World Literature Classics Library: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 180 The Road to Belgium
The scandal was revealed by the unexpected arrival of a detachment of gendarmes, and the drawing-rooms of M. Donguela were thrown into a commotion, as if it had been announced that one of the guests was suffering from plague or epidemic cholera.In just a few minutes, every door, every building, every exit was crowded with people rushing for their way, or fleeing for their lives, because under such circumstances, it is superfluous to pretend to say cheap words of comfort. .Moreover, when a catastrophe is imminent, even the best friend is like this, so after a while, the spacious mansion of Mr. Tanglar's family suddenly became empty and desolate.Only the owner's family and servants remained in the mansion.Mr. Tangra closed the door and explained the whole story to the captain of the gendarmerie in his study.Mrs. Tanglar was frightened out of her wits, and stayed alone in the ladies' living room known to all readers.Eugenie, glaring and pursing her lips contemptuously, hid in her bedroom with her inseparable girlfriend, Mademoiselle Louise Amily.As for the large party of servants—there were more servants than usual this evening, because the signing ceremony was full of guests, and a number of ushers, cooks and head waiters were temporarily borrowed from the Paris Café, and they felt insulted and full. The fire all vented to the master's house.They are in small groups, some are in the pantry, some are in the kitchen, and some are in their room. They are all idle, and no one is in the mood to work. Besides, at this time, the original work will naturally stop. down.

The people staying in the mansion have different identities and have their own considerations, but all of them are as angry as a mountain. Only two of them deserve our attention, one is Miss Eugenie Tangra, and the other is Louise A. Miss Millie.As we have already said, the girl who was to be a bride walked away with scowling eyes, pursed lips in contempt.She looked like an insulted queen, and the girlfriend who followed her was angrier and paler than her.After entering her room, Eugenie locked the door behind her, and Louise collapsed on a chair.

"Oh, my God, my God! It's appalling," said the young musician. "Who could have expected such a thing? Mr. Andra Cavalcanti is... a murderer... A fugitive...a convict!"

Eugenie's lips trembled, and she smiled slightly. "Seriously, I was doomed," she said. "I dodged Mercerf and ran into the villain Cavalle-Conti!"

"Oh! These two are not to be confused, Eugenie."

"Don't say it, all men are not good things. I'm lucky. Now I not only hate them, but I can even sneer at them."

"What do we do?" Louise asked.

"What shall we do?"

"Yes."

"Didn't we make up our minds a long time ago? Three days later... we will go away."

"So, although you don't have to get married now, do you still want to leave?"

"Listen, Louise, I'm tired of this worldly life. Everything has to be orderly, orderly, and orderly. It's almost like our music score. What I have always pursued, dreamed and hoped for is The life of an artist is an unfettered and independent life. You don’t have to rely on others, but you do things alone. What’s the purpose of staying here and not leaving? Are they going to force me to marry again within a month? Whom to marry? Mr. Debray, perhaps, thought so for a time. No, Louise, no, this evening's incident is just an excuse for me, and I haven't looked for it myself, and I haven't thought about it. , this was God sent me, and this excuse came at the right time."

"You are so strong and brave!" said the slender blonde to her brown-haired girlfriend.

"Don't you know me yet? Come on, Louise, let's talk about ourselves. The stagecoach..."

"Fortunately, it was settled three days ago."

"Did you ask the car to wait where we got on?"

"we have a deal."

"Where are our passports?"

"here."

With her usual composure, Eugenie opened a piece of paper and read:
Mr. Leon Amely, 20 years old, artist, black hair, dark eyes, walking with his sister.

"Excellent! Who did you get this passport from?"

"I asked Mr. Monte Cristo to write letters of recommendation for me to the managers of several theaters in Rome and Naples, and I mentioned to him that I was a little afraid to travel far as a woman. He fully understood what I meant and expressed his desire to give me Get a passport for a man. I received this passport two days later, and the words 'walking with my sister' were written on it, which I added myself later."

"Very good," Eugenie said happily. "Let's pack up our luggage now. We had to wait until the night of the wedding ceremony to leave. Now we will leave on the night of the signing ceremony. Anyway, we will leave."

"Think about it, Eugenie."

