‘I don’t know where he comes from, but I can tell you where he is going: to hell, for certain.’
‘So what is the promise that you want to demand of me, countess?’
‘It is to go directly back to your hotel and not to try to see that man this evening. There are certain affinities between the people that one meets and those one has just left: don’t serve as a conductor between that man and me. Go after him tomorrow if you wish, but never introduce him to me, unless you want me to die of fright. And now, good-night; try to sleep. I for my part know one person who will not.’
With these words, she took her farewell of Franz, leaving him uncertain whether she had been enjoying a joke at his expense or if she had really felt as afraid as she claimed.
On returning to the hotel, he found Albert wearing his dressing-gown and pantaloons, contentedly lounging in an armchair and smoking a cigar.
‘Oh, it’s you!’ he said. ‘I swear, I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow.’
‘My dear Albert,’ Franz replied, ‘I am pleased to have this opportunity to tell you once and for all that you have the most erroneous notions about Italian women – though I should have thought that your disappointments in love would have made you relinquish them by now.’
‘What do you expect! It’s impossible to understand the confounded creatures! They give you their hand, they press yours, they whisper to you, they allow you to accompany them home… With only a quarter of all this, a Parisian woman’s reputation would be in tatters.’
‘Precisely! It’s because they have nothing to hide and because they live their lives under the midday sun that women are so easygoing in the lovely land that rings to the sound of si, as Dante put it. In any case, you could see that the countess was really afraid.’
‘Afraid of what? Of that respectable gentleman sitting opposite us with the pretty Greek woman? I wanted to put my mind at rest when they left, so I crossed them in the corridor. He’s a handsome young man, well turned out, who looks as if he dresses in France at Blin’s or Humann’s; a little pale, admittedly, but of course pallor is a mark of distinction.’
Franz smiled. Albert had pretensions to looking pale.
‘I am convinced,’ Franz said, ‘that there is no sense in the countess’s ideas about him. Did he say anything in your hearing?’
‘He did speak, but in Romaic. I recognized the language from some corrupted words of Greek. I must tell you, my dear fellow, that I was very good at Greek when I was at school.’
‘So he spoke Romaic?’
‘Probably.’
‘There’s no doubt; it’s him.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. So what were you doing here?’
‘Preparing a surprise for you!’
‘What surprise?’
‘You know it’s impossible to get a carriage?’
‘Good Lord! We’ve done everything humanly possible, but in vain.’
‘Well, I’ve had a wonderful idea.’
Franz gave Albert the look of someone who did not have much confidence in his ideas.
‘My good fellow,’ said Albert, ‘you have just favoured me with a look which will oblige me to demand satisfaction.’
‘I am ready to give it to you, my dear friend, if your idea is as ingenious as you claim.’
‘Listen.’
‘I am listening.’
‘There is no means of obtaining a carriage, is there?’
‘None.’
‘Or horses?’
‘Or horses.’
‘But we could get a cart?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘And a pair of oxen?’
‘Probably.’
‘Well, then! That’s what we need. I will have the cart decorated, we can dress up as Neapolitan farmworkers and we will be a living representation of the splendid painting by Léopold Robert. If, for the sake of still greater authenticity, the countess wishes to put on the costume of a woman of Puzzoli or Sorrento, this will complete the tableau; and she is beautiful enough to represent the original of the Woman With Child.’
‘Why!’ Franz exclaimed. ‘This time you’re right, Monsieur Albert: this is a really inspired idea.’
‘And altogether French, coming direct from the Do-Nothing Kings,5 precisely that! Ah, you Romans! Did you think we would run around your streets on foot like lazzaroni, just because you have a shortage of horses and carriages? Not a bit of it! We’ll think something up!’
‘Have you told anyone of this brilliant scheme yet?’
‘Our host. When I got back I called him up and told him what we would need. He assured me that nothing could be simpler. I wanted to have gold leaf put on the horns of the oxen, but he said it would take three days, so we’ll have to do without that detail.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Who?’
