The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (189 page)

At four o’clock, as we have said, the mysterious character would arrive.

Twenty minutes later, a carriage would stop in front of the house. A woman in black or dark blue, always wrapped in a huge veil, would get out, drift like a shadow in front of the concierge’s lodge and go up the stairs, though no one ever heard a single board creak under her light footsteps. Nor had anyone ever asked her where she was going.

Her face, like the stranger’s, was thus entirely unknown to the two door-keepers, model concierges and perhaps the only ones in the vast brotherhood of the capital’s watchdogs who would have been capable of such discretion.

Needless to say, she went up only as far as the first floor. She scratched in a special way on the door, which opened then closed tightly, and that’s all.

To leave the building, the same procedure was followed. The woman would go out first, always veiled, and get back into her carriage, which vanished sometimes down one end of the street, sometimes the other. Then, twenty minutes later, the stranger would go out in his turn, buried in his scarf or hidden behind his handkerchief, and he too would disappear.

The day after the one on which Monte Cristo had paid his visit to Danglars, the day of Valentine’s funeral, the mysterious occupier came in at around ten o’clock in the morning, instead of his usual time of four in the afternoon. Almost at once, without leaving the usual space of time, a hired cab arrived and the veiled lady quickly went up the stairs. The door opened and closed. But, even before the door had closed, the lady exclaimed: ‘Oh, Lucien! Oh, my friend!’ – with the result that, for the first time, the concierge who had overheard the exclamation was made involuntarily aware that his tenant was called Lucien; but, being a model doorkeeper, he resolved not to mention it, even to his wife.

‘What is it, my dearest?’ asked the man whose name the veiled lady had revealed, in her anxiety or her haste. ‘Tell me.’

‘My dear, can I count on you?’

‘Of course, as you very well know. What is wrong? Your note this morning was quite bewildering: the haste and disorder in your handwriting… Come, reassure me or terrify me entirely!’

‘Lucien, something of great importance!’ she replied, scrutinizing him closely. ‘Monsieur Danglars left last night!’

‘Left! Monsieur Danglars! Where has he gone?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know? Has he gone for good?’

‘Certainly. At ten in the evening, his horses took him to the barrier at Charenton. There, he found a coach ready harnessed. He got in with his valet and told his coachman he was going to Fontainebleau.’

‘So, what did you mean… ?’

‘One moment, dear. He left me a letter.’

‘A letter?’

‘Yes. Read it.’ And she reached in her pocket for an unsealed letter which she gave Debray.

Before reading it, he hesitated, as if seeking to guess what it contained; or, rather, as if, whatever it contained, he had decided to make up his mind in advance. After a few moments, his decision had no doubt been reached, because he began to read.

The following were the contents of the letter that had so disturbed Mme Danglars:

Madame, My Most Faithful Wife…

Unconsciously, Debray stopped and looked at the baroness, who blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘Read it,’ she said.

Debray went on:

When you receive this letter you will no longer have a husband! Oh, don’t be too alarmed: you will not have a husband in the sense that you no longer have a daughter, by which I mean that I shall be on one of the thirty or forty roads leading out of France.

I owe you an explanation and, since you are a woman who will understand it perfectly, I shall give it to you. Here it is:

This morning I received a demand for payment of five million, and I honoured it. Another for the same amount followed almost immediately. I adjourned it until tomorrow, and I am leaving today to avoid that tomorrow which would be too unpleasant for me to bear.

You do understand, do you not, Madame and most precious wife? If I say ‘you do understand’, it is because you know my affairs as well as I do myself. You may even know them better than I do, since I should be unable
to say, if anyone were to ask me, where at least half of my fortune has vanished, though it was once quite considerable; while I am certain that you, on the contrary, would be entirely capable of doing so.

Women have infallible instincts and can explain even miracles by an algebra of their own devising. I know only my figures, and I knew nothing from the day when my figures began to deceive me.

Have you ever admired the rapidity of my fall, Madame? Have you been slightly dazzled by the bright flame that has devoured my ingots? I must confess that I saw only fire, but let’s hope that you managed to find some gold in the ashes.

It is with that consolation that I depart, Madame, my most prudent spouse, without the slightest pricking of conscience at abandoning you. You still have your friends, the ashes I mentioned and, to complete your happiness, the freedom that I hasten to give you.

However, Madame, the moment has come to introduce a word or two on more intimate matters.

As long as I hoped you were working for the good of our family and the prosperity of our daughter, I philosophically turned a blind eye; but since you have brought our house to ruin, I do not wish to provide a foundation for another man’s wealth.

I took you rich, but with little honour.

Forgive me for speaking so frankly but, since it is probable that only we will read these words, I do not see why I should mince them.

I increased our wealth, which continued to grow for more than fifteen years, until the moment when these unknown catastrophes, which I am still unable to comprehend, arrived to seize it and cast it down – without my being to blame, I might say, for any of it.

You, Madame, have been working solely to increase your own wealth and that, I am certain in my own mind, you have managed to do. So I shall leave you as I found you, rich, but scarcely honourable.

Adieu.

From now on, I too shall start to work for my own benefit.

Accept the assurance of my gratitude for the example which you have given me, and which I shall follow.

Your most devoted husband.
BARON DANGLARS

The baroness had been watching Debray during the long and painful reading of this letter and, despite his well-known self-control, she had seen the young man change colour once or twice.
When he had finished, he slowly refolded the paper and resumed his pensive attitude.

‘Well?’ Mme Danglars asked, with understandable anxiety.

‘Well, Madame?’ Debray repeated mechanically.

‘What do you think of this letter?’

‘Very simple. I think Monsieur Danglars was suspicious.’

‘Of course he was; but what do you have to tell me?’