"Oh! I've thought about everything. Delays, month-end accounts, longs and shorts, Spanish bonds, Haitian bonds, I'm tired of hearing about them. They don't work for me, you know, Louise? What we want is air, freedom, the chirping of birds, the fields of Lombardy, the adjoining mountains of the northern Italian Alps, the canals of Venice, the palaces of Rome, the beaches of Naples. How much money do we have, Louise? "

Hearing this question, Louise took out a wallet with a lock from a mother-of-pearl writing desk, opened it, and counted the banknotes inside. "2.3 francs," she said.

"We have at least this much money for our pearls, diamonds, and jewelry," said Eugenie. "We are rich. With 4.5 francs, we can live like princesses for two years, or four years if we live a normal life." But, with your piano and my voice, we can double that in six months. Well, you'll have the money, and I'll have the casket, so if we One of them has unfortunately lost his share of the estate, and the other has another. Now pack your suitcases, quick, pack your suitcases!"

"Wait a minute," said Louise, going to the door leading to Mrs. Tangra's bedroom and listening.

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid they will find out that we are leaving."

"The door is locked."

"They'll ask us to open the door."

"They can call them whatever they like, we just don't open the door."

"You are a heroine, Eugenie!"

So the two girls packed all the things they thought would be useful for the journey with great speed and quickness into the trunk.

"All right," said Eugenie, "now I will change and you will close the box."

Louise pressed hard on the lid of the box with her small white hands. "But I can't cover it," she said, "I don't have that much energy, so you should do it."

"Oh, by the way," Eugenie said with a smile, "I forgot, I am Hercules, but you are a white and tender Omphale Slave of Omphale, queen of Lydia.)." Then she knelt on one knee on the lid of the box, stretched her white, strong arms and pressed down hard, until the box was finally closed, while Miss Amely was beside her. Fasten the two locks.The trunk was closed, and Eugenie then took out the key which she carried with her, opened the chest of drawers, and took out a cotton mantle of purple satin. "Here you go," she said, "you see, I've thought of everything, and you won't be cold in this cloak."

"But what about you?"

"Ah! Me, I'm never afraid of the cold, as you know, and in this man's attire . . . "

"Are you wearing it here?"

"Of course i!

"Can you make it?"

"You don't have to worry at all, you coward. My family's thoughts are all on this important matter. Besides, they will think that I must be very sad now. What's the fuss about being alone in the room? You say Woolen cloth?"

"No, it's true. Once you say that, I'm relieved."

"Come here and help me."

Eugenie had given Mademoiselle Amelie the cloak she had taken from the chest of drawers, and Amelie had immediately thrown it over her shoulders, while Eugenie took from the same drawer a complete men's outfit, from high-top shoes to dresses. , also includes a full set of underwear and panties, nothing is superfluous, but nothing is missing.Then, Eugenie put on her shoes, trousers, bow tie, high-necked vest, which was buttoned up to the neck, and finally a dress in which her graceful figure and puffy breasts were all outlined.She changed clothes swiftly and swiftly. It seemed that this was definitely not the first time she had dressed up as a man.

"Oh! wonderful! really, very nice," said Louise, looking at her admiringly, "but, this beautiful black hair, that braid which all women admire and admire, can you use that Is it all covered by a man's hat? It's just there, and I can see it."

"You'll know when you look again," Eugenie said.She raised her left hand, stretched out her slender and slender fingers, and managed to grasp the thick hair. She leaned back, and the long hair hanging on the dress hung in the air. She picked up a pair of long scissors with her right hand, With a click in the middle, the shiny black, dense and long hair was cut in two, and the cut half fell down next to her feet.Eugenie then trimmed the upper half of her braid again, then gathered the side hair on both sides, and cut it short with scissors on the left and right.There was no sign of regret in her face, and on the contrary, her bright eyes were brighter and happier than ever under the heavy black eyebrows.

"Oh, such beautiful hair!" Louise said regretfully.

"Hey! Aren't I a hundred times better like this?" cried Eugenie, straightening her straggly curls so that the whole hairstyle had become masculine. "Don't you think I'm prettier like this?"

"Ah! you are beautiful, and you are beautiful like this!" cried Louise. "Now, where shall we go?"