‘Our host.’
‘Looking for the cart. Tomorrow may be too late.’
‘So you are expecting his reply this evening?’
‘At any moment.’
On this, the door opened and Signor Pastrini put his head round.
‘Permesso?’ he said.
‘Most certainly it’s permitted,’ said Franz.
‘Tell me then,’ said Albert. ‘Have you found us the oxen we asked for and the cart that we need?’
‘I have found better than that,’ came the self-satisfied reply.
‘Beware, my dear Signor Pastrini!’ said Albert. ‘The better is the enemy of the good.’
‘Let Your Excellencies trust in me,’ said Signor Pastrini, speaking with the voice of competence.
‘So what do you have?’ asked Franz.
‘You know that the Count of Monte Cristo is staying on the same floor as you?’
‘We most certainly do know it,’ said Albert. ‘It’s thanks to him that we are housed like two students in the Rue Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet.’
‘Very well. But he knows of your difficulty and has required me to offer you two places in his carriage and two places at his windows in the Palazzo Rospoli.’
Albert and Franz looked at one another. Albert said: ‘Should we accept this offer from a stranger, someone we don’t know?’
‘What kind of man is this Count of Monte Cristo?’ Franz asked the innkeeper.
‘A very important Sicilian or Maltese gentleman, I am not quite sure which, but as aristocratic as a Borghese and as rich as a goldmine.’
‘It strikes me,’ Franz said, ‘that if this man was as well-mannered as our host says, he would have found some other way to deliver his invitation, in writing, or…’
At that moment there was a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ said Franz.
A servant, dressed in perfectly elegant livery, appeared at the door of the room.
‘From the Count of Monte Cristo, to Monsieur Franz d’Epinay and Monsieur le Vicomte Albert de Morcerf,’ he said; and handed two cards to the innkeeper which the latter passed on to the two men.
‘As their neighbour, Monsieur le Comte de Monte Cristo,’ the servant continued, ‘asks permission of these gentlemen to visit them tomorrow morning. He begs the gentlemen to be so good as to tell him at what hour they will be able to receive him.’
‘The deuce!’ Albert exclaimed to Franz. ‘There’s nothing more to be said.’
‘Please inform the count,’ Franz replied, ‘that it is we who shall have the honour to visit him.’
The servant went out.
‘This is what you might call overwhelming us with courtesies,’ said Albert. ‘You are quite clearly right, Signor Pastrini: this Count of Monte Cristo of yours is a perfect gentleman.’
‘So you will accept his offer?’
‘Good heavens, yes,’ said Albert. ‘Though I must admit that I rather regret our peasants on the cart. And if there was not the window in the Palazzo Rospoli to make up for what we shall be losing, I should keep to my original idea. What do you say, Franz?’
‘I too say that the w
indows in the Palazzo Rospoli have made up my mind for me,’ he replied.
This offer of two places at a window in the Palazzo Rospoli had reminded Franz of the conversation which he had heard in the ruins of the Colosseum between the stranger and the man from Trastevere, in the course of which the man with the cloak had promised to win a pardon for the condemned prisoner. If, as everything led Franz to believe, the man in the cloak was the same whose appearance in the Sala Argentina had so greatly preoccupied him, he would no doubt recognize the man and nothing would then prevent him from satisfying his curiosity.
He spent part of the night dreaming about his two apparitions and looking forward to the next day. Then everything should become clear; this time, unless his host possessed the ring of Gyges and the power that it confers of making oneself invisible, it was clear that he would not escape. In consequence he was awake before eight o’clock.
As for Albert, who had not the same reasons as Franz to wake up early, he was still fast asleep.
Franz called for the innkeeper, who arrived, behaving with his accustomed obsequiousness.
‘Signor Pastrini,’ he asked, ‘is there not to be an execution today?’
