The Count of Monte Cristo

Dantès Purchases a Genoese Yacht

After parting ways with the smugglers’ crew, Dantès travels to Genoa, where he discovers a small yacht under trial in the bay. Built to an Englishman’s order by Genoese craftsmen renowned for their shipbuilding skill, the vessel is priced at forty thousand francs. Enamored of its beauty and capability, Dantès offers the owner sixty thousand francs for immediate possession—a proposal too advantageous to refuse, especially as the intended English buyer is traveling in Switzerland and won’t return for weeks.

Dantès Installs Secret Yacht Compartments

When the yacht’s builder offers to provide a crew, Dantès politely declines, claiming he prefers sailing alone. Instead, he commissions a secret compartment in the cabin’s sleeping area, divided into three concealed sections known only to himself. The builder cheerfully undertakes the commission, completing the work the following day according to Dantès’s precise specifications.

Dantès Transfers Treasure to Yacht Lockers

Dantès sails the yacht from Genoa to Monte Cristo, completing the thirty-five-hour journey in impressive time. Upon arrival, he anchors in a secluded creek and spends the following day transferring his immense treasure from the cave to the yacht’s newly constructed secret compartments. By nightfall, his entire fortune is safely deposited within the locked divisions of his vessel.

Jacopo Returns with Grim News

After a week of maneuvering and familiarizing himself with the yacht’s capabilities, Dantès spots Jacopo’s vessel approaching the island. However, the news Jacopo brings is devastating: Old Dantès is dead, and Mercédès has disappeared. Dantès receives this information with outward calmness but requests solitude. When he returns two hours later, he orders the yacht steered directly to Marseilles, privately devastated by the loss of both his father and his beloved.

Dantès Arrives in Marseilles Disguised

Dantès enters the port of Marseilles aboard his yacht, anchoring opposite the very spot from which he had been taken to the Château d’If on that fateful night. Armed with an English passport obtained in Leghorn (which affords him greater standing than a French document would), he presents it coolly to the officers demanding his bill of health. The passport identifies him as Lord Wilmore, and he gains permission to debark without incident, though the approach of a nearbygendarm causes him to shudder.

Dantès Tests His Disguise with a Former Sailor

Among the first people Dantès encounters on the Canebière is a former crewman from the Pharaon. Seizing the opportunity to test how completely his appearance has changed, Dantès approaches the man and engages him in conversation, carefully observing his reactions. The sailor shows no recognition whatsoever. When Dantès gives him a coin in thanks for his civility, the man calls after him to return a “double Napoleon” that was mistakenly given instead of a two-franc piece. Dantès rewards this honesty with two more Napoleons, leaving the sailor exclaiming that he must be some “nabob from India.”

Dantès Visits His Father’s Old Home

Progressing through familiar streets that stir powerful memories, Dantès eventually reaches the end of the Rue de Noailles, where he can view the Allées de Meilhan. Overwhelmed by emotion, he steadies himself against a tree before proceeding to his father’s former home. Finding the nasturtiums and plants his father cultivated are gone, Dantès inquires about available rooms and, despite initial resistance, succeeds in visiting the fifth-floor apartment. Now occupied by a newlywed couple, the rooms retain only the original four walls; everything else has changed. Seeing the young couple’s bed positioned where his father once lay, Dantès weeps silently at the thought of the old man dying alone, calling for his absent son.

Dantès Purchases His Father’s Former House

Leaving the apartment with the young couple’s kind promises to welcome him anytime, Dantès inquires after Caderousse and learns the tailor has fallen into difficulties and now keeps an inn on the route from Bellegarde to Beaucaire. Dantès then obtains the address of the house’s owner and, under his assumed identity as Lord Wilmore, purchases the dwelling for twenty-five thousand francs—ten thousand more than its worth, though he would have paid half a million without hesitation. That same day, he instructs the notary to offer the fifth-floor tenants any room in the house without rent increase, securing possession of his father’s chambers.