The Count of Monte Cristo + The Three Musketeers + The Man in the Iron Mask (3 Unabridged Classics). Alexandre Dumas

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СКАЧАТЬ past ten; and though I do not much rely upon his promise, I wish to be punctual. Is the countess up yet?”

      “If you wish, I will inquire.”

      “Yes, ask her for one of her liqueur cellarets, mine is incomplete; and tell her I shall have the honor of seeing her about three o’clock, and that I request permission to introduce some one to her.” The valet left the room. Albert threw himself on the divan, tore off the cover of two or three of the papers, looked at the theatre announcements, made a face seeing they gave an opera, and not a ballet; hunted vainly amongst the advertisements for a new tooth-powder of which he had heard, and threw down, one after the other, the three leading papers of Paris, muttering, “These papers become more and more stupid every day.” A moment after, a carriage stopped before the door, and the servant announced M. Lucien Debray. A tall young man, with light hair, clear gray eyes, and thin and compressed lips, dressed in a blue coat with beautifully carved gold buttons, a white neckcloth, and a tortoiseshell eye-glass suspended by a silken thread, and which, by an effort of the superciliary and zygomatic muscles, he fixed in his eye, entered, with a half-official air, without smiling or speaking. “Good-morning, Lucien, good-morning,” said Albert; “your punctuality really alarms me. What do I say? punctuality! You, whom I expected last, you arrive at five minutes to ten, when the time fixed was half-past! Has the ministry resigned?”

      “No, my dear fellow,” returned the young man, seating himself on the divan; “reassure yourself; we are tottering always, but we never fall, and I begin to believe that we shall pass into a state of immobility, and then the affairs of the Peninsula will completely consolidate us.”

      “Ah, true; you drive Don Carlos out of Spain.”

      “No, no, my dear fellow, do not confound our plans. We take him to the other side of the French frontier, and offer him hospitality at Bourges.”

      “At Bourges?”

      “Yes, he has not much to complain of; Bourges is the capital of Charles VII. Do you not know that all Paris knew it yesterday, and the day before it had already transpired on the Bourse, and M. Danglars (I do not know by what means that man contrives to obtain intelligence as soon as we do) made a million!”

      “And you another order, for I see you have a blue ribbon at your button-hole.”

      “Yes; they sent me the order of Charles III.,” returned Debray, carelessly.

      “Come, do not affect indifference, but confess you were pleased to have it.”

      “Oh, it is very well as a finish to the toilet. It looks very neat on a black coat buttoned up.”

      “And makes you resemble the Prince of Wales or the Duke of Reichstadt.”

      “It is for that reason you see me so early.”

      “Because you have the order of Charles III., and you wish to announce the good news to me?”

      “No, because I passed the night writing letters, — five and twenty despatches. I returned home at daybreak, and strove to sleep; but my head ached and I got up to have a ride for an hour. At the Bois de Boulogne, ennui and hunger attacked me at once, — two enemies who rarely accompany each other, and who are yet leagued against me, a sort of Carlo-republican alliance. I then recollected you gave a breakfast this morning, and here I am. I am hungry, feed me; I am bored, amuse me.”

      “It is my duty as your host,” returned Albert, ringing the bell, while Lucien turned over, with his gold-mounted cane, the papers that lay on the table. “Germain, a glass of sherry and a biscuit. In the meantime. my dear Lucien, here are cigars — contraband, of course — try them, and persuade the minister to sell us such instead of poisoning us with cabbage leaves.”

      “Peste, I will do nothing of the kind; the moment they come from government you would find them execrable. Besides, that does not concern the home but the financial department. Address yourself to M. Humann, section of the indirect contributions, corridor A., No. 26.”

      “On my word,” said Albert, “you astonish me by the extent of your knowledge. Take a cigar.”

      “Really, my dear Albert,” replied Lucien, lighting a manilla at a rose-colored taper that burnt in a beautifully enamelled stand — “how happy you are to have nothing to do. You do not know your own good fortune!”

      “And what would you do, my dear diplomatist,” replied Morcerf, with a slight degree of irony in his voice, “if you did nothing? What? private secretary to a minister, plunged at once into European cabals and Parisian intrigues; having kings, and, better still, queens, to protect, parties to unite, elections to direct; making more use of your cabinet with your pen and your telegraph than Napoleon did of his battle-fields with his sword and his victories; possessing five and twenty thousand francs a year, besides your place; a horse, for which Chateau-Renaud offered you four hundred louis, and which you would not part with; a tailor who never disappoints you; with the opera, the jockey-club, and other diversions, can you not amuse yourself? Well, I will amuse you.”

      “How?”

      “By introducing to you a new acquaintance.”

      “A man or a woman?”

      “A man.”

      “I know so many men already.”

      “But you do not know this man.”

      “Where does he come from — the end of the world?”

      “Farther still, perhaps.”

      “The deuce! I hope he does not bring our breakfast with him.”

      “Oh, no; our breakfast comes from my father’s kitchen. Are you hungry?”

      “Humiliating as such a confession is, I am. But I dined at M. de Villefort’s, and lawyers always give you very bad dinners. You would think they felt some remorse; did you ever remark that?”

      “Ah, depreciate other persons’ dinners; you ministers give such splendid ones.”

      “Yes; but we do not invite people of fashion. If we were not forced to entertain a parcel of country boobies because they think and vote with us, we should never dream of dining at home, I assure you.”

      “Well, take another glass of sherry and another biscuit.”

      “Willingly. Your Spanish wine is excellent. You see we were quite right to pacify that country.”

      “Yes; but Don Carlos?”

      “Well, Don Carlos will drink Bordeaux, and in ten years we will marry his son to the little queen.”

      “You will then obtain the Golden Fleece, if you are still in the ministry.”

      “I think, Albert, you have adopted the system of feeding me on smoke this morning.”

      “Well, you must allow it is the best thing for the stomach; but I hear Beauchamp in the next room; you can dispute together, and that will pass away the time.”

      “About what?”

      “About the papers.”

      “My dear friend,” СКАЧАТЬ