‘Yes, Excellency, but if you are asking me to have a window, it is a bit late to start thinking about it.’
‘No, no. In any case, if I was really anxious to see this spectacle, I suppose I could find a place on the Monte Pincio.’
‘Oh, I assumed that Your Excellency would not wish to mingle with the common herd, which finds that a kind of natural amphitheatre.’
‘I shall probably not go,’ said Franz. ‘But I should like to have a few details.’
‘What?’
‘I should like to know how many condemned men there are, their names and the nature of the penalty they are to suffer.’
‘Perfectly timed, Excellency! I have just been brought the tavolette.’
‘What are the tavolette?’
‘Tavolette are the wooden tablets which are hung at every street-corner on the day of an execution, with a notice stuck to them giving the names of the condemned, the charge and the method of execution. These notices are intended to invite the faithful to pray that God will make the guilty men truly repentant.’
‘And these tavolette are brought to you so that you can add your prayers to those of the faithful?’ Franz asked dubiously.
‘No, Excellency. I have an understanding with the bill-poster and he brings these to me as he does the advertisements for entertainments, so that if any of my guests wish to watch the execution, they can be fully informed.’
‘How very thoughtful!’ Franz exclaimed.
‘Yes,’ said Signor Pastrini with a smile, ‘I flatter myself that I do all in my power to satisfy the noble foreigners who honour me with their confidence.’
‘As I see, Signor Pastrini! I shall mention the fact to whoever wishes to hear it, of that you may be sure. Meanwhile, perhaps I could read one of these tavolette?’
‘With no trouble at all,’ said the innkeeper, opening the door. ‘I have had one put on the landing.’
He went out, took down the tavoletta and handed it to Franz. Here is a literal translation of the notice:
Let all be informed that on Tuesday, 22 February, the first day of carnival, by order of the Court of La Rota, the sentence of death will be carried out in the Piazza del Popolo on Andrea Rondolo, guilty of murder against the most respectable and venerated person of don Cesare Terlini, Canon of the Church of St John Lateran, and on Peppino, alias Rocca Priori, found guilty of complicity with the abominable bandit Luigi Vampa and his followers. The first will be mazzolato, the second decapitato.
All charitable souls are requested to pray God for the sincere repentance of these two miserable creatures.
This was precisely what Franz had heard two days earlier in the ruins of the Colosseum, and nothing had changed: the names of the condemned men, the crimes for which they were to suffer and the methods of execution were exactly the same. This meant that, in all probability, the Trasteveran was none other than the bandit Luigi Vampa and the man in the cloak Sinbad the Sailor who, in Rome as in Porto Vecchio and in Tunis, was engaged in yet another philanthropic mission.
However, time was passing and it was nine o’clock. Franz was on his way to wake up Albert when, to his great astonishment, he saw him emerging from his room, fully dressed. The idea of carnival had passed through his head and woken him earlier than his friend could have hoped.
‘Very well,’ Franz said to the innkeeper. ‘Now that we are both ready, do you think, dear Monsieur Pastrini, that we might introduce ourselves to the Count of Monte Cristo?’
‘Yes, indeed! The Count of Monte Cristo is in the habit of rising very early and I’m sure that he must have been up for two hours.’
‘And you don’t think it would be at all indiscreet to go and see him at this hour?’
‘Not at all.’
‘In that case, Albert, if you are ready…’
‘Quite ready.’
‘Let us go and thank our neighbour for his courtesy.’
‘Let’s go!’
Franz and Albert had only to cross the landing. The innkeeper preceded them and rang on their behalf. A servant opened. ‘I signori francesi,’ said the innkeeper. The servant bowed and ushered them in.
They crossed two rooms, furnished with a degree of luxury that they had not expected to find in Signor Pastrini’s establishment, and finally arrived in a supremely elegant drawing-room. A Turkish carpet covered the floor, and there were the most comfortable seats with ample cushions and tilted backs. Fine old-master paintings hung from the walls, with splendid displays of weapons arranged between them, and tapestry hangings covered the doors.
