, this sort of green preserve is none other than the ambrosia that Hebe served at the table of Jupiter."
"But this ambrosia," said Franz, "has doubtless, in passing through the hands of men, lost its celestial name to take a human one; in vulgar tongue, how is this ingredient called, for which, moreover, I feel no great sympathy?"
"Eh! that is just what reveals our material origin," cried Sindbad; "often we thus pass by happiness without seeing it, without looking at it, or, if we have seen and looked at it, without recognizing it. Are you a positive man and is gold your god, taste of this, and the mines of Peru, of Guzarate, and of Golconda will be opened to you. Are you a man of imagination, are you a poet, taste again of this, and the barriers of the possible will disappear; the fields of the infinite will open, you will walk, free of heart, free of spirit, in the boundless domain of reverie. Are you ambitious, do you run after the grandeurs of earth, taste ever of this, and in an hour you will be a king, not king of a little kingdom hidden in a corner of Europe, like France, Spain, or England, but king of the world, king of the universe, king of creation. Your throne will be raised on the mountain where Satan bore away Jesus; and, without needing to do him homage, without being forced to kiss his claw, you will be the sovereign master of all the kingdoms of the earth. Is it not tempting, what I offer you there—say, and is it not a very easy thing since there is only that to do? Look."
At these words, he in his turn uncovered the small vermeil cup which contained the much-praised substance, took a teaspoon of the magic preserves, carried it to his mouth, and savored it slowly, his eyes half shut, and his head thrown back.
Franz left him all the time to absorb his favorite meat, then, when he saw him a little recovered:
"But after all," said he, "what is this so precious meat?"
"Have you heard speak of the Old Man of the Mountain," his host asked him, "the same who would have had Philip Augustus assassinated?"
"Doubtless."
"Well, you know that he reigned over a rich valley that commanded the mountain from which he had taken his picturesque name. In that valley were magnificent gardens planted by Hassen-ben-Sabah, and, in those gardens, isolated pavilions. It was in those pavilions that he had his elect enter, and there he made them eat, says Marco Polo, a certain herb that transported them into paradise, amid ever-blooming plants, ever-ripe fruits, ever-virgin women. Now, what these blessed young men took for reality, was a dream; but a dream so sweet, so intoxicating, so voluptuous, that they sold themselves body and soul to him who had given it them, and that, obeying his orders as those of God, they went to strike at the end of the world the indicated victim, dying under tortures without complaining at the sole idea that the death they underwent was but a transition to that life of delights of which this holy herb, served before you, had given them a foretaste."
"Then," cried Franz, "it is hashish! Yes, I know that, at least by name."
"Exactly, you have said the word, Lord Aladdin, it is hashish, the best and purest hashish made at Alexandria, the hashish of Abougor, the great maker, the unique man, the man to whom one should build a palace with this inscription: 'To the merchant of happiness, the grateful world.'"
"Do you know," said Franz to him, "that I have a great mind to judge by myself of the truth or the exaggeration of your praises?"
"Judge by yourself, my host, judge; but do not stop at a first experience: as in everything, the senses must be accustomed to a new impression, sweet or violent, sad or joyous. There is a struggle of nature against this divine substance, of nature which is not made for joy and which clings to sorrow. Nature must be conquered and succumb in the combat, reality must succeed to the dream; and then the dream reigns as master, then it is the dream which becomes life and life which becomes the dream: but what a difference in this transfiguration! that is to say, that in comparing the sorrows of real existence to the enjoyments of factitious existence, you will never wish to live again, and you will wish to dream always. When you quit your own world for the world of others, it will seem to you to pass from a Neapolitan spring to a Lapland winter, it will seem to you to leave paradise for earth, heaven for hell. Taste of the hashish, my host! taste of it!"
For all answer, Franz took a spoonful of this wonderful paste, measured on that which his Amphitryon had taken, and carried it to his mouth.
"The devil!" said he, after swallowing these divine preserves, "I know not yet if the result will be as agreeable as you say, but the thing does not seem to me so succulent as you affirm."
"Because the palate of your mouth is not yet made to the sublimity of the substance it tastes. Tell me: did you love oysters, tea, porter, truffles, all things you have adored since, the first time? Do you understand the Romans, who seasoned pheasants with assafoetida, and the Chinese, who eat swallows' nests? Eh! my God, no. Well, it is the same with hashish: eat of it only eight days running, no nourishment in the world will seem to you to attain the fineness of this taste which perhaps seems to you today flat and nauseous. Besides, let us pass into the next room, that is to say into your chamber, and Ali will serve us coffee and give us pipes."
Both rose, and, while he who had given himself the name of Sindbad, and whom we have thus named from time to time, so as to be able, like his guest, to give him some denomination, was giving some orders to his servant, Franz entered the adjoining chamber.
This one was of simpler furniture though no less rich. It was round in form, and a large divan made all its circuit. But divan, walls, ceiling, and floor were all hung with magnificent skins, soft and downy as the downiest carpets; they were skins of Atlas lions with powerful manes; they were skins of Bengal tigers with warm stripes, skins of Cape panthers spotted gaily as she who appears to Dante, finally skins of Siberian bears, of Norwegian foxes, and all these skins were thrown in profusion one upon the other, so that one would have thought to walk on the thickest turf and rest on the silkiest bed.