‘I don’t follow you,’ Debray said, icy cold.

‘He has left, altogether gone! Left, never to return!’

‘Oh,’ Debray said, ‘don’t think that, Baroness.’

‘I tell you, he will never come back. I know him: he is quite unshakeable in any resolution that reflects his own interests. If he had thought me of any use to him, he would have taken me. If he has left me in Paris, it is because the separation can serve his own ends: this means that he will never change his mind and that I am free for ever,’ Mme Danglars added, with the same pleading expression. But Debray, instead of answering, left her poised in the same anxious and questioning state of mind and posture.

‘What!’ she said finally. ‘Do you not even answer me, Monsieur!’

‘I have only one question to ask of you: what do you expect will become of you?’

‘I was going to ask you,’ the baroness replied, her heart pounding.

‘Oh?’ said Debray. ‘Are you asking for my advice, then?’

‘Yes, I would like your advice,’ the baroness said through dry lips.

‘Well, if you’re asking my advice,’ the young man said, ‘I would advise you to travel.’

‘Travel!’ muttered Mme Danglars.

‘Yes, indeed. As Monsieur Danglars said, you are rich and quite free. It will be absolutely necessary for you to leave Paris in any case, I should have thought, after the double scandal of Mademoiselle Eugénie’s broken engagement and Monsieur Danglars’ disappearance. All that matters is that everyone should know that you have been abandoned and should think you poor, because a bankrupt’s wife would not be forgiven her opulent style of life.

‘To achieve this, all you need do is to remain a fortnight in Paris, repeating to everyone that you have been abandoned and telling your closest friends, who will repeat it to everyone, exactly how the desertion took place. Then you must move out of your mansion, leaving behind your jewels and relinquishing your dowry, and
everybody will admire your disinterestedness and sing your praises.

‘Then it will be known that you have been abandoned and people will think you are poor. Only I know your true financial situation and will be willing to account to you for it as your loyal associate.’

Pale, devastated, the baroness had listened to this speech with as much dread and despair as Debray had shown calm and indifference in delivering it. ‘Abandoned!’ she repeated. ‘Oh, yes, indeed abandoned. Yes, you are right, Monsieur: no one will doubt my abandonment.’

These were the only words that a proud woman, deeply in love, could reply.

‘But rich, very rich,’ Debray continued, opening his wallet and spreading the few papers it contained across the table.

Mme Danglars ignored him, being entirely taken up with quelling the beating of her heart and holding back the tears which she felt pricking at the corners of her eyes. Finally her sense of self-respect got the upper hand and, though she could not suppress the beating of her heart, she did at least manage to avoid shedding a tear.

‘Madame,’ Debray said, ‘we have been associated for some six months. You contributed funds to the value of one hundred thousand francs.

‘Our association dates from April this year. Our speculations began in May.

‘In that month we made four hundred and fifty thousand francs. In June, profits amounted to nine hundred thousand. In July, we added a further one million seven hundred thousand francs: that, as you know, was the month of the Spanish bonds.

‘In August, at the start of the month, we lost three hundred thousand, but by the fifteenth we had recovered our losses and by the end of the month we had our revenge. Our accounts, brought up to date from the time when we formed our partnership to yesterday, when I closed them, give us assets amounting to two million four hundred thousand francs, that is to say, twelve hundred thousand francs each.

‘Now,’ he continued, slamming his account book shut with the steady and methodical hand of a stockbroker, ‘we find eighty thousand francs for the compound interest on that sum which has remained in my hands.’

‘But what is this interest?’ the baroness interrupted. ‘What does it mean, since you never invested the money?’

‘I beg your pardon, Madame,’ Debray said coldly. ‘I had your authority to exploit it and I took advantage of it. This means forty thousand francs in interest for your half, plus the hundred thousand francs of the original capital sum, that is to say thirteen hundred and forty thousand francs for your share.

‘Well, Madame,’ he continued, ‘I took the precaution of cashing your money in yesterday – not long ago, as you see: anyone would think I had been expecting at any moment to be asked to account to you for it. It is there, half in banknotes, half in bills, payable to the bearer.

‘I say “there”, and it’s true. As I thought my house was not sufficiently secure and a notary not discreet enough, and property speaks even louder than a notary… In short, since you do not have the right to buy or possess anything apart from the joint property of the marriage, I kept this entire sum, which is today your only fortune, in a safe at the bottom of this wardrobe and, to be even more secure, I did the carpentry myself.

‘Now,’ he went on, opening first the wardrobe, then the safe, ‘here are eight hundred notes of one thousand francs each, which, as you can see, resemble a thick, iron-bound volume. To that I have added a bond for twenty-five thousand francs and finally, to make up the sum, which amounts, I believe, to something around a hundred and ten thousand francs, here is a demand note on my banker – and since my banker is not Monsieur Danglars, the note will be honoured, I can assure you.’

Mme Danglars mechanically took the demand note, the bond and the sheaf of banknotes.

This vast fortune seemed to amount to very little, laid out in that way on a table. Mme Danglars, dry-eyed but with her breast swelling with sobs, picked it up and shut the steel-bound pouch in her case, put the bond and the demand note in her portfolio and stood, pale and silent, waiting for one kind word that might console her for being so rich. But she waited in vain.

‘Now, Madame,’ Debray said, ‘you have a splendid living, an income of something like sixty thousand
livres
, an enormous sum for a woman who will not be able to set up house for at least a year from now. This will allow you to indulge whatever notion may pass through your head; apart from which, if you should find your share inadequate, in consideration of the past that is now fading away from you, you may dip into mine. I am prepared to offer you – oh,
as a loan, naturally! – all that I possess, that is to say, one million sixty thousand francs.’