第188章

"My dear count, you have no idea what pleasure it gives me to hear you speak thus," said Morcerf."I had announced you beforehand to my friends as an enchanter of the `Arabian Nights,' a wizard of the Middle Ages; but the Parisians are so subtle in paradoxes that they mistake for caprices of the imagination the most incontestable truths, when these truths do not form a part of their daily existence.For example, here is Debray who reads, and Beauchamp who prints, every day, `A member of the Jockey Club has been stopped and robbed on the Boulevard;' `four persons have been assassinated in the Rue St.Denis' or `the Faubourg St.

Germain;' `ten, fifteen, or twenty thieves, have been arrested in a cafe on the Boulevard du Temple, or in the Thermes de Julien,' -- and yet these same men deny the existence of the bandits in the Maremma, the Campagna di Romana, or the Pontine Marshes.Tell them yourself that Iwas taken by bandits, and that without your generous intercession I should now have been sleeping in the Catacombs of St.Sebastian, instead of receiving them in my humble abode in the Rue du Helder.""Ah," said Monte Cristo "you promised me never to mention that circumstance.""It was not I who made that promise," cried Morcerf; "it must have been some one else whom you have rescued in the same manner, and whom you have forgotten.Pray speak of it, for I shall not only, I trust, relate the little I do know, but also a great deal I do not know.""It seems to me," returned the count, smiling, "that you played a sufficiently important part to know as well as myself what happened.""Well, you promise me, if I tell all I know, to relate, in your turn, all that I do not know?""That is but fair," replied Monte Cristo.

"Well," said Morcerf, "for three days I believed myself the object of the attentions of a masque, whom I took for a descendant of Tullia or Poppoea, while I was simply the object of the attentions of a contadina, and I say contadina to avoid saying peasant girl.What I know is, that, like a fool, a greater fool than he of whom I spoke just now, Imistook for this peasant girl a young bandit of fifteen or sixteen, with a beardless chin and slim waist, and who, just as I was about to imprint a chaste salute on his lips, placed a pistol to my head, and, aided by seven or eight others, led, or rather dragged me, to the Catacombs of St.

Sebastian, where I found a highly educated brigand chief perusing Caesar's `Commentaries,' and who deigned to leave off reading to inform me, that unless the next morning, before six o'clock, four thousand piastres were paid into his account at his banker's, at a quarter past six I should have ceased to exist.The letter is still to be seen, for it is in Franz d'Epinay's possession, signed by me, and with a postscript of M.Luigi Vampa.This is all I know, but I know not, count, how you contrived to inspire so much respect in the bandits of Rome who ordinarily have so little respect for anything.I assure you, Franz and I were lost in admiration.""Nothing more simple," returned the count."I had known the famous Vampa for more than ten years.When he was quite a child, and only a shepherd, I gave him a few gold pieces for showing me my way, and he, in order to repay me, gave me a poniard, the hilt of which he had carved with his own hand, and which you may have seen in my collection of arms.In after years, whether he had forgotten this interchange of presents, which ought to have cemented our friendship, or whether he did not recollect me, he sought to take me, but, on the contrary, it was I who captured him and a dozen of his band.I might have handed him over to Roman justice, which is somewhat expeditious, and which would have been particularly so with him; but I did nothing of the sort -- Isuffered him and his band to depart."

"With the condition that they should sin no more," said Beauchamp, laughing."I see they kept their promise.""No, monsieur," returned Monte Cristo "upon the simple condition that they should respect myself and my friends.

Perhaps what I am about to say may seem strange to you, who are socialists, and vaunt humanity and your duty to your neighbor, but I never seek to protect a society which does not protect me, and which I will even say, generally occupies itself about me only to injure me; and thus by giving them a low place in my esteem, and preserving a neutrality towards them, it is society and my neighbor who are indebted to me.""Bravo," cried Chateau-Renaud; "you are the first man I ever met sufficiently courageous to preach egotism.Bravo, count, bravo!""It is frank, at least," said Morrel."But I am sure that the count does not regret having once deviated from the principles he has so boldly avowed.""How have I deviated from those principles, monsieur?" asked Monte Cristo, who could not help looking at Morrel with so much intensity, that two or three times the young man had been unable to sustain that clear and piercing glance.

"Why, it seems to me," replied Morrel, "that in delivering M.de Morcerf, whom you did not know, you did good to your neighbor and to society.""Of which he is the brightest ornament," said Beauchamp, drinking off a glass of champagne.