"If you agree, let's go to Brussels first. This is the shortest way to leave the country. We can go to Brussels, Liege (the name of the Belgian city.), Aix-La Chapelle, and then go upstream along the Rhine, Go to Strasbourg (a border city in the northeastern part of France.), then pass through Switzerland, and go south from the Gotthard Pass to Italy, do you think it’s okay?"

"of course can."

"What are you looking at?"

"I'm looking at you. Seriously, you're so handsome and lovely now that people would say you've kidnapped me and run away."

"My God! They were right."

"Oh! I see, do you swear to God, Eugenie?"

The two girls couldn't help laughing, but who would have thought that the two of them, one for themselves and the other for their friends, might have burst into tears!Just now they were only packing up the things they needed to leave home, and the house had already been turned into a mess. At this moment, while laughing, they cleaned up the messiest place again, trying not to leave traces of escape.Then the two fleeing girls blew out the candles, widened their eyes, pricked up their ears, stretched their necks, and opened the bathroom door, opposite to which was the side ladder leading to the courtyard.Eugenie walked ahead, carrying the box with one hand, while Miss Amelie was at the other end of the box, holding the handle on the box with both hands and struggling to lift it up.

The vestibule was empty, the clock was striking twelve midnight, and the porter was still on guard in the porter's room.Eugenie went on tiptoe and saw the venerable porter dozing in a chair in the corner of the porter's room.She went back to Louise, picked up the box that had just been placed on the ground, and the two of them stepped on the dark shadow cast by the fence and walked under the vault of the gate.Eugenie told Louise to hide in a corner by the gate, so that if the porter happened to wake up, he would see only one person.Then, stepping under the light of the street lamp that lit up the courtyard, she knocked on the glass window of the porter's room, and called out in her most melodious alto voice, "Open the door!"

As Eugenie had expected, the porter got up from his chair and even took a few steps forward to see who it was that called to open the door.But what he saw was a young lad impatiently beating his trouser-leg with his thin, limp cane, and the porter opened the door at once.Louise immediately slid through the half-open door like a snake, and jumped outside the door.It is very likely that Eugenie's heartbeat was much faster than usual at this time, but she was very calm on the surface, and walked out in a grand manner.

At this moment a porter happened to pass by, and the two girls hired him to carry the box, and told him to go to 36, Rue de la Victory, and they followed the porter.There was a man on the road, which reassured Louise, while Eugenie looked like a tiger, almost like the heroine in the story of Judith's "Bible".Or Delilah.At 36, Rue de la Victory, Eugenie told the porter to put down the suitcase, gave him some change, tapped on the shutter, and sent him away.A laundress girl lived behind the shutter which Eugenie had knocked on, and she had been greeted beforehand, so she opened the window immediately before going to bed.

"Madame," said Eugenie, "please ask the porter to bring out the open carriage from the garage, and then let him go to the post station to find the horse. The five francs are our remuneration for him."

"Honestly," said Louise, "not only do I think you are wonderful, but I would almost say you impress me as much as I can."

The laundress looked on in amazement, but said she would get twenty louis d'or, and said nothing more.A quarter of an hour later the porter came with the stagecoach driver and horses, and in a second the coachman had harnessed the cart, the porter added a board to the cart, and tied the box with a rope.

"Here is the passport," said the stagecoach driver. "Which way shall we go, young master?"

"The way of Fontainebleau," replied Eugenie in an almost masculine voice.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Louise asked.

"I did a trick on purpose," said Eugenie. "We gave the maid 20 louis, and she might have sold us for 40 louis. We'll turn around when we're on the main road." He jumped into this four-wheeled wagon that was as comfortable as a sleeper without stepping on the pedal.

"You're always right," said the music teacher, getting in the car and sitting down next to her girlfriend.

A quarter of an hour later, the carriage circled onto the right path, and passed through the city gate of Rue Saint-Martin with a burst of whiplash.

"Ah!" Louise exclaimed, "we are finally out of Paris."

"Yes, my dear friend, the abduction is complete."

"Yes, and without violence," Louise said.

"It's a mitigating circumstance and I'll have something to say later."

Carriage in the Villette suburb of Paris.Their voices were drowned out by the rumble of wheels on the gravel road.Mr Tanglar has since lost his daughter.

(End of this chapter)