a perfectly calm tone; "and this costume--a ball costume,
doubtless--becomes her admirably."
"Ah, monsieur," returned Albert, "I would never forgive you this mistake
if you had seen another picture beside this. You do not know my mother;
she it is whom you see here. She had her portrait painted thus six
or eight years ago. This costume is a fancy one, it appears, and the
resemblance is so great that I think I still see my mother the same
as she was in 1830. The countess had this portrait painted during
the count's absence. She doubtless intended giving him an agreeable
surprise; but, strange to say, this portrait seemed to displease my
father, and the value of the picture, which is, as you see, one of the
best works of Leopold Robert, could not overcome his dislike to it.
It is true, between ourselves, that M. de Morcerf is one of the most
assiduous peers at the Luxembourg, a general renowned for theory, but a
most mediocre amateur of art. It is different with my mother, who paints
exceedingly well, and who, unwilling to part with so valuable a picture,
gave it to me to put here, where it would be less likely to displease
M. de Morcerf, whose portrait, by Gros, I will also show you. Excuse my
talking of family matters, but as I shall have the honor of introducing
you to the count, I tell you this to prevent you making any allusions
to this picture. The picture seems to have a malign influence, for my
mother rarely comes here without looking at it, and still more rarely
does she look at it without weeping. This disagreement is the only one
that has ever taken place between the count and countess, who are still
as much united, although married more than twenty years, as on the first
day of their wedding."
Monte Cristo glanced rapidly at Albert, as if to seek a hidden meaning
in his words, but it was evident the young man uttered them in the
simplicity of his heart. "Now," said Albert, "that you have seen all my
treasures, allow me to offer them to you, unworthy as they are. Consider
yourself as in your own house, and to put yourself still more at your
ease, pray accompany me to the apartments of M. de Morcerf, he whom I
wrote from Rome an account of the services you rendered me, and to whom
I announced your promised visit, and I may say that both the count and
countess anxiously desire to thank you in person. You are somewhat blase
I know, and family scenes have not much effect on Sinbad the Sailor,
who has seen so many others. However, accept what I propose to you as
an initiation into Parisian life--a life of politeness, visiting,
and introductions." Monte Cristo bowed without making any answer; he
accepted the offer without enthusiasm and without regret, as one of
those conventions of society which every gentleman looks upon as a duty.
Albert summoned his servant, and ordered him to acquaint M. and Madame
de Morcerf of the arrival of the Count of Monte Cristo. Albert followed
him with the count. When they arrived at the ante-chamber, above the
door was visible a shield, which, by its rich ornaments and its harmony
with the rest of the furniture, indicated the importance the owner
attached to this blazon. Monte Cristo stopped and examined it
attentively.
"Azure seven merlets, or, placed bender," said he. "These are,
doubtless, your family arms? Except the knowledge of blazons, that
enables me to decipher them, I am very ignorant of heraldry--I, a count
of a fresh creation, fabricated in Tuscany by the aid of a commandery
of St. Stephen, and who would not have taken the trouble had I not been
told that when you travel much it is necessary. Besides, you must have
something on the panels of your carriage, to escape being searched by
the custom-house officers. Excuse my putting such a question to you."
"It is not indiscreet," returned Morcerf, with the simplicity of
conviction. "You have guessed rightly. These are our arms, that is,
those of my father, but they are, as you see, joined to another shield,
which has gules, a silver tower, which are my mother's. By her side I am
Spanish, but the family of Morcerf is French, and, I have heard, one of
the oldest of the south of France."
"Yes," replied Monte Cristo "these blazons prove that. Almost all the
armed pilgrims that went to the Holy Land took for their arms either a
cross, in honor of their mission, or birds of passage, in sign of
the long voyage they were about to undertake, and which they hoped to
accomplish on the wings of faith. One of your ancestors had joined the
Crusades, and supposing it to be only that of St. Louis, that makes you
mount to the thirteenth century, which is tolerably ancient."
"It is possible," said Morcerf; "my father has in his study a
genealogical tree which will tell you all that, and on which I made
commentaries that would have greatly edified Hozier and Jaucourt. At
present I no longer think of it, and yet I must tell you that we are
beginning to occupy ourselves greatly with these things under our
popular government."
"Well, then, your government would do well to choose from the past
something better than the things that I have noticed on your monuments,
and which have no heraldic meaning whatever. As for you, viscount,"
continued Monte Cristo to Morcerf, "you are more fortunate than the
government, for your arms are really beautiful, and speak to the
imagination. Yes, you are at once from Provence and Spain; that
explains, if the portrait you showed me be like, the dark hue I so much
admired on the visage of the noble Catalan." It would have required the
penetration of Oedipus or the Sphinx to have divined the irony the count
concealed beneath these words, apparently uttered with the greatest
politeness. Morcerf thanked him with a smile, and pushed open the door
above which were his arms, and which, as we have said, opened into the
salon. In the most conspicuous part of the salon was another portrait.
It was that of a man, from five to eight and thirty, in the uniform of
a general officer, wearing the double epaulet of heavy bullion, that
indicates superior rank, the ribbon of the Legion of Honor around his
neck, which showed he was a commander, and on the right breast, the star
of a grand officer of the order of the Saviour, and on the left that
of the grand cross of Charles III., which proved that the person
represented by the picture had served in the wars of Greece and Spain,
or, what was just the same thing as regarded decorations, had fulfilled
some diplomatic mission in the two countries.