‘If Their Excellencies would like to sit down,’ said the servant, ‘I shall inform Monsieur le Comte.’ He went out of one of the doors.
For a moment, when the door opened, the two friends had caught the sound of a guzla,6 but it was immediately extinguished: the door, almost no sooner opened than closed, had as it were allowed this brief gust of music to waft into the drawing-room.
Franz and Albert looked at one another and then round the furniture, the pictures and the armaments. At second glance it all looked even more impressive to them than at first.
‘Well?’ Franz asked his friend. ‘What do you make of this?’
‘My dear fellow, what I make of it is that either our neighbour is some stockbroker who gambled successfully on Spanish stock, or else he is a prince who is travelling incognito.’
‘Hush!’ Franz said. ‘We’ll soon know. Here he comes.’
The sound of a door opening on its hinges had just reached the two visitors, and almost at once the tapestry parted to make way for the owner of all this wealth.
Albert stepped forward, but Franz remained rooted to the spot. The man who had just entered was none other than the cloaked figure in the Colosseum, the stranger in the box at the theatre and his mysterious host on the island of Monte Cristo.
XXXV
LA MAZZOLATA
‘Gentlemen,’ said the Count of Monte Cristo as he came in, ‘I apologize for allowing you to anticipate my call, but I was afraid that it might have been indiscreet of me to visit you any earlier than this. In any case, you informed me that you would come, so I have kept myself at your disposal.’
‘Franz and I must thank you a thousand times, Count,’ said Albert. ‘You have truly spared us a great deal of irritation: we were inventing the most fantastic sorts of conveyance when we received your most kind invitation.’
‘Upon my soul, gentlemen,’ the count said, motioning the two young men to sit down on a divan, ‘it is only because of that idiot Pastrini that I did not come to your rescue earlier! He told me nothing of your difficulty, even though he must have known that I, alone as I am here, wanted nothing better than to make the acquaintance of my neighbours. As soon as I knew that I could be of service to you, you can see how eagerly I grasped the opportunity to
present my compliments.’
The two young men bowed. Franz had not yet said a word; he had not been able to make up his mind and, since nothing indicated that the count either wished to recognize him or to be recognized by him, he did not know whether he should make any allusion to the past or leave time in the future for something new to arise. Moreover, while he was sure that it was the count who had been in the theatre on the previous evening, he could not be so sure that it was also the same person who had been in the Colosseum on the evening before, so he decided to let events take their course without himself making any direct reference to what had occurred. In addition, this gave him an advantage over the count, being the master of his secret, while he could have no hold over Franz, who had nothing to hide. However, he decided to lead the conversation towards a point which might, meanwhile, confirm a few of his suspicions.
‘Monsieur le Comte,’ he said, ‘you have offered us places in your carriage and at your windows in the Palazzo Rospoli; now can you tell us how we might obtain some posto – as they say here in Italy – overlooking the Piazza del Popolo?’
‘Yes, you are quite right,’ the count said in an offhand manner, not taking his eyes off Morcerf. ‘Is there not to be something like an execution in the Piazza del Popolo?’
‘There is,’ Franz said, seeing that the conversation was turning of itself towards the point where he wished to bring it.
‘Please wait one moment. I believe that I told my steward yesterday to take care of that. Perhaps I can do you this further small service.’
He reached out for the bell-pull, which he rang three times.
‘Have you ever paused to consider,’ he asked Franz, ‘how to save time and simplify the comings and goings of servants? I have studied the matter. When I ring once, it’s for my valet; twice, for my butler; three times, for my steward. In this way, I do not waste time or words. Ah, here he is now.’
A man of between forty-five and fifty years of age came in; to Franz he was the spitting image of the smuggler who had shown him into the cave, but he gave not the slightest sign of recognition. He understood that the man was under orders.