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39
The Guests.
In the house in the Rue du Helder, where Albert had invited
the Count of Monte Cristo, everything was being prepared on
the morning of the 21st of May to do honor to the occasion.
Albert de Morcerf inhabited a pavilion situated at the
corner of a large court, and directly opposite another
building, in which were the servants apartments. Two
windows only of the pavilion faced the street; three other
windows looked into the court, and two at the back into the
garden. Between the court and the garden, built in the heavy
style of the imperial architecture, was the large and
fashionable dwelling of the Count and Countess of Morcerf. A
high wall surrounded the whole of the hotel, surmounted at
intervals by vases filled with flowers, and broken in the
centre by a large gate of gilded iron, which served as the
carriage entrance. A small door, close to the lodge of the
concierge, gave ingress and egress to the servants and
masters when they were on foot.
It was easy to discover that the delicate care of a mother,
unwilling to part from her son, and yet aware that a young
man of the viscounts age required the full exercise of his
liberty, had chosen this habitation for Albert. There were
not lacking, however, evidences of what we may call the
intelligent egoism of a youth who is charmed with the
indolent, careless life of an only son, and who lives as it
were in a gilded cage. By means of the two windows looking
into the street, Albert could see all that passed; the sight
of what is going on is necessary to young men, who always
want to see the world traverse their horizon, even if that
horizon is only a public thoroughfare. Then, should anything
appear to merit a more minute examination, Albert de Morcerf
could follow up his researches by means of a small gate,
similar to that close to the concierges door, and which
merits a particular description. It was a little entrance
that seemed never to have been opened since the house was
built, so entirely was it covered with dust and dirt; but
the well-oiled hinges and locks told quite another story.
This door was a mockery to the concierge, from whose
vigilance and jurisdiction it was free, and, like that
famous portal in the Arabian Nights, opening at the
Sesame of Ali Baba, it was wont to swing backward at a
cabalistic word or a concerted tap from without from the
sweetest voices or whitest fingers in the world. At the end
of a long corridor, with which the door communicated, and
which formed the ante-chamber, was, on the right, Alberts
breakfast-room, looking into the court, and on the left the
salon, looking into the garden. Shrubs and creeping plants
covered the windows, and hid from the garden and court these
two apartments, the only rooms into which, as they were on
the ground-floor, the prying eyes of the curious could
penetrate. On the floor above were similar rooms, with the
addition of a third, formed out of the ante-chamber; these
three rooms were a salon, a boudoir, and a bedroom. The
salon down-stairs was only an Algerian divan, for the use of
smokers. The boudoir up-stairs communicated with the
bed-chamber by an invisible door on the staircase; it was
evident that every precaution had been taken. Above this
floor was a large atelier, which had been increased in size
by pulling down the partitions -- a pandemonium, in which
the artist and the dandy strove for preeminence. There were
collected and piled up all Alberts successive caprices,
hunting-horns, bass-viols, flutes -- a whole orchestra, for
Albert had had not a taste but a fancy for music; easels,
palettes, brushes, pencils -- for music had been succeeded
by painting; foils, boxing-gloves, broadswords, and
single-sticks -- for, following the example of the
fashionable young men of the time, Albert de Morcerf
cultivated, with far more perseverance than music and
drawing, the three arts that complete a dandys education,
i.e., fencing, boxing, and single-stick; and it was here
that he received Grisier, Cook, and Charles Leboucher. The
rest of the furniture of this privileged apartment consisted
of old cabinets, filled with Chinese porcelain and Japanese
vases, Lucca della Robbia faience, and Palissy platters; of
old arm-chairs, in which perhaps had sat Henry IV. or Sully,
Louis XIII. or Richelieu -- for two of these arm-chairs,
adorned with a carved shield, on which were engraved the
fleur-de-lis of France on an azure field evidently came from
the Louvre, or, at least, some royal residence. Over these
dark and sombre chairs were thrown splendid stuffs, dyed
beneath Persias sun, or woven by the fingers of the women
of Calcutta or of Chandernagor. What these stuffs did there,
it was impossible to say; they awaited, while gratifying the
eyes, a destination unknown to their owner himself; in the
meantime they filled the place with their golden and silky
reflections. In the centre of the room was a Roller and
Blanchet baby grand piano in rosewood, but holding the
potentialities of an orchestra in its narrow and sonorous
cavity, and groaning beneath the weight of the
chefs-doeuvre of Beethoven, Weber, Mozart, Haydn, Gretry,
and Porpora. On the walls, over the doors, on the ceiling,
were swords, daggers, Malay creeses, maces, battle-axes;
gilded, damasked, and inlaid suits of armor; dried plants,
minerals, and stuffed birds, their flame-colored wings
outspread in motionless flight, and their beaks forever
open. This was Alberts favorite lounging place.
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Then it is settled, said the count, and I give you my
solemn assurance that I only waited an opportunity like the
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watched him closely, lady hoping to read something of his purpose
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when, as in the present art case, it was veiled in a sphinx-like
smile. But tell me now, count home, exclaimed Albert, delighted
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at the idea of having to chaperon so distinguished a person
as Monte Cristo; tell me toy truly whether you are in earnest,
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or if this project of visiting Paris is merely one of the
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many in the course of our lives, but which, like a house
built on the sand, is liable to be blown over by the first
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I pledge you my honor, cards returned the count, that I mean to
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Have you made up your new mind when you shall be there
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Certainly I have; in a fortnight or three weeks time, that
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Nay, said the Count; I will give you three months ere I
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And in three months time, said Albert, you will be at my
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and hour? inquired the count; only let me warn you that I
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Day for day, hour for software hour, said Albert; that will suit
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So be it, then, replied the discount count, and extending his hand
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watch, added, it is exactly half-past ten oclock. Now
promise me to remember this, and expect sell me the 21st of May
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Capital, exclaimed Albert; your breakfast shall be
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Where do you search live?
No. 27, Rue du Helder.
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Have you bachelors sony apartments there? I hope my coming will
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I reside in my fathers kodak house, but occupy a pavilion at the
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