Monte Cristo was engaged in examining this portrait with no less care
than he had bestowed upon the other, when another door opened, and he
found himself opposite to the Count of Morcerf in person. He was a man
of forty to forty-five years, but he seemed at least fifty, and his
black mustache and eyebrows contrasted strangely with his almost white
hair, which was cut short, in the military fashion. He was dressed in
plain clothes, and wore at his button-hole the ribbons of the different
orders to which he belonged. He entered with a tolerably dignified step,
and some little haste. Monte Cristo saw him advance towards him without
making a single step. It seemed as if his feet were rooted to the
ground, and his eyes on the Count of Morcerf. "Father," said the young
man, "I have the honor of presenting to you the Count of Monte Cristo,
the generous friend whom I had the good fortune to meet in the critical
situation of which I have told you."
"You are most welcome, monsieur," said the Count of Morcerf, saluting
Monte Cristo with a smile, "and monsieur has rendered our house, in
preserving its only heir, a service which insures him our eternal
gratitude." As he said these words, the count of Morcerf pointed to a
chair, while he seated himself in another opposite the window.
Monte Cristo, in taking the seat Morcerf offered him, placed himself in
such a manner as to remain concealed in the shadow of the large velvet
curtains, and read on the careworn and livid features of the count a
whole history of secret griefs written in each wrinkle time had planted
there. "The countess," said Morcerf, "was at her toilet when she was
informed of the visit she was about to receive. She will, however, be in
the salon in ten minutes."
"It is a great honor to me," returned Monte Cristo, "to be thus, on the
first day of my arrival in Paris, brought in contact with a man whose
merit equals his reputation, and to whom fortune has for once been
equitable, but has she not still on the plains of Metidja, or in the
mountains of Atlas, a marshal's staff to offer you?"
"Oh," replied Morcerf, reddening slightly, "I have left the service,
monsieur. Made a peer at the Restoration, I served through the first
campaign under the orders of Marshal Bourmont. I could, therefore,
expect a higher rank, and who knows what might have happened had the
elder branch remained on the throne? But the Revolution of July was, it
seems, sufficiently glorious to allow itself to be ungrateful, and it
was so for all services that did not date from the imperial period. I
tendered my resignation, for when you have gained your epaulets on the
battle-field, you do not know how to manoeuvre on the slippery grounds
of the salons. I have hung up my sword, and cast myself into politics.
I have devoted myself to industry; I study the useful arts. During the
twenty years I served, I often wished to do so, but I had not the time."
"These are the ideas that render your nation superior to any other,"
returned Monte Cristo. "A gentleman of high birth, possessor of an
ample fortune, you have consented to gain your promotion as an obscure
soldier, step by step--this is uncommon; then become general, peer of
France, commander of the Legion of Honor, you consent to again commence
a second apprenticeship, without any other hope or any other desire than
that of one day becoming useful to your fellow-creatures; this, indeed,
is praiseworthy,--nay, more, it is sublime." Albert looked on and
listened with astonishment; he was not used to see Monte Cristo give
vent to such bursts of enthusiasm. "Alas," continued the stranger,
doubtless to dispel the slight cloud that covered Morcerf's brow, "we
do not act thus in Italy; we grow according to our race and our species,
and we pursue the same lines, and often the same uselessness, all our
lives."
"But, monsieur," said the Count of Morcerf, "for a man of your merit,
Italy is not a country, and France opens her arms to receive you;
respond to her call. France will not, perhaps, be always ungrateful. She
treats her children ill, but she always welcomes strangers."
"Ah, father," said Albert with a smile, "it is evident you do not know
the Count of Monte Cristo; he despises all honors, and contents himself
with those written on his passport."
"That is the most just remark," replied the stranger, "I ever heard made
concerning myself."
"You have been free to choose your career," observed the Count of
Morcerf, with a sigh; "and you have chosen the path strewed with
flowers."
"Precisely, monsieur," replied Monte Cristo with one of those smiles
that a painter could never represent or a physiologist analyze.
"If I did not fear to fatigue you," said the general, evidently charmed
with the count's manners, "I would have taken you to the Chamber;
there is a debate very curious to those who are strangers to our modern
senators."
"I shall be most grateful, monsieur, if you will, at some future time,
renew your offer, but I have been flattered with the hope of being
introduced to the countess, and I will therefore wait."
"Ah, here is my mother," cried the viscount. Monte Cristo, turned round
hastily, and saw Madame de Morcerf at the entrance of the salon, at
the door opposite to that by which her husband had entered, pale and
motionless; when Monte Cristo turned round, she let fall her arm, which
for some unknown reason had been resting on the gilded door-post.
She had been there some moments, and had heard the last words of the
visitor. The latter rose and bowed to the countess, who inclined herself
without speaking. "Ah, good heavens, madame," said the count, "are you
ill, or is it the heat of the room that affects you?"
"Are you ill, mother?" cried the viscount, springing towards her.
She thanked them both with a smile. "No," returned she, "but I feel
some emotion on seeing, for the first time, the man without whose
intervention we should have been in tears and desolation. Monsieur,"
continued the countess, advancing with the majesty of a queen, "I owe to
you the life of my son, and for this I bless you. Now, I thank you
for the pleasure you give me in thus affording me the opportunity of
thanking you as I have blessed you, from the bottom of my heart."
The count bowed again, but lower than before; He was even paler than
Mercedes. "Madame," said he, "the count and yourself recompense too
generously a simple action. To save a man, to spare a father's feelings,
or a mother's sensibility, is not to do a good action, but a simple deed
of humanity." At these words, uttered with the most exquisite sweetness
and politeness, Madame de Morcerf replied. "It is very fortunate for my
son, monsieur, that he found such a friend, and I thank God that things
are thus." And Mercedes raised her fine eyes to heaven with so fervent
an expression of gratitude, that the count fancied he saw tears in them.
M. de Morcerf approached her. "Madame," said he. "I have already made my
excuses to the count for quitting him, and I pray you to do so also. The
sitting commences at two; it is now three, and I am to speak."