Both lay down on the divan, chibouques with jasmine tubes and amber mouthpieces were within reach of the hand, and all prepared so that one need not smoke twice in the same. They took one each. Ali lit them, and went out to fetch the coffee.
There was a moment of silence, during which Sindbad abandoned himself to the thoughts that seemed ever to occupy him, even in the midst of his conversation, and Franz gave himself up to that mute reverie into which one almost always falls in smoking excellent tobacco, which seems to carry away with the smoke all the cares of the mind and give back to the smoker all the dreams of the soul.
Ali brought the coffee.
"How will you take it?" said the unknown: "French or Turkish, strong or light, sweetened or not, filtered or boiled? at your choice: there is some prepared in all ways."
"I will take it Turkish," answered Franz.
"And you are right," cried his host, "that proves you have dispositions for Oriental life. Ah! the Orientals, you see, are the only men who know how to live! As for me," added he with one of those singular smiles that did not escape the young man, "when I have finished my affairs at Paris, I shall go to die in the Orient, and if you would find me then, you must come seek me at Cairo, at Bagdad, or at Ispahan."
"Faith," said Franz, "that would be the easiest thing in the world, for I think there are growing on me eagle's wings, and, with those wings, I should make the tour of the world in twenty-four hours."
"Ah! ah! it is the hashish that operates, well! open your wings and fly into the superhuman regions; fear nothing, we watch over you, and if, like those of Icarus, your wings melt in the sun, we are here to receive you."
Then he said a few words in Arabic to Ali, who made a gesture of obedience and withdrew, but without going far.
As for Franz, a strange transformation was operating in him. All the physical fatigue of the day, all the preoccupation of mind that the events of the evening had caused, disappeared like in that first moment of repose when one still sees enough to feel sleep coming. His body seemed to acquire an immaterial lightness, his spirit cleared in an unheard-of manner, his senses seemed to double their faculties; the horizon kept ever widening, but no longer that dark horizon over which hovered a vague terror and which he had seen before his sleep, but a blue, transparent, vast horizon, with all the azure the sea has, with all the sparkles the sun has, with all the perfumes the breeze has; then, amid the songs of his sailors, songs so limpid and so clear that one would have made a divine harmony of them could one have noted them, he saw appear the island of Monte-Cristo, no longer like a threatening reef on the waves, but like an oasis lost in the desert; then as the boat approached, the songs became more numerous, for an enchanting and mysterious harmony rose from this island to God, as if some fairy, like Loreley, or some enchanter, like Amphion, had wished to attract a soul thither or build a city there.
At length the boat touched the shore, but without effort, without shock, as the lips touch the lips, and he re-entered the grotto without that charming music ceasing. He descended or rather it seemed to him he descended some steps, breathing that fresh and balmy air like that which must reign around the cave of Circe, made of such perfumes that they make the spirit dream, of such ardor that they make the senses burn, and he saw again all he had seen before his sleep, from Sindbad, the fantastic host, to Ali, the mute servant; then all seemed to fade and confound itself before his eyes, like the last shadows of a magic lantern that one extinguishes, and he found himself again in the chamber of statues, lighted only by one of those antique and pale lamps that watch in the midst of night over sleep or voluptuousness.
They were indeed the same statues rich in form, in luxury, and in poetry, with magnetic eyes, lascivious smiles, opulent hair. It was Phryne, Cleopatra, Messalina, those three great courtesans: then amid these impudent shadows glided, like a pure ray, like a Christian angel amid Olympus, one of those chaste figures, one of those calm shadows, one of those sweet visions who seemed to veil her virginal brow under all those impurities of marble.
Then it seemed to him that these three statues had united their three loves for a single man, and that this man was himself, that they approached the bed where he dreamed a second sleep, their feet lost in their long white tunics, the breast bare, the hair unrolling like a wave, with one of those poses to which the gods succumbed, but which the saints resisted, with one of those looks inflexible and ardent like that of the serpent on the bird, and that he abandoned himself to those painful looks like an embrace, voluptuous like a kiss.
It seemed to Franz that he closed his eyes, and that through the last look he cast around him he glimpsed the modest statue who veiled herself entirely; then his eyes closed to real things, his senses opened to impossible impressions.
Then it was a voluptuousness without truce, a love without rest, like that which the Prophet promised his elect. Then all those stone mouths became living, all those breasts became warm, to the point that for Franz, undergoing for the first time the empire of hashish, that love was almost a pain, that voluptuousness almost a torture, when he felt pass over his thirsty mouth the lips of those statues, supple and cold as the rings of a couleuvre; but the more his arms tried to repulse this unknown love, the more his senses underwent the charm of this mysterious dream, so well that after a struggle for which one would have given one's soul, he abandoned himself without reserve and ended by falling back panting, burned with fatigue, exhausted with voluptuousness, under the kisses of those marble mistresses and under the enchantments of that unheard-of dream.
