Winning Trust
When Dantès observes the distant report and plume of smoke from the Château d’If without alarm, the captain interprets this as evidence that he harbors a man whose comings and goings are significant enough to warrant artillery salutes. This discovery eases the captain’s concern further. Dantès maintains perfect tranquility throughout, and when the crew attempts to pump him for information, he gives only accurate descriptions of Naples and Malta—places he knows as well as Marseille—and holds firmly to his first story. The Genoese captain, though subtle, is ultimately duped by Edmond’s mild demeanor, nautical skill, and admirable dissimulation.
Leghorn and the Barber
Reaching Leghorn, Dantès faces another test: he must see if he can recognize himself, having not glimpsed his own face for fourteen years. He remembers a barber in Saint Ferdinand Street from his twenty previous visits to the port and goes there to have his beard and hair cut. The Leghorn barber gazes in amazement at this man whose long, thick, black hair and beard give his head the appearance of one of Titian’s portraits—at a time when such abundance was unfashionable.
The Metamorphosis
The barber says nothing and goes to work. When the operation concludes and Edmond feels his chin completely smooth with his hair reduced to its usual length, he asks for a looking-glass. He is now thirty-three years old, and fourteen years of imprisonment have produced a great transformation in his appearance.
A Transformed Appearance
Dantès had entered the Château d’If with the round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man whose early paths had been smooth. Now all is changed. The oval face has lengthened, his smiling mouth has assumed the firm, marked lines that betoken resolution, his eyebrows arched beneath a brow furrowed with thought, his eyes full of melancholy occasionally sparkling with gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred. His sun-deprived complexion has become pale, producing an aristocratic beauty in contrast with his black hair. His features carry a refined intellectual expression from his profound studies, and his naturally goodly stature has acquired the vigor of a frame that has long concentrated all its force within itself. A nervous, slight elegance has given way to solid, rounded muscularity. His voice, shaped by prayers, sobs, and imprecations, ranges from singularly penetrating sweetness to roughness and hoarseness. His eyes, accustomed to the gloom of prison, have acquired the faculty of distinguishing objects in darkness, common to hyenas and wolves. Edmond smiles when he beholds himself—it is impossible that even his best friend could recognize him; he cannot even recognize himself.
Renewed Engagement
The captain of La Jeune Amélie, eager to retain a man of such value, offers to advance Edmond funds from future profits. After completing his transformation at the barber, Dantès purchases a complete sailor’s costume—white trousers, a striped shirt, and a cap. Appearing before the captain in this neat attire, having returned the borrowed shirt and trousers to Jacopo, Edmond looks nothing like the man with thick matted beard, seaweed-tangled hair, and seabrine-soaked body who had been picked up naked and nearly drowned. Attracted by his prepossessing appearance, the captain renews his offers of engagement, but Dantès, with his own projects, agrees only for three months.
First Smuggling Success
La Jeune Amélie* has a very active crew, very obedient to their captain, who loses as little time as possible. Scarce a week at Leghorn before the hold fills with printed muslins, contraband cottons, English powder, and tobacco on which the excise has forgotten to put its mark. The master is to get all this out of Leghorn free of duties and land it on the shores of Corsica, where certain speculators will forward the cargo to France.
Voyage to Corsica
They sail, and Edmond is again cleaving the azure sea that had been the first horizon of his youth, which he had so often dreamed of in prison. He leaves Gorgone on his right and La Pianosa on his left, voyaging toward the country of Paoli and Napoleon.
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