The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 37. The Catacombs of Saint Sebastian – Chapter 44. The Vendetta

A heavy, moonless Roman night wraps the city in a tomb-like gloom as Franz d’Épinay is struck by a sudden, crushing shift from gaiety to unease: his friend Albert de Morcerf vanished hours earlier, chasing a mysterious rendezvous after the annual moccoletti torch extinguishing. Franz waits hours at the Hôtel de Londres, then at the Duke of Bracciano’s ball, until a messenger arrives with a frantic note from Albert: he has been kidnapped by the legendary bandit Luigi Vampa, who demands 4,000 piastres by 6 a.m. or Albert will be executed. Franz is 800 piastres short, and races to the Count of Monte Cristo, who instantly provides the full sum and agrees to accompany Franz to the catacombs to secure Albert’s release. Their guide is Peppino, a bandit the count saved weeks prior, who leads them through the moonlit Appian Way, past hidden sentries, and down into the shadowy catacombs of Saint Sebastian. They find Vampa in his underground camp, surrounded by his brigands, the chief poring over Caesar’s Commentaries, and the count calmly reminds him of his promise to spare the count’s friends from harm. Vampa apologizes profusely, and leads them to Albert’s cell, where the viscount is napping soundly in a bandit’s cloak, completely unperturbed by his impending execution, even joking that he wishes he’d been left to finish the galop he’d been dancing at the Bracciano ball. The group returns to the ballroom just after 2 a.m., and Albert smoothly weaves his rescue into a polite request to finish his dance with the Countess G——, while Franz can’t shake the eerie shiver he saw pass over the count when he shook Albert’s cold, corpse-like hand.

In the days that follow, Albert insists on formally thanking the count, and secures a promise that he will visit Paris for a breakfast at his bachelor pavilion on the Rue du Helder on the morning of May 21st, at half past ten. The pavilion, built for Albert by his doting mother Mercédès, is a gilded cage of a space: a secret, dust-covered side door lets Albert come and go without the concierge’s notice, opening at a quiet tap like a scene from Arabian Nights, leading to a ground-floor salon and breakfast room, and an upper floor with a sprawling atelier piled high with the relics of Albert’s short-lived hobbies: hunting horns, musical instruments, painting easels, fencing foils, and rare porcelain, armor, and exotic textiles collected from his travels across Europe. On the morning of the appointment, Albert sorts his mail—accepting a dinner invitation from Madame Danglars, arranging oysters and wine for a late supper with his mistress Rosa—and tells his valet Germain to serve breakfast at half past ten, just as the count requested. His friend Lucien Debray arrives first, five minutes to ten, fresh from a night of ministry work on the Don Carlos situation in Spain, wearing his new Order of Charles III ribbon, and complains of Parisian boredom as he waits for the rest of the guests. Beauchamp, Château-Renaud, and Maximilian Morrel arrive next, and the group trades gossip: they joke that the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo is either a vampire or an Arabian Nights wizard, debate the rumor that Albert will marry Eugénie Danglars (the daughter of Baron Danglars, the wealthy banker), and mock the idea that the count could ever be punctual to his promise.

At that exact moment, the count arrives silently and without announcement, dressed with simple, immaculate elegance that matches Debray’s offhand description of him perfectly, and immediately impresses the group with his calm, polished poise. When Morrel is introduced, the count steps forward, a faint flush coloring his pale cheeks, and remarks on the uniform of France’s new African conquerors, his voice vibrating slightly as he speaks, leaving Morrel quietly surprised. Over breakfast, the conversation drifts from Parisian customs to Albert’s rumored engagement, the count’s international banking ties (he mentions his accounts at Thomson & French in Rome, which makes Morrel start in surprise), his unorthodox habits: he eats very little, but carries a casket of emerald-set hashish-opium pills he mixes himself to induce sleep whenever he wishes, and holds a firm philosophy of egotism: he only helps those who have helped him, and refuses to offer aid to a society that does not protect him. He recounts his long acquaintance with Luigi Vampa, whom he captured years prior and released on the condition that he and his friends be spared from banditry, and explains that he agreed to visit Paris only because Albert promised to introduce him to Parisian high society. He reveals his Nubian mute Ali already purchased and furnished a home for him in Paris, waiting for his arrival, and the guests are equal parts charmed and bewildered. As they leave after breakfast, Debray promises to dig up the count’s background for Albert, while Château-Renaud and Morrel accept his offer to visit their family home on the Rue Meslay.

Albert then gives the count a tour of his pavilion, leading him first to the atelier, where the count surprises him by instantly identifying the age, origin, and artist of every painting and artifact on display, before moving to the bedroom, where a portrait of Mercédès hangs. The count stares at it for a long, silent moment, and Albert, misinterpreting his reaction, jokes that it is a portrait of his mistress, before explaining it is his mother, painted in a Catalan fisherwoman’s costume, a gift from her that his father dislikes for reasons he cannot explain. The count examines the family crest above the parlor door, correctly deciphering its heraldic symbols and tracing the Morcerf line back to the Crusades, before Albert leads him to meet his parents. Count de Morcerf, a former general and current peer, greets the count warmly, regaling him with stories of his military career and his frustration at the ungrateful July Revolution that forced him out of service. Then Mercédès enters, pale and trembling, and thanks the count with formal, intense gratitude for saving her son. There is a quiet, unspoken tension between her and the count, a flicker of shared history that neither acknowledges aloud: the count is paler than usual when he bows to her, and she lingers on the details of his age and background when Albert introduces him, growing increasingly uneasy when he describes the count as a Byron-esque hero, insisting he is far too young to have lived the adventurous life he claims. She begs Albert to be cautious around the mysterious stranger, and when he leaves her alone in her dim boudoir, she falls into a deep, troubled reverie, her mind haunted by a half-remembered past she cannot place.