The Count of Monte Cristo

Maximilian’s Account of Winning at Cards to Purchase Horse Médéah as Covert Countly Aid

Maximilian describes how he came to own Médéah, a beautiful and valuable horse. Unable to afford the 4,500-franc price, he gave up the animal reluctantly. That same evening, friends including Château-Renaud and Debray visited and proposed a game of bouillotte. The Count unexpectedly joined them, and Maximilian won 5,000 francs. He immediately drove to the dealer, purchased Médéah, and rode through the Champs-Élysées. Passing the Count’s house, he saw a light and a shadow behind a curtain, convincing him the Count knew of his desire and lost deliberately to provide the means.

Valentine and Maximilian’s Tender Exchange at the Garden Grating

Valentine gently chides Maximilian for being too fanciful, warning that a man who lives in such an imaginative world may find ordinary love unsatisfying. When she is called away, Maximilian begs for a single finger through the grating to kiss. Valentine reminds him of their agreement to be “two voices, two shadows,” but ultimately relents, passing her whole hand through the opening. Maximilian kisses it fervently, and Valentine hurries toward the house, seemingly frightened by the intensity of her own feelings.

第五十八章 M. Noirtier de Villefort

M. de Villefort and his wife visit M. Noirtier, Villefort’s elderly and completely paralytic father, to announce their plan to marry Valentine, Noirtier’s beloved granddaughter, to Franz d’Épinay. Noirtier, who can only communicate through eye movements and who retains only his sight and hearing, reacts with visible agitation to this news, and Villefort recognizes that his father remembers the political hatred which formerly existed between himself and Franz’s father, who was assassinated in 1815. When Valentine later comes to her grandfather’s room, she discerns his distress and discovers through their established system of communication by alphabet and dictionary that he wishes to send for a notary, indicating his determination to oppose the marriage by whatever legal means remain available to him.